Sway

The wind she howls.
Where? Who knows?
Sun burns me up,
She cools me down,
On this hot summer day.

I sway with her.
How? To and fro'
She bends my boughs
But never breaks
A sapling on my fringe.

And when it rains hard,
I drink.
When she blows hard,
I think
That I'm the tree
She'll never uproot.

She admires how I sway
And the fact that I stay
Put, in the face of her bluster.

(2006)

Ribbons

A ribbon of news flashes
Across my TV
Angels 5, Yankees 3 F.
The message dies
As it passes from view;
Pushed along by another blurb
About Paris, Madonna, or jilted Jen.

MSNBC, Fox,
BBC and CNN
All spin like a grist mill,
Grinding the hard corn of life
With the sweet porn of celebrity
To produce the substance of information.

There's never time to ponder
Celebrate or grieve the explosion
Of yellow-white type rolling 'long scarlet ribbons.
Just tie it 'round your forearm,
Take in vein, like a junkie,
And moan the satisfied "Oh" of knowing.

I'm not fooled by the opiate news --
Distilled nothingness flashing
By on a red ribbon
Every thirty-plus seconds
'Neath a lovely Asian anchor
Speaking an English so refined.

I was cursed with thought.
And I can read between
The letters her producers deemed
Were better seen on ribboned lines.
A clever technique to
Lull me into a stupored sleep?

Perhaps. But as I lie awake
High above Victoria Harbour
Lonely, in my hotel room,
That line of ribbon is
The whore that comforts me
When I'm so far away from home.

(2006)

Because I'm An Auditor Damn It!!!

This one came from the lovely FranIAm. Please visit her site to check this video out or simply stay here. Either was this is Risk Management 101 folks. It's by far the best 10 minute explanation of Global Warming I've ever heard.

What Would You Ask?

Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors has this post up on his site and asks his fellow bloggers to post this video and the questions up their sites. I am all to happy to do this.

Tengrain's post is cut and pasted below:

So here’s what the FFF peeps would ask:

1. Leaders on the religious right often say that America is a “Christian Nation.” Do you agree with this statement?
2. Do you think Houses of Worship should be allowed to endorse political candidates and retain their tax exempt status?
3. Do you think public schools should sponsor school prayer or, as a parent, should this choice be left to me?
4. Would you support a law that mandates teaching creationism in my child’s public school science classes?
5. Do you think my pharmacist should be allowed to deny me doctor-prescribed medications based on his or her religious beliefs?
6. Will you respect the rights of those in our diverse communities of faith who deem same-gender marriage to be consistent with their religious creed?
7. Should “faith-based” charities that receive public funds be allowed to discriminate against employees or applicants based on religious beliefs?
8. Do you think one’s right to disbelieve in God is protected by the same laws that protect someone else’s right to believe?
9. Do you think everyone’s religious freedom needs to be protected by what Thomas Jefferson called “a wall of separation” between church and state?
10. What should guide our policies on public health and medical research: science or religion?

In addition to these questions, I think I would ask:

• Do you think Abstinence-only sex education is working in our public schools?
• Do you think public schools should include religious study, or as a parent, should that be my choice?
• Do you think libraries should censor information?

So what would you ask?

Consider this a pseudo-meme. Post this video on your blogs and ask the question of your readers, and add your own questions. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to ask the question in the comments here at MPS.

And please give the folks at First Freedom First a visit, and sign the petition. They are doing such good works for all of us. (I know we are a mixed lot at MPS: Christians of all stripes and hues, Jews, some Wiccans, Unitarians, and so many others. We also have a long list of atheists and agnostics, too. FF cuts across all those boundaries.)

Here's what I would ask.

• Should the phrase "under God" be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance?
• Should "In God We Trust" be stricken from our currency?
• Should one's religious beliefs be used as a test of eligibility to hold elected office?

Please keep this tag going, and visit the FFF site and sign the petition. While I do not believe in God or follow any religion, I would certainly defend your right and freedom to worship as you please.

Homeland Winter

Let's close our coats
And zipper it up to our lips
To ward the cold air blowing;
To keep warm our souls
To the bluster and weight of
This dry, frigid mass.

It's winter in the Homeland.

Let's try and steal extra moments
Of bold, lucid sunshine
In these dead times;
Relish in impractical folly
As the days drag on
Deaf to pleading sanity.

This Homeland winter's long.

With it go the songs
And the street scene exchanges
Of passing looks and thoughts
And possible celebrations of passion,
And love and unbridled compassion.
Life is all but dead and barren.

How cold the Homeland winter.

We forgot to pack away
Our cotton-thread notions
For the warm winter vestments
And cashmere stoles of doctrinaire assent.
Our natural thoughts like tears fall,
Freeze and shatter on hard icy ground.

I long for Homeland winter's end.

(2008)

You Can't Handle The Truth!

A few days ago I was caught in the fire of an indiscriminate tag by DCup to tell seven "untruths" about myself. I accepted it gladly, but as I pondered the assignment I began to realize how difficult it really was.

What made it so hard is that I'm not good at telling lies. Seriously.

Take my name for instance. It really is Spartacus and by drinking the right amount of alcohol or smoking a blunt stuffed with chronic or squinting your eyes to just the right-sized opening, you, too, will come to realize that I bear an uncanny likeness to the original Spartacus himself, Kirk Douglas.

At least this is what my BFF, Colin Powell, tells me. He's like me. He could never tell a lie to anyone, let alone a room full of diplomats at a session of the U.N. General Assembly. So when he told me back in 2003, after exposing WMDs in Iraq, he turned to me and said, "Spartacus, you look just like Kirk Douglas," I believed him. Of course, he was drunk, high, and squinting his eyes when he said it, but who cares? He's my BFF. I have to believe him.


Me and the General go back a long way; back to the days when I had more hair, wore really great-looking shirts, and actually worked at a real job -- lead male dancer at Chippendales in Plainview, NY. That's me on the left from back in the day. I took off my nicest shirt for this shot (the one I was wearing with Colin) because it wasn't part of the Chippendale's dress code. Pfft! What do they know about fashion?

I've moved onto bigger and better pursuits in the entertainment industry. While the money at Chippendale's was good, I felt that my talents were being wasted on gyrating my ass for under-sexed, over-indulged, middle-aged women.

I needed a change. So, I decided to make a change and I try my hand at acting.

The film I'm most proud of is the 2003 film The Station Agent where I played alongside Peter Dinklage and Patricia Clarkson. The movie itself didn't do to well in theaters, but it was a critical success and has been getting alot of airtime on IFC lately. I've kicked around Hollywood quite a bit, having made several appearances in films and TV shows before and after this film (click on my pic to see my IMDB profile), but I really felt like I hit my stride on this one. For the record, Bobby Cannavale is my stage name.



Oh crap, this story just fell apart like a house of cards. I told you that I'm not good at telling lies and untruths about myself.

Really. I'm as transparent as the plexi-glass door I ran into out at Billy Joel's place in the Hamptons. I was helping him put out some hors d’oeuvres for his big 4th of July bash last year. My hands were full and I thought the door was open. I turned my head to ask Billy where he wanted me to place the serving plates, and SLAM! I was on the floor, dazed with my favorite shirt covered in prosciutto, olives, and diced tomatoes. What a scene!


Billy calls me every now and then to remind me of what a goof ball I was that day. And to think, I hadn't even started drinking when it happened. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, right?

And so it goes with lying. Or in this case, with telling untruths. Despite the title of this post, I've found most people quite capable of handling the unvarnished truth about almost anything. Naturally, there are exceptions to every rule -- like when you tell her "Those pants don't make your ass look fat"; or ask "have you lost weight?" In the end it all catches up with you. So, kids, if ya know what's good for you, don't do it.

If you don't believe me, take it from my close and dear friends The Rolling Stones. Even they know a thing or two about telling the unvarnished truth. They even wrote a song about it.

Happy 2008!

Here's to you all my blog friends, commenters and lurkers. Thanks for stopping by and checking out what I have to offer. I hope that 2008 finds you all healthy, happy and doing something personally satisfying....whatever that something is!!!!