Poems by Grey Space
MUSEUM POETICA: NEGLECTORINOS
A hybrid hymn to heteronyms himself, the poet Grey Space was known, for a time, as Gg Re and, before that, Gregory Spector. This self-described “wounded intergalactic traveler” was truly out of this world and an extraterrestrial gift to this one, both deeply embedded in its conflicted contours and defiantly apart. His death from a rare form of AIDS-related cancer in December 2016 at the age of forty-seven is a still-searing tragedy to me — for he was a dear friend and fellow poet, simultaneously a muse, guide, and collaborator. He inspired my heart and my art, teaching me that mischief and provocation are necessary tools of the trade of being alive. During his short life, he wrote much and published little, preferring to hand out his work at poetry readings, political demonstrations, discotheques, street corners, sometimes in classrooms, including my own. May this installment of Neglectorinos bring him the crucial acknowledgement that he deserves. It is my deep hope that his trickster spirit possess the reader forcefully and therefore replicate his being again and again. May Grey Space find his place among the reclaimed poetic dead, and may the span and grace of his space extend accordingly.
Knowing his puckish, irreverent attitude towards so much, I am sure he would giggle at the sentimentality of this introduction, even though he was the consummate sentimentalist. His tenderness was matched by fierceness, however, and his vital presence was also a volatile one. A queer anarchist troubadour, Grey Space was the human equivalent of an incendiary bomb, an explosion of laughter, outrage, nonsense, and erotic antics, often simultaneously. We met in Providence, Rhode Island in the early nineties and our friendship solidified the moment we saw each other. He had just come out to his parents as queer and their reaction was to disown him and withhold his college tuition. His reaction to that familial dispossession was to change his name; having been cast out of one family, he recast himself as a member of a wider community of activists, artists, and social irritants. Whether fighting for gay rights or queer writes, Grey fused the personal and political, much like our mutual mentor, Amiri Baraka, whose hometown of Newark, New Jersey was visited numerously by Grey Space and where I teach today. Incredibly, Grey Space was able to compel Baraka to write a poem about him. It’s worth quoting in full here, as it showcases the humor that both these firebrands espoused, their radicalness and rant-rooted aesthetic increasingly abetted by comic conceits:
Grey Space
The first time he met me
was at an event celebrating
the Radical Black Arts Movement
at the University of Poetry in the Tenderloin
I was trying to cut a slice of cake and
said “Got a knife?” He replied
“Oh yeah – I got a knife!”
Brother, ever since then he’s been tellin’ this story as if
it was some kind of passing of the mantle
— like he was really one of the most
dangerous poets in America.
Ha! Kaboom! Two ranters and raconteurs, jokesters with underlying moral and political seriousness. Like Baraka, Grey Space excoriated mainstream publishers, poetry institutions, and Official Verse Culture. He took Amiri’s advice to heart that “your neighborhood Kinko’s should be your best friend,” and regularly photocopied his poems and distributed them in public, a true town crier and sometimes a town screamer, but seldom acclaimed and barely known. Travesty joins tragedy in his legacy so far — but not for long, I am confident (I am hoping against hope against the injustice of not just literary worlds. O “wounded intergalactic traveler,” I hear ye!).
The Baraka poem above is featured in PO, Grey Space’s self-published (“On hemp paper!” as he always proudly advertised) somewhat annual poetry journal, begun when he was a graduate student under the mentorship of David Meltzer in the Poetics Program at the New College of California. At this time, he began attending workshops, readings, and conversations at Tom Clark’s residence (always arriving, according to his partner Billy Re, maddeningly late). While he accorded a few male poets his eccentric esteem (Langston Hughes was another muse-mentor), his favorite poet was Stevie Smith, and he far more admired women poets and musicians, especially Patti Smith, Poly Styrene, Buffy Saint-Marie, and Annie Lennox. His muses were multiple and almost exclusively female. At his readings, in his lectures, through PO, he relentlessly advocated for female artists. Never a shameless self-promoter, he often abruptly stopped reading his own work to rally for his pantheon of women lyricists.
Grey Space poems are like placards, billboards, vertiginous verbal icons; they are often verse vendettas, self-mythologizing though not self-aggrandizing documents, punk percussion protests, dirty ditties, saucy stanzas, and crazy collages that are collisions of sound, sense, and structure. The sampling below is a small but, I think, dynamically representative offering of his work. May this Neglectorinos issue serve as both an elegy to and invocation of my dear departed fellow poet, Grey Space, in the service of his own poetic epitaph that also serves as the coda to this collection in slightly altered form: “Revelation upon Revelation/Resurrection Reincarnation/Repetition with Variation!”
More of Grey Space’s work can be found here and here.
A video of one of our numerous collaborations is here.
O BIG BRO
BORN ON “COLUMBUS DAY”
SAVING FACE ON THE AIR FORCE BASE
TOM CRUISE TOP GUN LOOK-ALIKE RECRUITS
FOR BALD EAGLES WITH TOUPEES IN PEACOCK SUITS
WHOSEJEWISHFATHERFRENCHMOTHERGAYBROTHERSOCIALISTSISTER
DIED IN THE NAZI NIGHT IS NOW A FINE SPECIMEN FOR
UNCLE SAM & HIS NEOCOLONIALIST KILLING KLAN
MAN, A WISER FOWL OF ANOTHER FEATHER
THE GREAT GREY OWL OVERSEES &
SINGS “NO TRESPASSING!”
FLAPPING & FLIPPING
YOO THE WORD
BIRD!
*
STREATREATS
hey, got any money?
here you go, honey.
can you spare any change?
um, we sure do need some.
hey, you know what time it is?
o yes, i know what time it is.
got a light, man?
no, i am a light.
hey, what did you say?
i’ve got pepper spray.
Hey man, hey man, can i buy a cigarette off you?
no, i’m not a walking cigarette vending machine.
*
T’amore
à ma chère soeur:
bonne anniversaire!
c’est La Chandeleur!
le bonheur le bonheur!
i didn’t stammer
go get the camera! Tamara Ann
wearing nothing but Tamanu oil & a
tan tam-o’-shanter, is eating a tamarind &
tamari tamale, stamping her feet, & playing the tambourine!
o winter spring
winter spring
winter spring bring back
my sister!
*
Trans Po’s
STILL UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED –
ALL OIL BAD CAR KARMA GREED
JOINING JONI INCOME TAXI
WE GOT PARKING LOTS OF LOST
AND FOUND BIG GREYHOUND BUSSES
EMBARKING UP THE WRONG TREE-FREEWAYS
*
a new muse
music flows thru bodies like blood
songs belong in bones
po’s hold old souls
taken away again
and returned home
*
anti-
technology
don’t read poetry on-line
lean on a tree outside, and write*
your brain is faster than a microchip
your soul is older than endless information
your face is more beautiful than a monitor
your fingers would rather be tapping my shoulder.
*on hemp paper
*
A Poet Is An Architect
“Dream of Architecture"—Marjorie Welish
If you say you’re a poet
when asked what you do
people will come at you and say
“Oh I'm a poet, too!”, or even worse,
“I've been known to write the occasional verse.”
It’s like if you met an architect
at a wine and cheese tasting and said
“What do you do?”, and the architect said
“I’m an architect”, and you said “Oh I am too!
I make tiny houses out of toothpicks.”
(Respect a poet is an architect.)
*
a
pro Po
manifesto
Po re
poses powerful poetry
pressed on tree-free weed sheets
Po is for givin
in hand-made limited edition ~ free
to prophet poet artist activist friend friendly library
listen, contribution isn’t submission
our mission is to repro the po’s (no prose, no hype, no bios)
saving your face, font, style, case, layout, shapes, graphics, spelling, breaks!
*
Like Father, Like Sonnet
Al anon Alan on
Daddy Alan Freud
The Hebrew Hammer
The Meshuga Mensch
The Munificent Maccabee
Monsieur Sangfroid
et son fils sa fille
Gris~gris
Greygay
Say Grace
Great Spirit
Respect or
Scapegrace
*
On Yesterday’s Wing ye
sawsee which is which now ay
wilyowl spotted bidnit stoop still
willowy who viewed newtoad did
we spect undersod to quit yell
“will it ever Will it wILL”
*
God and Satan—FUCK!
THAT’S RIGHT
e v e r y F U C King day
—and night
dripped
down
sucking dry your mommy’s quilt
their MUC DROPPED ON
your balls und THIGH
on your TOES!
God is lesbian poetreeeeee
FUCK PROS
*
with a dic too big
for any dictionary
a prick for acrostic
in my prime for rime
one friend from form
i’m an ass for assonance
a flit from alliteration
the grand-dad of anagram
Poetry man
*
MONA LISA
graeaeuryaleuterpeacetouristheyrmusicand
annie’s savage vegas ad avid bananarama fann
la diva jonina medusa la lolita mama mama mona lisa
*
movie reviews
at the movies, i like to pretend i’m a thief for poetry
short reviews
Halloween in Hollywood
Kongo’s heart-shaped nose
Hairold & Modern
Crowe’s dream crew Cruise & Cruz
they are so afraid of sex they eliminated the x
Chuck & Buck & Ruck not a man in Montana!
two black sheep on Brokeback
a single man at the late show on the last night of A Single Man
Hot Rod Legend Ricky Bobby’s Balls of Fury on Blades of Glory
There Will Be Blood For Oil!
Kumar is cool – the bomb was a bong!
Everyone’s Hero Superman Returns 2 Hollywoodland
*
longer reviews
terrorists set them on fire
Pp crossed the TT on a wire
Cool Hand Luke warm heart hot dog
a failure to communicate with god
the love-sick Illusionist planted tricks or tree
and butterflies on locket in inspector’s pocket
black is the color of his long goth hair, leather jacket, gravity glasses, & friend,
not there, so Jean falls off the Bridge into a sea of despair
all the Ex-men are dead
Superman won’t save us
Spiderman stuck on web
00…0
yawn blond Bond bang bang bloody bling bling
008 is a better agent than 007 because he uses his cock instead of a gun
enter the Hunger Games Ender The Matrix part 3
the revolution will not be a b movie see
this ain’t really life
ain’t really life ain’t really nothin’ but a movie
American Pie
American Beauty
American Psycho
American Splendor
American Gangster
American History X
*
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE
TO NO HISTORY OR STATE
YOUR NAME & ADDRESS
SUPPORT OUR TROOPSPORTS
DEATH ATHLETICS / GAME OVER
A WAR METAPHOR
THE TWIN TOWERS DOUBLE-FUCK-YOU
WASHINGTON’S MONUMENTAL BIGDICK
A PENTAGRAM WITH MISSING PIECES
LEAVES ONLY AN INCOMPLETE PEACE
WARNING
WARRING
WARMING
THE NEW NINE SIMONE SHOUT –
EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT AFGHAN
EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT IRAQ –
EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT IRAN –
& EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT US –
AMERIKKKA GODDAMN – GET OUT!
IDCARD
I.E.D.
D.I.E.
EMPTY.
YER TALKING BIG MONEY
AT&T – MOBILE MONOPOLY
VERSE VERSUS U—VERSE!
MY STUPID SMART PHONE /
FUCKING PHONE COMPANY
TO POWERS THAT BE
WHO WISH TO OPEN THE PEACE –
A SKELETON KEY
POLICE-STATE FIX
GAY SOLDIERS AND
ANALYSTS ENLIST!
EVERYONE DO TELL
THE GUARDIAN AND
SUNSHINE PRESS –
THE SNOWMAN IS A
FAN OF SUNSHINE,
SELF-SACRIFICE –
SNOWBALL EFFECT.
DO A ROBINHOOD ON THE CORPORATIONS:
TAKE FROM THE CORP GIVE TO THE POOR
VOTE BY BUYING FROM LOCAL MERCHANTS
NOT MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE –
REDUCE — REUSE — RECYCLE — RESTORE!
REVELATION UPON REVELATION
RESURRECTION REINCARNATION
REPETITION WITH VARIATION!
