A.J. Huffman....I am Saxophone...and The Barbie Formerly Known As....

This evening, as summer comes closer and closer, I'd like to post A.J. Huffman's poems.


I Am Saxophone

wailing my lament across wrinkled white
pages.  Letters replacing notes, both creating
forlorn tales of terror, torment, torture, lust,
living.  Sounds roll on top of one another,
merging, like bodies, to create, force, push
out the demons that scream inside an artist’s
head.  Hollow
                       ing out the anvil of thought,
sending it streaming into the atmosphere,
into human(?) receptors, ears feigning for
the next fix of weeping misery, drowning
themselves, their sorrows, in the residual
resonance of mine.

The woman pictured above is Silvia Superstar of the Killer Barbies, a punk band from Spain.

The Barbie Formerly Known As

Princess Pop Star.  Barbie
always wanted to be a rocker.  All heavy
metal leather studded ear bleeding screams, but
Mattel had “more appropriate” plans
in mind.  Oh, she would sing, but only
executive-approved-Miley-Brittney-saccharine-
dripping-radio tunes written
by brain-dead twelve year olds for brain-dead
fourteen year olds to listen to on repeat
till their heads explode.  Barbie thought
about slitting her wrists, but decided that was a bad
idea.  Not only because she didn’t bleed, but also
because if she got famous enough they would have
to let her write her own music.  So famous she became.
Overnight, literally.  Her first-run castings sold out.
She was the most sought after toy that Christmas.
Mothers were fist fighting over her.  They made her
an animated movie-concert.  Posters, t-shirts,
key chains, the works.  They fabricated her Dream Jet,
private of course.  Versace outbid Mackie
for the rights to design her costumes.  It was the perfect
nightmare.  She could not stand looking at herself
in the mirror.  She threatened to quit.  They showed her
a contract, explained how they owned her, stem to stern.
Eff that noise!  Barbie rebelled.
Shaved her head, refused to sing.  Just stood
on stage for hours listening to the boos.  She would have held
her breath if she could.  It took forever,
but they finally fired her.  She was free to do whatever
she wanted, except use her name.  That was fine with her,
there was precedent.  She found a band
of reject Kens, started playing small
venues, intimate concerts.  She became a more content version
of success under the anonymous flag of a stroke of pink
paint X-ed over with black.  Her new fans thought
she was a genius.

A.J. Huffman has published eleven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her new poetry collection, Another Blood Jet, is now available from Eldritch Press.  She has two more poetry collections forthcoming: A Few Bullets Short of Home, from mgv2>publishing and Degeneration, from Pink Girl Ink.  She is a Multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published over 2100 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com

Tonight's music will be quite the mix of musical genres.

As I think about which Sonny Rollins song to post, I wonder what it might have been like to walk on Williamsburg Bridge where he would practice in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  I'll do something a little different and post a clip where Rollins talks about his "bridge sabbatical":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDOSAZMH8vU

Now we'll listen to some music from The Bridge, starting with the title cut:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtY9hpg7sic

Here is his "Without a Song":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4vZdvGkY6c

This again is something a little different, a much longer video of Rollins live in '65 and '68.  I believe that the Johnny James who posted this video might be the subject of Russell Streur's poem from last summer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmU58xf7OxY

I'll finish with some Killer Barbies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lll4XVhO3is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpU6Yir3p48

Enjoy!