Pilot Episode: Part II

This episode actually aired on January 12, but I didn't hear it until last night. It's the rest of the in-the-studio interview with Howard, but for some reason the opening is taken from Part I. Also, I think we recorded three poems to complete the journey from Saginaw, Michigan to Livingston, Montana, but only two poems were broadcast. The third, which takes place at the Seward Cafe in Minneapolis, will forever remain a mystery (unless you buy a copy of The Moon Cracks Open (it's on page 18)).

The poems that were broadcast were two from the "Field Guide to the Birds" portion of The Moon Cracks Open. "Domestic Feral (Columba Livia)" is my discovery of the wild counterpart of our familiar pigeon - the rock dove - during my first visit (pilgrimage) to the Badlands of South Dakota. Perhaps no chunk of geography has ever affected me as strongly at this ancient seabed, eroded into fantasy by thousands of winds and memories. There's no midwestern silence that compares to the absolute Silence of this place.

The last poem, which marks my arrival at the Grizfork Studio, was "Mythology Timeline (Cygnus Buccinator). Cygnus, the Swan, has long been my favorite constellation, soaring along the murky cross-section of the Milky Way. Leda and the Swan is either a beautiful tale of love or a violent tale of lust, depending on which version you read or which painting you view. To me, it's always been a good mixture of the two. Without love, lust gets boring pretty quickly. Without lust, love becomes a little too "saintly" for my tastes. I prefer god and the devil to dance together at the prom of human emotions.

And I like it when the band plays real loud.