Author: Rocco

Rocco is based in Toronto. He has been published in over 30 magazines and literary journals in Canada and abroad, including Descant, Queens Quarterly, Event and Canadian Literature. He has appeared on radio specials in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax and New York City and has been commissioned to write poetry by the CBC. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the arts ezine, Latchkey.net, and is working on his third collection of poetry, "Everything is Still Burning: 20 Travel Poems." Another collection, published by Fooliar Press, is expected in the fall of 2005 Rocco has travelled much throughout Europe and Asia and Canada and all the places and experiences reflect in his writing. He has worked as a garbage man, a research reporter, a rickshaw driver, a hard labourer, and presently an English instructor for new Canadian immigrants. He has launched his website not only to promote his own poetry and art, but also to open an online venue for other artists like himself, struggling for an audience and a stake in a little immortality.

February’s Top Five Vids

Posted on by Rocco

5. Now, I hadn’t planned on using this this section to promote my political leanings, but I really can’t help this one. I mean, every time I watch Barak Obama, I think, “this guy wasn’t meant for anything else.” And then for a brief moment, I am envious of American politics. Where is our Barak Obama? Since Trudeau we’ve basically a used car salesman, and a series of shrill and flustered Walmart managers.

Will.I.Am’s Yes We Can:

4. Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian sociologist, philosopher, and cultural critic. I won’t go into much detail the concepts and ideas he asserts. Frankly, I don’t have a grasp on them as of yet. But the following three short vids will give you a taste of what he is about. Even if his ideas are over your head, his mannerisms, nervous ticks, the awkward but compelling cadence of his speech, and his mild misanthropy are fascinating.

Zizek on the evil of love

Zizek on poop

Zizek on coffee without caffeine and sex without sex

3. It’s Jerry Time’s episode of the Karate Date. This is for anyone whose ever been involved with a martial artist.

2. Of course, some poetry. Billy Collins’ The Best Cigarette. This one really gets my back up towards, you armchair health nuts. What? Oh, all of a sudden you’re allergic to cigarette smoke. That’s right, your sooo much healthier in your smoke-free environments. Now you have the lung capacity to eat a whole Big Mac without breathing…!!! Where was I? Oh Yes, Billy Collins.

1. Finally, What is Art?

To Bob Dylan

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by Rocco de Giacomo

I didn’t like you, Bob
until now.
It wasn’t that
you always reminded me of Gonzo
with a head cold
or that
I always imagined your lyrics
scribbled out in purple crayon
or that
your duet with Janis
sounded more like two cats
making it
under a wicker chair
than two drunks stumbling
through the lyrics of last call.

It’s your fans, Bob:

The MasterCard malcontents
sucking back Evian water
between sets at the Superfitness,
digging out their wedgies
as they sweat
and swoon to burned memories
of free love
in the hot mud
of Woodstock.

The driver’s-side air-bags
crooning with their golf buddies,
shaking their nine-irons
at the complacency of kids today
and how
by god
by god,
when they were young
they went out
and they made a difference.

And the great
hippy
den mothers,
their teenage granddaughters
orbiting them like sour moons,
Chapters-bought, special edition books of your lyrics
crushed to their breasts,
all,
just waiting
-chins wobbling-
waiting for you
to die
so that they can just weep all over you
and like an episode
of While You Were Out
decorate your headstone
with Body Shop Bath candles,
patchouli incense sticks,
and empty, 2-litre bottles
of Maria Christina.

However,
in that Victoria’s Secret commercial,
I realized, Bob
that you’ve been waiting too.
Cast in a cadaver light,
you’re a lingering target
for that stray bullet,
that loaded syringe,
or one last hit of whiskey,
that turned Janis, Jimmy, and Jim
-those glorious letdowns-
into legends
before what they produced
became products placed
in an unremarkable world.

An empty highway,
an open stage,
a distant uncle’s birthday party:
you were all caught
in riptide of the right moment,
but only you, Bob
were blessed with the cruel knack
of survival
and in surviving
you fail
like the rest of us,
and you have to wait now
like the rest of us
for that long, slow death
that awaits everyone.

As appeared in The Antigonish Review No 141/142, 2005