Jason Carney has been a mainstay on the national performance poetry scene for the past ten years. Hailing from Dallas, Texas this fiery performer brings unique insights on issues of race class and gender. Using the lessons of his past he weaves together images that transform the audience. Breaking down barriers and biases so that all can have an honest conversation involving some of our nation's critical issues. Mr. Carney has performed all across our country mesmerizing audiences with his wit and conviction. Whether telling an illuminating antidote about his children or stirring the ghost of our societies past present and future his effect is riveting.

Mr. Carney has appeared on several seasons of the HBO television show RUSSELL SIMMONS DEF POETS. He is a four time national poetry slam finalist. honored as a legend of slam poetry in 2006 and 2007. Jason has done six NACA conferences including two national conventions. Been seen on national geographic channel as well as local television channels across the united states. He has spoken and done workshops at high schools juvenile detention centers corporate diversity engagements as well has colleges and universities extensively in the fifty states.

In a rehabilitation center in his youth Jason's life was changed forever by a gay man who was dying from AIDS. Using poetry to redefine his world, he transformed the hate and racist ignorance of his southern upbringing. His life mission is to educate and participate in an honest conversation of race class and gender.

Three Poems (January 20, 2010. Issue 13.)

eighteen

find me another phrase for fuck
This thought runs through my mind
lost in the back corridors
coin-op booths pornographic video store
i was nightmarish congeniality
i walked halls like an abandoned storefront
vacant whisper the lushness
that once echo across glass
eighteen years old
masqueraded virgin sold to highest
bidder i am a wanderer like innocent
here I search for a face
to be the memory of father
smell him like bleached semen shame
i was reckless tremble
imagination with a butterfly blade
i could smell my father
each half open door
plagued boned skeletons arched behind them
they paraded themselves ancient
statues creviced crumbled cowards
ball of saliva trickled across
their bottom-lipped vowels
dank reflective way jaundiced eyes
licked his reflection
the way they unbuckled the darkness
grimace of stardom
splattered across video screens
you could feel vulgar pieces
their thoughts puzzled together
across the smooth shadows of my skin
i would choose my room
the door locked behind me
numb to what drool this moment bare
i waited like nervousness
awkward figure skater balanced
scared kneed
for phallic commandment of god

their succubus palms scoured toward me
caressed wounds they could not see

so i ask you
what kind of fool pets a vulture
whose stomach is empty

there is a manic serine silence
slow motion disassociation
high pitched hum when your eyes break
that moment when fear takes hold
i still can see so vividly euphoric yellow
in their once ill toothed gape
the recoiled realization that
what carnivorous motives
they hid in their groins
were now preyed upon
little boy that lived here was strangled
long ago numb enraged child
breaks drum like mothers head
swelled crater flung into drywall
i could smell my father there
hear his voice at the end of my fist
like welts on their piss covered flesh
you want to love me now faggot
i could not hide from myself in small boxes
when someone lays at alter a price for this truth
collapsed black patched tan cum crusted chair
chained to the wall jabbed into neck
his tears mumble echoes me getting fucked in the ass
stroked hair the blood run down my leg
my father made me smell like faggot whore like rape
like the loud laughter now grown rage
cause straight men who suck cock
in the darkness don't call the police
the vulgar patience i practiced with fathers memory
is deplorable lust that crawls on my flesh to this day
it is hard to sleep at night
that wanderer still calls to me
wrecked bellied vulture
cackles at the night

whisper

"the ones he ladder walked
from the sky into my pelvis"
--tara hardy


to make love to someone
who fights with their insides
to make love back
To feel their flesh push and crave

draped in the color of forgiveness


her daddy always whispered
god's work is skilled feverish endeavor
he was
corroded gnaws--hooked tooth gleams
soldered to her shoulder blades
like coarse
Sack clothed burn
--yearns of memory
hushed scar
erupts
muffled ignored truth
breaks the night
--like a shadows murmur

lie that stutters in her sleep
absent body grimace
repetitive flicker
Her consciousness touches that haunting
She is eight
Infinite-
scarred of what hides behind white mask
doctors rusted barb
--ressurrects virginity
twine splinter stitched
resewn Barbie doll
torture

like
nightmarish smell
fish guts
piss grease
calloused
fathers finger
pressed on blood soaked
fatty disrobed membrane
--swollen walls
Shhh-This is your insides
soft thrust
jagged caress
thirsty tongued
vengeful cock religion
driven unconscious into the daylight
god's work is skilled feverish endeavor

like the bruise on frail shoulders
no one asked little girl about

even now in her forties
she knows she is different
terrified silent waiting
picking sores
where purple yellow hues use to be
no matter how much you excavate
his whisper always returns
she is all
mangled reflection
unbalanced pearl
hidden in the colloid riddled folds
dead muscles
never given time to heal
--left vacant
her birth mouth
blistered quelled roar
the ravenous gash of voice mouth
is engorged cannibal
force fed bones
like they
were her only potential
ground to dust
regurgitated
hollow tear gag swallowed smile

only the holiest beings
can survive such starvation

god's work--
the way
touching the past
is an stuttered infliction
to those who have been afflicted
--a skilled feverish endeavor
like his whisper
still holds her
when i am the illusion
draped in the color of forgiveness

junkies wisdom

junkies wisdom is a fractured wish
distorted angel absent language
premonition that reiterates squandered yesterday
unholy burnt tongue psalm
bloodshot schizzed out deliverance
seeps castrated cross-eyed yearning
for the subliminal rumor of night
junkies wisdom is boisterous lesion
exuding limitless ideas of resurrection
walking with the purpose of death
boiled up
knuckled cracked tear palms
indulgent disconnected offering
human frailty
time dangling on a crucifix
dismembered calculated collage of thunder
like intoxicated
one mind screeching at other side of the door
paranoia-----jagged stoned tongue gibberish
nakedlimppornojackoff----lunacy
junkies wisdom fucking lunacy
lie adorned garish story
so promising even the truth believes
no breath can outlast these
smoke of mourning
chased into the sun
carries stench
cooked up annihilation
like the ruin craving
at his carved out breath
tweekedout fragrance
bodies toxic nourishment
on its own mucus and muscle
rotted root mask
nailed to the face of starvation
junkies wisdom
priceless comatose loneliness
drowns in shallow puddles
vomited from dry-heaved guts O
ad nauseam oceans numb uncirculating
scattered clutters of cocaine cut concrete collapsed
liquid under glassblackendfllame
junkies wisdom burned at this stake
irrepressible sinister devotion
putrid scaly flesh of servitude
dangles disillusioned at the lust
for it's taste
lurches on the verge of death
laughter is an irresistible fixation
valorous one eyed stare into oblivion
butterfly pulling apart its own wing
junkies wisdom
mutilated like weakness
held up by fatigue
unruffled swelled insomnia
against sightless lucidity of dream
rumble of days sticking together
the sickness of gratification
blotted out surrender
grappling indignant factious wants
junkies wisdom
is an unyielding force
upon discarded heartbeats
devoured in venomous chaos
stymied mildewed wounds
at the end of crooked smiled children
vanquished boned out relics
here there is only self
sacrifice everything you love
for the greed of everything you hate
here there is only self
detergent bleach slaughter
addicts are alienated
suffocating inanimate gestures
abusive thoughts without righteous purpose
junkies wisdom is rigorous ignorance
vehement pursuit of regurgitated moments
cause there aint no last time
as long as the next time is the last
trudging through the vanishing mud
flailing to stand motionless