2023-04-26 17:03
Every day my daughter worries when what she thinksare weird thoughts enter her head; I worry when whatI know are weird thoughts don’t enter mine. Whenthe beautiful confusion of dreams… Read More
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Shenandoah Breakdown Blog
shenandoahbreakdown.wordpress.com
A blog about leaving the city and moving to small town America—to a place that feels not like another county but another country.
2023-01-07 18:07
Sometime in the 70’s disco came on the scene. The songs were long and repetitious with lyrics which, more often than not, were either sappy or stupid or both. To say that you liked… Read More
2022-11-23 19:33
At first it was just the summer of rock.
Every burger I ate was fast,
every morning had a beat,
every hour out of school was a guitar chord
no one had ever heard before.
I was ten years old… Read More
2022-08-08 19:08
I have never had what anyone in hisor her right mind would call a bitchin’ bod.I have never been what anyone who wasn’t incredibly drunkwould refer to as a hunk or grand specimen… Read More
2022-05-04 21:08
Be still like a knife on the table after latedinner with rice and lamb and grapes. Thecurtains are not yet drawn over the breezyspring windows and lamplight from thestreet illuminates di… Read More
2022-02-06 05:22
The first night Heather and I spent together, she slept in her upstairs room in the group house she lived in while I slept downstairs on the living room sofa. It was winter. We weren’t… Read More
2021-06-09 19:27
from June 9, 2012
I can’t remember the quick way out of town anymore, and while we were stuck in traffic on North Capitol Street this morning, we saw this man standing at the entran… Read More
2021-02-14 11:00
That night, after dinner on one of those days when the cold and snow had kept us inside for what seemed too long a time, we found ourselves sitting around the dining room table listening to… Read More
2021-01-01 02:30
Larry Yates in April 2017
One way to tell that summer had begun in these parts was by the number of Confederate flags that were out and about again—on pickup trucks, motorcycles, fl… Read More
2020-11-24 19:14
That weekend a couple of years ago, the Shenandoah River swelled its banks. Eastham Park, on the west side of town right by the river, was almost completely submerged. Happy Creek, the Shen… Read More
2020-09-13 19:09
Feliciano Balastiqui Remembers the Days of Milk and Roses While Listening to an Old John Fahey Tune
When I was a child and liked to eat sardines my
mother would fry them up in a pan for lunc… Read More
2020-08-10 20:59
That evening, after dinner, we were listening to the Ramayana Monkey Chant. Performed out in the open on the island of Bali by several dancers and about hundred shirtless men chanting &ldqu&helli…Read More
2020-07-30 14:49
These Boots Were Made for Acid
Some velvet morning when I’m an electric motherfucker.
Some velvet morning when I’ve spent my whole life without
ever having watched ET. Some velve… Read More
2020-07-06 22:49
1982
Everything in the world that’s electric
eventually dies. Jimi Hendrix, Frida Kahlo,
Isadora Duncan, Federico García Lorca—
all eventually died, killed by vomit, fever… Read More
2020-06-15 13:27
SpokenWord Paris
Jose Padua’s first full length book, A Short History of Monsters, was chosen by former poet laureate Billy Collins as the winner of the 2019 Miller Williams Poet… Read More
2020-06-14 07:47
It’s 1979 and I’m just out of college
and loving the landscape doing the
only kind of traveling I can afford
when the Greyhound bus stops along
the highway in Arizona and the ma… Read More
2020-06-10 18:41
To all the mothers long gone, recently gone, or
taken in the last hours or minutes by greed,
tyrannical governments, bad luck, poverty,
sickness, and all manner of disadvantaged
circumstanc… Read More
2020-05-29 17:22
Despite my name being Jose I am
not Hispanic but Filipino, which means
that as far as you’re concerned my white wife
is not a breeding vessel for the Hispanic
invasion, but for the As… Read More
2020-05-05 13:48
In this time of plague let us remember
that we’re all in this together.
That what unites us is stronger than what
divides us.
That we’ll make our way out of this in one piece,
s… Read More
2020-04-26 17:38
Picking up a book to read in bed one night
when I couldn’t sleep I discovered that
Roland Barthes’ Mythologies kept me awake
even more than lying on my back staring
at the ceili… Read More
2020-04-20 18:46
My son Julien’s new favorite song at the time was Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger.” It happened during a trip to Baltimore for my semi-annual visit with my cardiologist at… Read More
2020-04-15 18:08
When I was a massacre of epic proportions
and you were a murmuration of sad songs,
we lived in a different world. Our meals
were simple, gathered from ground and sea
and cooked over an open… Read More
2020-04-10 23:04
I’d picked up my son Julien from camp that morning, then together he and I went to get his sister Maggie from her art class. When Maggie got in the car, she asked him, “How was… Read More
2020-04-02 22:47
My sixteen year-old daughter shouts from downstairs,
“Mom? Mom!” and then again after getting no answer
shouts, “Mom? Mom? Mom!” which is when my nine-year
old son g… Read More
2020-03-31 20:55
My response to the current plague is to wake up
a little later each morning. The kids are home
from school and don’t need to go anywhere, don’t
need to learn anything, at least… Read More
2020-03-29 20:53
So I tried jumping up and down, my head tilted to the right. I did it several times, at two in the morning. There was no one awake in the house to see me doing it, though I was careful not… Read More
2020-03-04 18:24
I used to see him around Union Square or
sometimes a little further uptown or just
midtown like Herald Square but not right
in front of the thick glass door to Macy’s
because they&rsq&helli…Read More
2020-02-14 16:16
Before we left the old family house in DC, where we spent that weekend, my seven-year old son Julien said, “Wait, I need my Rahsaan Roland Kirk CD.” Searching with Julien the da… Read More
2020-02-07 20:52
Not a day or week goes by
working late at night
downstairs in the dining room
of our hundred year
old house when I don’t
imagine that when I stand up
and go to the kitchen
for a glass… Read More
2020-02-01 17:09
That morning, at the grocery store we always went to in Front Royal, I saw one of the cashiers I hadn’t seen in a while. A tall woman about my age or maybe slightly older, she was sta… Read More
2019-11-27 17:42
Sometimes I think of all the people in the world
I’d like to smack. Like our current, trashy, goon
of a president with all his stupid words and all
his stupid fucking hate. I think of… Read More
2019-10-12 04:24
I am a small guitar in a large room on a Saturday
sometime after four when the last lunch guest
has driven home, beating the rain, beating the
worst of the traffic, beating the rest of the… Read More
2019-07-31 04:03
I remember playing John Coltrane’s Ascension when my mother
came downstairs with one of the women she sewed for and they
both seemed to think that the music sounded like “a drea… Read More
2019-07-29 22:33
That Monday, as usual, I picked up my daughter Maggie from school, then drove over to my son Julien’s school, where she and I waited for him in the queue of cars. When the queue start… Read More
2019-07-17 02:05
I ponder
as of late
the manner
in which
living ages us,
how we age
in order
to live,
to become more
of what we
are destined
to be and
how in
the artful
acquisition of
wisdom and grace
we te… Read More
2019-05-22 04:05
Even when the starting point is the sweet instrument that was Luther Vandross’s voice, as in the poem below, I’d often end up going back to Sun Ra’s Magic City. It begins… Read More
2019-05-03 01:51
Monday, July 1st, 2019 at the Bowery Poetry Club
“When Jose Padua writes of ‘the beauty of the moment that comes alive without artifice,’ he could be describing these poem… Read More
2019-04-10 13:26
Wednesday, April 24th 6:30pm, at Kramerbooks, Washington DC
“We are the happy riders on the stream of Padua’s consciousness . . . a smart, sympathetic mind at work.”
&mdash&hell…Read More
2019-03-25 01:48
A quick, early review from Booklist:
“Padua is a very wry poet who, in his first book, presents stinging and riotous poems, as in the two-stanza ‘Barbie’: ‘I am Barbi… Read More
2019-02-19 15:53
Mother, you were the history
that never made the books,
the woman who fed us
chicken flavored with garlic
and ginger, sweet pork with
soy sauce and rice on
a plain white dinner plate,
the w… Read More
2019-02-10 06:35
My eight-year old son Julien is singing
an East River Pipe song, going “I don’t care
about your blue wings, I don’t care about your
blue wings, baby” and my fifteen… Read More
2019-01-24 14:30
When we were dropping our son Julien off at school earlier that week, he looked at the boy who was getting out from the car ahead of us. I opened the side door to let Julien out and he yell… Read More
2019-01-11 04:02
Because of a mix tape I played for what
must have been a couple of decades, I can’t
hear Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover”
without expecting to hear T.S. Monk’s… Read More
2018-12-16 05:24
That weekend was one of those that reminded us of what we love about living in the northern Shenandoah Valley—namely, events like the performance in Castleton, Virginia, some twenty-f… Read More
2018-11-22 15:11
Putting on my shoes
this autumn morning
I notice how my ankles
aren’t swollen
and that the skin
on my lower legs
is no longer taut and dry
the way it was
this past summer;
and the poe… Read More
2018-11-14 14:33
My book, A Short History of Monsters, is now available for pre-order at Barnes and Noble (this early listing says 60 pages, but it’s actually a little over a hundred pages, so it&rsqu&helli…Read More
2018-11-05 06:19
It was during my sophomore year in college when the professor for my Introduction to Poetry course laid the tone arm down onto the record that was spinning on the portable turntable. This… Read More
2018-10-17 05:03
Looking out
the kitchen
window in the
dim early evening
light I’m waiting
for the stray cat
in the back
yard to move
just scratch its
nose with its
paw or else
dash out between
gaps i… Read More
2018-10-05 07:16
Her name was Sarah Star
and though the “Sarah” was
probably her real name,
the “Star” we weren’t so sure of.
She was one of our favorite bartenders
in one of o… Read More
2018-09-25 02:58
And I was waiting at my local dive bar
for a woman who never showed up
and the longer I waited
and the greater the amount of time
without seeing her face at the other end
of the swinging fr… Read More
2018-09-18 06:22
The sight of my neighbor limping to his front door
in the dim, late-evening light, walking from his truck,
down the driveway to the sidewalk, then toward the
front steps of his house, his b… Read More
2018-09-13 06:00
It was eighth grade during
Sister Conrad’s English class
when we’d read an article or two
out loud from the latest issue
of Reader’s Digest.
Every month she picked up
a bi… Read More
2018-09-01 15:33
In certain ways the thirty-year old guy with the man-bun
and beard wearing a neatly fitting tee shirt on a summer day
is just as much of an asshole as the drunk guy with the
Confederate fla… Read More
2018-08-23 02:21
In contemplation of the coming
of the starry night we listen
for the sound of late summer
cicadas, feel on our skin the
electric static of the waning day’s
last light, wait for a sign… Read More
2018-08-04 05:05
Tonight while doing the dishes
I wrote a song in my head
the guitar part came first
some jangly chords played
to a bold steady beat
going on for several bars
like a night out on the town
in… Read More
2018-07-21 06:15
I am happy and honored to announce that my manuscript, A Short History of Monsters, has been chosen by Billy Collins as the winner of the 2019 Miller Williams Poetry Prize. Here is a link t… Read More
2018-07-10 06:24
I used to do it
all the time
and I was even
fairly good at it
but now with
my sometimes aching
fingers and diminished
ability regarding rhythm
I play about twice a year
and tonight I picked… Read More
2018-06-30 07:13
I remember the days of
cigarettes and whippets
a pack of Marlboro Reds
in a box you’d buy
after you pulled the
whipped cream can from
the store shelf when no
one was looking suck
the… Read More
2018-06-24 06:08
Because of a mix tape I played for what
must have been a couple of decades, I can’t
hear Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover”
without expecting to hear T.S. Monk’s… Read More
2018-06-11 15:12
We were half a mile away from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, descending Route 340 into those lower depths where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac, when my seven year old son Juli… Read More
2018-06-03 07:28
Those days when I was socially awkward weren’t
that long ago. After reading James Joyce’s “The Dead”
on my own in high school and feeling illuminated,
lifted, and sa… Read More
2018-05-30 21:07
The colossal ego of this “Jose Padua” cockroach is astounding.
He could go to some third world country, where he could walk
around and look like an unkempt, brooding asshole and… Read More
2018-05-19 06:54
Like a sickness that gives you fever
and shakes, makes you cough, makes
your lungs hurt blowing smoke rings
into the sweet country air. Like a car
whose engine dies on the way to the
multi… Read More
2018-05-15 14:29
Sometimes I feel like I’m several billion dollars
worth of tax free income but all you want to do
is kill my high. Like I’ve just had a
poetry reading in an elegant theater,
att… Read More
2018-05-05 07:47
There was the waitress who at the end
of my dinner with my wife, my young
daughter, my son, asked if I needed a
separate check. The gift shop owner
who asked my wife if she needed help
and… Read More
2018-04-26 06:51
We were getting close to Leesburg, Virginia on a Monday when the Rahsaan Roland Kirk song that was playing on the car stereo ended. Right away, my son Julien (who was almost six years old t… Read More
2018-04-08 16:14
My ten-year old daughter was playing
House of the Rising Sun
on the piano in the hall
when she suddenly let loose
with some improvised right
and left hand jabs that to me
sounded just like… Read More
2018-04-03 07:02
I didn’t become aware of Prince until around the time of his third album, Dirty Mind, when I’d see this poster of guy with a kerchief around his neck, a flashy sport coat over h… Read More
2018-03-22 07:09
That night, I’d finished cooking dinner early. Although I’m so often late in doing things—or maybe because I’m so often late—there’s nothing quite as rea… Read More
2018-03-14 06:55
Sometimes, like during the past few months when I’ve had plenty of paying work, I wonder how things would be if I just focused on that. If I tried to take on as much of the web work a… Read More
2018-03-08 06:49
Jose Padua is a dish best served cold with onions,
mushrooms and tomatoes in a light broth and
accompanied by a rich lager with subtle aftertones of lemon.
Jose Padua is Arnold Swartzenegge… Read More
2018-03-01 16:58
Sometimes when I’m
tearing up a box
I’ll remember how my father
used to do the same—
collapse it so it was flat,
then rip it in half,
then quarters, and so on
until it fit… Read More
2018-02-23 16:14
This morning I’m
looking for my copy
of Reinbert de Leeuw’s
super slow performances
of the compositions
of Erik Satie
to play while I do
the work
I get paid for
but I can’… Read More
2018-02-19 09:32
That weekend started off with another encounter with the woman who always tailgates me when I’m trying to stay somewhat close to the school zone speed limit. I’d just dropped of… Read More
2018-02-17 08:25
What I thought I’d remember most about that day was being in the store and seeing a guy with his girlfriend and the guy was wearing a tee shirt that said “All Guns Matter”… Read More
2018-01-29 08:00
It was a minor soul ballad, though not quite a ballad,
or not a ballad at all, that brought Billy the Kid back
to life in a dive bar downtown. Someone started doing
a strut on the tile floo… Read More
2018-01-14 07:47
In my twenties when I was still living
with my mother and father and brothers
in the house I grew up in, I would always
hear from certain friends, “Why are you
still living at home?&r&helli…Read More
2018-01-03 06:43
Every now and then I think
about the times I’ve been
a total snot with people.
Sometimes it’s because
I’m really very shy,
other times it’s because
I’m really… Read More
2017-12-23 07:57
We were somewhere around Frederick, Maryland when Abdullah Ibrahim’s “African Sun” came on the car stereo. It had been raining mightily since we left Front Royal, and now… Read More
2017-12-17 06:48
You’re not here to see this.
A president you would
have called a son of a gun,
not knowing the harsher, more
colorful, more beautifully
profane curses we have
in the English language… Read More
2017-12-08 07:43
On a Saturday morning with the
TV off and all the usual means of
communicating with the outside
world down, my five-year-old son
declares, “If I close my eyes I can
see Godzilla,&rdqu&helli…Read More
2017-11-29 07:56
That night one year ago, after dinner, I was in the dining room talking to my wife Heather when our thirteen-year-old daughter Maggie came in to ask me for help with the stereo. I followed… Read More
2017-11-15 14:52
Sometimes when
I’m walking
in the old neighborhood with
my wife, my daughter, my son
and we pass by
all the sharp corners
and tight spaces
where daytime drunks
still gather,
no longer… Read More
2017-11-09 03:40
This morning I pounded
a nail into the wall
using a book
by Franz Kafka.
The nail went in easily
but like a bad translation
of German into English
the sound of book
hitting nail
created a t… Read More
2017-11-03 06:33
This afternoon waiting
for his big sister
to get out
from school
my six year old son
asks me to play
“Ruby, My Dear”
over and over again
and because it’s
the music of Thel… Read More
2017-10-29 16:38
It was the music of Franz Liszt that had me turning to my daughter Maggie in Armstrong Concert Hall at Shenandoah University that day and mouthing the words, “Holy Fuck!” She mo… Read More
2017-10-25 02:25
They don’t usually let whales stay in hotel rooms
in these parts, but today they’re making an exception.
Be proud of that fact, just as you are proud of your
great girth and imp… Read More
2017-10-22 06:32
My mother worked nights at home, daytime too,
in the house, at the sewing machine, making dresses
for women who could afford to have dresses made
for them. We bought our clothes at the stor… Read More
2017-10-09 05:49
In my darker hours I like to imagine a knitting club
where no one is allowed to smile. I don’t knit, but
this is how my mind works: I think of tigers, consider
our struggle, raise my… Read More
2017-10-06 20:44
If I could get high
the way I used to,
I’d talk faster
than the speed of sound
to complete strangers,
tell them the deepest shit I know,
arcane knowledge,
incredible legends,
words fr… Read More
2017-09-21 07:09
After dinner one evening my six year old son declares
“Trump is a barbarian” from out of nowhere or anywhere
I can immediately recall not that speaking the truth ever
requires a… Read More
2017-09-12 01:28
Somehow I kept forgetting how my
high school friend sitting behind me
in the back while I rode shotgun in
my other friend’s car thought it would
be funny to take a length of rope that… Read More
2017-09-07 14:39
If life were like
a perfume commercial
I’d be spending
even more time
than I already do
gazing pensively
into the distance
the top buttons
of my shirt undone
my lips parted slightly
a… Read More
2017-08-24 06:54
Because I try to respond
to racism and ignorance
with something positive,
intelligent, and sophisticated,
and because I always
try to set a good example
for my children,
but mostly because… Read More
2017-08-02 01:07
My mother and father never took us to
the ocean, we always stopped at the bay.
The waves were rarely fierce there, the
sand, I think, not nearly as fine. My mother
and father grew up on isl… Read More
2017-07-27 07:02
In some of the best scenes I’m on the road,
heading toward a purple and orange sunset
during our rice and canned tuna for dinner days
in the 60s, on a night when supper was something… Read More
2017-07-06 01:02
The problem isn’t so much finding the right day
to stop smoking, drinking, doing meth, sniffing glue,
practicing self-asphyxiation or any of the myriad
of vices available for human co… Read More
2017-06-11 16:55
I don’t remember if it was last week
or last year, or just some gray day
when I didn’t have the energy to climb
my way up a blue mountain when I
realized that the old man listen… Read More
2017-06-06 19:49
When the time is right—which means after
the leaves have begun to sprout into dark
budding leaves and the ocean currents
flow more warmly northward
like perfect storms from southern i… Read More
2017-05-31 06:36
I was sitting in the car with Julien while Heather went into the grocery store. It had been about a month since Prince had died, and while for the last month I had been playing the music of… Read More
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