OPENUP!! openup hope-ope-open

hopenup finfinefunfinally time it's time can only

cannoli prrrrraise rraaise knock knock whose air

cmon cmon cmon kin can comin time's begin begin

Kathy Stuart D. Hanlon Liam Rory Kelly Hanlon Kamel Bob Elizabeth Sophie Daisy

Peter Nita Tony Julie Natlie Sheila George Dan Matt Harpo Joey Caitlan John and Marney

Geronimo ji Jaga Johnny C Dale Petey Bresciani Nancy Willy ACLU NLG acronyms sans acronimity

Ohoho Rob of the Guild and Marilyn Waller I spoke with her Zac Dolores Brandan and have I forgotten to mention anyone??

Ooo Stu or Stuart Big Stu Stuball Stuart Douglas now you know it all Stuart D Hanlon attorney of law

Bumblebee Russ Bill Joe Emily Kathy Streem Chuck Jimmy Julie Drouse and her spouse Jo-El uh

Shawn David Robert the Vals Bobby Blue and Lilian Sing Kathleen Julie Bob (hello Bob) let's not forget Big Stu! (Hello Big Stu)

And Terence did Terence show? which way'd he go? Bet he Gil Gracetti Abby Ginzburg Geronimo Dorothy Bellew and Andy & Karen and Bob & Liz Dondero

Dion and Sanford, Chuck and Sumi Sarkar oh Randy Gregor Mark Fred where are they now and where we were we then

Adam Adey David Gelbaum Ed Boyer Mark's Vandessel Vermullen Jerry and Terry Charlotte-and  did I mention Big Stu?

Hear now the praises of the places and dayses amazes loving lug of ugly loving of a most generous man

Now charitable bountiful munificent and liberal are not things we talk about these days without embarrassment considerable

so I've borrowed this praise chant from the Family Dembele of the Djibasso region of Burkina Faso

Ya ya the oral tradition is a way to give praise to someone without humiliating them totally

And now if I keep going on like this/ you'll have a first hand experience/ of why the oral tradition probably died out in the first place

Or maybe tonight we'll survive it revive it make it live it pass it on and  leave this dinner humming hmmhmmhhmm

Ooo sing praises Stuart Hanlon

and I think we've now established the fact that tonight's gonna be a praise song for Stuart Hanlon

So I guess I can stop this singing that is if you call this singing though personally I just call it "Reading the Poem"

And Stuart never stopped me from reading my poems in fact he's always encouraged me so now you can thank him

In fact that's what makes sense of this moment

What makes us dress up and traipse cross town and cross country and hop over from Hawaii and up from Louisiana and utilize precious Saturday evening in just spring

Because we are naked and because we have baked it and because we shake it we can break down the walls

We've have agreed upon this moment to corner this guy in a room where the purpose No Purpose At All is justice for all (get it?) (Which part didn't you get?)

Thanking somebody, Praising him for friendship

Sending appreciations like flowers delivered in a fogstorm

Friendship = antipraise

love is a dailiness ,

the eye of the day

            and the you of the night

                        and so we come to gather tonight,  huddle

together against             the rages of the night

mark it this formal list name on a

pause the clanking

of plates, ice tinkles, circling waiters who all

want to grow up to be cowboys (girls

can be cowboys too) or lawyers and poets

and recently-freed people we call heroes because

they are people! if anyone wants to grow up tonight

a violin scratching across the page to praise

it is less like a backyard garden tended with

an unremarkable glance up towards

the blinking nightlights of Twin Peaks above Upper Haight

someone's craning in a new hottub tonight

someone's spirit is blowing blue out the window

Death don't stop here, a tree blossoms one

by one each a place you lived you

worked you hung you chilled

Eastchester Columbia Hartley Tiemann Broadway Pacific Street Pennsylvania crossing Canada with Janis Joplin and the Band in a van

Stuart York Sanchez Duboce and Belvedere Streets Sea Ranch  not to mention sidetrips Ireland Italy Greece

you shot the baskets you wove the baskets blossoms collect around your feet

and you shovel out the tide as the big one

the sun rips the top of your head open

no it's gentle like can opener

peer inside slightly balding pate

of our dear bearded host I mean I know he's not the host

Lawyers Guild is he would never have ordered chicken but it is his role to be centerpiece so we must we must let him as he is father of and widower of

and freed people prison from of and the friend co-worker boss and landlord of

never looked so sweet as the moment when history stopped and let a person walk free and when history stopped and people who would change the ineffable via revolutionary fervor and stupid stupid stupid heart

through it woven like a praise chant, like the basket blossom, to say no I can't leave the boys

fairness riding shotgun on the unfairness and the clarity patience generosity and all the words like the time he gave away the car -- he gave away his car!

to praise him is not the deal

we are here in place

hold that place

at this time hold that time

it's a memory in progress

but it's dailiness that binds

tomorrow's tomorrow when you think of Stu send him

emails of love that's liamror@slip.net

Liam and Rory you are the ones

Yes I'm the one and I'm here to say

Youngblood greetings to the great ParTay

The words you spin had better be cool

Or else you'll be known as Number One Fool

So Bob take the job and praise Big Stu

This is DJ Liam — Peace out to you

How to be a millionaire? Try 27 years mm

We all can learn to grow up and somehow stay a child

I'm buying a building on the Bowery if anyone wants to invest in some Manhattan real estate see me after the show

There will be a poetry club on the first floor and Big Stu is investing

I say this to bring this praise song to a close

Poetry stands here with law as ways to hot pepper the world

To balance out the assholes who at times is each of us

Except Stu Hanlon somehow always makes me my best

We love him cause he somehow convinces judges of that

And the FBI here tonight perhaps you will convert

Don't follow leaders watch yr parkin meter's yes my time is almost up

Thank you for the time to rhyme sublime with sublime

To dance round language, to have good time

To hang out with Stu publickly and all of us now

Will go on to whatever we do

Knowing we share the Earth with a hero: Big Stu

 Written x/x/2000