Archive
at least kittens still work
I’ve had a pretty relaxed weekend going into it with a sick day. Gave me permission to take it easy even though its really nice out there. Its been a beautiful Fall and I am thankful, also for seeing gratitude lists start to come out. Its a nice time of year for a lot of reason. I devoted yesterday to crushing a novel which is something I haven’t done for a while. I knocked out most of “Peshawar Lancers” by S.M. Stirling. One of my favorite authors, I like his novels on The Change, post-apocalyptic fiction.
This is straight up alternative history. Set in modern times but in a world where a meteor broke up over the Northern Hemisphere in the mid 19th century, leaving Europe and North America in a three year winter and decent into cannibalism. The British Empire makes an Exodus to India, South Africa & Australia mostly with the heart of the Empire in India. So you end up with sort of a steam punk world with slower advancement airships, Victorian culture with a nice cross pollination of the cultures of the subcontinent.
Nice setting for an adventure story with the villain being the Russian cannibalistic Satan worshiping state church with girls they have bred who can see the future. Charming and fast paced story and I learned a little bit about Hindus and Sikhs. Can’t beat that, but it killed my productivity yesterday.
I did get some laundry hung and started turning the second half of the cold frame. Finishing that is my next project. Today I’ve devoted to puttering and cleaning house and the house certainly needed it. Got the place swept out, could have used more but I gave it a ‘lick and a promise’ as Grandma Trapp used to say. I find everything is connected to everything else and start cleaning and it can suck up my whole day. I miss Amee’s whirlwind where she could just knock stuff out. I am stuck slowly plodding along, stopping to ponder what I find, stymied on where to put stuff, etc, etc, etc.
Today though I did find a steno pad with some poetry I haven’t posted. I wrote this riffing off of Ignatius of Loyola’s bit on humility out of his Spiritual Exercises, which I still haven’t completely read. I was at a conference at some type of Catholic institution and they had a library and I pulled it off the shelf and read a random page on humility that shook me to the core pondering it. It heavily influenced this poem as I tried to assimilate its implications.
Ignatius was a bad ass and a powerful dude. I later bought the book but read how your supposed to be coached through them on a retreat and its better to not know what’s coming. I took it and a bible with me on a 2 1/2 week backpacking trip and worked them in a bastardized way. It was life changing. I felt I had to back off (I was going for the whole deal in a 30 day give or take deal) or risk making a permanent severance with the mundane world. Wasn’t quite ready for that nor did I feel it was necessary.
But setting all that aside I had only read the one page once when I wrote this which I guess I’m calling “Like cigarettes speak for the dead”:
Like cigarettes speak for the dead
They always have
Even since before the world was broken
But at least kittens still work
And many other Sunny Things
Fly high, some higher
Than they’ve ever flown before
Icarus wings perhaps
But at least we’ve known the Sun
And the Son remembers
Someone’s got to decide
If when, if then
I remember, am remembererd
I live, I live, I live
Humility in a poet takes reading
Ignatius of Loyola
Spelling it all out in 3 paragraphs
A thinking man can understand
Humility is the exercise of the will
For the purpose of promoting the will of God
As you follow the pursuits
Only accepting material gratification, social standing
Yea, life itself in a way compatible to the GOOD.
A noble path of humility indeed
Which only the best of us abandon ourselves to
And know the bliss of a clean conscience
In a world gone mad
With violence and control
Ego projection, ego projection, ego projection
Of course you haven’t forgotten
They were the happiest days of your life
We will always be one
And other evil lies said in the language of Action
In the real world
The real fucking world
Fucked up shit goes down.
Its happening right now
All around us
And the deeper path of humility
Cries out for us
For us to walk the path
(To)For the perfect world
That’s coming
Or walk away
And heal and mourn
And watch and pray.
When the final destruction comes
Lurches closer to being
Both or either
I don’t know
But all 3 demand
Us walk the past of
holiness and we’ll
take riches or poverty,
Happiness or unhappiness,
Respect or rancor, as
Secondary to the quest
For the perfect world
Knowing god
As only two loving
Beings can love
Hugging, not being hugged
Remembering and remembered
Image reflection
You know the Kingdom of God,
At hand, within you,
Many mansions, many mansions, many mansions
And real life with its
Treasures and responsibilities
And pleasure gratifications
Are all set aside
Treated as the same
Whatever occurs
In our place in the unfolding of divine will
The few that walk this holy road
For exercise if nothing else
Can choose a third path
Of striving for the divine plan
With all your heart, mind and soul
For so is love perfected in us
And whenever possible
To follow the path of the low
The poor, the reviled
The ignored, until even our
Death serves the divine will.
11/11/11
Happy Armistice Day. It commemorates the ending of The Great War or the War to End All Wars, and if only it did, it wouldn’t have morphed into Veteran’s Day. I like the old version better, a day to celebrate peace which is a glorious thing and well worth fighting for. Today is an extra special day with the trifold elevensies. I was telling the agency psychiatrist that numerologically 11 meant “magic”. Kabbalistically 1-10 is a progression from the source at 1 (Kether) to the material world at 10 (Malkuth). Eleven is magical because it goes one further, “this one goes to eleven”.
I find myself with time on my hands because I called in sick today. I had tummy troubles and unsettling dreams and woke at one and could not go back to sleep. Don’t have it today and rest is obviously in order. I will attribute both to peperoni and sausage pizza perhaps, could be a virus or something as well as I’ve got a bit of scratchy throat. I hope to nap and feel better, read some more John Byrne era Fantastic Four maybe more of my Stirling novel the Peshawar Lancers which kept me company through my long night of stomach upset.
My dream was vivid, I have been having vivid dreams throughout the night with increasing frequency and intensity since I read a couple articles on dreaming in the latest Scientific American Mind. There are articles on using dreams to problem solve and lucid dreaming, which I was always doubtful of but they can see it in f-MRI so it probably exists. Its a useful technique for PTSD so I have been trying to learn it and have definitely increased my dream awareness, which has been largely cool. My dreams are banal things of petty frustrations, ennui, and little anxieties mostly.
Last night I dreamed I was visiting the homeland and was feeling very out of sorts. There was some holiday or parade or something and I decided I needed to go the hospital. I went to Boone Hospital and after a long journey through white tile corridors I ended up in this cafeteria and a psychiatrist invited me to eat lunch with him and we talked. He had a large platter of bacon, which was good at first but became increasingly cold and greasy (see why I think there was a pizza connection?). Before we were done there was some kind of break for prayer or meditation or something and everyone in the room got into a big circle and put their arms around each other and prayed or meditated or something involving droning and people rubbing other people’s heads. I found it all very weird but was glad to be a part of it and it broke up and the doctor and I walked down a long corridor and he asked more questions. He asked me what I was feeling and I told him that I felt like a large crystal a picture of this became the dream a complex crystal structure but that I felt very fragile. He surprised me when his tone went from a convivial camaraderie to the voice of authority and he told me he wanted me to go to University Hospital for an evaluation. I thought it odd already being in a hospital but I asked him why I needed to be in a hospital. He said because you said you were fragile.
Usually for dream interpretation the question to be asked is what was the overall feeling of the dream. Bewilderment. I chalk it up to being sick as any larger meaning, but its made me think. Which is one of the points of dreams to look at things differently.
In the spirit of 11/11/11 I wanted to share an older poem I wrote about Solomon, our preeminent magic man. It probably goes in a series with my Biblical Biopics with a Twist with the one about Jesus and John and Salome.
Wise Old Solomon
Wise Old Solomon was an old soul
Walked closely with the Lord
But he could still rock -n- roll
From time to time
He had a thousand wives and concubines
Was courted by the Queen of Sheba
He drank her wine
He was a wise man
He won the prize to understand
That if one is ever truly wise
One sees through child’s eyes
He knew the names of a thousand angels
Never known before
He knew the names of a thousand demons
And what’s more
He put them down
Into the ground
So they never got up again
He bound them for their mischief
He bound them for our sin
He was a wise man
He won the prize to understand
When one is truly wise
He can fell opponents of any size
Solomon built a house
Where the Lord did dwell
And the dead went to Sheol
They’d never heard of Hell
And the Lord won’t dwell in a house
Built by human hands
And what Solomon built with
Few can understand
He is a wise man
He won the prize to understand
That if one is truly wise
One never dies
######
respecting the weekend
Two naps in two days, its been a good weekend for self care. The time change didn’t hurt any either, I could take a 25 hour day. I am focusing more on the extra hour of daylight in the morning rather then the one lopped off my evening. I had napped so was up late and slept in and was still up by seven.
I drank coffee and read the paper. The most interesting article (Jan Weiss I think her name is writes the gardening column in the Trib) was on “frost flowers”. Apparently your supposed to go walking in the woods presunrise on the morning of the first hard frost and a few different wild flowers, one of which is common around here sheds ice crystals through its water transportation system and its a beautiful effect. Maybe next year the first hard frost seems worth acknowledging as a seasonal rite of passage. Has common sense rituals built in, bring in everything that can be harmed by the cold. Now go walking in the woods in the early morning. We’ll see, I may not do it , but I doubt I’ll forget.
I roasted coffee, light roast Sumatran and washed my sheets. While they were washing I double dug half the cold frame and added a wheelbarrow of horse manure. Boy that changed the character of the soil. Most of it had never been worked, it was a chore doing that. Chatted with the neighbor who thought it looked like rain. Local weather said tomorrow so I hung my stuff out in the windy day. Forecasters right again as it turned out.
Took Fido for a walk to the park. There were dogs there but he didn’t really get his play on. First it was Goldilocks syndrome some too big, the little puppy to small. But then some poodles came and he didn’t really even try to engage. He did remind me of Tiger when I saw all the other dogs neatly groomed and he in his DIY haircut. It made me think of my two poems I’ve written about Tiger, my mom’s best dog. The best one I don’t quite remember it all but will come up with something to post because I think I’ve been through all the poetry I have written down on file. This first one I wrote in my creative writing class and was supposed to be a haiku but didn’t reference the season. Tiger wasn’t fourteen but he did end up passing away when he was 14 many years later.
My dog is fourteen
That’s ninety to you and me
No longer he’s dead
So since Fido wasn’t playing we came home and decided to prioritize nap over further productivity. Things will get done when they get done.
Made coffee and stuttered puttering with dinner. I made sauce for my tortellini as follows: I scalded a bunch of tomatoes from my garden, Sarah’s garden, & a free box off the curb near the Farmer’s market all picked green before the hard frost (see the connection) that had ripened on the counter so I could remove the skins. I browned a pound of pasture raised ground round in some olive oil, a big yellow onion, a gypsy pepper and a green bell pepper. I added maybe four tablespoons fresh oregano, and a tsp each of fresh and dry basil and the tomatoes after the meat browned. Added some Bob’s Steak seasoning for the salt contingent and a shot of agave nectar to cut down on the fresh tomato bitterness. Just before it was done I pressed a giant clove of local garlic. With the tortellini and Kevin made garlic bread I did red lettuce salad with shaved carrots, raisins, croutons, & ranch. I also broke out the green tomato chutney which broke the Italian thing and had a Boulevard’s Unfiltered Wheat. Nice.
Then I’m gearing up for some Walking Dead and I’m going to give Hell on Wheels a shot. Kevin got V for Vendetta from 9th St Video but that’ll have to wait another day.
sunrise war
Watching some Two Towers, first time seeing the directors cut, because the one thing about those films is they just aren’t long enough. Its really a brilliant film though but not quite enough to hold my complete interest a third time through. Frodo is such a Christ figure as his heroism is to endure undeserved suffering. I love the scene where he eavesdrops on Gollem and realizes he was once a lot like himself once and calls him Smeagel. Embracing his shadow self, he opens his heart and learns what he has to learn to move him along on his journey. Man, Tolkien rocked. The return of Gandalf the sweeping story arc, its just a great tale.
My own tale has been more modest and my Saturday has been more relaxing then I had anticipated. A little sad it being Dad’s birthday but glad for Fifth of November plans, won’t forget Guy Faukes day again. I saw Julie had written him a birthday note on his wall and since not even death will stop a facebook account I did the same. Been feeling it a bit with John back in California but being alone has its pluses too.
After coffee and the paper I hung out my laundry in overcast skies. The paper said no rain and ultimately the clouds broke and it got pretty nice. I went to the market and mostly realized that if you don’t cook you don’t get to buy produce. I got a nice head of lettuce and some green peppers and some ground beast but forgot to get eggs. The cold thinned out the crowd and the # of vendors. Now I wish I would have gotten a Patric chocolate bar at the book store yesterday.
I decided to make pottage for the potluck portion of Occupy Como. I had some spinach from last week’s market, perhaps even the week before that needed to be eaten and the kale from Sarah’s garden. It was a sizable amount so I decided to make it on the stove top instead of the rice cooker. I added a cup each of white and brown rice a cup of lentils and 6 cups of water. I added the little onions out of Sarah’s garden, another big cooking onion, 1/2 of a big head of garlic, a little less then a cup of olive oil, fresh oregano out of my garden, three dried hot peppers out of Trevor’s garden and 1/2 tsp of salt or so. Brought it to a boil and simmered the liquid of it. Pretty tasty.
Then it was time for Fido and I to hit the occupation. There was a good crowd with some speeches we couldn’t hear very well and maybe 100-150 people and a few other dogs. Fido was pretty chill but we stuck to the back. Saw Sharon and Megan but didn’t do much more then say ‘hi’ as the march was starting. I saw some other familiar faces but we never got close enough to say ‘hi’.
I was talking in my group on Friday about how there is very little difference between being a friendly and outgoing person and acting like you are a friendly and outgoing person. I decided today I am a friendly but aloof person because we didn’t really chat anyone up. Fido drew some admirers and got his belly rubbed more then once. He was also around some little kids which is good practice. He was generally admired and people commented on his good behavior.
We marched up to Bank of America with more speeches and I got to experience ‘The People’s Mic’ thank you no amplification at Zucoti Park, you’ve created a thing. Pretty cool but I saw a video bit with people doing it to disrupt a speech by the Wisconsin Governator that was very “Two legs good, four legs bad” kind of politics I find vaguely disturbing. As we were breaking up to go back to Liberty Square (the keyhole plaza in front of City Hall) Fido jumped on the brick planter without plants in front of the bank. I caught a flash and realized B of A employees were taking his picture. Fido was the only disruptive critter so I got him down and scolded him for his radical ways. Now he probably has a file with The Man.
So I didn’t have enough change to stay for the potluck which I wasn’t feeling anyway and I am as I said aloof so I left the pottage in the car and caught the scene for a bit. A guy gave me a flyer on why corporations are bad and said we needed cooperation instead of competition. I said we needed both but the pendulum was to far that’s for sure.
We stopped at the store so I could forget eggs again and pick up a few things. I was going to make a banana/squash bread too. Maybe tomorrow. I hope to get out to Lowes or someplace and get furnace filters and a programmable thermostat. Kevin and I are on the same schedule so I should be able to significantly cut back on the overall temps of the house and still up my critical 6:30-8:00 time when I might feel OK about putting the heat up a bit to Western standards of comfort.
I’ll also need to bring my laundry in since I didn’t do it today. I took a long nap which I felt was nice but sorry to miss the sunniest warmest part of the day. I did unload more horse manure and hope to have the main bed ready to go and get some garlic in. I don’t think I am going to put anything else in until i get the cold frame going, but that needs busting sod and double digging plus the manure bit, a lot of work and little daylight not sucked up by work. But one step at a time, do something every day, it’ll happen when it happens. The rest was nice though and well deserved. But the backyard squirrel has taken the trouble to get chubbier then I’ve ever seen him so he at least is expecting another hard winter. He must’ve heard about the La Nina sticking around for an extra year. Its a shame we broke the weather.
If I get through that Trevor’s going to see this Russian movie that looks pretty good. Its set near where Lisa is in the Peace Corps. Fido needs a walk too and Harry’s coming over for Walking Dead so we will see.
As part of my having a definitive list of blog poetry to add to now I am going to end with the second poem I wrote when I went mad in Amsterdam in 1996, which I’ve blogged about extensively. I had written my first one in an attempt I think to reach out and define myself because I was unraveling and my self organization was starting to flicker a bit, on and off. Everything was poignant with the intensity dial being set on 11, all day every day. Feeling a lot of stuff I had been stuffing. I blasted out my first pretty decent and emotionally honest poem.
I shared with the people I was with I think, all that was hazy but I remember them talking about Martin, the guy who owned the mind spa we were staying at speaking several languages and I said I could write poetry in any language. With a German dictionary I wrote a haiku. I gave it in German and English and the other to Jennifer who later sent them both to me when I was in my mad convalescence but I don’t know if I could lay hands them on anymore. When I wrote the haiku I started with one I’d written years earlier when I wanted to write a series of 5-7-5s (haiku without a season) on the major arcana in the Tarot. I only got the first one:
The Fool
S(he) walks towards the cliff
Not hearing the warning cry
S(he) does not need to
######
Sunrise War
Sunrise War
Around dying Autumnal fires
‘Til sleep intervenes
a free verse poem about anything
An interesting night, all dressed up no place to go, if I was capable of being frustrated, I might have been. I was pledged to go to the Dinner Train to Centralia something I had been wanting to do and the Odd Fellows reserved a car. Tre and I were gonna go but he got sick and I couldn’t find the take off spot. The guy at Caseys didn’t know nor did the guy at the bookstore. So I bought a book. If I were up to the technological norm I could’ve looked it up easily, instead I just accepted it wasn’t going to be. Next time.
Thank goodness I have had ample opportunity to walk through a lot of frustrating situations with people and encourage them to roll with stuff outside of their control. I also read and preach a lot of stoic philosophy. All that helps me just roll with stuff enjoy the ride be flexible. I might do a lecture on stoic thought when I finish my series on self esteem. Got some good students, one with 8 pages of notes, cross referenced by topic because I like to skip around.
Most interesting conversation I’ve had has been on facebook. We were talking about judgement, he critiquing my encouragement of Fire your Bank day. (4.5 billion dollars pulled out of banks I heard on Marketplace and more people have joined a credit union in the last 6 weeks then in a normal year. That’s a nice protest with the multibillion dollar hit.) Anyway he cited Bruce Cockburn as saying we all want judgement on somebody else and said the Occupiers were as greedy as the banks.
I conceded his first point but challenged the second that banks with more resources are more liable to judgement for not helping the poor and that activists with some notable exceptions often take a financial hit and have a sincere desire to help and a simple lifestyle. He commented back saying salvation comes from belief not good works. But I wasn’t saying you get to go to heaven for doing good, I just said you face damnation for not. But we’re talking about different stuff, I don’t buy the concrete version of heaven.
The heaven I believe in is more conceptual, an idea, the memic universe. Do you want to know if you are living forever? Are you living forever right now? Investment in the trappings of wealth or power block out the eternal now that is accessible in a child like way to anyone who reaches out for it. That’s what I’m saying. Greed and accumulation make people scared, shuts off from real experience and transcendent awareness. I know because if they had it they wouldn’t act like that. You couldn’t if you value others like yourself.
Mostly I want to put up more poetry. This one I wrote a slight variation on the first line in my first chap book 16 Best. I took the title of the book from the CD that John Glenn took into space Neil Diamond’s 16 Best. I wrote on the top of a blank page something like “I can write a free verse poem about anything” as a statement that I could finish it on a first draft and have it be a pretty good poem. I couldn’t, and ended up hacking out a short little shitty thing. Some time later though in a late night manic rush I blasted through the thing in its completed form in only a little more time then it takes to read it ( a bit over 3 minutes unless I’m doing it in a slam with 3 minute time limit which I pick up the pace. I consider it my definitive slam poem.
I can write a free verse poem about anything
If I want to extend my ego
Or I can just let the world be
All fucked up and beautiful
Six billion lives alone
Living in self imposed exile
From real experience
Cast adrift in a specific social milieu
Which is then projected onto the rest of humanity
Except for those, few or many
We think of as “others”
People so alien to our experience that we deny our common existence as people
Greeks and Barbarians
A five thousand years old idea
Which still dominates our consciousness
And of course it does
How we clothe ourselves, how we feed ourselves
How we have shelter and transportation and the frivilous entertainments that make a C+ life feel like a solid A-
Can I hear an amen please?
Because of course I’m preachin’
In a free verse poem about anything.
The last frontier of the wordy hypocrite
On vacation from responsibility
When the knowledge that we are all one
And the world is in pain
Often and harsh and often preventable
If we can care more, know more, do more
more, more, more, or
nothing…
Block it out
Return to the acceptable
Accept the inevitable
Of the way things are
Just sit back an enjoy the fringe benefits that go to those citizens and their neighbors who get to vote every four years or so for one of the two guys who learned how best to suck up to power and gets to be the CEO of the big stick of Capital
Bread and circuses baby
Only now its on a hundred and fifteen channels
And the bread may take a little longer to get then it used to
But its so good
That’s why most of us have to make it
Or serve it
Instead of painting and writing poetry
Singing and dancing and growing gardens
We wouldn’t want them to do that would we?
I can’t make my own fucking Big Mac can I?
It isn’t someone has to dig the ditches anymore
Now its the guy who gets to drive the ditch digging machine is a lucky bastard
With a fat paycheck and a good tan
A paid lunch and health insurance
May I take your order please?
Would you like fries with that?
I’ll suck your dick for fifty dollars.
Because of course a man has to talk about sex in a free verse poem about anything
Because money buys sex and not just servitude
Would you like fries with that?
If you turn your back I’ll kill you
Just for what you’ve got in your pockets
I can’t write ads to sell cigarettes to teenagers in Asia can I?
But I watch the same TV commercials that you do
Where the guy in the phat car gets the skinny girl with the big tits and perfect teeth
And guess what motherfucker
Guns are cheap
Would you like fries with that?
I don’t go to zoos
Good morning. I am up early drinking coffee, a Honduran light roast that is growing on me. Untold depths I tell you, really tasty. Probably this weekend I will have to get in the habit of having to roast my own. Having a live in expert coffee roaster is a rare luxury but I’m glad John made it home safe and hope is transition back to California living is a smooth one. Fido sure misses him and the dogs. The little guy follows me pretty devotedly now. I am up early, after get the coffee drank we’ve gotta get out and walk the trail and see if there are any sunrise visitors to the dog park. He really played up a storm our last visit. Nothing like a little isolation to bring out the social. He even played with an uncut Dobie that started out pretty intense.
Yesterday I blogged about my first poetry slam in Fayeteville Arkansas and noticed that one of my classic poems wasn’t up. This one I wrote the first stanza when I was crazed and then a couple few years I hacked out the next 2 stanzas rather quickly when I needed another Milk Carton song and that quickly. I tried singing it and Dan suggested I do it as a spoken word number which worked out pretty well.
I used it in the poetry slam, took first place and there was a newspaper write up about the event it was really funny because the biggest chunk of the story was people in the crowd ripping on me. It has an anti-materialism angle that some people found challenging. “No job no house I bet he still lives with his momma” one gent said or words to that effect. It was funny because I did at the time.
I don’t go to zoos
To see the animals in their cages
And I don’t go to work
To see the slaves bring home their wages
Because I know a secret
I know the score
I know that money equals time
And they ain’t making any more.
You can’t get ahead
Playing by the rules
Laws are passed
By the ruling class
And only obeyed by fools
So step back and think about it
There’s only just one you
Do you want to go down
In the history books
Doing what you do?
So why don’t you turn the TV off
And go to the woods for a day
You might just be a little surprised
At what Mother Nature has to say
She might just tell you
To fuck it all
And give all your money away
Sell your house and car
And VCR
And live in a tent by the Bay.
And I don’t go to zoos
To see the animals in their cages
And I don’t go to work
To see the slaves bring home their wages
I know a secret
I know the score
I know that money equals time
And they ain’t making any more.
Untitled #1
Watching The New World, the only Terrence Malick film I haven’t seen. Its pretty good but i’ve been way to restless to just watch a movie for a while. At least one on the TV. I got a late start on it, as its 2 hr 15 min but I was still giving a crack at the novel in a month. Got discouraged with my process. Might not be terminal but it sure ain’t healthy for getting a novel done. Maybe I’ll just have to try to publish a book of abandoned first chapters.
Maybe I’ll just blog. I was blogging every day most of last month and I rather enjoyed it. Managed to create a poetry page, which has allowed me to know for sure what I have up and gives me the chance to put up more stuff. It was fun reading a lot of my stuff too. Only found 2 duplicates.
One noticeable omission was Untitled #1 as I only had the second stanza up and that fairly recently. I wrote it as three separate pieces all in fairly quick succession as well as a handful more in what I remember as a red notebook maybe all in the same day. It was flowing then, I couldn’t contain it. I couldn’t get anyone to listen to it though. No one much wants to hear what a crazy person has to say. Definitely the worst part of a mental illness is how people treat you. fortunately I was protected by boisterous manic self confidence or I might have despaired not to create. I kind of wish I had spent more time writing, it was good stuff and am thankful for what survives. A lot of it I wrote and gave away so there might be more out there.
This one is three I pulled out of the notebook and put in my head when I was trying to sing with Milk Carton. It was a metal kind of song with heavy base and I tried out four as a spoken word piece. The first stanza was the most gothic and a lead in, the second I thought went with it and the third and a lost fourth verse I tried out and ended up keeping the third only as the song came together.
I used it as my first poem in the first poetry slam I was ever in down in Fayette Arkansas when I was visiting my buddy Jay with Rebecca in the fall of 1998. It was a gothic slam as it was near Halloween and I think people just liked it because it wasn’t as cheesy as the ghost and goblin stuff other people were doing. I also did” I don’t go to zoos” which I also need to put up, which scored a 9.7 from the English teacher judge and I ended up winning the slam and getting $25. Context really hit me, from the unlistened to ramblings of a mad man to getting 25 bucks to say it, context is everything.
Untitled #1
Slash, feint, perry
The mind is a weapon
Carving subject from object
Truth from fiction
The rational mind unleashed has become a threat to all life
And yet we still look to it for rescue
Salvation even
From the very problems it has created
Once there were alternatives
Other ways of knowing, of being, of caring
But those days are gone
Mowed down under the scythe of technological advancement
Until only It remains
Silent and gleaming
In the new darkness
Of unasked questions
Because there are no more words.
Spring can be as cold as winter
For the mind without purpose
The heart without love
New life is inevitable
But not your life
Not our lives
Our Acts of Being
Are as meaningful
Or as meaningless
As we allow them to be.
Spring can be as cold as winter
When we refuse to allow
The Life Force to shine out
Brilliantly and forcefully.
And what is to be done
With this world of ours
Seeingly able to absorb all of our passion
Yet rippling the missteps into torrents
The excuses mount steeds of excess
To ride over the backs of the innocent
The holy ones without voice
Watch and listen and learn
Halloween 2011
Wow what an eventful day. Such that I couldn’t even document it until this morning. I jammed out getting my counseling re-certification in. I needed 4 hours of continuing ed so I went into work early and pushed through a self study course. Took John to U-Haul on my lunch to get his tailgate installed and went by the post office to get that 10/31 postmark that saved me $75. Next year I am going to be more on it. Its getting to be like filing my taxes only the post office isn’t open until midnight.
After working a little over in a delicate kind of meeting thing I came home to see John with the trailer parked and van loaded and checking his fluids. Which then it really hit me that he would actually be going. Its been a huge blessing having John and the dogs come right after Dad died to ease that transition and though I am happy for him to get his life back in motion I was nonetheless hit by a wave of sadness still able to bring a little tear this morning.
So it goes without saying I didn’t get my jack-o-lantern carved. I ordered pizza and gave the delivery driver candy (plus a tip) and told him he had a great Dominos costume. I had 2 others, little kids from the neighborhood. I wish I would have given them more then a big handful of candy because that is all I got. I’m the only light on the block and anyone with a car goes elsewhere. Apparently people without cars go elsewhere. They were cute though a little Ninja and Pocahontas both around 3, maybe twins.
Halloween also marks the end of the blog a day challenge. I am glad my recent flurry of activity didn’t cause me to lose any subscribers. I unsubscribed to a blog I like mostly but he posts at least once a day and sometimes several and if it feels like a chore looking at my email inbox I start dropping blogs. I thought I had some good stuff this month and it drove up my hits but some were uninspired. Its been good discipline for the National Novel in a Month which I have thought about doing for years and decided to make the plunge this year so I expect faithful reader you will see a lot less of me for a while. I like posting and doing it every day made me realize how much I enjoy it. Will try to get back to you after my daily words are done but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Multiconstruct 
Recent Comments