Archive for February, 2010

February 17, 2010

thoughts on the secret hero in eight versions

by jhon baker

1.
piles of unpublished poetry
and I feel like Emily D.
except there is no song to these

2.
most of the verse written years
ago in a 3rd floor walk-up
an hour from Chicago
there was less between us
and moments were ours
without out knowledge or
at least without yours

3.
if this world was my will
or my idea – this
wouldn’t exist
and maybe never get written

even at 124 mph across Colorado
before Denver

4.
these aren’t poems
not one o’clock moments
of clarity

they are sleepless induced
narcotic psychotropic
overdoses

I casually wish I still drank

5.
right now
time is passing
but not without memory
and I cannot say it is painful
you cannot call it hospitable either

6.
secret hero of my poetry
where have you gone
what have you been thinking

I cannot question now
as I cannot cope with the answer

7.
x xx
some kind of monster
and I cannot even look in the mirror
around corners
or close my eyes

8.
this is not a poor film
tho we all with it were.

– I wrote this.

February 15, 2010

off the cuff

by jhon baker

Most of the greatest poets it seems really are assholes. I believe poets to be highly opinionated egotists bent of displaying to the audience the poets view, almost a forced voyeurism, of not only the world the poet occupies but the audience that reads them as well. As a poet you must be ballsy and arrogant to even consider participating in the art as an adult as a serious pursuit I mean to say.

hand some women a banana
and they eat it.
Hand it others

and they masturbate on the spot.
off the cuff.
but most would talk.

about it, indefinitely
meanwhile, I’ll
sleep as sound as poet

in post
coital recreation
aftermath.

– I wrote this – just now.

most of the above was written in response to comment on Jack Gilbert (poet) being an asshole when I just started writing the thing about the banana. I don’t know really where the fuck this one came from but I like it. I hope tomorrow when I wake up sometime mid-morning that it still holds – they don’t always ya know.

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February 14, 2010

Valentine’s final hours, the poor bastard.

by jhon baker

St. Valentine wrote a love letter to his jailer’s daughter. He fell in love with her supposedly. I think if this is true it might be the first example of Stockholm Syndrome. Now we celebrate this mental abnormality by sexing one another.
As I write poetry often for my wife, there is little that I make public. I wish for her to compile it all after my death and put it out as a book of poems for her. This idea isn’t new but it is my way of offering something to her that is not offered to anyone else, as I do not have much I have this and it is for her only.

I don’t hate flowers

I fill the page
I write this on
with flowers;
on the other side I sketch my wife,
naked.

I ‘m not terribly fond of flowers.
though I tend to stoop and pet them,
I would as soon pluck one from the earth
to curry favor from my wife as I would
to plant one.

 – I wrote this.

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February 13, 2010

Short Form

by jhon baker

Last night I drempt that I was working on this blogs layout. ‘Interesting.’ I thought as I was writing in HTML fluidly, immediately I surmised that I was dreaming and I stepped away from the computer into a long hall where there were no doors but it was so wide that the contents of rooms were laid out bare to be seen by all who passed. I searched awhile looking for the right dream to be in but ended up awake having to use the bathroom.
This is an older poem, one of my long time favorites. Written after buying a kitsch African made pen as a gift.

short-form

this pen made in Japan,
this paper in Italy.
these thoughts from Africa,
these hands from Spain.

I was born with knowledge,
baptized a Lutheran.
yesterday I was an African Tribal Priest;
this morning I am an American Buddhist.

these are my interracial writings –
give love to all my brothers and sisters.

– I wrote this

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