Archive for March, 2010

March 23, 2010

Theater Underground

by jhon baker

go to here and see a new poem published by Theater Underground’s Blog.

Leave comments here or there in referance to that work.

I firmly suggest that you click follow on their site as they are doing some very cool things with Theater Production.
I firmly suggest that you do the very same thing here if you have not.

The poem there is one that I am fond of but you would know that by the fact that I put it out there for all to seem I very rarely post anything or put it up for publication unless I like.

okay, I have an early morning tomorrow and will probably not post again until Wednesday evening unless I don’t sleep tonight in which case I will post after midnight.

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March 23, 2010

ntitledU

by jhon baker

NTITLEDU

John Lennon never sounded so
good as when he laid his
guitar against a live amp
walking away with Eric Clapton
following suit.

Federico Garcia Lorca never
was more poetic than
being assassinated either in a darkened
room or while gazing at the moon.

the death poems of Zen masters conveying
a perfect final message while
summing life and making
obsolete the same life.

not fearing death as it has already
located me without seeking.
is this poem the final
perfect summation of?

– I wrote this.

Lewis and Clark started their homeward journey today in 1806, two years after the journey had begun. I miss my wife’s cooking and my own bed. I fell in love with the visceral Appalachians on my way out here and am living in anticipation to begin the journey through them again. but that will have to wait.

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March 22, 2010

Wilmington, North Carolina

by jhon baker

Morning, having slept in, sort of. I had a hard time sleeping after driving nearly 500 miles yesterday, this would not have been a problem years ago but age, abuse to body (internal), accidents resulting in abuse to body (external), and now chronic pain in leg from hip to large toe make even sitting painful. Today’s poem is about what landed me here, sort of.
my extended family has embraced Kara so beautifully that I nearly teared. I am so glad that we made this trip, I am so glad that we can embrace once more. Tonight we dine with my second cousins and may see my Great Aunt Kate again but she has had a procedure today for her own pain that will prevent us from being together. Maybe.
Goethe died today in 1832. It is because of Goethe that I journal. It is because of a friend of mine that I do so publicly, sort of publicly. This is meant for popular consumption and my other journal is only meant for similar consumption after my untimely death, whenever that may be.

THE MOTORCYCLE

the motorcycle had been
insured, paid for and
was now just a pile of
bolts, chrome and accessories
somewhere in
some fenced off yard
where pit bulls bent
to lick their balls and
longed for tastes of
human flesh. my pile of
bolts, chrome and
accessories
was more well guarded
now then ever.

– I wrote this

March 20, 2010

The Mad Road

by jhon baker

“the mad road
     driving men ahead

The raw cut,
the drag,
the butte,
the star,
he draw,
the sunflower in the grass…

ditches by the side of the road
O can se a bug playing in the grass

The crazed voyageur
of the lone automobile
presses forth his eager insignificance
in noseplates and licenses
into the vast promise of life –
the choice of tragic wives.

telephone poles
toothpick time

the mad road
     driving men ahead
the mad road”

All those words are Jack Kerouac’s. I claim none of them, I choose these from The Book, for their match to my trip the closest and most poetic when together. So the arrangement is mine and it belongs here but know that these are not mine and they belong to my hero, Jack Kerouac.

we leave now and didn’t sleep enough last night. We should have made love but we allowed tiredness and the unceasing need of sleep to dissuade us.
bad decision.

today’s meditation is this. All religion lends itself to leaders more bent of terror than love and peace. My belief is no different.
1995: AUM subway attack
Top leaders of AUM Shinrikyo (Japanese: “AUM Supreme Truth”), a Japanese Buddhist sect founded in 1987 by Asahara Shoko, released nerve gas into a Tokyo subway this day in 1995, killing 12 people and injuring thousands.

This ignores all the precepts. This ignores everything I’ve ever read. This isn’t what I practice.
I practice poetry. I study to be a buddha and know how imperfect I am. I am a terrible example.

now two non-haiku –

The great Zen patriarchs are
     painted with beards;
Whether they are frozen in snow
     or begging for alms.

– I wrote this

     Always time, all
illusion, a phantom or dream
      already passing.

– this one too.

Have a great weekend.
– Jhon