Archive for April, 2010

April 30, 2010

why don’t they shoot more poets?

by jhon baker

I have normal aspirations mostly. Maybe.
Normal: not wanting to be rich just successful in my own view, as a poet/writer mostly poet though.
maybe not so normal: the extreme of that success is being assassinated for being a poet, for aligning words in such a way that we are found to be dangerous. My example would be Lorca. I admire his poetry and plays, spent a summer translating a few of the poems. I envy his death tho it is not envious.
Normal: to write about what I experience and see others experiencing.
hummmm: to have large portions of my memory erased so  I can be in a pure place with my madness and write from there. It’s the view of the world a poet has that drives him/her to write, the more that view is abstracted from the society the better the work to a point and I don’t know where that point is and given enough time all artists cross it.
these are my examples for today, all questions will be fielded after the poem.

 on 04/30/1945 the world was rid of a monster, exactly six years earlier another monster made it’s debut and has ingratiated itself into the normal consciousness.
the former being the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the latter being CBS television made it’s first broadcast at the worlds fair. I don’t mean to pick on CBS alone as they are all a conglomeration of pushers with their junk easily spread into the veins of children and adults. I almost never watch television programs or television itself anymore. I had my fill over a three year period where I could not do much more than lay on a couch and observe the box. I mean to pick on Hitler though and acknowledge that his mosterousness is incomparable to any contemporary person.

This is how I view ECT:

poetry doesn’t have to make sense to be good
poetry doesn’t have to cure social ills
poetry doesn’t have to __________________

electricity is always running through us – we just
don’t care for increasing the amperage.

what man does to man
man does not do to one self less he
be considered insane

poetry doesn’t have to comment
poetry doesn’t have to describe
poetry doesn’t have to be well written

Electric chairs can be wired badly and still
kill with efficiency.

 – Hoc Scripsi (right now, so forgive if it is poorly written or not ________)

 I had intended for this to be a different poem. Something from my back stock about poets be assassinated for their good looks but it is now going to be the above write. 

yesterday I cleaned my .38 and 30 aught 6, today I get the scope mounted and dialed in.
I load my thirty-aught-six to board the downtown train…


but that’s another poem…

April 29, 2010

not on today – or an off day where maybe I ought to go back to bed

by jhon baker

Really seem to be off today. I am sitting and writing at the typer and waiting for the real inspiration to come out, maybe I am just thinking about it too hard. The inspira may have found me in this first draft which is now about 2.5 pages long or about half the length I imagine it at the end – might as well shoot for the stars –

ad astra per aspera

expecting too much form the muse puts a damper on the relationship and this doesn’t work the other way around.

April 29, 2010

by jhon baker

I think that maybe that isn’t a very good post in general. Here is a ramble to make up for it.
I started writing what promises to be a long poem yesterday and I don’t want to talk about it much now only to say that my mind is in that direction a great deal and moving towards my Aunt Kate who is still in recovery from a hip break/replacement.
The poem has started with the longest lines I’ve ever written and will probably be a bear just smaller than another poem I’ve been working on for several years. Today I will sit and just write to see where it takes me.
My Aunt Kate and I correspond with the written word and she has been in hospitals hospitals hospitals against her mind but where else do you go when you break a hip? She is heavily on my mind now as we have been trying to get on another on the phone and have thus far been unsuccessful in this endeavor.
have a headache that awoke me at 3:30 this morning and caused bad dreaming all night long. I went back to sleep around four and have enough sleep while the headache pounds away making my face twitch.
                                                          
don’t know what I need but aspirin, ibuprofen don’t cut it.

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April 29, 2010

keeping things hidden.

by jhon baker

Today we are celebrating the invention of the zipper as it keeps things hidden in our pants, prevents us from having to toil under the strain of too many buttons while having to race to a bathroom, keeps my boots on, and enables us to say to children, zip up your coat, it’s freezing out there!
the “hookless” zipper received an American patent on 04/29/1918 and jeans would never be the same, nor the ease of reveal.
Maybe it’s the Zipper that really caused those love-ins of the sixties.

Happy Birthday Duke Ellington, you are still missed.

this is the first part of a two part poem. I don’t think I will put out the second part. This first part is perfectly fine on it’s own.




2

Venus blue eyes
              sun radiant warmth
                             I collapse into your
                                                           thighs.
 – Hoc Scripsi

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April 28, 2010

brain cancer

by jhon baker

while noticing trends in older poetry that has started to correct in my writing, there is the thought to rewrite all of it to reflect the newer way and developed style of writing. I don’t think this is a smart habit to get into as you will never be done revising what has been written unless you rut your style. I’m not even sure I have a style beyond avoidance of certain things.
I’ve thrown away a lot of work as it was no longer a fit and I couldn’t justify keeping it around. It wasn’t genius and it wasn’t blowing anyone’s mind, not even then unless the listener was still a teenager, then everything dark and brooding is good. Maybe I’m only talking about my friends. Friends are terrible judges of art.
Friends don’t want to hurt your feelings, which is a problem as they should be the ones who know how to hurt your feelings in the most constructive way.

Americans cannot have a discussion on a topic where they disagree as a disagreement is seen as an assault.
Cell phones may cause brain cancer and you cannot prove a negative.
there are a lot of people who probably wouldn’t miss their brain if it were gone – if the brain stem were gone – that would be different. but only slightly.
I don’t mean to imply that people are stupid as much as people don’t use the squishy tool for anything other than twitter.
I don’t twitter as I am not a twit.
using twitter may not make you a twit.
I don’t know.
As my wife gets her iPhone I am considering bashing my own in order to not have one at all. As it is it is ‘lost’ currently and I am happy.
I love the phrasing – as it is it is.

On plane headed to Phoenix

Draw no maps on my body
From the air there are no
state lines or divisions
This is how it is
how I am
My self has no divisions
no maps
No way of existing
only being

Sand leads into water
water into rivers
rivers into dirt
no thought
just does
& the clouds are always
changing

 – Hoc Scripsi

This was written while I was on a plane heading into Phoenix. It was a layover so no-one there had a chance to ask for my papers. The layover lasted the length of time it took to get from one terminal to the other at a dead run. It may have been the last time I ran.

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