Archive for January, 2011

January 30, 2011

bathe every open wound

by jhon baker

five am –

nothing like not being able to sleep due to the feeling of the skin crawling off the muscle and the emptiness invading broken bones.

A cigarette now and then back into bed –

my skin feels oily, my chest is going to explode.

insomnia – the supposed friend of writers everywhere.

try being a cripple with a cripple walk and then try wearing slippers. Mine have the image of Freud but even that bit of funniness doesn’t make them stay on any better when i cripple walk up a single step into the kitchen from the garage where one will fall right after I have outed the lights, followed quickly by the other in a scramble to replace the foot. crawling works better.

there is a child staring at me from the crack I’ve left in the door. It’s not mine.

This is probably disturbing as hell to my wife who is going to read this when she wakes up and realizes that I did not get to sleep at all or at least until six am.

she’s just learned that I’ve been cutting all my meds for weeks now.

this might be disturbing as hell to anyone reading this – or just mildly interesting.
I am not altogether invested in your reaction, although it is nice to read.

I didn’t post yesterday because a friend lost someone and I didn’t have words to comfort them.

I will probably delete this when I come to my senses later on.

until then – here’s a pome…

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bathe every open wound
bathe every open wound
murder me a rose
forgive the violations
adolescent pornographic magazine libido
a dirty young man
who has
old bones
who has
atrophied musculatures
who
doesn’t wear helmets
who
awakes in a plain mood
who
scribbles indecipherably
ill lighted back corner lots
who
limps triumphantly
dances incessantly
who
tears wildly at television commercials
who has
piles of unpublishable odes and laments
who
walks around with guns in pockets
who
gives to the rich
gives to the poor
gives lavishly to self
who
send out letters, mid-twentieth century formatting
who
masturbates feverishly under covers before trying to sleep
who
smokes privately, drinks publicly
who
once, in youth, stole a copy of John Lennon’s “imagine”
who
answers what, who, why and when
with why, what, who and now
who
walks lonely at night for no reason
who
cuts himself to cut out the childhood monster still haunting in dreams
who
quietly ignores the family dynamic of drama
who
sits up hours on end listening to poets in their own voices
who
uncompromisingly refuses to get up until all stiffness is diminished
who
rides motorcycles at 75-80 mph in route to therapy sessions
who has
forgiven people their existence but holds self at higher standard
I’ve given up
offer me that flower/rose from you garden
the one you promised me.
January 28, 2011

The grand business of writing for a living, also, I eat a lot of ramen.

by jhon baker

I’ve hired an agent.

I pay her in raw, unbridled sex.

though the secretary might get a bit jealous.

the secretary doesn’t get paid, only attention

and my agent gets 50 percent, and sex – I’m assured this is scale.

January 27, 2011

Magpie #50

by jhon baker

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St. Sebastian
walked, mid January,
through snowy wood
stepping lightly the tracks
of those traveled before,
leaving some for those behind.
no turns but trees to rest upon
no crickets to sing or call
no voices but those of
my companions
no other sounds,
the winds unfettered,
but that of our feet
crushing through
and impermanent.
as I looked further, 
down the trodden path
we traveled,
it was Sebastian I thought of
and his arrows
 – Hoc Scripsi
image courtesy of Magpie Tales, #50
January 26, 2011

wearing this flesh

by jhon baker
it always amazes
me
in conversations
when the perfect word
coalesces
into the
argument.
 I have to stop a
moment to collect
it back
and see
that maybe words
are a skin
we wear.
    That
wearing this flesh
has endowed me
a language.
 – Hoc Scripsi
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January 25, 2011

woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across… no I didn’t

by jhon baker

I finished eating the remainder of a bag of potato chips to cap off my lunch. I nearly hate them as think they are greasy, tasteless abominations. I ate them as I was hungry and not in a mood to be any more decisive.
I am having an odd day and the body and mind are not operating as a unit.
Having intended to nearly end my facebook profile and all things connected to this blog on the weekend – I did it last night, not wanting to put off the difficult task of deleting a little over 1500 connections to people I never knew and have not gotten to know – no matter what the intentions were. For now I am okay to leave it with the people that are left there, people I actually know or have gotten to know through this blog – facebook brought me no readers, sold no books or so few that I was unable to notice. Not worth the extended effort that it took.
I feel the pain of losing another close friend though. A person that I have associated with for 12 years and knew intimately, personally – a bond established before either one of us owned a computer. He is not at deaths door but at the door of something which I have been unable to join him, uninvited I do not intrude.

Life is becoming increasingly isolated, medications have proven no assistance as my mind’s mettle cannot be undone by such simple ingredients. The New Yorker’s jokes have become stale and it’s commentary mundane and repetitive. Altogether my connection to the outside world is through magazines, tired of them all – I am reaching out through the space interrupted, the space between.

Today has many famous birthdays, but we recall that today my brother-in-law would have turned 31. He is remembered nearly daily around here and his magnitude is greatly missed.

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