June 25, 2010

again

by jhon baker

I like to throw this poem out there every now and then – not only because this blog is named because of it.

the platitudes of willful resemblances

some things have a harder time changing than others.
sleep comes hard,
now we recognize, 
meds and allergy pills, a
little beer and hopefully soon to sleep
and dream along the platitudes
of willful resemblances.

 – Hoc Scripsi

juggling plastic butter knives and listening to Philip Glass – I’m sure neither is allowed on an airplane if only for their murderous properties. Now as I sit and read at night I will have to worry about extreme rendition performed at the hands of the CIA or the Homeland Security administration all for giving the idea that plastic knives and Philip Glass can be used for such devious things as brutality and terror.

Lately I’ve remembered a poem by Emily D. that I once memorized and can recall still. ‘”He scanned it” – one of the 1700 or so poems she had written and not thrown away. This must be in the top of my all time favorite poems and not just for its lyrical beauty or simplicity.

the mind often amazes me with what it chooses to recall at any given time and thrust forth into the openings of self for realization.

I switch to Beethoven as I do not want to injure myself.

June 24, 2010

Thursday

by jhon baker

untitled (I sit down to write)

1.
I sit down to write.
and the longing that comes out is immensely
distressing.
disparate writing and thought,
the thoughts are why I am driven here.
it’s either this or murder, rape and drugs.
good drugs;
illicit drugs, but
less the psychiatric form.

paper awash with malaise and frankness
but I get tired of it and just sit for awhile,
watching TV and creation.
but I won’t do anything with it.
may cut myself up more and wonder why;
ultimately it doesn’t matter.

2.
I waste more ink on this then anything.
I could be writing about birds or sick
children.
I could be writing about pavement and
street car fantasy races with a blonde
cheerleader type waving handkerchiefs.
I should be writing about the mundane,
that is what life has delivered me to.
books, children, sex, good food, conversations.
it isn’t all bad. I don’t miss the street living
or sleeping in the back of my car.
I don’t miss the nights without memory at bars
I don’t miss the anonymous sex and waking to
find there are no eggs for breakfast.
I don’t miss anything about school except the schedule of it.
I don’t miss the hard drugs and hard dealers,
or the late night lab experiments resulting
in a high and extreme weight loss.
I don’t miss not having food and not knowing
when the next days meal will come from.
I don’t miss the sexual abuse or neglect.
I don’t miss playing in bands or writing badly in
strip clubs hanging around even worse writers.
all of us thinking that we were going to be the next
HD or Buk or Lorca
no one really wants to be the next Lorca;
or maybe that is what I really strive for;

to be shot.

June 23, 2010

nearly midnight

by jhon baker

It’s nearly midnight here, outside Chicago and I’ve written nothing today, nothing is two lines which may or may not get me in and allow me to write something.

in the room with my murderer

Lately thoughts have been churning about constraints and how it may help get me out of this writing malaise I’ve found myself mired in. As a poet there are always constraints but some have been used to their natural end. There are others that must be delved into now to take the word to it’s next logical step.

such heavy air in early summer and in
the southwest it’s drier

This is the writers bondage, there is no free will as even free form is constraining as even flow of consciousness is constraining. this is all that is going to be written right now, this is all there is for the taking.

take it.

Tags:
June 22, 2010

false start

by jhon baker

False start, a half a page into the post and it was junk. False starts are a pretext to a much grander illusion. That is to say that what remains may be more profound or less depending on your attachment to the former beginning which was wholly parsing The Doors in a historical context. I gave up on it when it fell into the realm of personal opinions. A singular belief is unimportant when it comes to the historical context.

Another false start, writing about constraints and then realizing that the author Lily Hoang recently wrote about the same thing in the same manner as was being laid out here. Not being into intellectual property theft and feeling it best to stick with the theme, it was erased in it’s entirety.  Another half page gone.

But this is the problem, what do you want to see here? what words do you need to read? a photo that makes you cry or laugh or sigh and go awww – and here is the moment where you project those wishes
on this blank space.

there, your life should now be complete.