words of a people aligned in their perfect order
My last cup of coffee for the day and it is burnt. The smell coming off the mug is too much for me to have my head around.
such a shame.
I need a cigarette and an off button for my brain.
yes, both are for my brain – because smoking does nothing positive for the lungs and I hate the way it stinks up the joint.
I’ve been creating and writing lately but have nothing to offer here as of yet. soon, soon.
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.
I can’t decide if I want to now file the 2010 poetry separately from the 2011 like I have always done with past years, so far there doesn’t seem to be a nice cap on last year but I am still working on several from the past few months, but the finished product would go in this year, not last year. I will probably do what habit dictates but we shall see. I usually give myself until February when I do the taxes to have all my files straightened out and properly stored for long term.
Last years output wasn’t bad at all, more than the previous year and this has been going for awhile. I wanted to have written more and while I dealt with the three and a half month creative drought I cannot seem to allow that to be an excuse – though it be a damn good one.
This blog is finally recovering from said drought and I hope to keep up the pace for awhile. We shall see. I’ve never been the most prolific writer, but have always focused on making each offering the best it could be before it left my possession and entered the world on its own, others can do this faster than I but I don’t mind that as long as I’ve got the process going – usually on several at the same time.
As of right now I think there are six or so nearly complete poems – including a long one (a few hundred lines) and in that one I owe to a great friend, Kevin – nearly complete but still struggling with a few lines – not perfect yet, soon – soon.
There is also a moleskine with many ideas for new work, several typed pages with ideas and of course – there are the notes made in the margins of what I’ve been reading lately and my brain which teems with ideas that float along through the noise waiting for better formulation to be written down.
I believe in Allen Ginsberg’s “first thought, best thought.” I also acknowledge that even this first thought is not always best said with the first words that come to describe it. A. Believed this as well – evidenced by his journals and early copies of his poems. He would work on some things for years and others would come off on the plane trip home. I refer to “Father Death” in this last instance.
When writing Haiku I usually come up with most of the wording right away – as it strikes me, a satori moment if you will, and then work hard to file it down to as few words as possible, sort of like Ezra Pound would focus on later in life. Then it is meter – the syllable – each one considered for its metrical flow. This seems clinical but it isn’t and it thrills me while I am doing it. The act is also very taxing for me and sometimes I will require a mental break away from it lest I lose my mind again.
yes, I edit my poetry and I know that to some this is sacrilege. I am trying to do something with the line, the poetic form, and I am zeroing in on it. Hopefully, by old age, I’ll have it sussed.
Why have I written all this out?
I have no clue.
now to work on my magpie prompt.
I’m behind on everything – even sleep.
Jackson, my son is sick so the wife and I have not been sleeping and might as well be sick. O, to live in a sick house.
I’ve two major poems to finish and two letters to write – one to my lovely Aunt Kate who does not deserve to have me fall behind on my letters to her and another to a fellow writer who wants to get in on the mid twentieth century communication kick.
the book is out and selling well enough, (they make excellent Christmas presents – or Hanukkah gifts as well) and I would like to thank the people that have helped to get it further out there – thank you. Send me a photo or picture and I will link to your blog on my page here. It’s the least I could do.
napping now before I go to the DMV and register my truck – I have one more day until I am more behind on that then I can afford.
the tulips surrender
in the fall
the tulip surrender
– hoc scripsi
the platitudes of willful resemblance 