words of a people aligned in their perfect order
R. Crumb said Pekar’s work examined the minutia of everyday life, material “so staggeringly mundane it verges on the exotic.”
life ends
life ends abruptly.
the shadow ceases.
loss is registered but
life goes on,
indelicately as it
must.
– hoc Scripsi
Josephine Baker and Allen Ginsberg share a birthday (born twenty years apart) today. It is easier for me to have two people I admire have the same birthday and I could only wish that all my friends shared a birthday on Christmas and that I was not born on Christmas, not to be difficult but I would like my own day once in a while.
the Scottish poet, scientist and much more, G.F. Dutton died on Monday 31 May.
He wrote austerely passionate poems which search and illuminate the world about us. They are as much explorations as his notable scientific work: both draw on one continuous spectrum of experience.
The above is an excerpt from wonderfully written obituary which can be found at bloodaxe books.
when we know that there were no more deaths during Memorial Weekend (US Holiday) I will complete the work that is my reaction which is not the poem that follows.
LIT MAGS
being rejected by the highbrow
lit mags is good for me.
helps remind me who I am.
where I am from.
which most certainly is not in the
posh offices of the new yorker or a
public space.
I submit to them now just to
be an ass, I imagine that some
poor schmuck sits there and has
the job of reading the unsolicited submissions
only to send out the kindest regards of the
editors. So, I send what I think is good
but I know will never make the mag.
my exercise in futility, I do
this instead of going to church.
the beer I drink tonight is for that
poor schmuck that I am going to
submit the ingredients of cracker jack to
tomorrow.
this is the part of life that gets
me hard in the morning.
– Hoc Scripsi
Louise Bourgeois dies and the art world loses another hero.
The loss is entirely ours as she lived 98+ years and beheld the admiration of her peers for three decades. A good life.
thus far those who have died in this recent display of death’s power lived good lives, long lives (except Coleman who had health issues from a young age). A few did so many drugs and drank to an excess that it was a miracle they lived as long as they did, I’m sure they would agree. But now I am waiting for the other proverbial shoe (apologies for the cliche) to be let go.
It’s getting ready to rain in Elgin, Illinois. Perfect Memorial Day Weather. I always try to avoid writing in the rain as I don’t want to write about the rain. So many so called poets and rightly called poets write prodigiously about the weather patterns that I want to avoid it. What am I going to say that has not already been said better and worse.
Every time it rains I write the same thing. How I don’t want to write about the rain.
the sky darkens and we
wait
wait
wait
wait
thunder, lightening, house shaking
and we can know that it is time.
Holy Peter, Holy Leslie, Holy Dennis, Holy Gary…. My head is still lowered in your honor.
the platitudes of willful resemblance 