10:48 PM – Listening to ghost in the sky’s ending and the realizing that the world still spins, somewhat awkwardly but still spins more or less correctly without memory of its turns.
April 10, 2010
euthanasia
Euthanasia: from the encyclopedia Britinica: also called mercy killing act or practice of painlessly putting to death persons suffering from painful and incurable disease or incapacitating physical disorder or allowing them to die by withholding treatment or withdrawing artificial life-support measures. Because there is no specific provision for it in most legal systems, it is usually regarded as either suicide (if performed by the patient himself) or murder (if performed by another). A physician may, however, lawfully decide not to prolong life in cases of extreme suffering; and he may administer drugs to relieve pain, even if this shortens the patient’s life. In the late 20th century, several European countries had special provisions in their criminal codes for lenient sentencing and the consideration of extenuating circumstances in prosecutions for euthanasia.
1935 in England saw the first lobbying group to form for the purpose of legalizing human euthanasia – not the tyrannical fascist dictator kind but the kind borne of kindness and letting go. America saw the same thing in 1938 – both called ‘the Euthanasia Society.’ one of America the other doesn’t state it’s country as it started there. Finally in 2001, in the Netherlands, a law was passed legalizing/decriminalizing the right to end your own life in pain (see definitions above). Belgium in 2002. Oregon has a law allowing physician-assisted suicide. Why do I post all this today?
Well, it was today in 2001 that the Netherlands leagalized it.
I only wish that a post from a few days ago didn’t contain the poem that it did – it’s perfect for today – here is a link. Disambiguation – Wednesday morning 3:21
today we have a altogether different thing:
(sipping coffee) I just don’t know what that is yet.
listening Pachelbel’s Canon – and concentrating on the harpsichord in the distance – it foreshadows the build, and calm – like a great poem or play there are distant clues which I had not heard in this recording until today.
(sipping coffee) this is related to everything today. This was written before we moved to this great house and now no longer have a freezing basement where I think the pipes might give way at anymoment.
gravity
there’s a certain
affection for being a pariah;
black sheep goes better
with vodka & olives
than whisky & water.
I have an infatuation for
television personalities and
watch their shows love sick
with longing & heartbroken;
going through the same motions
everyone does while
waiting for the nude scene &
drinking bad housewife coffee.
but this is not enough.
there is no exception to
the rule of mortal law
as there is no exception to
the gravitational effect on drunkenness.
and so I sit here at
the typewriter in a
freezing basement
waiting for the phone to ring
or the pipes to burst.
– Hoc Scripsi
April 8, 2010
Picasso, Buddha, Bach vs. Back and sadness.
Dear reader,
in 1973, Picasso dies on the Buddha’s birthday which all is recognized as having had happen on the eighth of April. This also happens to be today, and probably not by coincidence or design it is Kofi Annan’s birthday as well.
Today my wife goes grocery shopping, today she restocks us on sympathy cards because it has been a tough year and we’ve run short by one. My good friends mother passed suddenly and she is now going home. Today is a grieving day for many I know and I think deeply, meditate on what has happened, there is nothing I can do for my friend, there is nothing he has asked so I wait for further instruction. My thoughts are with him and his wife and his departed Mother. She was a good woman I hear, I was not of her company, and if you are the praying sort, pray for her now. If you are the meditating sort, meditate on the swiftness of death and the suddenness of her departure for her final, our final home.
Noah, I am with you where you are where you must be surrounded by love. Our hands are offered if you need but I doubt you will read this today.
I’ve discovered a poem amongst the completed poems of 2009 that had a word misspelled that completely altered the meaning and readability. So much so I couldn’t figure out the word and had to refer to the original draft. Sometimes MS Word auto corrects Bach to be back without due consideration for the content of the phrasing. The alteration did not improve the whole but destroyed it. Now even with the word corrected the whole is a loss and needs to be taken down to the studs and begun again.
the last three lines (containing the error now rectified) go thus:
the radio switches to Bach;
I make leave to
urinate.
as a haiku it would suck – as the ending of a poem it is decent but now needs a poem in front of it. Speaking of Haiku, here is some – not-haiku. I don’t write haiku, I used to but got tired of arguing with people stuck of the 5-7-5 but more than willing to ignore the necessary line references – Tomorrow I will excerpt my treatise on Haiku as today I talk about not-haiku.
Falling leaves:
Magnificent!
Whose illusion?
Magnificent!
Whose illusion?
____________________________
Killed a bug: my
life should be
so important.
life should be
so important.
___________________________
Melting snow.
The sounds of lovemaking
are infinitely brutal.
The sounds of lovemaking
are infinitely brutal.
– Hoc Scripsi
There are dozens of these in my folders and binders. I really like to write them as an exercise in the correct words as they are meant to be painfully concise, and vividly detailed. I think each one goes through at least a weeks worth of revision and often ends nearer to the first draft than the seventh or seventeenth depending on how far I take it. Some – like the second were there immediately and took no revision. It was a moment when I had smashed some poor creature who was part of a greater whole, killed while performing some unknown vital task, and I took it’s life instantly filling with regret at the realization of the enormity and importance of such small beings. It was a satori moment for me.
next I thought of David Ignatow and how he captured a similar experience in a poem about killing a fly. that can be found here and here is a page of the book it is from, scanned by Google.
my auto correct knows to capitalize Google but not how to spell Bach. humph.
March 7, 2010
RIP Mark Linkous
Damn.
why do only the brightest/the genius have this sort of Chaos reign in their heart/head.
May the pain be past, may the chaos be calmed. May your family, friends find peace.
KING OF HALF SLEEP AND OPEN WINDOWS
– For those Hors de Combat
not a man, but
a boy. perhaps
next to open windows where
birds come to sing, where
wind & breeze comes to play;
in loose curtains where moon
lies gently tickling the arms
of youth and kissing the forehead
of prayer.
here, the faces of clocks tell no hour.
here, our eyes & lips have no looks.
here, the silence of childhood exists.
here, those cloths are at your feet
and not dreams.
– I wrote this
a flood of tears for Mark Linkous.
the platitudes of willful resemblance 