August 25, 2014
the books you carry with you…
I was recently tagged in a challenge to list out ten books that changed me or that I carry with me or some such nonsense. I thought of the following 21 – I present them in numerical order but in reality they could be in any order as they are all books that at one time or another I’ve read more than once, they changed my life, turned me on – made me want to be a better, more well rounded round person.
1. god is not Great – Christopher Hitchens
2. Middlesex – Jeffery Eugenides
3. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Persig
4. Tao te Ching – Lao Tsu
5. Moby Dick – Melville
6. The Picture of Dorain Grey – Oscar Wilde
7. Desolation Angels – Kerouac
8. Howl – Allen Ginsberg
9. Any book by Federico Garcia Lorca
10. Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame – Bukowski
11. Malcolm X – Malcolm X
12. the Singing Mouse Stories – Emerson Hough
13. Miles – Miles Davis
14. The Complete Poems – John Berryman
15. Ariel and other poems – Sylvia Plath
16. Hell’s Angel – Sonny Barger
17. the Complete Calvin and Hobbes – Bill Waterson
18. Symposium – Plato
19. Animal Farm and 1984 – Orwell
20. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – D Adams
21. The Razors Edge – Somerset Maugham
I should also add:
22. Paradise Lost 23. Ovid’s Metamorphosis 24. the Trial 25. nearly anything by Shakespeare but specifically his sonnets I guess and the list could really go on and on and on and on.
June 5, 2012
sunburned
the up portion of both arms is sunburned from riding a motorcycle on a beautiful day. This isn’t a complaint – I enjoyed the ride. Due to the over exposure to the sun I have found more energy that I am straining to know what to do with. This is not a complaint – I like the energy. I think my garage should be my focus and maybe buying a basket case motorcycle and putting it all together again – something to do but the garage is a mess and must come first.
Today is Federico Garcia Lorca’s birthday. Happy birthday my compatriot – your end was too soon and violent – this is a complaint.
I am rereading Moby Dick – last read over twenty years ago. I hardly remember the book – this isn’t a complaint.
The air is full of birds chatter and cackling squirrels running, chasing and enjoying the bounty of acorns that have begun to litter my yard. – this is a half non-complaint.
Apples have no bearing on the proximity of doctors.
here is a poem…
butterflies in my beard
– for Micael Chadwick
skies painted dioxazine, phthalocyanine,
violet, prussian, phthalo blues and greens
cerulean and sunkissed naples yellow
portraits of madmen at 35 and aging
midnight scenes on the arroyo
crossing lethean black waters
held fast to the stern
I have ultramarine oils
smeared across my forehead
because of you
butterflies in my beard
and cadmium red
staining my fingertips
because of you
we have met under porches
moonlit nights
waltzing, caroling
my heart has broken
handheld and shopped for nothings
with birds singing
and faces picked up in backyards
– Hoc Scripsi
August 18, 2011
Garcia Lorca – post two for today
– in dedication to M. Chadwick
but I loved you
before they filled you with stars
before they took you on a moonless night
but I loved you
even with dignity and sadness
and now longing nights free from hearts pang
but I loved you
in gypsy bars and back alleys
before poets were villains, while harmless
but I loved you
even when we roamed the streets
cracking fingers, drinking whiskey, before the dawn
but I loved you
I love you now, we sing you
on porches, in backyards, in cities across the world
– Hoc Scripsi
August 18, 2011
1936, a day that shall live on in infamy
today, 75 years ago, the world screams long into the night as she loses one of her most powerful voices, one of her most enamored lovers.
today, 75 years ago, we lost to bullets our beloved Federico Garcia Lorca.
They disappeared you
on the 16th of Aug
and assassinated you on
a moonless night one or two days later.
in 1936
you had died for all time.
fifty years later a memorial was erected
on the spot where you were killed.
in recognition of your talent
in apology of your end.
and while you weep for Ignacio, our
flood of tears are for you.
– Hoc Scripsi
Garcia Lorca, I love you for all time.
the platitudes of willful resemblance 