Posts tagged ‘insomnia’

May 13, 2010

the perfect blossom of a cherry tree

by jhon baker

I love the cherry tree for its blossom, I enjoy the fruit as well and can do neat things with the stem but in all reality the blossom is preferred.
it’s fleeting, beautiful and the center of many poems that range from okay to exquisite. O want to plant several in my yard and rid myself of the conifers. I wish to be surrounded by fleeting beauty, I wish to adorn my driveway with pink flowers that move like oceanic waves in the wind.
I’ve been awake for an hour now and wish that I could have slept through this storm, normally this is a non issue but not last night. After many years I had a good run of quality sleep and now this too has passed, I can honestly say I enjoyed it completely.
My favorite flower is the sunflower, I’ve yet to write a poem to the sunflower directly but it is not for trying. Those poems always end up about something else.

having trouble finding the way in

listening to Rachmaninov with lowered breath
while coffee cooks in the kitchen.
New York Philharmonic in zenith.
typewriter in ribbon bliss.

two floors down the Laundromat takes
four quarters to wash and four quarters to
bring the clothes and towels to a slight
dampness. two floors up, we dance on
tiled floor and make love on soft Chicago carpeting

some stop writing when it feels
finished.
some fight to line everything
correctly – verse/line/stanza.
others never thought about it and
just wrote until the words ran out.
I am fighting to make the end of this not read
‘soft Chicago carpeting’.

 – Hoc Scripsi

I am also listening to the Rach III while I write this entry out. The poem was written years ago and revised a year ago. I am able to date this one as it talks about when we lived in an apartment which was a very wonderful time that I know our retirement will look similar.
what follows may be vulgar so I am including a jump this time.

yesterday I happened to go off on another blog and misspelled a word that I inadvertently missed, thankfully I don’t consider my self the most intelligent person on the internet. The gist of the post was about how poets ought to do something more creative and vital to the planet than write poetry which the author considered a waste of time. my response is as follows. Warning: cursing, and strong opinions that aren’t necessarily the actual opinion of the author – just making a point…

A lot of people who ought to be smarter tend to base their opinion of poetry on a few so called poets. Most people writing poetry are writing crap and they are better off lighting their pubes on fire and dancing around calling it art.
I downright hate most poetry but I write poetry – I like fistfights, guns, calling the other guy a cocksucker and pissing in the wind if need be – I like to drink, I used to do drugs that weren’t prescribed and so on – in other words I am not like one of the pussies writing their tinkly pretty shit. I write poetry mainly and consider it a life pursuit. I don’t write a lot of fiction because it is a lesser pursuit that uses a lesser language and only one of 18-21 basic plot lines. best said as – prose is putting the right word in the right order, poetry is putting the best words in their best order – I agree with this but of course I would.
I guess what I am trying to say here is simple – fuck you if you think I am inconsequential, fuck you if you don’t try harder to understand the language of poetry, fuck you if you think poetry is not necessary. without poetry there is no language or without poetry the language dies. I think fuck is a perfectly good expression used by a great number of intelligent men and women.

I don’t think most of what I have written here is true for me 3/4 of the time. I just thought the last paragraph was and is how I feel. The first two are written more out of self righteous anger and I could easily write prose against those and mean it.

the coffee is hot and hand huggable, throat burnable, and mostly gratifying.

have a great day.

April 17, 2010

This morning

by jhon baker
Spending the morning listening to  vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot by Sparklehorse, which was Mark Linkous, who shot himself through his heart earlier this year. See this post for more about that. But this morning I am listening and saddened that he was in so much pain that it came to that. 
Most people I admire have committed suicide or lived so dangerously/recklessly that their death might as well been considered a suicide. This makes me worry unnecessarily for the people I admire that are still alive, but there are not many I admire and saying all are suicides is misstating the truth. Some have died as old men/women though not many.
The poem was written for my son.
the sun hides
   for Jackson

the sun hides
behind clouds &
cold wind
but
   wishes
      to
shine down on
my garden
for the flowers

– Hoc Scrips

Horribly tired today. Jackson got me up before six to play and look up information on Box Jellyfish – which I have learned I should be referring to them as Box Sea Jellies now as they are not fish and this was what J really wanted to know.

April 13, 2010

this title has been sent in place of the missing one.

by jhon baker

For the first time in my life my brain is more or less silent. I’ve wished this for years and now I find that it was better with the chatting and screaming, singing and forceful memories like forced voyeurism. I don’t think I was crazy then but to try and will it back into existence is a little crazy at least. It might be that there is more tiredness, last night I fell asleep around nine while I was trying to write. What a change – going from insomnia to somnolence and now to sleeping hard with occasional hypersomnia. Last night was an anomaly where I usually get about six hours of the hard sleep -(usually: these past two weeks.).
I tend not to write much when I am creatively involved elsewhere, like building a lemonade stand of furniture grade quality for my son. Today is the last day of painting it and then I start on new drawers for my wife’s kitchen cabinets. I will need to take time off to write consciously I think, and organize my embarrassing garage situation. Writing is the more important of the tasks, I would allow the world to fall to ruin (luckily it’s already there!) before I allowed my writing to be negatively affected.

Theater Underground has just published another poem of mine on their blog. it’s a good read and Patrick Tillett has already seen it and commented (thank you, sir) – don’t be left out!
TUG is a production company doing some of the best and edgiest plays of anyone around. It is especially impressive because one step too far and they lose it all as they are so small still. They have probably taken a few stops too far but it’s great theater. If you are in the McHenry, Illinois Area next weekend (16th & 17th) be sure to see the plays. they are not to be missed.
once again the link: Blank Pages

Today’s offering

Forget that the kitchen is so full of knives

Forget that the kitchen is full of knives.
You are so serious and
I worry because I love you.

The watches are broken with dead batteries
filling the catchall in the hallway;
how do you use up so much nickel-hydride?

You are so beautiful and I
masturbate when I think of you,
specifically on the couch,

in mid-afternoon when you are at work.

oh yeah, thanks for the paper.

– Hoc Scripsi

Commenting on this blog: a quick reminder. click on the word comments below and it should either give you a window or a box or both, or click on the title of this entry and it will give you a box at the bottom of the complete post. I so enjoy the comments I receive via facebook and I would like everyone to see them – unless they are personal. Comments can be totally random or on point, I don’t care I just like to read them.

March 15, 2010

I believe it to be Monday

by jhon baker

Monday morning, as I am an insomniac I’ve decided that posting this at 3 am is the best thing for me to do at 3 am.
This poem was published here not that long ago, I’ve wanted to repost it as the line breaks were removed from it for some reason. I hold no grudge but it reads better this way. It’s one of my favorites which probably means it isn’t very good. I think it is, the life forms looking through the windows remain silent on it while others have expressed interest but they don’t count as you can never expect people who care for you to be honest in such matters.
I am thinking about why more poets aren’t crazy these days, I think the answer to be simply that they are not poets. It is believed in the science community that about 95% of Poets (as opposed to people who write poetry to get laid) have a diagnosable mental disorder – while only 28% of the sciences. (professor Arnold Ludwig, MD, “method and madness in the arts and sciences”)
I am not Catholic but my favorite of the Saints is the relatively unknown – Juan Grande Pecador – which translates as – John The Great Liar.
I am responsible for the translation of de Andrade’s poem at the beginning, if there are any errors in this wonderful poem they are all mine and not his.

I SKETCH UMBRELLAS
TO REMIND.
OR,  JUAN GRANDE PECADOR   

“and now, José
the party’s over,
the lights out,
the people left,
the night turned cold,
and now, José?
and now, you…”
–    Carols Drummond de Andrade (trans. J. Baker)

1.

I sketch umbrellas to
remind,
and that I am tired of
being only a man.

Hungry all the time,
eating  avocado chicken
and tuna fish.
Drinking only coffee,
   water;
and sketching umbrellas
looking out from
third floor
balconies.

Closing mouth to
emulate good men, wise
to not debate with
women, enjoy
dreaming of youth but
disappointed in memory.
I am tired from this
and being only a man.

Naked and not
   entirely unbeautiful.
lights on, off,
standing, lying down.
Showing scars from
deep wounds.
Innumerable on my,
arms, chest, legs.
Chicago, Seattle,
South California tattoos,
trying to define shape
and color of self.
I am tired of this body
and being only a man.

I sketch Umbrellas
to remind.

2.

Juan Grande,
I am your son but
you are tireless.
Juan Grande,
I am you student.
Tired
from looking, or
searching or
questioning
or being
only a man.
Juan Grande,
how do you cope?

Juan Grande, I
use a typewriter because
it does not correct me and
it is faster then pencils.
Juan Grande,
I cannot be a
Saint because I am not dead.
I am not dead
tho’ I do not feel lucky
because of it.

I am only a man,
and in that, only
your progeny.

Juan Grande,
not nameless but
unknown father.
How is it that that
you made confession,
how is it that
you came to be a saint.

I sketch umbrellas
to remind,
and that I am tired
from being only a man.

I recognize
death, its face
and proximity. I
do not regret my life or
that I am only a man.
I am only a man
sketching umbrellas
to remind.

3.

Woman.
I am you lover
entering the bedroom,
distressing the bed.
Not dissimilar to tilting
at windmills trying
to surmount destiny,
or hallucination.

Woman, I am tired
from being a man,
cleaned body washed
on rocks by the shore.
I am tired from this.
Incapable of more
and incapable of less.

Woman,
it is late now and
you are still with me.
Tho’ I’ve offered nothing,
tho’ I will offer nothing.
You are still with me
tho’ I am broken
and resplendent with
anger. Tho’ I clench fists
at phantoms and shadows.
Tho’ I am only a man,
I sketch umbrellas
to remind.

4.

and lastly.

Stopping for a moment
to collect my thoughts.
I think of this attempt
at beauty. It is not an
attempt at describing your aversion
to be naked in the confines of
a shuddered apartment.
It is an attempt to show that,
even tho’ rarely thought about
or admitted,
nakedness is not hideous.

After all,
I am naked and not
entirely unbeautiful.
Only tired and
sketching umbrellas to
remind.

 – I wrote this.

I’ve noticed that, as where I don’t look at the keyboard while I type, I make a lot of mistakes while typing in the dark. Please indicate corrections that are necessitated by this lack of ability.