May 10, 2014
Sunny day, Saturday, the day before Mother’s day
And I don’t feel like posting but think I should.
Sitting on the back porch and enjoying coffee – or what of it we can (see previous post) – smoking and contemplating the universe at last. Too much brain activity for such a beautiful day.
What looks to be six week old kittens peek their heads out from under the porch so we feed them and wait for them to brave the unknown world that is our backyard. An admittedly scary place – the world, including the backyard.
I think of David Ignatow – “The world is so difficult to give up” – I have maybe a half dozen poems memorized and that is almost another – it’s the second line I have trouble with and sometimes in the middle I remember a different poem and start that one instead. I used to have Poe’s “The Raven” committed to memory but now all I hold onto is the first verse. Shame, really. No-one seems to memorize poetry anymore. I’ve committed none of my own to memory and I ought.
the world is so difficult to give up
tied to it by small things
my eyes noting movement
color and form
I am watching, unable to leave
for something is happening so I stand
in a shower of rain or under a hot sun
worn out
with looking
– David Ignatow
the line breaks are wrong, I know and I cannot remember where they go – but this is a close approximation.The world is difficult to give up, but we must. The party will indeed go on without us and in this we must find comfort.
I smoke again and contemplate something closer – more tangible than the universe – my mind isn’t great enough to realize the many stars and the shear insignificance of our own. Earth, the only planet in our Solar system not named after one God or another, our planet is named after it’s dirt. I contemplate its constant survivor, its hero – the tardigrade.
July 15, 2011
Post 400
and my readership is at an all time low. I blame my choice of switching formats and web addresses.
I thought I would make an interesting post it being 400 and all but I am not feeling interesting today. This means plainly that you ought to read the previous posts, the ones that led to this moment in time, marked by a simple heading and celebrated by taking four kittens to the vet.
I have eleven years worth of poetry that has only ever been read by the recipient and never republished or even copied. This is a detour from my modis operandi which dictates that I keep a copy of everything unless it is crap and deserving only of trash heaps and recycling.
I think that after my death there may be a collection out there titled “love letters” – but it may be that they are always kept private. as it is they are not mine, I wrote them but K owns them, they are hers and only she can dictate their offering. It is my job to create the market for that particular collection before I die – as if I kicked it right now there wouldn’t be enough interest – save the few hundred that have purchased my initial offering.
Do all writers obsessively keep copies of everything? Once this would have been labor intensive but is now quite easily done with the technology that has erupted around us. Even in the age before the widespread use of computers many writers used carbon sheets as I am sure I would have done if in that age – now I use a copier that came attached to the printer which came attached to a fax and all together has the ability to scan things.
but all this is off subject – or I haven’t a subject. The kittens cost me nearly 500 today and we are giving up one of the seven cats that inhabit our household this evening. Over the next few weeks we will be two kittens short of our current count and can then start considering colleges as there are too many bodies occupying this house at the given moment.
I am gripped by my body’s sense of humor.
the platitudes of willful resemblance 