Posts tagged ‘literature’

July 3, 2013

When the coffee maker starts on fire

by jhon baker

I don’t post much but there isn’t really all that much I want to say. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately but the concentration has been one pointed and into a realm that I don’t want to harp away at on my blog – see the previous post – but I need a new roof as this one has failed me (still thankful to have one), a new washer because the old one had failed me (so did the new one which I am receiving a replacement for today), the basement flooded and we are drying it out ever so slowly before relaying the carpet, and the coffee maker lit itself on fire of which we are using a back-up until we get around to replacing the old one.

It is important to always have a back-up coffee maker that gets occasional use to keep it working properly.

I haven’t been putting much out for publication either, though I spent the first few months of this year writing and a lot got written. I am wondering how it all turned out mostly. I am never a good judge of my own poetry – I either think it is all crap or all beyond compare – depending on my mental state and state of medications. At the moment I cannot recall the last submission which is still waiting in the wind for acceptance or denial and it is bad form to have simultaneous submissions which I have done and there is a handful of poems with multiple publishing credits. I’ve been hoping no one noticed and I don’t think anyone has. So, I wait for this last batch to be rejected or accepted before I start to send out more.

some poems

 

some poems take years to write

some only minutes

every other poem is in-between

and none so far has taken more.

 

like Bukowski, Williams, O’Hara

I am a writer of poems

short poems

long poems

most a few in-between

like all creatives I am

notoriously unreliable in action

chasing down the inspirations

with a stick in one hand

a pen in the other

months of missing my prey

and weeks of eating well

and growing fat

 

but I write on this IBM Selectric III

and drink coffee like it was religion

no longer getting drunk or drugging

my days away

and slipping into the nightgown of poetry.

now they all come fully dressed

with ten fingers typing

furiously in fits and starts

mostly done during the day.

 

I am nostalgia interrupted

a willful resemblance of another time

before my iMac and laptop dominated

my final drafts and submissions

email rejections or acceptances

 

I haven’t stamped an SASE in years

or walked to the mailbox hopeful or dreadful

waiting to throw away another poem

such as this.

 

– Hoc Scripsi

 

My beard is long and the shampoo that we are using makes it wiry. it is too wet to ride my motorcycle today. I am waiting for the new washer and I hate to wait. Not that I am impatient, but that I am interested in doing other things while my son is at camp and I can do other things. Tomorrow is the annual holiday of our independence (in the USA) and I don’t do much to celebrate it – even when invited to a party there are other things I’d rather be doing. I’d rather be writing even though I’ve no ideas and, for the moment, the inspira has found other avenues for its own expressions.

June 8, 2013

I suppose

by jhon baker

I suppose that I ought to post something. I don’t have much to say. So, this may well be short or a ramble or a short ramble or something about god.

I am an atheist. I know some of my Christian followers will stop following now and are offended at the very thought. But there it is. I am an atheist and have been most of my life. Do not pray for me – if you are going to waste your time do it on something that will at least make you feel better. So, a few questions answered:

1. If you are an atheist, why do you write about god, Judas and the like?

Well, regardless of the veracity of the belief – it is a powerful subject that evokes powerful imagery in the reader. Also, I write a lot about mythology as popular mythology is a subject that sustains my interest when a lot of other subjects do not. Modern religion is nothing other than modern popular mythology. Lastly, all subjects are fair game for the writer and the writer is not always the narrator of the poem – not even as often as you might think.

2. If you don’t believe in god where do you get your inspiration from?

Everything else. Well, that isn’t accurate – I find inspiration in everything up to and including modern mythology as noted above. Most of my inspiration comes from the observation of life as I see it and experience it.

3. without god as a part of your personal experience isn’t your life and therefore poetry devoid of deep meaning?

I find more meaning and mystery and wonder of life without all the answers – with all the answers everything just stops doesn’t it – or at least this is the way it seems to me. Believing in some god provides the answers for everything and the conversation seems to stop right there, there is no mystery and wonder left for science or poetry.

I’ll take other questions in the comments and probably make another post with those.

April 21, 2013

a luddite in the 21st century

by jhon baker

I have a subject in mind

but that isn’t what this poem is about.

 

Judas Iscariot, and I’ve been writing him

for months

but that isn’t what this poem is about.

 

drinking coffee and listening to the symphony

with projects that need attention all around.

at one time I thought I would stand while writing

to allow the body to sway into part of the meter.

but now I just sit here and type.

BANG BANG BANG

on the keyboard of a typewriter

a luddite in the 21st century

attracted buy the trappings of Steve Jobs innovations

but preferring to still use my old IBM

but that isn’t what this poem is about.

 

I’m trying to reach Judas Iscariot through song

to no avail, through prayer

but I don’t believe.

a hard poem to write and little is known

so I make it up and type on

BANG BANG BANG

really striking the keys though it makes no difference

to the imprint on the paper

but that isn’t what this poem is about.

 

later today I will rewrite this poem into my iMac

computer that’s sitting twenty feet away

and wonder why I didn’t write it there in the first place

but I know I know I know

and I will sit here again tomorrow and do the same thing

with coffee, symphony music and projects all around

that need attention that they will not receive.

but that isn’t what this poem is about.

 

what is this poem about?

I don’t know.

February 12, 2013

Sylvia – parts 1 and 2

by jhon baker

Sylvia part 1

I listen to your voice,
late November,

reliving a moment long
worn away by time’s
passing
and memory.

did you mean to see it out,
taste of poison
fruits? or come
back.
all questions lingering
and a scar,
a very real scar,
traces round our heart,

I’ll show you if you come to see.
no charge,
no heart beats like ours

out of the ash, we sift
and sift, but find
no more

no phoenix burning
the midnight air.

 

Suicide – Sylvia part two

February, 11 2013
you are gone today
fifty years gone
left,
without a word
after
a lifetime of words
each neatly arranged
each carefully reviewed
a life meticulously considered
but
you no longer suffer
and
your pain ended

I wonder what your last words were
who they were to
a goodbye and kissing your children
perhaps
a goodbye and that is all

how are we to mourn
each passing hour
is a passing day
and this just another
poem
about your death
which you couldn’t write
anymore

you staggered
and saw it out
confessional until the last
asleep
on a pillow
the sun rising to meet its
worshiper.

 

– Hoc Scripsi

December 26, 2012

post holiday lego building

by jhon baker

Listening to The Black Keys and sitting with my son while he builds his Lego Teenage Mutant Turtle sets, earlier I built one of my own Lego sets. Big Ben. As an adult there is still the ever burning love for Lego.

The main concern after holidays is where to put all the new stuff – in my case it isn’t hard as I got clothes I needed, a few seasons of my favorite television show and a lot of books – but for the boy, more toys means a need to clear out space and think about donating things he has aged out of.

There is really nothing I have to say here. I am mostly out of the depression that lasted beyond my ability to handle – four months of complete darkness preceded by decent creative impulses and followed by a stiff climb out and a slight return to forms of creativity. I have started several poems and am thinking my way though the basic outline of a novel/memoir with embellishments and the ability to deny anything – This story is based on realish events and the people have altered names and are realish representations of the folks that they are modeled after – liberties will be taken where I do not want to relive certain things and where the truth is too strange to be believed. Nothing will be cranked up beyond reality because reality itself is often itself unbelievable. If I write it as fiction I can always deny that the hero of the tome is myself and as I’ve often said of poetry…

– never confuse the narrator of the poem with its author –

sound advice.

I think John Berryman said it first or best – I know it wasn’t my brain to come up with it and once I had heard the valuable teaching I was free then to really create. Some constraints are good and some work against you like good friends who never want us to become successful.

I was going to put a poem here but I think I’ll post twice instead.  – Jhon

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