words of a people aligned in their perfect order
two days ago the birds were singing
calling out for lovers
thinking it spring
today it is too cold to stand outside
unless you were getting paid
and even then…
Chicago winter in the 21st century
it rained yesterday and then
snow fell all night
but waking only to an inch of it
not worth it to shovel the drive
not worth it to get the mail
not worth it to smoke and look
at the grass peeking out from under the snow
even the windows are frozen shut.
January, 31st 2013
– Hoc Scripsi
idle incognito
rifling closets and clothes hampers
looking for colorful oxfords
tumultuous
and crying with one hand on the bottle
and one foot on the brass rail
(but don’t interpret)
in dream
childhoods bedroom
reading
each written line in each book touched, screaming
magazines screaming, wallpaper screaming
I’m screaming, bloody and wasted
(this is no way to conduct a dream)
I follow her into bathroom, now a party,
we kiss grab ass and I’m hard
when I awake temporarily and tremble
step outside for nicotine relief
refusing to return to same dream
wearing no underwear, underwater
(accept drowning as part parcel)
sweating,
dark,
naked,
sheets, pillow soaked
– awake
retreating to thought and space
(!)
I’ve lowered my standards,
the problem might be that I had them in the first place.
you easily forget when you were at your best
in endless pursuit to surmount each previous work
and your output dwindles until you are
only writing fifty poems a year
which I guess is fine
though it is easier to say more if so inclined
and uninhibited
by meaningless constraints and various medications.
but don’t worry,
I’m still on the medications.
– Hoc Scripsi
There is little I want to write. That is a lie. There is a lot I want to write with no ideas of where to start. Looking for the in and cross wire of the brain athwart the limbic inhibitors, the shorted fuse of creation.
once this happened:
while at work
in the backroom
I heard the opening air of Nina Simone
singing ‘Lilac Wine’ and fell in love.
I wept openly listening and made record of singer and song.
going out that night I bought her catalog
and weep still every time I hear her voice.
this is unrelated:
My throat blisters from the burned soy in four shots of espresso.
I write the best when I am clear minded and mood stable.
I am having an off day, if I were more able I would spend the day in bed and slumber it away but cannot.
but that was the other day and this is a different odd day where nothing of much import is happening.
But here is a poem.
tenuous best
three thirty comes on too fast
echoing distant
distant heard
the world the way it is
tenuous best
mark of a truth
scorned, proffered
alone in a room
and you think Allen Ginsberg had it tough
writing, holy beard hanging down
poems about cock, assholes
poems about plutonium bombs
at least Jeffers offered his Judas
who suffered, agon
meant to be played out, on stage
offering to the thousands.
– Hoc Scripsi
the platitudes of willful resemblance 