Posts tagged ‘Tom Waits’

July 20, 2010

the dirty bookstore

by jhon baker

The therapist has urged me to start keeping a record of my dreams – I think to try and suss them out. This morning I awoke about five -thirty and recorded the two that were still screaming in my head; dreams, at least mine, are schizophrenic. Interesting to record when everything changes instantly, without segue.
I went to the bookstore to try to locate an appropriate dream journal and was unimpressed by the selection. I have a collection of unused notebooks that I keep on hand so I really didn’t need to buy anything and I left the store with books for my son and Mojo magazine edited by Tom Waits, no journal. I decided to simply use the one already bedside that I record my day in and to double it’s purpose, I’m sure it doesn’t mind. This particular bookstore was dirty and badly arranged but with no dirty books to make the scene complete. There was a section of art books that I am sure people could find obscene but that doesn’t make them porn and there were books that I found obscene but for reasons of how poorly written they were and not the content of imagery.

today in 1969 Buzz Aldrin did a two step on the moon – I don’t believe that I’ll do anything that interesting today.

July 19, 2010

this is what I am thinking as I am picking the sleep from my eyes.

by jhon baker

Had a nap yesterday that didn’t feel like a nap and last night didn’t feel like sleep until about seven am which lasted until roughly nine. I’d call it sleeping in if the night was full of sleep. Most nights since I stopped taking the anti-psychotic have been fine but the main reason to stop taking the meds has not reversed itself as of yet. My mind is still clouded and the creative drought still exists. There is the other thought that I am splitting my mind between too many things right now to be able to concentrate on new poetry or prose.
I decided this weekend that I ought to have been applying labels or tags to each of my posts for easier reference. As I had not been doing this I am now going back and having to skim each one to apply the labels or tags and avoid the temptation to revise and rewrite passages that are not on the level of quality that the others are. Last night I did over a hundred thus completing the bulk of them and tonight I may finish the project but now I am thinking that I would be better off thinking of about 15 tags and only utilizing those which would mean that I would have to start over. I am not being kind to myself.
This morning is a Tom Waits morning and currently the song “Kentucky Avenue” is playing – brings me to tears every time.
My coffee is good and thanks to Kara for making it this morning when I was refusing to rouse myself. There is nothing better than walking into a kitchen where there is fresh, hot coffee and clean mugs – I drink it black and burn your fingertips hot.

I wonder what is done with medical waste and what will alien anthropologists think when it is found?

I’m almost sure there is a simple explanation but I am too nervous to use Google thinking that flarf may lead me into a new direction where there exists the pornographic denizens of the internet.



Words are dry, meaningless

words are dry,
expression faceless.
the ladybugs came here to die
on my window;
baking in the sun.

a hundred portraits
unhung,
composing city life.

walks along South Michigan
in Chicago;
children think I am homeless
and dirty.

find Buddha in the patrons .
find Buddha in the hall.
find Buddha on the front steps
of MOMA.
je suis beau!
find Buddha in me!

on these steps I ask for a light;
and I am
not thinking that I’m going to write this
a year later, or more, sitting at
my desk. where
ladybugs come to die
on my window.

– Hoc Scripsi

April 15, 2010

vajazzle

by jhon baker

this morning I got nothing. I titled this as I just saw a video on it and am left wondering why why why??? neat, but only while naked, shiny and possibly blinding with hands on hips.

Anyway

I’ve never met the man who isn’t torn between

clean, sober, right,
shame, bottle and heartbreak.

who isn’t sliding toward the selfish decision;
who isn’t the man he wanted to be.

prescription drugs, narcotics
bad poetry, tense moments

of quietude and longing.
leaning against rail fences

sun shining on his face.

 – Hoc Scripsi

I’ve been listening to Tom Waits all morning and this is maybe why I got nothing. This morning is about Tom Waits, which I was also listening to while watching the video (super soft porn) – so, admittedly, it was strange and leaves me wondering if I will forever associate – Way Down in the Hole – with Vajazzling, this might alter my life in the negative making it necessary to either get back on narcotics, heroin or simply up the other prescription medications.

 I think that I put the finish on the poem this morning (before the video), but I also know that it has been in the works for a few years and was simply bad on a reread yesterday. I axed more than half the original lines and wrote mostly from scratch.
So, as it is rare, I reach out for opinions.

gratis.

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