mmmccx

an anachronizm*

in which I present to you a poem

[the introduction of which you should have already received

approximately 24 hours hence]

the poem is constructed of actual text messages sent early

on the morning of april 13, 2021 which, at the time of this

writing, is yesterday. many apologies for my attempts to

create a sense of urgency or suspense or to highlight the

significance of what was to arrive and now has, here,

today. this poem, which I am posting late on the evening

of april 14, 2021, despite my enticements of last evening,

is the latest of three thousand two hundred and ten such

pieces which are part of a whole which I have been

building for almost two decades now, and for almost

nearly as long have been regularly posting here, via

blog, which is what I consider a wonderfully appropriate

means by which to present them. the one unique aspect

of this particular poem is that the text that follows is given

in the manner in which the exchange took place yesterday

and, and this is what makes it stand out, is placed in literal

time, noted in the way we normally do (see the dates that

appear above). whether you have just arrived for the first

time, or come and go with any regularity at all, thank you

very much for being here.

[of course, by now, i am pretty much nothing but a big red herring.]

feeling an emptiness of a sort, and having a desire to fill that void,

but without really wondering about it much at first, I text the follow-

ing to Marvin: “i wonder if you’ve read any of what i’ve been writing

of late.”

i have been thinking it has become a burden so many years of not having any real reaction and real time engagement of any kind, how important that has always been to me, or in more practical terms, how it was something that had always been there for me, i mean, i was pretty aggressive in making it happen year upon year upon year, but now just how there is this somewhat troubling cloud stirring in me for a long time and this morning it just dawned on me -- duh -- of course. this goes alongside a lot of this disengagement black hole that has been such a huge thing in my life since a bit before i was evicted. but i am only this morning even thinking about the performance and engagement side of art that totally disappeared and has

been gone now for over a half dozen years. it’s nice to suddenly get hit by this realization. of course it creates an echo chamber and makes everything seem too damned (gonna use an ‘academic’ metaphor here) onanistic.

so, now that that is clear, it ought to be a priority of mine to fix that problem. and in knowing it has been as severe as i now realize it has been, and that i miss that very much (and having it be so easy to think of this as some worthwhile process, too, so there's that), it ought to be something i should immediately go about remedying. also, it should be a piece of cake to do so, right? now that that i am struck by the obvious on such a subject as this. the doctor is in! hesitancy or unease on this subject: it’s a lot of ego. but ‘art’ for me art has always been social, reciprocal and, given that i was once upon a time (and so it’s still a solid part of me) a theater guy, really, it’s for better or worse impossible to dismiss the necessity of an audience.

but there’s a part of all of this that’s, well: the thing not to forget is that clearly i have one. an audience, i mean. not a throng, but a few, gradual, intermittent, but out there, if such things as internet links and website rankings and traffic statistics are, if that which those that tout such things flash in virtual neon as they swim around in the atmosphere, is in any way near accurate. (no wonder looking at those graphs and lists have boosted my aching eking spirit).

after a few minutes after sending that out, I receive this simple text back: “I wonder how you’re going to go about it.” my response: well, u know (or maybe not?) for most of my years as a writer (meaning since i was 29 or 30, which is when poetry took over as my - and i hate this word in this use, but it is the most appropriate given its general use in such circumstances - passion), i have regularly hosted ‘salons’ (another word for which, in this context, i am kind of turned off by) or poetry sharing soirees, poem-swaps, which were always a big deal to me. since quite a while before i was displaced that just hasn’t happened - for mostly obvious reasons. but i think i need to have as a prioritized goal rejiggering and resuming them in some way. and, rather than spend so much time bitching about having no local friends (while there still remain several individuals with whom I spent a lot of time believing that’s what they were, which has since been such a motivation suck when it comes to rebuilding such a group, but I digress – because i’m talking now about poets, and i never get close enough to other poets for such troubles to occur. . . ). . . .

anyway, for starters i think i shall use my texts on this subject to you, that question, and my response, pretty much verbatim, as my anachronizm for today. that would be a start, i think. and a way to sort of force myself to think more on this, which seems like what i should surely do.

*now that I have had my own place again for these 26 months. . .
 (alternative title)