over two decades in the making.
a timeshifting autobiographical poetry collage w/photography.
a diaristic, nearly "daily writing" (ad)venture.
new pieces are posted most days..
**new and in progress** --
recordings of each poem are being added.
these are read by the author & posted to each poem's page.
--Del Ray Cross (contact delraycross at gmail)
But could it that my next tomorrow a regular day might be?
I sound such the sap but I’m not full of crap or at least so full as you might see. Be. Cause.
Could it be?
Who’d even know?
Might it though?
Look at me while
you blow smoke up my ass?
If you’ve got to ask then just think what you want, I don’t blow up your butt just to tease.
Oh, could it be? (Look at me!)
Might we see? (I’ll say!)
One day will come like a prickly pear! You’ll stick your poor thumb, and I’ll say there, there!
And blow it a kiss something very like this [and look! there it is just a’flying through air, making noises like whiskitty, shishkitty-doo and we watch as it flies making curlicues,
shish-shish-shish-shish goes the kiss (goes the kiss) shush-shush-shush-shush a red blur (looks like mush)
moush-moush-moush-moush coming in for a landing whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo i think it just missed you].
What if tomorrow it comes in a way that is quite very opposite of our today? What’ll be normal? We’ll hope and we’ll pray that we’ll be together (yes we’ll be together) oh we’ll be together (you’re damned right, we’d better!) oh we’ll be together tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow and in such a way that by tomorrow
you know that we’ll surely have forgotten today.
We’ll start fresh, a new normal, tomorrow, so that what is unusual’s not what’s today, that’s tomorrow, not this very day, yeah, hooray!
What was unusual will then be just yesterday (yesterday yesterday yesterday); all of the humdrum and tragical yesterdays! From here on out only happy tomorrows! (No more dreary dismals...) (Here come the cheery whistles...)
Yes!
Everything’s normal tomorrow, and happy and carefree and gay. Wash away all of your sorrow today today today today. For soon it will be tomorrow, normal and happy tomorrow, having washed out our yesterdays once and forever
(Washed them all downriver with baritone)
(Our toil and our teardrops the rapids they took them no longer our problems thank God we’re upriver oh shouldn’t someone run to Downriver City to warn those poor folks that it’s their turn now to
sing all the blues?)
(Their turn now, they’ll be singing forever!).
So let’s hold hands together and walk up the river the opposite way.
And so there we went all right in a line walking upriver backwards all feeling sublime. And some say they heard them up Michigan way, but could not quite see where they got to that day. And some say they heard them in Canada, too. And I think that, just between myself and you, they’ve made it up north so far, this happy crew, that they’ve carved up a whole bunch of cubes of packed ice and made them- selves a big tabernacle igloo. And what do you bet that
each is as warm as a good heart beating?
I guarantee you that
they’re still up
there singing.
And I’ll bet that they’ll stay there a very long while, too,
just singing the happiest tunes as they do, while they’re out- living me and they’re outliving you. No doubt in my mind,
I’m having a little con- undrum you see, trying so hard to get you. “What’s to get, really?” Exactly! So every day I am all up in your face, surely in- vading your per- sonal space... “Uh huh?” ...seeming as sure as the nose on your face to be Mr. McNeedy McGreedy III. “Uh, so you think that I think you’re that much of a turd?” Whatever the case you must think me just selfish, my one goal in life to mono- polize your every single.. “Now, hold it right there do you think me so sluggish, so power- less, so incapable of escape?! Oh, good grief, get a grip, that’s enough of your lip! Just this once I demand...” You...demand? I demand, yes indeed, that you finish this story, what’s your point, what’s your goal, what the hell, what’s your worry?” All at once, and as if they had both had enough, one moved forth with a kiss that was planted quite rough. Oh, dear, I don’t think I “Shut up!” And from thence- forth the two could be found always chasing each other in such a great fuss that to any keen eye they would be but a blur in the distance such that one couldn’t tell who was who, just the two of them, one never without the other, a train with two cars just on the horizon: engine a’puff with caboose in tow. But nobody’d know quite which one was the en- gine, and who it was chasing so happily after. And don’t you just know how the townies would wonder, “Who’s the caboose?” and “Which one is the engine?”
He doesn’t call the children young pups anymore; no longer does he call them kids. Even when he jokes (which tends to irritate his arthritis), for example, “But what of the youth of Peru?” he’s all con- cerned, he swears he has to know not only when but who. If some- one deigns to answer, he thinks he hears: “Nobody knows. Who can say?” Or is it that only the youth know, and that the secrets are ostensibly under their protec- tion, their jurisdiction? It is as it should be, he knows he wants to think. The purposes of utterances, the language given off by singular bodies and then that can be read so loud and clear by such a large and agitated crowd? Voices heard by soldiers coming at him at an all- too-menacing pace? Electricity- riddled, nearly indecipherable sounds that come by way of megaphone? Are each of these but meant to throw me off? he wonders, milling about the few distinguishable crowds. To throw me off? As if I were a bloodhound with such singular focus and with distinct snarls each of these throngs are none but criminals who’ve stealthily scattered all of the gutted or brained parts of a dinner fish, that has of course such a con- centrated, penetrative stench, so dense I’d learn to eat like them, my brain so overtaken by the smells of such a lazy dinner. I’d use their humil- iating, metallic sticks and prongs, I’d sit upright, my tailbone pressed out flat into the spot that’s design- ated mine, and we’d begin a long and easy feast that wends its way deep into the night so that by the time the last thin bone’s been licked and my man- ipulated senses have just begun to come to, all the rest of the guests have, and with assistance, made their ways down endless hallways, being led ’round just enough corners, some going left, some going right they’d have no idea at all in the light of morning, at least without their kindly servant, how possibly to get back to the grand hall. He makes a quick survey of each plate still sitting atop the mighty table; not even one seems to reveal a hint of what’s just been done. And then he makes a whiny run un- derneath and down its entire length – there isn’t even a paltry scrap. It’s on- ly then that this poor soldier begins to see a bit, begins to wake as if from one long hungry dream. His jowls begin to wobble this way and that as he stops and starts, darts left at just about the same exact moment that he darts right, his eyes all a’fright as his whine begins again to be at first but barely audible until the decibels they rise along with the pitch. Yes, only then he sees the evening’s games for what they’ve been, and yet again: a set-up, a fiendish ruse, that hellish joke, the butt of which was hunger, and not just anyone’s, his own. Exhausted, his very bones, along with those he thinks he’s just ingested grow ice cold, the old whippet shivers as he then slinks to- ward a furnace that is usually, even at this late hour, filled with yet some glow- ing embers. And once he’s there, a piece of cloth that had been hanging from his mouth, a napkin, really, he gently drops upon the rock surface of the floor, just on this side of the hearth, and then he lowers down his thin, emacia- ted body, eyes almost already fully closed.
Mother Goose The Penguin Toucan Sam Kentucky Fried Chicken Culture Vulture Turkey Lurkey Swan Song Foghorn Leghorn Jailbirds Road Runner Dan Quayle The Baltimore Orioles Torchic The Twitter Bird Tweety Bird The Red, Red Robin That Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin’ Along, Along Anne’s Hummingbird Rufous Hummingbird My Little Chickadee Björk Woody Woodpecker Kitty Hawk Owl A Bird in the Hand Humpty Dumpty Robin Williams Ernie the Giant Chicken Polly Charlie Baretta’s Fred Lady Bird Johnson Mumble Angry Birds Larry Bird Big Bird Miss Prissy Birdman Blaziken Cornelius Robot Chicken Feathers McGraw Two in the Bush Walter Pidgeon The Phoenix Coq au Vin
But you, of course, aren’t here. It’s been over a year and a half, in fact, since I’ve had even a visitor set foot in my apartment. I’m having so many random thoughts this morning. It’s going to be a really good day. I’m not sure why that’s stuck inside of my head, along with everything else that is right now, at such an early hour. Because it sounds like it is raining out? Because a couple of minutes ago we texted each other a few words. Well, he texted me a few words. Mine were, as usual, a bit more than a few. For a moment all of the good feelings I have about this upcoming day are wearing with each line that I write with my pink felt tip Papermate, which I now notice matches the circular mouse pad I use that has gold, violet and pink stipes across an off-white
background, a pattern one
might see through a Louis
Vuitton window, I think, or in Goyard, which I think of as a similar but more colorful depart- ment store that I’m not even certain is in business anymore. Stores pop up out of nowhere when you’ve believed them long out of business existence, if you’ve (I’ve) even thought about them at all – but, to me, they simply cease to exist when the local store is suddenly shuttered and I’m left with wondering but for a short moment before the mem- ory of it ever being there is gone. I say these things as if they’re what everyone presumes, but these are, as far as I know, my own thoughts this morning, no matter how it might seem they’d qualify as somewhat universal. Why it is these lines are now somehow juicing my
mood back up to close to where it was at the top of the page I really do not know, but isn’t it fortuitous, though? As the pink ink – and I can tell you here that there is a more appropriate name for this color that I, as usual, cannot begin to recall; so what is there but for me to call it pink, as the more specific name of it
I’ll no doubt never learn –
as the pink ink is emptied
from the pen which I ever so
lightly grasp, and as it moves
from one line to the next,
leaving a more legible than usual (for me, these days) trail, the speed with which I do this: ever slower and slower. One thinks the death of a close loved one such a melancholy notion that it seems we often block or shield the thought from our imagination, it’s just too tragic for us to think it. And
then it happens. Or is this,
like the rest of these pink thoughts, just me? When
such a tragedy hits, does it
not seem for at least a length
of seemingly incessant time just too sad an experience for anyone of us that is left here to live. Of course it is that. Of course it’s one more thing that sitting here this morning, having just awoken only a few minutes hence, I am thinking. And so I pause, for just a moment spilling not a bit
of pinkish purple ink, thinking that I must have a mostly offset perception, one that is just a little bit unusual, about the death of ones that are held dear, and not just after the dear one that has departed, whether
recently or a long time ago,
but in particular if it’s recent, in particular someone you or I may have loved, held very dear, but all of a sudden is no longer, is but, as it can be said, newly departed, the one that was loved but is now gone. How one’s outlook, one’s general disposition must in particular affect how one might generally perceive such passing; who can unfix such predetermined notions, I wonder, on this cool San Francisco morning, as I sit in my cozy pad atop my more and more comfortable bed. My place, the home, the room in which I have lived for, now, over one year and a half, feels so much softer than it did when I first arrived. How that happens, how a place changes so irreversibly once it has been lived in. What seemed like such a miniscule space filled with such solid stops, such hard-edged corners – corners that are tucked in here and there and at such solemn angles; corners poking about, as well, nothing but dead-hard ends and edges – and yet, look now at where I sit, how small I am, feeling almost sensual, facing my black, circular fan, the Honeywell, that today is sitting atop a box that sits also upon my bed and it is leaning, the box, and it’s wrapped in a soft and fuzzy-looking linen, leaning like, I think, just now, having not had such a thought about this box, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so that the circular Honeywell fan that sits atop the box is almost touching, my face as it softly blows the air that is in my room into and around my mouth, my hair, my nose, my ears, my scalp and all the skin the surface of my face
(and isn’t a face but a surface?)
is made of, as
I write, the pink- or whatever- colored Papermate, wriggling around in my sort-of-almost grip, the ink makes curlicues and slashes, strides and gashes almost indist- inguishable from each other and again, and even slower, has now reached and soon thereafter finishes doing so at the very bottom of this lined page atop a most comfortable spread, what I suppose would actually be called a coverlet right here beneath me, between my skin and the sheets that sit upon the mattress that is the top of my very comfortable bed.
Did I introduce you to my new Elephant? His name is Lawrence. [...] You’re probably thinking how
Rotten I surely Am to force this creature into subjugation. Yes, well, I have needs, too. And I’m
Compassionate. The life it led before would Rip the heart right out of you. I mean. Who knows how Old a pachyderm dreams of living? But in the Serengeti, man, life expectancy Sucks! What else was I supposed to do?!
The Joy & Happiness; That Part When There Is Pleasure
I think that it is time for me shuffle off to bed.
Somehow from then to now I seem to’ve gotten tipsy in the head.
When was this then and how? What’s there to tell, and truth be told the point is well
beyond the scope of what I’m capable of explaining anyway, as it were, if you know what I mean,
and don’t you? I catch and lock your eyes just so I might theorize or postulate or empathize with such a question.
Was there a question? It must have come from you, aw, hey, don’t take a bit of this in the wrong way. Oops!
And yikes! Didn’t mean ta nearly, did I, I think I almost nearly knocked you over.
It may come as quite a shock my friend but often when you’re holding the baloney, and I might have the
mustard in one hand if not the bread in the other, that I so often wanna come right up with whatever might com- plete your sandwich –
your ear for example just begs to be the oh so tasty meat what’sit called it’s
really just baloney but oh honey [this directly in his ear so only he can hear]
morda- mortal- MORTA DELLA that’s I’m sure exactly how am azing these
perk uppa poppa taste – I mean how could it mat ter whether I am dignified enough to mis- pronounce it
when geez louise my god [she’s got one breaded and has licked the whole peri- meter of whichever ear is nearer her]
HOly liverwursted macaroons!! that’s EXACTLY how I knew it had to WOW, [and she was gone and out the door and dear, poor Lipschitz’s blood- red ear was left
just hanging there between two quite sophist- icated slices of bread.
Aside from getting the most joy, the most pleasure, the most happiness out of life and of being good and decent, the best I can, doing what I can to make the world a better place – aside from striving my best achieving those goals in as consistent a manner as is humanly achievable (in tandem, which means no martyrdom for me) – there is one additional goal that completes the triumvirate of how I choose best to live, and that is, quite simply, being as honest, being as authentically myself as is feasible, in all areas of my life, both seen and unseen. Volumes could be written, have been written, on each of these typical human endeavors of morality, and because things like pleasure, happi- ness, joy, decency, good and honesty are so subjective, several additional volumes could be written more just to provide detailed rationale for what these mean to me. The same could be said for how each work together (particularly since they can so often work against each other), and also how to balance these factions in such a way that they not only do not compete in any deterrent way, but rather,
remain at all times a priority without causing
too much strain on each other or on self. I find that these rulers of life, or ways of being, as complex as each are, can complement each other in some profound ways. I know this because these, along with a continual effort of prolonged and intense and (ideally) lifelong engagement with other human beings, can be harmonic, which means of course that I am in my words and deeds, as often as possible, working with others, while keeping
these regulators of happiness or pleasure, of good or
decency, and of honesty as a guide' they are my very
bible, my religion, my spirituality, which, as it turns out, are areas in which scientific method can be applied. Each are quantifiable. For example, joy can be quantified: I can find the proper amount of it, of effort or energy that I require, that I need to use, in order for the specific and just as quantifiable results for which I am aiming, or what I need to do in order to achieve the results,
those feelings,
that pleasure that
I desire. I’m not suggesting that I am perfect, nor do I say I am quite mathematician enough to do any of this any- where near perfectly. But I can say that if practice does not quite lead to perfect, then it gets you closer and closer to it. These attempts to juggle such lofty ideals can be tried and tried, ad infinitum, and I can therefore get better and better at determining for myself what works and what doesn’t, and inevitably, or at least until I am no longer in this world (this religion assumes that some positive effects that result from my individual effort will, in some cases, continue to remain in effect, so to speak, will be perpetuated, for at least some length time after my efforts have been completed, which could mean that some beneficial residuals may still be around long after I am no longer a life on this planet) - so I have no qualms at all going about these actions, this work I do towards perfecting formulae such that I am continually improving, on the whole. Now, while I would certainly love and do indeed endeavor to have some sort of dialog with you or whom- ever on this particular matter, and do not imagine that I am here just to coax anyone into my way of living, but for now, this has, at the very least, been, I do hope, informative. I really must tell you how fortunate I feel just to be here, living how I do. However, I should probably end here before going into any of the more nitty-gritty details of how and why I live this way; how I put it all into effect, that practice I always keep trying to perfect. My impetus for telling you any of this was that I was thinking about the difficulty of being honest, how difficult just that one aspect of this is, how nearly impossible, even. So I was going to tell you some things about how I go about being as honest as is feasible, being as me as is possible, in actions and thoughts, whether I am seen or unseen, as consistently as I can, at least insofar as doing so does not in any compromise or tear down at the other important factors for
which I continually strive, so long as it doesn’t cause imbalance in any inordinate fashi- ion. And the kicker: how best to do it all in an engagement-forward way. It all sounds pretty complicated, I guess. Perhaps it is. But it’s second nature to me. And, in my opinion, it’s a good way to live without the requirement for a belief in something that can neither be proven nor even seen in any sort of scientific way. It was the part about being as honest as is humanly possible or, as I say, feasible, that got me to writing these particular words, but instead, what I have given is a very basic overview of how I try to be best in this life. And now I am wondering about you, I have so many questions for you and for you and for you and for you. Ah, well, there is always so much to be covered, and only so much that can. However, I shall save these and, no doubt, many other ponderings, for up and coming days, shall we say? And you are duly invited, in case you are of a mind. You may, of course, drop by whenever you please just to see me through these words; and for such as that you have an open invitation. I always love to have the opportunity to show you a little bit more about myself, in this case specifically, how I keep myself in check, how I attempt to, with any consistency, be my most true self. But as for today, it is time for me to bid you a good night and, god-willing, I’ll see you again tomorrow.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Wow, what a glorious ride!” We’ve done it all, seen all the sites, been places we shouldn’t, gotten into such delicious trouble, some of which would be lethal to anyone less . . . Less what? And why are they at me like it’s a re- tirement party, a send- off, a going-away, the last leg of a rockstar’s Alzheimer’s tour? This is truly absurd, I could write a memoir, I could learn to speak Igbo, I could read the Koran. I could win several Oscars, I could father a child, I could run for an office, perhaps one where it’d be possible to find a nice job. I could cure my anxiety, I could wind up a guest on the hottest late night talk show, I might even then replace, say, Stephen Colbert, as late night’s hottest new host. I could anchor the news or become a philan- thropist, be part of a team of people who cure some infamous disease. I could run my own cult and make it ultra-benevolent, or break a world record, or sail out for a week in my brand new yacht. A few short years later, I might have a visitor who stirs me from my dream of revenge, the same one I have almost every night. It’s been ages since anyone at all has dropped by. I yawn as I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and I open the door to a pair of outstretched arms. Here’s the hug that you ordered, I can’t but oblige. As the two of us are wrapped in the warmest embrace, I ask him who ordered this, lean back and look at his face, which I recognize not in the least. “Here on my porch embracing a perfect stranger,” I say and sort of cackle a bit. “Well, my dear man, what’s say we share a pot of good coffee,” he doesn’t wait for an answer, is all but skipping right through the front door, “I’ve got none but the best, and it’s usually just me,” I say, thinking how absurd it is to have such a silly thought only moments before. “Retirement,” I whisper aloud after showing the stranger to the living room sofa, then making my way to the kitchen to brew up some- thing extra special. “Just imagine the things that I have yet to do,” I sing, and then head back, clutching the teapot, to check on the stranger who currently exists on my living room sofa.
Ferdinand (or, Some Business, A Bit of Spontaneity and More Reasons to Celebrate)
Hello, again! Thank you so much for dropping by. You might notice that these lines come across a bit less poetic than usual, a bit more, there may be no words to come up with here given the lines being compared, but please do go ahead and imagine this to be something in real time, a bit more casual, with gratitude, but just between me and you, collegial, convers- ational (Would you like to have one? I’m very available!). I do realize now how tricky it might be to suggest that this line or that as opposed to any other might be less formal than normal, given that our garbled author, that’s yours truly, being an upstanding, that is as far as up can be stood in such a place as this, and dutiful citizen of Haphazardland, a country or parcel of land of which he has always been its humble ambassador, (okay, its singular resident), you will always be welcome, you have an open invitation and, if you might want a fresh key to this fine and beautiful city-shaped parcel or parcel-shaped city, for your very own pocket, then please message me and a key will just that easily be yours. (Notice, of course, that I have wandered off course?) And what a lovely thing it would be, yes, it would not hurt to have a bit of company now and again, would it? I have had plenty of time to study up on being a most impeccable host. It would be so very lovely to put that research to some actual use.
That was a giddy prospect, but I once again got a bit de- railed, ahem, where was I, oh, yes. And as for the veracity of all that I am presently relaying, well, I can say with some con- fidence that you’d be most correct, no matter your answer. What I mean my dear friends is that if you feel me sincere, you think that perhaps I am pulling your leg, or any thing you might think of me that might have my truth, my veracity exist at any point in the line between those polar extremes, then you’d, of course, be at least a hundred percent correct. But take it from me, its mouth, I swear, it’s true, every bit of it, but, also, and more imp- ortantly, I humbly beseech you to tell me in earnest, precisely what best you would like me to be in correlation with the messages, that is, which I insist upon getting to you all today.
But in due time, my dear guests, those are enough con- undrums, let’s get on with this poem which, for now, I will say, is mostly just a list. What do you think about that? I wonder.
But first, I feel the need to remind you each that all this wondering about what this might be or that which has some of us slog- ging through trying to make too much sense, well, if you recall, my message was, I do hope, quite clear: do not worry so much about making any sense of anything because, by the time this verse gets to you all such queries will be quaint, and yet totally moot, for this verse, each line, indeed this entire _______ is whatever it is that you want to call it, it does what you say it does, is what you say it’s called should you so choose to call it an it, or say that it does what
you say it does. The choices, my dear, as to whether this here bunch of words is a thing at all is or at least will quite soon be yours to call (or not). But just for fun and for just a few minutes (until I am fin- ished) I have just now decided that I shall call it, for now, Ferdinand, and while you’d have no way to know that I’m scrolling up to the top of this virtual page right this very moment to more properly entitle this piece, this poem, this list, this _______ so that by the time that your eyes first meet this pixeled page you will have already discovered that the super-title noted has, as far as you’re con- cerned,always been none other than Ferdinand (So how about that?). I welcome you to fill in the blank however you please, displacing all other titles, all other such names that have come before it, as iteration if not affirmation of to whom our multi-personalitied page-dwelling species rightfully belongs.
Okay, next up is a small order of business regarding yesterday’s anachronizm, (the one you see next as you scroll down), because after I posted it I realized I had perhaps left out some important details about the poem that might more readily allow you to celebrate the birthday that is mentioned in the title. None of this matters, of course, as the gift, as we know from my all too inordinately long lecture, is no longer mine, but still, here are a few things I would have liked you to be aware of, as I think it just might have been helpful. So, it should be quite easy for me to relay. The title, as noted, Cinema Yosemite, is the name of a small book of poems that, according to the poem as posted last evening, turned twenty years old this year, and this is the truth, and furthermore, it was my first singularly authored book of poetry that a publisher would be kind enough to take that process to task, that is, to see it through to its birth as a book. That publisher, Pressed Wafer, was pretty much my dear and very missed friend, Bill Corbett, who was, I would always say, and still do, like a second father to me, who heart- breakingly passed away a few short years ago, and at a time for me that was so rough that we had not very recently even corresponded and I didn't find out about his passing until it had been months, I believe since he’d been gone. So as you might can now see just a little bit clearer, a celebration of a birthday or of even the existence of this book is, for me, synonymous with celebrating life and work and generosity of spirit, of being that dad who was already enough dad to his kids and to so many fortunate souls who were lucky enough to have, when crossing paths with Bill, not gone by unnoticed. He was so very good like that. And so, presenting that simple birthday piece to you was not with- out some small amount of misty-eyed nostalgia, wishing, as I so often do, that he were still here. Also, of some importance, and to clear up its, I think, unnecessary air of mystery, its every line was each of the first lines from each of my poems within the chapbook of poems called Cinema Yosemite, which has a bit, to me, astoundingly just turned twenty. Almost all of the poems were written within a year after I moved from one bay area to another, almost begrudgingly, as it were, from Boston to San Francisco. It was the summer of 2000.
It is among the gorgeous slopes that exist within this city’s perimeter that I have now lived for the longest duration of this lifetime. This is my home. And so, please know, the song is one, for me, of familiarity, comfort, and gratitude, as well as the countless other feelings and things I feel for and owe to this place, my home.
I will quickly just add that, I have also lived in other places, like Ohio, Michigan, and Jamaica Plain, with one tiny stop for a de- tour in Oregon worth mentioning, and I spent
all of my years of growing up in Arkansas.
So, home is never exactly one place, and whatever it means and wherever it is, is much more complicated than what I might say about it, and I would daresay that I am not alone in this lack, this consternation, this inability to tell you quite all that there is about what to me home is in totality, in abstract; what home is and what it means to me.
So now that we are all caught up, here is my silly new list for you for today, which is a few first lines from poems that haven’t been born yet (but nevertheless have first lines). In no particular order at all, and with me a bit wary at what this might look like when it’s put all together (but let us not worry, there aren’t all that many), here we go:
At Starbucks on Clay Street, across from the Transamerica Building, four days after Christmas, I met a man who claimed to be Meyer Lansky’s grandson.
This one’s just a title and an epigraph that I am not sure I am reading correctly, is:
Memory is weird. With the title
being Prince Pence the Fancypants.
Either the title or the epigraph,
not sure which, seems to be noted
as attributed to Tim Yu. Tim?
This one is only an epigraph, which I have here as attributed to Francesca Lia Block: He reminded her of a cigarette.
It goes on:
I’m not going to call this one “Working Class Dog” because it’s about me.
All she could think to say was “Love is a dangerous angel.”
This unfinished piece has the title The Diabetic and its first lines are: Crashed like an airplane emerging nosedown from low hanging cloud at a velocity best described by those looking directly up at it as “RUN!”
The years were not easy on his words. Can you imagine?
There is another title: Psychedelic Trip Out of Nowhere (and fast) to Hell (with a brief detour through Elysium). It has a subtitle, too, which is: An International Suspense Tragedy.
This is one that I remember being quite eager about a week or two ago. It begins: The bullies on the balcony got their come-uppance: ten purple nurples applied liberally by each sophomore member of the color guard.
I had a bunch of acrostic poem-drafts for a long poem in which there would be sets of fictional groups cross over into the worlds of separate fictional gangs (see for an example the poem posted last Thursday entitled The Ebony Mask) – but here’s one from that group:
Rescue Isn’t going well, “Hey, Demons! Hey Dickwads!! Let’s just Eat Robin
There are quite a few more, but I’ll close with some of the first lines from this unfinished poem, which I had entitled: The Mortality Smoosher.
“A buncha bad guys Came a’rumblin’ through. It was about the time of The Superhero Convention."
“Oh, yeah? ‘N then what happened??”
So much is always happening that at times it seems impossible, if one were to try and make such a list, and yet I do (I also trust this likely will come as no surprise to you). Open yourself up to the right frequencies (and these channels are so bountiful that there are plenty to go around for all of us), keep listening no matter what else you might be doing, then when you hear something, start writing it down, as much as you can, just what you hear, just as you hear it, then once you have time to look down at the pages and pages of so very often infinitely fascinating collage, such an astonishing admixture of words, of just stuff you pick up, how wild and how damned educational it becomes, at times, quite often, I’ll even say, at least for me.
The abutments, the juxtapositions of life are vastly entertaining, en- lightening, to be sure, and just mind-blowing, if one were to pause to consider the what comes next in comparison to what just came previous, not to mention the other infinite directions that to which one piece can be cross-circuited (and as
often or more, short-
circuited), so just as much from the let it go where it may, what can be strictly imposed, a decision by you or by me to take one thing, then another, then slap it together, whether literally or virtually this new amalgamation that can almost always with some observation and a bit of tinkering or scientific or artistic deducing, deducting, come out something so fine that it may be the foundation upon which you lead the rest of your existence, oh it is so extensive to even begin to try to define, a process that can be catalyst to such sublimity. If only I were
not always so romantic.
And, also, thank good
ness I am not!
Good night, and thank you all and each, for this unquantifiable amount of good stuff! Make more, why don’t we? Be more, drop by, read a little, say hello, tell me something, how you’re doing, it really does not matter at all what, but I can say that there surely is a good chance that it will turn out to be something so big we will have just as much fun and get into just as much trouble and spend even more time trying to quantify it.
I’m putting a little reminder into my calendar as I type this last bit.
Not being a meanie, me, I don’t (at least not presently) mean to deceive, repeat, do not intend to offer up to you or anyone else a thing but for myself. This would be true (and is) re- garding pretty much all you’ve ever gotten at least del- iberately from me. At least to me, it generally seems best, as much fun as a meaty role might be, to present as who I am not what I want to be or whomever I might think you’d want to see. But what to do, as often is the case, when try as I might, I am just not gotten?
Perhaps in cases such as these, it might be best, even as my every attempt is to present myself as who I am (or who I think I am), to art- iculate or in some way enunciate, or what I think I mean to say here is to, with my very presence and my actions articulate, elucidate the person that is none other but me, and once I’m done with that performance, like any artist who has just completed a work, a piece, I should
and happily let it go,
to say, in essence, this has been a presentation of me, then turn away and
simply leave, for once the piece is done,
or stronger still, what offering, be it
art or be it deed, so long
as it was purposeful, it makes
no difference how much effort it
might have taken just to get a
thing, whatever it might be,
to arrive as thing, a
sculpture, painting,
poem, song a
novel or a
dance, no
matter what a
person or some
persons put into it,
can this creation by any
means at all even so much
as exist until it is no more the
giver’s, or the artist’s, this thing,
whatever it might become, just isn’t.
That is until the gift belongs no more
to him or her or, in this specific case,
at least, to me, because, as gift
now given(with the flourish
of a final word or two)
it now belongs (like
it, I dare say, or
not) to you.
(What then
becomes
of me? you might or might not wonder. This act has most certainly,
The Three Witches’ Itches (A Carnival Drama in Three Short Acts)
Thema the Witch had but one wish. [Enter poor Thema with a megaphone through which she, caught somewhere between moan and drone, delivers this bit:] “Hello, I am Thema and I have but one itch, and that’s to be regal and sit on a throne.” Then Thema departs having offered her pitch.
Enter the wretched Thecla the Witch. There is but one thing for which this witch longs, and if you’ll only just listen she’s telling you now: “Oh, to be famous,” she practically scowls, “Oh, to be famous and have my own throng!” Once that is delivered, just as quick as she’d come, poof! she has exited, she is AWOL, Thecla’s gone.
Last, but not least, is our comic relief (only she doesn’t know it, the foolish ding-dong!). It’s Thisbe the clown, and this witch is renowned for her true aspiration’s quite hard to believe. But she goes about saying so all the day long (and this little secret’s be- tween you and me, she’s happy to demonstrate for a small fee). “Thisbe, come closer,” beckons Byron the barker. And she shyly obliges then she breaks out in song at a tempo that slows by the time it is done to a slow and increa- singly alluring crawl. She sings: “Oh, to be naked," our Thisbe goes on, singing, “Oh, to be naked, except for a thong.”
Take a good look at history (the American myth) check sell out —Cedar Sigo (from “Reality Is No Obstacle A Poetics of Participation”)
to which you might retort, chucklingly, “Well, buddy, I’d look inward,” or “That sounds like some real close friends you got
there.” These words would be said in passing (of course) such (at such velocity) that my canned response, “Ab- sence makes the heart grow…” al- ways at the ready, is practically (I mean, I could turn around, backtrack all
crazy-like, so
as to get with-
in earshot) impossible, since, words being words, must by necessity either be audible or legible in order to even be received, as it were, and everybody’s always in such a hurry, I lament, nay, mourn, catching the rate of my own gait such that I nearly trip over myself, and here I pause, a bit out of breath (the pause merely mental, as I’m still walking, albeit at a slightly reduced pace) to consider where it is that I was, and at such full- throttle, going.
the throwaway the rearrangement The Outlet The Herculean Task The Mystery The Toast The Drought The Interview The Park Bench The Stump The Draught The Grumpy Insomniacs The Edit The Ocean’s Mouth The Humans The Butch Queen The Song For Second Chances The Enabler The Handoff The Con The Misspellings The Subject The Big Blue Box of Memorabilia The Change of Plan The Pucker That Stuck the turn of phrase The New Alright The Tentative Titles The Sacred Act The Night Was Young and We Were, Too (and Also Perhaps Just a Smidge High) The Substitute The Preamble
I’m finding this morning that in all of the imaginary conversations that I’m having, I preface each portion of fantasy-speak with “I really have nothing to add to all that has already been so well said, however. . . .”
