Meaning, in this case, I’ve been
feeling not so very. Meaning I
am curious where this might take
me. I can always change the title
should it not quite work out, but
truth be told, I rarely if ever do.
Change the title, that is. I most
often begin with one, and some
times that’s what this will be
about and sometimes it’s so
unrelated as to cause confusion,
which I must apologetically and
yet impishly admit that I enjoy.
It’s not that I mean to poopoo
editing so much, even though
that’s exactly what I used to do,
so my apologies to Tim, to Steph,
to Cassie, Jennifer, Cynthia, Ron
and to all the rest of you fine folks
who’d listen to me overwhelm
the airwaves with my prolific
piles of mostly unedited stacks
of line after line, of page after
page, as they made their way
to you, whether or not a word
of it has been retained, or the
gist of my meanderings. Oh,
they made their way to you,
I know, and this is my happy,
my positive and my true. I
so miss all of you, I do. Have
seen not one of you but Cassie
since the Great Divide, and
that was thanks to Kevin’s
personal invitation to the
reading at, it was Alley Cat?
Another bookstore that has
subsequently closed. I only
saw Kevin once more after
that most lovely evening,
sadly. But what’s a poem
intent on pleasure, happiness
and hedonism without Kevin?
And on that note there’s David’s
Deli, still extant, but they serve
those monumental blintzes no
more, which is depressing, sure,
but the memory of those cheese
blintzes! Learning to be so very
alone is not so bad as all that,
especially after so many years,
because it’s only temporary.
That is what I tell the echoes
rattling around inside my head,
at least. And I have plans to
bring that to fruition. Plans
to murder this hermetic era.
And I will! Such fantastic
plans they are. And what
exactly is alone, anyway?
I mean, these days that
notions isn’t quite so
precise a description of
the me I am. Unless we’re
talking physically, of course,
and even that can be debated—
think, for example, of how many
people that fit (that live) inside
this fair building I have nearly
four years called my home, I
suppose. And while it’s true
that I so rarely hear from
any one year, from either
of you, but sometimes,
thankfully, just nothing
with such regularity as
when we held our swaps,
how so often we’d have
them. There are some
times I wonder how on
earth we managed, but
wow, what frequency
we’d meet and greet
and eat and read what
ever we had with us at
the time. We all go to read
whatever was read. It was
nourishment for me, for
body, for soul, for all of my
senses, and should our less
alternative lives have dumbed
us down the days previous,
well, I recall the energy most
of all that would, while in each
others’ company course through
me like some sort of electricity.
Oh, how you must have each
grown so incredibly weary of
my incessant voice. But in that
sharing, what sustenance. I, of
course, knew this, or would not
have been such catalyst implem
enting them to begin with; it was
not my first foray into such salons,
such engaging feasts of regularity.
But as the years of solitude wear
on, existing in this cocoon in which
I linger ever longer, one thing that
gives me pause is how I took such
bliss for granted. But. Rather than
be bittersweet in the least, I let the
moments specific and in general
from those days take me over, fill
me presently with that same bliss.
As often as I write, making utility
of the past, I’ve much less nostalgia
to which it must surely seem to
any who pay attention to these lines
than I, in actuality, cling. If you
can believe this, my most powerful
belief is this: now is the only time
to live. So, since these days, as
always, it’s living that I’m striving
for, as difficult as it may, in particular,
presently be, and also as I so empatic
ally started off these lines with such a
simple and intentional plea, to write
my happy, as it were, knowing full
well how much I’ve dwelt of late
upon such melancholic guff, which
is important stuff as well, the words
that have spilled directly from my
elevated and hopeful experiment
have in truth accomplished just
exactly what I set out from that
moment to do—and yet it feels
to me as if I might should take
this fair demand a bit further
into action. How hard would
it, in this reality be, to find yet
one more small group, a set of
individuals who could on some
occasion come to sit together
with our individual pages filled
with our own words we write
(like these of mine) and share
them each with the others, one
and all? Indeed, this might at
first seem like such a heavy
task, at least to me, at least
right now, but all I have to
do is look to the perfection
of so many moments past
to know how much of an
impossibility it could not
at all be. A new group
with whom to engage. A
new set of fine folks with
whom to continue this, my
education; with whom to
enact earnest camaraderie
and with whom as a group
and as individuals to find
that thing called friendship,
fleeting as it may, like all
else in life, be. How about
tomorrow, then, I get right
to it? Come up with a plan
and figure out how to mix
and mingle once again, it
won’t take much to hit upon
an imperfect few with which
soon I can be swapping poems
with some regularity, and soon.
I think I will. Indeed, I will get
right to it. It thrills me just to
think about this now, and
of even the somewhat del
iberate process of bringing
such a group to fruition.
