I wad it up, unawed by it. It’s amazing how useless every thing becomes. I suppose most things were al ways useless. There is a glint of giddy calm in my heart. Yes, mine belongs to me (this has to be the new me, app arently). HOURS LATER... Feeling ever so moody. No more internet. The phone is gasping its last breath as if it realizes this is likely worse than losing a liv ing member of the family if not a long term pet. The drama. Oh. I am to get an eviction notice to day if not tomorrow.
This laundry facility in my apartment building will now close daily at 10:00 pm and reopen daily at 9:00 am. (Find your honesty. Be a good person.) I wrote a poem in 4th grade. It was called “Math,” and my 5th grade teacher, un- beknownst to me, entered it into some sort of scholastic state- wide contest. I don’t know if I have a copy of the poem presently, but I remember many of its lines (the first two of which were “Math is hard, very hard/ Addition, subtraction, division.”) which, for me, is pretty unusual (to remember a line from anything, that is, and it rhymed: ABAB, ABAB; the word hard was paired with guard, division with supervision, etc.). When I was in 7th grade I learned that the poem had won, that it had been published in the winning anthology. I thought it was cool, but I had pretty much moved on from poetry by then. All of my science and math teachers were also coaches (football, basketball, gymnastics, etc.) when I was in 7th grade. Mainly coaches or Primarily coaches are two phrases which immediately come to mind. We students even addressed them as “Coach [so and so]”. When I was in 7th grade, my science teacher, the high school football coach, turned beet red with anger (at something I cannot remember) and threw an entire desk (complete with the chair, like the desks in pretty much any classroom of that particular era) out the window and onto the grass that grew next to the building that housed the high
vague notes sent away to an even more vague and perhaps mythological or fantastical “public circle” (i.e., the people who read any of what i write (here -- or anywhere) as it relates to a ‘reality’ - or as a timestamp or a milepost pinned into this ‘reality’ and use it for some ‘perspective’ both in present & for and from future (and hence perspectives past as they pertained and pertain in retrospect to a present and possible future)....to locate:
perception vs. perception perception vs. ‘reality’ ‘reality’ vs. ‘reality’ etc.
these matches can run individually, on a 2-3 person acquaintances or close friendship or more profound (to whom among the core?) relationship of some kind. does smaller scale (for me) loom so much larger in lifetimes of relative peace? i’ve known no hardship. so i make mountains out of molehills. molehills are my mountains. there is a certain control.
compare and contrast to larger scale.
and to reactions to various of these fights (versuses).
fight vs. flight
to run away (escaping reality and ‘reality’) or to confront (in hopes).
and especially as this pertains to “survival of the fittest” (darwinian, real), vs. psychological, per se (start, for example, with freud’s continued prevalence, the sexism etcetism inherent; the seeming ridiculousness and yet assimilation into modern culture which makes up ‘reality’?),
‘reality’ and ‘perceptions’ about both small and large group occurrences (a few friends, a country, the world, how we make it all palatable somehow, etc.)...
then: reality. then, why poetry? duh. would be a relieving way to end this journey of thought before starting again. and again. until you never get it right.
isn’t clear anymore, not like the furniture that always reaches out to grab that pain and tuck it neatly away. She had lots of leeway, that Bette Davis. Her eyes (and it’s no wonder Kim Carnes not only sang the song about them [enormously more successful, in fact, than Jackie DeShannon’s original version which came out in 1974]; that song, Carnes’ version, was, per Kasey Kasem, the biggest hit of 1981, spending a whopping 9 weeks at #1) could fluctuate instantaneously between whip- poorwills floating in and (mostly) out of them and spinning nails of ice being shot at deviant, even lethal, speeds emerging from her tiny black pupils. Did you know, by the way, that Nathan Lane (for whom I’m often mistaken, as you well know) stringently studied under the original Nail of Ice, who, sadly, died yesterday after suffering (but briefly) from a horrible squirrel- bite that had left a rather large hole in the middle of the top- less bar tattooed under his left forearm. Nail was a fairly unknown guy. Nutty, though, just like Lynch, who’d just cast him in the new season of Twin Peaks, which was nevertheless released as originally scheduled (just as the poor, dead Ms. Palmer had assured those of us who were alive enough to stick through to the end of the beginning, which also transpired...and, sadly, quickly exp ired...in the early 1980s) in 2017 on Showtime. But, boy, what a show the original was, much to the chagrin of all of us when we gleaned that Nail of Ice’s death was but a red herring lain to keep the gaunt actors who played the aging agents from discovering the truth (any truth at all, in fact). A glance at one of those very herring’s ear rings literally twisted Alfred Hitchcock’s gait. He was filming a glass of wine and, immediately, like a corkscrew turned from the camera and walked hastily away —— in precisely the opposite direction of his camera’s gaze.
Most everything goes down better with humor (done with proper flair, of course; no need to insult my intelligence, un- less occasionally, perhaps when it deserves it; a spoonful of sugar and all), a hint or two of non- chalance (the subtler the better) and as much cheekiness as can be mustered. And, most importantly, these in- gredients are not just important for the delivery, one absolutely has to live them. It’s like method acting only British; but a performance that never witnesses even a half- yawn. And of course it’s got to have snark; and a spectrum of ticklebone that ranges the spectrum
It was like getting a cat thinking it would act like a dog —Ruth Lepson
It’s the British invasion here. And that's cool. Even though I was supposed to bring left overs from home for my lunch, which certainly would have been better than the turkey
sandwich from Quizno’s. Plus I have popcorn hulls stuck between my teeth and this is happening in two different dimensions. I mean time zones.
Coco wants out. She hates me, now more than ever. Coco the Loco. Sepia the Cat, on the other hand, was a dog in a cat’s body if ever there was one.
She loved every breathing thing, wasn’t the least bit bi- polar, and if a dog, per chance, dropped by to visit, and, no lie, the larger the better (and we seemed to know a LOT of
very large dogs) she’d just jump up and down nipping at its neck and playing with it like it were her sibling. Those poor dogs. It seemed they never knew whether to run or gobble her up like a very small
appetizer (the real expensive ones that are often served on very tight budgets so the sit-down dinner price is considerably less pricy, often with out the guests feeling anything but slighted. Tricks of the trade....).
Back to meanwhile, or to that thing I escape these days that’d be called “The Present” (I like to think of my escape a matter of life and death. How fun, right?), Coco claims territory and more than a bit of terror. She
growls now, quite often, when I approach. Me! The one who’s always kept her food bowl at slightly less than empty! Sepia would by now be here in bed with me, her dogless catbody completely under the
HOLD ON! Incorrect! How might I make the best of a bad situation? Remember that the ones that seem worst aren’t always so. Any way, a lot has happened.
Everyone went to bed, for example, and forgot all about me. And that nightmare (this one very much a reality) of the jealous cellphone ringing incessantly that I can’t help but listen to; voice messages I obviously shouldn’t be hearing. But I’m the crazy one. I’m the bad boy. Always have been
(well, ever since a senior in high school when I did a complete about-face from goody-goody).
What did I do about it then? Headed straight in the
opposite direction. Drive for miles like I’m heading
to California to realize my dreams. Years later,
when I am convinced they’ve been realized--my dreams--
I head straight away to the stress (back home). Well, I am
home. Or at least I always believed myself have one--
a home. Somehow, I slept a little bit. This part never
had a hint of danger before. But now? Now, I’m a
“chickenshit?” Maybe so, but not in the way in which
that accusation is pelted at me. The irony keeps ring
ing in my head and I spin around for years wondering
when the vertigo will ever go away; if I’ll ever know
the firmness of reality or the moist breath of honesty. Such things have never existed for me. Perhaps I was
born into the wrong era. Or I skipped the day they
covered chickenshit in high school (which would,
of course, have to’ve been during my senior year,
after my one-eighty). Was I something
different before? Was I really better?
I feel as if I’ve been split from my toes
all the way up to my head in an extra large cheese grater. Silly, silly, heart that acts like rubber; takes forever to damage, even just a little bit. But a little bit is all it takes. Now that’s complete erasure, I think. But really, which me do you think was better?
silly rendition of human behavior... —Marlon Brando on the Dick Cavett show, shortly after he
It seems to me, or, I have it quite pronounced in my mind that nothing written (and hardly anything that purportedly happened) before the late 19th Century amuses me at all, except Shakespeare and Aristophanes. While I was an academic actor and studier of all things theatre for many years, I always wanted a seriously serious dramatic role. And on those rare occasions when I would be cast in one (there were only to be two or three, in the end, it seems to me), I inevitably found them quite tedious, which, in turn diminished my desires and my hopes of becoming a “famous” star on a soap opera, most hopefully, of course, on Days of Our Lives, or The Young and the Restless, both of which I have memories of watching with my mother at age 3 or so upward. I came to realize that the
life of a ribald actor (even with the occasional little death of absurd silence which would occur some
evenings during a scene where the audience would
be on the floor the following evening) was for me. Comedy. The sound of gasps and spurts, followed by uncontrollable laughter were divine. So, being a student of theatre I’d often have to read plays set before the twentieth century, and I’d constantly wonder where on earth the laughter occurred, if ever, when they were originally performed, as I flipped ho-hum from page to page. I’d be told a line would be hilarious to the attendees. I was befuddled. But I’ve always considered myself a now kind of guy, if not way too into the present, to any given present. This explains, perhaps, why in 1991-1992, I devoted my masters’ thesis to covering the subjects of post- modernism, using as splendid examples (and a colorful backdrop) the works of opera director Peter Sellars’ adaptions of the Mozart-da Ponte operas: Don Giovanni (set in a Bronx slum), Le Nozze di Figaro (which was set in Trump Tower) and Cosi fan tutte (set in a diner). I even had the opportunity to participate in Peter Schaffer’s wonderful stage production of Amadeus. So, not to tag on a moral here, but, now that I think about it, it seems to me from these skewed experiences of mine that Mozart was pretty hilarious. And he lived well before the late 20th century. Ah, things in retrospect. Who we become is never who we think we are, anyway. I stand corrected. Go figure.
...emptiness is a kind of speed moving slowly with extreme consciousness. —Susie Timmons
Obviously our heroes are conglomerating. Where, my dear, did I ever learn to write? Sentences, I mean? How can anyone appreciate me, much less tolerate it? And to the point of gung-ho? I, too, want to put a sign on the wall of my office (which is also, appropriately enough, my bedroom) with the word INFANTILISM! Maybe I will do just that. But to what end? To show that nobody knows a damned thing in this world; that supposed ‘progress’ or a positive form of ‘evolution’ is no sure thing; or, to reiterate, that we are simply (as a people, as a world, as individuals) just babies. In the whole grand scheme of what? He said something to me. Such as, “You just gonna lie there with your money all day?” Or perhaps it was I who said it, both of us being infants. Nothing else
phone bill (half yours) which you left me after paying for well over a year and giving me absolutely no indication that you’d disappear, and that promise that you would ensure
I was okay. You left. Cold. Never spoke with me again. Your ghost/no-ghost would raise its ugly head and only I would know its reality. Partially. Enough. I’ve watched movies aplenty about these things: but ghost stories vanish, too. Or transition into something much more terrifying than what they were in retrospect - into nothing; into perform- ance? Into a game during which I was disqualified in its early stages.
Only nobody told me. I happily participated.
The four circles that made a square that appeared on a nearby garage door have sort of disappeared. It reminded
me of another death, a more real one (or is it less real?).
Boy, would I love a massage....
The show goes on, however, as it must. It must. The show. I’ve generally encouraged such drama (yes, did you honestly think that I didn’t know?) clutched onto intense belief systems only to watch them dissipate like the Andromeda. These things happen,
I know them. Do ghosts know current events, or care that
Donald Duck is now the Emperor of the World Federation, which were
actually the bad guys all along. It’s a world full of surprises even for an
old man who seemed to constantly catch falling chandeliers. And my
existential crisis. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist, right?. And
this is not cinema, which I do recall as a place we went to escape. The reality of it all is Star Wars. And every night slogging alongside the melee until morning. Also, the paper kind of cash, which we all
relied upon obsessively.
I’m not sure where this is coming from or why I’m even telling
you, but for some reason it amuses me to do so. And reminds me
that the future is all mine, after all. Who on earth would have been
listening to that noise? How appropriate in a world that’s mine, that
I can find no place to grab onto. Perhaps it’s perfect that you are naught
but spirit – and a spiritless naught at that....Ooh, the spit and
slither of spiritless spirit. Do things sometimes actually work
themselves out appropriately? If only? You were a glorious and
tricky vacuum of spirit. A black hole through which I fell. A trip
that will always be healing as long as life persists.
October, which always breaks my heart never looked quite as dashing
as it does this year, unlike the bully it was. The bully it begat. I mean,
relative to the infamous eleven months, which (from widening
distances. . . past), at worst only dourly come and go. What am
I left with? Oh, substance. I do not apologize for bringing that up.
But you’re spirit, I’m flesh. That is that. These days we learn
that even the lifeless are tortured. A gas chamber for ephemera? There are many days that, for some, are neither holidays nor birthdays. October, October, October...BOO!! Oh I hope I
got you again. It always makes me remember being bowled over
with laughter. But I know that you are only here and never here
simply to remind me that the joke is still and always on me.
clear anymore. Furniture that reaches out to you in the middle of the afternoon on a night when you need desp- erately to go to the bathroom to pee or to the kitchen to guzzle a pint of ice water. “Wake up,” laughs B’rer Rabbit as he dives into the patch of black- berry briars below, “come along with me this instant. It’s an adventure!” And then he disappears. I’ve even the bloody scratches to prove it.
this poem is inspired by Susie Timmons’ “Into the Stickers” and the following Google Link Titles, neither of which I ever bothered to click: a) Brambles Gone Wild: How to Remove Blackberries – Tall Clover Farm b) How to Eradicate Blackberry Bushes; and c) How to get rid of blackberries – YouTube
