All I do is this;
I paint the sky every morning
While you are asleep.
You get up and see it’s blue.
The sea is ripped occasionally.
You don’t know who sews it back.
I do.
I fool around from time to time too.
This is also my job.
I think of a head in my head.
I think of a stomach in my stomach.
I think of a foot in my foot.
I don’t know what the hell to do.
By Orhan Veli
(thanks for sending it, Halvard)
1.
I was a computer speaker. I sat
on the corner of a desk speaking
whatever the computer wanted me to.
One day, or one night rather, I
2.
I was a digital camera. In my
master’s pocket a rode
until I was fished out and activated
before a glorious vista. My
master seemed disturbed
when I spoke to him. He ran
towards the vista in question
with his hands in the air,
having dropped me
in the dewy grass where I
still lie, and am rusting.
3.
I was a fluorescent light.
I was nothing like a river
except that I commandeered
a small “river” of electrons
up my wire and changed
them into light at my “business end.”
It was more of a trickling stream,
though. My mother always
called it a “trickling
stream of electrons jumping
from atom to atom
in a curious way that I
do not understand.”
4.
I was a mouse. I was
not a small book of instructions.
I was a plastic computer mouse.
With me, a man who has
bad breath liked to click
on links. His links I could not see.
His eye flickered in monitor light,
though. His eye was like
the weakly electric fish, detecting
electrical fields in its environment
and determining distance thereby.
There is also a monitor lizard,
cousin to the electric eel.
But we are all
cousin to the electric eel.
5.
I was a junk mail. I junked
into a mail bag, then through a mail slot,
then into a recycling bin. I junked
to a place where I was pulped
and then I was shipped
to China where I was again junked
on one of many such junks.
Heaven of junk mail.
6.
I was a tube of toothpaste
and two times a day
they opened my head and
I did what they wanted me to do
7.
I was a jar of persimmons
and once or twice a week
they unscrewed my head
and took from me good things.
“An astringent cultivar
must be jelly soft
before it is fit to eat,
and such cultivars
are best adapted
to cooler regions
where persimmons grow,”
said I when opened,
“Where grow those
yummy persimmons,”
echoed my owner, a puckish
boy of not sixteen.
I spent an entire year refusing
to spell “rhododendron” correctly.
About six months in, I met a woman
who refused to spell “heinous” correctly.
Together we refused to spell “The
rhododendron is heinous” correctly.
This resulted in a torrid affair. But
I didn’t know how long she planned
to stick to her resolution, and when
I asked her we had our first fight.
Eventually she broke things off.
I don’t even know where she lives now.
From Frederick Buechner’s Alphabet of Grace…
I believe because certain uncertain things have happened, dim half-miracles, sermons and silences and what not. Perhaps it is my believing itself that is the miracle I believe by. Perhaps it is the miracle of my own life: that I, who might so easily not have been, am; who might so easily at any moment, even now, give the whole thing up, nonetheless by God’s grace do not give it up and am not given up by it.
gave an incredible reading at Zinc last night. He may be my new favorite living American poet. Great to see Jim Behrle again, too, and to pal around with Amy King, who took this pic of me and Sherlock:
I am a sap. My “friends” took me for $40 last night at poker. What’s worse is that i went “all in” because I was sitting on an ace-high flush. The pot was like $15 or something. My friend the famous opera singer Linnea Leonard, however, called me, and it turned out she had a straight flush!! How many times do opera singers come up with straight flushes?
My only consolation is that the three PhD’s at the table, combined, started the night with $80 and ended with $4.75.
There once was a pile of trees.
Nearby an actuary was dancing
and cursing his Cheverly,
which had sprung a leak
in its rotary sparkler syndicate
and was rusted all to hell.
The pile of trees said, “Sirrah!
Ecoutez. Underneath me is
a police force. Under the police
force, but not near the wet ground,
near the dry ground, not near
the wet ground, is a pan of cakes.
“TAKE the pan of cakes and
speak the name of your wife
into it. Close your eyes and
pick up the first cake that
comes to hand, bite into it,
and you will find a key.
“The key is to my pickup truck.
Walk 1.5 miles that way
and get my truck and drive
it back here. I need a ride
to the Michael Bolton show.
I have a VIP pass and I need a ride.”
Why did you give me the F Mr. Belz…Why couldn’t I atleast get the C or D…now i am suspended from the school because that was the lowest grade in had…Didn’t you see that i really was trying to better myself?…Is it still too late too make a grade change so i can stay in the school?…Thanks for your time again…If you ca;t change it, can you make a recomedation the the school too keep me in, because I really do need another chance , because I do still want to be an Accoutant…
I’ve been reading The Missing Chums—volume four in Franklin Dixon’s Hardy Boys series. In the following scene, Chet has tricked Jerry Gilroy into turning his back long enough that Chet can spank him with a stick. “No one enjoyed Chet Morton’s practical jokes more than he did himself,” writes Dixon; “He whooped with laughter, wiped the tears from his eyes, and leaned out the window, spluttering with mirth.” But the tables are quickly turned:
Jerry Gilmore tiptoed quietly up behind him. A quick movement and he lowered the window until it was against Chet’s back.
The practical joker suddenly stopped laughing and turned his head.
“Hey! What’s the matter?” he inquired…
It came.
Smack!
Chet Morton wriggled and squirmed, but he was pinned helplessly by the weight of the window against his shoulders, and he presented a more tempting target for Jerry’s ministrations with the flat stick, and a more stationary target as well, than Jerry had presented for him.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
He roared with pain and, helpless as he was, danced vainly on the floor in his efforts to escape. Jerry Gilmore belabored him across the rear with that stinging stick until his desire for revenge had been fully satisfied, while the other boys howled with glee at the manner in which the tables had been turned.
Finally, when Jerry tossed the flat stick away and joined the others in their laughter, Chet managed to raise the window and escape.
“Can’t see what you’re all laughing at,” he grumbled, as he sat down carefully on a nearby box. Then he rose hurriedly and rubbed the tender spot.
This book was published in 1923, but to me it still seems relevant. I am not sure why that is.
The Unbearable Flatness of Being
would be a good title for the book
that he would write, he thought.
He would write a book. Then,
perhaps, the critics would “right” it.
It made him smile to think about
“righting” a book. Ah, jokes.
Comedy always made him smile.
It made the black vibrations
that came from the shape of his head
seem almost transparent—translucent,
it made them, and it unprinted him
and bodied him out into a man.
There were no more words,
no floral curlicues around his face,
no staffs of wheat, no more bouquets;
laughing, he was no longer
the pressed flower of someone
else’s imagination. His hair
became tousled, his beard curled.
He felt his oats and let rip a lone
guffaw after breakfast. He was no good
at telling jokes. They came out dumb,
a calligraphy of sounds. Sounded
flinty, arch, deadened by his eyes,
which were pure white—made
false by green strips of hair
which topped his head and formed
his beard, his green eyebrows.
The word “Lone” appeared
in cursive next to his head.
A decorative “L” did, too.
No more words now. What kind
of clown am I? he wondered.
The kind that keeps his mouth shut?
“Among Birds” is up today. . .
-quality(75))
“Hiding Amongst the Poppies” (oil on board, 2006); one of Nicole’s prints is hanging in my studio at VSC.
From an email to Becca…
[L]ast night we had a special dinner—these happen about twice a week—mussels, shrimp, squid, scallops, etc etc in a curry broth, with white rice, edamame, and fresh baked bread. Even wine was served, Barrel Monkeys, but I didn’t drink it; I had ginger ale. There was superrich chocolate cake for dessert, crunchy on the outside, warm and chewy on the inside—exactly like the Far Side cartoon about the polar bear eating the igloo. I served myself what looked like a modest portion, but it turned out to be more than I could handle. Afterward I emailed you, ran to the residents’ reading, ran back and emailed you again, and then went to the Long Trail with Chad Hammett and some other artists and writers. I was the designated driver. Watching the others drink alcohol was like watching bowling, in slow motion—the big ball approached, and one by one the pins fell, each in its own particular way, some toppling immediately, some teetering briefly before finally falling over. Anyway, I drove one of the cars home, and all was well.
Donald Revell recommended that I read Robert Lax, minimalist poet, friend of Thomas Merton, and “One of the Great Enigmas of American Letters.” I love this poem:
”are you a visitor?” asked
the dog.
”yes,” i answered.
”only a visitor?” asked
the dog.
”yes,” i answered.
”take me with you,” said
the dog.
**Addendum: I’ve just ordered Lax’s selected poems and letters, Love Had a Compass (Grove Press, 1996).
Where is the river? There it is.
Where is its water? Where are the waters?
There. Flowing up that mountain.
Where are they going? They’re going up
to hide in heaven, with Jack Lemmon.
The river itself is flowing up a mountain
to hide in heaven with Jack Lemmon?
Yes, the waters are drawn into the heavens.
And is that what is meant by “the firmament
sheweth His handywork”? Yes.
God’s handiwork shows in Jack Lemmon,
and Jack Lemmon hides in heaven
and the waters are going to hide with him.
