Neither one of us can be found . . .

Amazing how each flower has something individual on their little face . . . . Yet if we fail to really look closely, we'd think they were pretty much the same. They are not the same.

So a musical artist (Meiko) wrote/requested that I become a friend - on MySpace. Here is something you might want to understand - I do not log onto MySpace and my profile says I am 99 years old and I don't know how this request came to me. BUT I a grateful. I like this musician; (her lyrics very much) and I trust her musicality will grow.

She has a voice though, idea, insights. Don't we all? My favorite tonight is the "Hawaii" or "Sleep" or "Piano Song" or the way that they are all tumbling in my sleepless tangled mind. A smart person would already be sleeping.
6

Eliot Leads Me Back

In 1985 I studied T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and it became my bible. I have a paperback edition that has followed me into every classroom, that stays in my car when I'm not teaching, that is rarely beyond arm's length. The whole collection is always teaching me - and right now this is the passage from which I am learning, again.

"You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not."

Rotting Fruit

The pinching smell of fruit
not quite right, turned, not
too unsightly, but turning, and
perfuming the air, beyond the
wood floors and Persian carpets
and granite counter . . .
and cow dung, or dog feces, as
if barn animals slept within
bellowing or cowering, and his skin
always sweating ammonia, so she
turned her head into her own
shoulder, scoured and honey dusted,
for comfort.


Take a listen to Missy - doesn't that hit too close to home?

I am seeking a "Harbor"

I've been a harbor too long. I think it is time for me to sail for a while and maybe find someone who will harbor me when I am in need.

Retraction

Okay, so now I've discovered that the very talented Peter Cincotti is also very young (23). So he cannot be my latest crush. If his father is available and their is a strong family resemblance and if his father could play the piano like Peter plays the piano, then that would be a possibility. But now I just see Peter as a boy, a very talented boy who should probably be eating a little more and getting more sleep.

A co-worker suggested that age didn't matter. But let's suppose a man of my years in this office stated that he had a crush on Avril Lavigne; well, he be considered a crusty old guy letch lusting for someone likely to be his own daughter's age. More than once, women in their early 20's have expressed their disgust (and dismay) that someone their father's age might fantasize about them or make a pass at them.

Naturally, we can't really control our fantasy life. But we can control what we express. So my latest crush is NOT Peter Cincotti. He's just a young man whose musical capability I admire and recommend. I think he should meet Vienna Teng! Now that would be a beautiful union.

Don't Even Think of Competing

Well, it was bound to happen; I found a fellow and he's enthralled me. Don't even think of trying to turn my head. But you should take a listen to my latest heart throb - Peter Cincotti


And if you can take it, then you might listen to this, because this is the song that led me to him. It's his own song. So he wrote it, and he plays it; so it's all his; no matter who comes along and plays it later, it is still his.

I think I'll write poetry about Peter Cincotti; I even like to say his name; it has fricatives!

I think I'll be hearing some blues soon - it's been too long. I mean really a long time since I heard something that substantial.

Now, only listen to this one if you want to be very happy and smile. Smiling is something else I can use a bit more of lately.

insensate

Just another one of those times in a life when it's as if "word of the day" is watching my life.



insensate \in-SEN-sayt; -sit\, adjective:

1. Lacking sensation or awareness; inanimate.
2. Lacking human feeling or sensitivity; brutal; cruel.
3. Lacking sense; stupid; foolish.



The cutting room is a cruel place, where writing that may have cost blood to commit to paper is kneaded and pummelled like so much insensate clay.
-- Jasper Rees, "Blood and ink on the floor", Independent, April 13, 1997

Solo

I'm getting things in order;
clearing out the receipts the
old jasmine rice, old clothes
I'll never wear again, and
making sure the bills are paid
and that there are instuctions
for Sally's medication
and thoughts --
so many thoughts, written down.

I'm clearing the table, folding
the cloths, reshelving the books and
praying for rain, pounding rain,
hail the size of cantelope, and
wind screaming through the caulking,
and a bit of flooding or a whirlwind
that will lift my house off its hinges
and let me land where the tin man lives.


I've got courage and I've got smarts,
but a heart is just what is needed.
Right now, I could go trolling for
some heart, some artifice, some silly
but immediately satisfying
hug.

And i am sincerely in need of hugging.
But for me, whirlwinds and rainbows and
salt air and tilting into the wind is
only valuable when genuine, when my heart
is pressed to your heart. All else is lost.

i am getting my house in order.
My heart is solo.

Steppenwolf

"There was once a man, called the Steppenwolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good deal of all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life.

The cause of this apparently was that at the bottom of his heart he knew all the time (or thought he knew) that he was in reality not a man, but a wolf of the Steppes."
from Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

My son has this book on my desk, the desk we share in my downstairs office. He's read it. One of his great grandfathers was named "Wolf" - not Wolfgang or such but only "Wolf." And while that was not the impetus for me to post this quote, I find it touching and significant.

I realize this is a coyote, and that is more fitting at the moment.

What I know so far . . .

(this is a verse I wrote September 16, 2007 - it is what I knew then and I was clearing out some files on my laptop and rediscovered it.

This is what I know so far . . .


You have the smile of a 15 year old;
the veins on your forearms are the rivers of my dreams,
my favorite topography.
Your voice is a deep rumble as if a league of seas
surrounds us.
Your name is a single syllable, opening softly and
ending like the step off a cliff.
When you talk you words climb on one another, sentences
like a surfers wave approaching the shore.

This is what I know so far:
With you, I listen harder, tune the frequency
for the bass line.
I’ve taken to reading the international news
again, the second paragraph too.
When I saw the pencil on the floor of your car,
as we cruised lost in the streets of
the eastern shore,
my shoulders relaxed and I smiled.
The pound of your heart hooves a path
across my back as I lean against you, and
we listen to the Maynard’s trumpet.

I don’t know if you sleep through the night,
if you spoon or if you hug the edge of the bed
or if you take the lion’s share and dislike touch.
I don’t know if money is more important than vision;
If success is measured in 410k and trusts or in a life lived
without the need of medication or alcohol.
I don’t know if I can count on you to tell me the truth
or to lift me off the railroad tracks or to help me
when I ask.
I don’t know.

Here is what you might want to know
about me:
The light delicate touch transforms just as much as the anvil.

This is a work in progress

Shirts and Skins
The oldest is a white wife beater
narrow ribbed, hugging my hips,
tightening at the rib cage,
made for hot summer nights
in the deep south.

Here is the foil, all black, long,
extra long, high neck, long-sleeve,
still ribbed, but wide ribs and not
constricting but loose, catching on
the lift of my breast when I reach.

Next is the thread thin flannel
in red and black and white,
formal collar, buttons, cuffs
folded back, grazing my thigh
and the bottom of my buttocks.

Then a extra large denim blue
t-shirt, the Ellicott City emblem
nearly disappeared. Best worn with boy
shorts, great for napping and washing the
car, for when drying off from the shower,
answering the doorbell.

This on has the Harley emblem, not
yet faded. Long sleeves, rolled back,
an extra long for the tall, burgundy so it
conceals wine stains and blood. It taps the
very top of my thigh, the cups of my cheeks
slip out without discretion.

Night companions, comfort clothes, shackles
better burned. But I keep them, my polygamist
weakness seeking the one for this night and
that one for tomorrow.

Cleaved

The moon is halved
tonight; half luminous,
half blind.

Halved of face,
halved of tongue,
halved of heart,
halved.

It is no way to live.