She Lingered a While Longer in My Mind

I tried to watch this second adaptation of James M Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice but Nickelson just had to be Nickelson and the dropping of the code allowed for more explicit sexuality although none was called for and it just wasn’t Cain anymore as Nickelson is no Garfied. And I tried to watch Pia Zadora in Butterfly. God, they are butchering Cain. Is it only the Coen Borthers who can do a real adaptation anymore? Marion Davies was at least a successful comedic actress. I got as far as Pia prancing around naked behind a gauze screen in front of her father (Stacy Ketch) before I gave up in disgust. My project was to watch every film noire in the Netflex collection. Then I tried to watch Laura. I am making progress but it is slow.

Those occupations are most truly arts in which there is the least element of chance, they are the meanest in which the body is most deteriorated, the most servile in which there is the greatest use of the body, and the illiberal in which there is the least need for excellence – Aristotle

Life just keeps on getting
        Richer and richer
As you get sadder and sadder
And as everyone around you
        Pretends to be happy


Its all synonymous with getting
        Older and older
And waiting for sleep
And then you sleep
        Oh so sonorous and
        Harmonious

So long as there are men and women the world itself can never become a Sargasso Sea… There is a force outside us which, because of death, seems greater than us, an that is Nature. But we are also part of something else, something which includes Nature. It is as this unrealized part of the universe that we have set ourselves up in opposition to the whole. When we can refuse to move with the movement of that great force we break the law of life, we drift, and in the drift Nature passes us off – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p165

Only if it is not art can it be represented


We only play at getting lost
Once it has been discovered, uncovered
        It shall remain unburied
                Putrefying
We knew it only by its stench
       It was undeniable
Into this “unbroken surface for habitation
      And cultivation” we came
Into this no-man’s land where the rising moon
      Was of no comfort

You don’t end a process by destroying its products – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p531

America’s workers are making hardship withdrawals from their retirement accounts at a greater rate than at any time in the past ten years and 45% of those who did so a year ago are doing it again this year.

She was not afraid of life and death because she did not feel implicated to any extent in either one. Only other people lived and died, had their lives and deaths. She, being inside herself, existed merely as herself and not as part of anything else – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p245

To begin the new
First return to the old

Some people are born dead – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p98

Beckoning me to lean in close
Nudging out the stopper
Skipping the fine dining pomp
Pouring three different samples


That third gulp might clash
A pink blush spreads across the nose
I didn’t usually fall this quick


Listening, watching, absorbing
      Unable to quite
      Then shoved aside


Laughter came in loud
      In hearty gales
A week passed in a glance
      Everything was color-coded
      Now it’s another year later

Truth is not what you perceive with your senses but what you feel in your heart – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p383

62% of the US states are projected to have 2011 budge short-falls of at least 10%. 52% of the states were fully funding their pension-plans in 2000. Today only 6% (3 states) are.

He who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have reason, is a slave by nature – Aristotle

The smell of her
       As she swept in
       And slipped out
The door opens for her
       The hot out doors
       Mixes with the cool A/C
Her smell lingered
       A little longer
       Than did she

Fold up the day. It was a bright scarf/ / Put it away. / Take yourself apart like a house of cards – Kenneth Kearing – Selected Poems, 2004 p25