Our early morning walk – fog on distant waters and a vacant
woods – the start of a new week: the working part of the week (for some). Birds
chatter. Two men in a boat quietly troll by propelled of a small electric motor
churning slowly a small blade (and Archemedian screw). I heard voices and what
sounded like a car door slamming. There is no one around. I catch a glimps of movement on the water
through the trees – two men in a boat conversing near the shoreline as they
fished. It was his red cap that I spotted or maybe the flicker of sunlight on
his rod as he cast – just a flicker of motion in enough for a sniper to take
aim (a glint of reflected light). They are gone now and I bring out the
mandolin. A wave slapprf against the side of the boat or the boat bumbed into
some submerged stump. It sounded somewhat like a car door. It is the brown birds that are difficult to
identify. Some are the females of their species where the males are more brightly
colored. Lots of birds are brown. My guidebook is organized by color – black,
white, black & white, brown, yellow, orange, blue and yellow. I take the
dog’s bowl back inside – the jays and the grackles also like dog food. The
raccoons got into my garden (three five gallon pails) and dug up the herbs and
scattered dirt around.
al ign ment / order / remade / these / disparate / things /
light / five candles / one swift curl / incense / smoke /destroys serious
intent – Theodore Enslin – Then and Now – 1999 p45
Square bagels and a
cello
A fresh pot of coffee
A lot of people, many stupid
People
Gray rainy days
Umbrella days
A scramble for
Locked cars
Soggy paper bags
Stay in
doors
Thinking of umbrellas?
Not much; not latey
Not in a
long while
Thinking of them today
White
plastic bucket
At the door
Slip and slide
On a wet
floor
Simply an observer
Not yet a camera
Well prepared? Evidently
We agreed on six: gluttony, greed,
envy, lust, pride and sloth
What about stupidity, contempt,
jealousy, and hatred?
We
couldn’t agree.
They say that a little bit of stupidity goes a long way.
But money compensates a lot
They are always saying something
It’s an umbrella day
They say that too
Scattered showers could pop up at any time.
Carry an umbrella
Bordom and stupidity are linked.
One is an objective phenomenon
The other is a subjective one.
It’s hard not having to be stupid.
One of the options was “because I am stupid”.
I considered checking that box.
A puddle of water on the floor.
There is a need to be fastidious
And there is a compulsion to be stupid.
The homeless, the insane, the beggars and the cripples
Carry umbrellas with broken ribs
Something
found/Something borrowed
I don’t usually worry, but often enough
I worry that I worry too much
Do you understand? /What a poem is? / that the song is? /
sometimes pedestrian / information / carved / by the action / of time? –
Theodore Enslin – Then and Now – 1999 p133
The history of science is not constrained by its origins
History accumulates like rubbish
before the portals of nature – Henry David Thoreau
The bay windows of dementia
Where OJ is our Achilles,
And Hillary is Helen
The bay window collect sunlight
And allows philodendra to grow
Watching TV makes you go blind
Self abuse is wealth generation
And it is
crowd pleasing
But we need stories
But do we need these
No sooner is a form seen than it ‘must’ resemble something –
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, 1977 p44
Why is it that the best breakfast is a boring breakfast –
the same thing morning after morning (two slices of bacon, a diced potato, two
scramble eggs – always fried in the rendered fat from the bacon, and a cup of
coffee)? We will not tolerate such repetition at any other meal. We appreciate some variation at lunch (soup and sandwich is
ok but not the same kind day after day at least vary the meat – boloney, ham,
roast beef; there are a thousand and one ways to make rahaman noodles). We
demand variety at dinner (some think its ok to repeat the same menu for each
day of the week, week after week – pot roast on Sunday, meatloaf on Thrusday,
and Friday is spaghetti night). The later it is the day the more variety it is
that we crave. Why is that? And if this is true wouldn’t it be our desire for a
different mate each night or at least a change up in the position (Monday night
is missionary night, Tuesday is for the dogs and on Sunday we abstain). Sex in
the morning is so boring; hardly worth the effort to wake her up. Just let her
sleep. Don’t bother! I’ll take care of it myself.
Time cannot be grasped or negotiated with, but it can be
given accents… We transfer time into a transparent fabric of stressed and
unstressed moment – Durs Grunbein – Bars of Atlantis, 2010 p126
Mankind – forever
On the
brink
Of moral collapse
But for the good cheer
Of a few
desperate men
And I’m one
I think
But then I rush out and buy
Birdseye
Where men have no beliefs or traditions or curiosity or power;
money and pleasures alone seem real – James Buchan – Frozen Desire: the meaning
of money, 1997 p124
Preeminence among contemporaries:
William Wadsworth Longfellow
Robert Frost,
Edgar Alan Poe
Elizabeth Bishop
Preeminence is no guarantee
‘Here is our Milton’
Reputations fluctuate
Tastes change
Different canons roar
The cassions go rolling along
Through Hitler we know what Nietzsche was not, through
Stalin we know what Marx was not – Mazzion Montinari
