JENNIFER SCREAMS, “WHO’S THERE, IS THERE SOMEONE THERE?” NO ONE ANSWERS. SHE THINKS SHE HEARS BREATING.

The heat of the summer – unusally hot; drought across America; expect higher food price; gasoline is just below four dollars; people shall starve in Africa – is disapating. It got below sixty last night. After Labor Day I shall head south, but northeast Michigan for now. The Hobie has been pulled up on shore. The potted plants have been watered.  eEverything is stowed away . Put the tomato plants indoors. Check the tire pressure. Is the hitch secure? Hook up. Checkoff everything of the inspection list. Do it twice. I'm off. See you down the road.

I take the #38 out to Ocean Beach and walk over to the Beach Chalet. It is crowded today. Too crowed to sit and savor a cold beer and its noisy to boot. I walk over to the N line terminus and take the Metro back and stop at Eldo’s for a Cal Fornicator. “That’s a double bock. Are you sure? Are you familiar with the double bock? It’s pretty malty.” “I’m sure” I assure him. God that was worth all the hassle. “Happy hour all day today.” “All day Sunday? Every Sunday?” “Yes - it’s happy hour all day Sunday, every Sunday except for the barley wine.” My tape worm says to me “come back again.” Another Cal Fornicator next Sunday maybe.

The tourist thrives on the uncanny, moving happily through a phenomenal world of effects without causes. This world, in which he has no experience and no memory, is presented to him as a supernatural domain – Jonathan Raban – Driving Home, 2010 p17

Hot hot hot    

            Barely bearable

Give me another

            Cold beer

Cradled in the hammock

            Narry a breeze

Guzzle lots of alcohol

            And pass out

Wake up after it gets dark

            Disorientated

I love candle light, / said the Moth, / It makes suicide more romantic – James Broughton – Special Deliveries, 1989  p90

I want to go to the state fair (any state fair) and hand out ribbons like that one behind the bar that reads “California State Fair 2003 - Third Place” I once got a red ribbon for my cow at the county fair. I spent a lot of time in the hot sun curry combing her. The junior under ten category – me not Betsy my cow. I sold her, my Guernsey cow. Then I moved into town.

[General George Armstrong] Custer’s fame is the victor of fancy and myth over complicated history… [He] finally ran into the largest off-reservation gathering of Indians ever in one place on the continent, and gave them what was possibly the last really great time they ever had – Ian Frazier – Great Plains, 1989  p180

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

He became Shakespeare

As he was tired

            Of being nothing

Or at least returning

            To being nothing

Upon exiting the stage

Having delivered

            His last line

After he died, he discovered himself standing before God and said to Him: I, who have been so many men in vain, wish to be one, to be myself. God’s voice answered him out of a whirlwind: I, too, am not I; I dreamed the world as you, Shakespeare, dreamed your own work, and among the forms of my dream are you, who like me are many, yet no one – Jorge Luis Borges – Collected Fictions, 1998 p320

It’s a release party. Lots of young people talking about bands and tours. Something called “Big Ugly”. I have no idea what “Big Ugly” is, but I like the name. I am going to guess that its an e-zine. The photographer, Tom, says “yes” that’s what it is. “What chu want boss?” “What do you have on tap?” “Newcastle.” “Then Newcastle it will be then.” I liked being called “Boss” – the gray haired dude. They are having a reading. I can only hear a voice. I  am sitting behind a pillar. I move over one bar stool. “Johnny Walker Back” and the big old fashioned cash register goes bling bling blink. The call for drinks keep on coming, the register keeps on blinkity blinking. “A Shirley Temple,” the guy next to me tells the bartender. The dollars are pouring out of bottles and into the till, bling bling blinkity bling. I had never actually heard anyone call for a “Shirley Temple” before. Oh of course in comic strips and those thirties black and white movies of high society, but never for real, right here in real life with colors, right her in real time without lines. It was quite a little jolt to actually hear someone say, “A Shirley Temple please.” A women is reading a piece she wrote about witnessing death sentence executions in South Carolina and the cash register is going blink blink blink and the bartender is not interested in my five dollar bill. She says she has witnessed five now and her editor is calling her “Lady Death.” As far as I can tell, so far, I have been the only witness to the Twenty-First century. I have an obligation to get it down and get it down correctly. It is a big responsibility. I take my job seriously.

Never disown your mad superstitions, / bad habits, unclad fantasies. / Those are the riches of your personality – James Broughton – Special Deliveries, 1989  p194

It was a bad choice

It cost her, her life

It would have also cost his

But he  had abandoned her

            To her fate

Antonio, the chariot is here… You are about to see Jesus – Angola Prison Warden Burl Cain to about to be executed prisoner Antonio James

The human mind partitions – natural things in lots of two or three and artificial things into sets of either seven or ten: natural things like – you and me; true or false; the good, the bad and the ugly; the father, the son and the holy ghost; - artificial things: the seven deadly sins, the seven wonders of the world; the top ten songs of 1976, the ten top grossing films of all time.

Every graveled path, every ditch, has been projected along latitude and longitude lines of the township-and-range survey system. The farms are squares, the fields are squares, the houses are squares; if you could pluck their roofs off from over people’s heads, you could see the families sitting at square tables in the dead center of square rooms – Jonathan Raban – Driving Home, 2010  p104

Apple pie

Pumpkin spice

Roll the dice

Boil the rice

Crack the ice

Isn’t it nice

I love everything about my iPhone; Steve Jobs made this iPhone; therefore, I love Steve Jobs – however faulty [this syllogism is, it] makes a certain kind of emotional sense – Sue Halpern – New York Review of Books, 1/12/12 p24

Olney Illinois – City of White Squirrels – people kill the normal ones so their town can make its claim to fame. Toronto was know for its black squirrels. The lady at the park said that there are not as many as their used to be. She thought it was due to migration. I thought who ever it was that was killing the regular ones was probably also dead. There is no longer the distinction there once was in being able to claim that you are the “City of White Squirrels” – not in the age of the Game Boy anyway.

The more nature got out of control the more people measured it – Jonathan Raban – Driving Home, 2010  p107

(From the Journals – September 14, 2004, Toranto, Ontario) A black squirrel just crept across the pavement in front of me and went in among the purple flowers and clock on the spire of St James Cathederal strikes noon. What a oddity – a black squirrel. Then another. I’m wondering how common black squirrels are. Do squirrels come in other colors. There must be albino ones somewhere. Yes, the Internet list a town in Illinois and one in Ohio with populations of white squirrels.  Then the first one returns and and joins a third black squirrel behind me. Black squirrels are more common here than brown pigeons. The first one had back with a nut clutched in its cheeks. How cute with those big pointed ears with the hair standing up straight.

When savages are pitted against civilization, they must go to the wall; it is the fate of their race. Much as we may deplore the necessity of such a state of things, it is absolutely necessary, in order that the onward movement of civilization may not be arrested by the antagonism of the aboriginals – Cooktown (Aust.) Herald – June 24, 1874

The park vibrates with autumn colors – purple and yellow –pink roses, but purple is the dominant color. Then a little chipmunk darts across the sun-dappled sidewalk and into the bushes, skirting along the purple flowers. It is a normal chipmuck as far as I can tell. How many stripes? I don’t know it was too quick for me to count them. The bees begin their laborious process of gathering pollen. The quiz folks at the pub last night had correctly responded ‘honey’ to the question, ‘what is the only food that does not spoil?’

Trickery is often a too simple and convenient explanation – Errol Morris – Believing is Seeing, 2011 p45

Should I go back to Olney tomorrow and sit in the park and look for white squirrels? The lady said that she say one here yesterday. It was a hundred in Olney, but by the time I got to the Walbash in had dropped to 94.

[The Bush] administration’s threshold for which an act of torture begins was the point at which  the Inquisition stipulated that it must ‘stop’ – Cullen Murphy – The Atlantic, Jan/Feb 2010  p77

At Charlie Hooper’s there is still no Lieney Red

It’s not our doing but that of the distributor

It is the only domestic that is not domestic

That is not a Bud or a Miller or a Coors

Tuesday was one-dollar domestic draw night

I had a Bully Porter at $3.50

            Not bad but more than a dollar

Today is Thursday and all draws are two fifty

So it does not matter that they have no Leiney Red

I drink Kronenbourgh 1664 instead

And I had some chili cheese fries too

As if he once was someone’s son / but not now. He’s the carpet slipper / guests hear scratching overhead – W S Di Piero – Nitro Nights, 2011 p21

JENNIFER IS STARTLED. SHE THINKS SHE SEES A SHADOW, A MOTION ON THE OTHER SIDE OF HER FROSTED GLASS SHOWER DOOR. SHE REACHES FOR HER TOWEL. ITS NOT THERE.

It might be late morning, I don’t know the time. The sun will be overhead in another hour or another hour and a half. I could check the clock on my cell phone. Yesterday passed so fast. Yesterday is past. I remember it being 3:34 and then the sun was going down. Anyway it is peaceful and calm and I am thinking about having to pack up and move on. And I am almost finished reading this book. Every step is a step over the line. What line? I don’t know. Most of the time we only find out later, if at all. But somewhere there is always a step over the line never knowing what step it will be or which line that it is. This time is now gone, its potential had been exhausted.

Five centuries ago daemons haunted our world, with incubi and succubae tormenting their victims as they lay asleep in their beds. Two centuries ago spirits haunted the world with ghosts and ghouls harassing their sufferers at all hours of the night. For the past century aliens have haunted our world – Michael Shermer – The Believing Brain, 2011  p90

Dragonflies sound fierce

Damoiselle in French

And to the Dutch, little misses

The damselfly is just one

            Of many

The chatter of a machine gun

Tires on a gravel road

The chirrr of a bug

That the Russians call Strakosa

            A nervous noise

The pleasure potential of perversion… is always underestimated – Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, 1977 p63

Linda is going to give it a try. She’s going to Little Rock to teach. She will give it a chance. But she says, “it may not be what its cracked up to be. If I don’t like it I’ll go to Texas Tech and get a degree in Ophthalmology. That’s an eye doctor”, she explains to Rachel. “You can make two hundred thousand a year.” Then she leaves to wake Eric up. An ATVer comes in to get a day pass. They sell them over at the cash register. Good recreationalists are the ones who spend a lot of money on equipment. That’s why bowling is neither a recreation nor a sport ( although there is the cost of  the ball and the shoes and oh yes those obnoxiously loud bowling shirts). A good recreationalist is a good consumer, and hence a good citizen.

Most minds oscillate between sense and nonsense, / The rest don’t oscillate at all – James Broughton – Special Deliveries, 1989  p193

“You have any leftovers? I can warm them up for him [Eric]. Spaghetti or anything?” “I might have some spaghetti,” Rachel replies. “Depends on how much he wants to eat.” “That’s not very much,” Linda replies. And Rachel goes back to cleaning the silverware. “What else can I feed him that is quick?” This must be Eric. He is a big guy in baggy shorts. He drove over in a red Hyundai. He bought his own cereal with him. “Sandy says to tell you, you’re looking good, Eric,” Rachel tells him. Linda puts down a plate of garden salad and spaghetti along with some Wishbone dressing in front him. He is sitting where Rachel had been polishing the silverware. Only Rachel, Linda and Eric are in here now. Grandpa and that other woman, the waitress – probably his daughter, but not Linda’s mother, have both gone. She was probably the one that they had referred to as Sandy.

In utopia, you lose the battles and you lose the war too but it bothers you less – Charles Bernstein

Butterflies are like dandelions

Butterflies alike as the tides

Butterflies as alike as the flowers

Butterflies as stars

Butterflies are emotions

Butterflies are…

Butterflies alike as…

Butterflies are like that

Wherever the sun lies / light is evident. / Where it is dark, / light was. / The heat of blood / or salt – the burning rocks / of silence. / Where the sun lies / is now – did – is not – Theodore Enslin – Then and Now – 1999 p186

In San Francisco 41% of all traffic fatalities are pedestrians. In New York City you are twice as likely  while walking to be hit and killed by a car than you are to be murdered by a stranger (whether walking or not - you not the stranger - if fact you might even be running).

There are so many ways in which there is no crime. A goat comes into this story too. There is always coincidence in crime – Gertrude Stein – Blood on the Dining  - Room Floor, 2008 p87

Henry Miller was censored for writing

            Eroticism

But open a book on insects

            And read. And Miller won’t

            Seem as pernicious

That night, as thousands of worker ants mill about

The queen inside the bivouac,

The male walks across the bodies of the workers,

Who seem to lift him as he goes,

As if to make his step lighter.

He smells his mate.

She alone among all the ants in the colony is his size

And has a similar physique.

Even in the low, dappled light of the bivouac,

Both bodies glisten,

Their armor being polished to a high sheen

By the licking of so many attentive workers...

Stop, stop Angie says, she is

            Turning red

She agrees with me

            Yes, they are very sexy

Lick me until I weep

            Make my body glisten
Let both our bodies be polished

Poetry… is – a probe into the as-yet-unfamiliar zones of consciousness – Durs Grunbein – Bars of Atlantis, 2010  p238

By 2020 40% of the world’s college graduates will be from China and India. The US and Europe combined will only produce about a third of the total.

There is no further guess. Everybody knows, and they need not say. That is why everybody talks and nobody says they do. Not by and by, there are no secretes about what everybody knows and still they do not complain – Gertrude Stein – Blood on the Dining  - Room Floor, 2008  p71

The Cardinal

Fluttered skyward

Pink as back light

            Against the sun

It flew

In the form of a thought-sentence, the germ of the fragment comes to you anywhere: in the café, on the train, talking to a friend (it arises laterally to what he says or what I say); then you take out your notebook to jot down not a “thought”, but something like a strike – what would once be called a “turn” – Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, 1977 p94

In the early part of the last century only one in ten of the patrons saloons actually drank – most of the regulars hung out there to socialize. Saloons were a working men's club. Carrie Nation chased them out and back home. Home is no place for a man to relax. Nowadays they buy bass boats instead. 

Make flurid mistakes. Laugh more and wash less. / Eat more chocolate than beans. Fuck often – James Broughton – Special Deliveries, 1989  p195

A dead ant is a dull ant

            Ants are all in what they do

They don’t flap colorful wings

Over meadow blossoms

They don’t have metallic armor

They don’t have pretty colors

And besides they are so small

Ants are not attractive

In glass cases

Stuck with metal pins

But it is easy to spend an afternoon

Watching them scurry about

Marching in columns with green leafs held high

And waging war on each other

Lie out a jelly sandwich and watch them gather

For the latter [the non-intellectuals] there had never been a universal human logic, rather only a consistent system of self-preservation – Jean Amery – At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a survivor on Auschwitz and its realities, 1980 p11

Evil isn’t unleashed

            By daemons

Evil doesn’t come from the

            Barrels of guns

Evil originates from well

            Intentioned men

Who have forgotten how

            To be kind

There is nothing more seductive – and dangerous – then being listened to – Donald Antrim – The Verificationist, 2000 p64

The left handed sugar bowl is a chamber pot

In terms of poetics, the ability of OWS to exasperate and indeed thwart the pigeonholing of the mediocracy is one of its triumphs – Charles Bernstein

The truth will not

            Set you free

For the truth is cut

            Of the same cloth

As the Emperor’s suit

And the Emperor’s new

            Clothes look

Just like the Emperor’s

            Old clothes

J Edgar Hoover without menace is like Boris Karloff without bolts in his head – Russell Baker – New York Review of Books, 1/12/12 p4

JENNIFER’S VOICE CAN BE HEARD AS SHE SINGS IN THE SHOWER; SHE WOULD BE EMBARRASSED IF SHE KNEW YOU COULD HEAR HER. SHE HAS A NICE ENOUGH VOICE, MAYBE SLIGHTLY NASAL THOUGH. DOES JENNIFER HAVE A COLD?

Ed said that he was going to get the best of me. I did not take him literarily, I should have. I said you are more experienced (he was twenty years older than me) and that yes he might just be able to do that. It was not so much a matter of if, I said, but when. But you go ahead, I say. I total misread Ed’s innuendo. Later he says, you know what’s best about you? No, I say, I don’t. Could be your stomach, he says, and slaps me on the belly. I hear you, I say, I have given it a lot of attention it is a rotund beer belly. I should have caught on to his interest but I did not. But it isn’t, he says, what’s best about you is this, and he grabs me by the nuts and announces, this is. Well then, I say you’re not getting the best of me. Ever have a blowjob, he asks? Yes, I tell him, but not by a man. Why not? No inclination, I tell him. I have not even mentioned my tour of Blanchard Cavern (until now). Later he says, I was only kidding, we are buddies, right? I just want to advise you that the two fillies in the red car are firecrackers and that they are hot to trot. Ed is our campground host.

My neighbor comes over with some Jim Beam. This will warm you up, he says. Good for a dreary day, I say and it was. It had sprinkled earlier. Here’s hoping that it will burn off. Sleep well, I ask? Yeah, but my air mattress went flat. I didn’t put the plug in all the way. They got this pump that connects right into the car. Want some more come on over. We won’t be able to drink it all. If I had known that this was a dry county I might have. Thanks, I say. They lite a huge bonfire that night. Stacked wood six feet high.

I helped the ‘firecrackers’ with the red car set up their tent (more advice then help) and it didn’t get me anywhere (girls night out it turns out - only in the hills - these country mamas). They played Fleetwood Mac all night. This is what it’s going to be like from now on. This is what it’s like to have neighbors. This is what its like going to be like from now on. But it's not really for when the weather gets warmer the family camping commences. Kiddies and old folks put a damper on such frolicking in the woods. There was a murder of crows in the trees across the river. Beaver were frolicking during the dark or it might only have been carp spawning.

I nap in the afternoon. I am startled by someone familiar calling my name. Its my mother. How did she find me out here? Can’t be she’s been dead for a decade. I awake with a startle – who’s that?  What? Oh it nothing, just a raven calling from a near by tree. There’s a voice coming from the creek, … seven o’clock comes early. I hear an oar splash which gives the disembodied voice a context. I go back to sleep.

Traveling the self goes soft and pliable. You can recast your life in shapes you wouldn’t dream of when you’re stuck at home – Jonathan Raban – Driving Home, 2010  p158

Fortress America, DC

Redoubt USA

Democracy at work

Yes citizen, official business only

Construction site, sidewalk closed

            Your tax dollars at work

Beware citizen report all security breaches

Do your duty work hard and spend your money

Stay out of trouble

Don’t block the sidewalks

            (Don’t occupy public spaces)

This is your America

            Be proud keep it litter free

            Recycle aluminum cans

America be proud, wave your flag

Exercise your rights, bare arms

            Flex your muscles

This is our America, citizens

Shoot them before they shoot you

            Protect your democracy, buy American

Homogenized, sanitized, capitalized.

For your protection one in ten is deputized

            Fortress America

Tourist money and citizens with business only

            Lobbyists with lots of dollars

            Redoubt USA, vote and don’t complain

DC Fortress America,

Redoubt USA

Someone’s threatening your democracy

Threatening it from the inside out, citizen

            Tune in to corporate media, be forewarned

What about that citizen?

            Waves them flags

            Hate them ragheads

            Tie yellow ribbons

                        Around old oak trees

Fortress America,

Redoubt USA

Be a good citizen

                        Keep your mouth shut

                        Work hard and spend

                        Don’t play in the street

We are in the presence of neither a choice nor a conversion nor a desertion, but rather of a gradual ‘assent’: [he] acquiesces to the … world he discovers – Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, 1977 p48

Walter looks at what I’m doodling. Those are the horns of a young goat, he says. Oh, I reply. What can I say. I was intending to draw a bison. And, he goes on, you’re not using the correct colors for either a goat or for a buffalo regardless of its age. And are you going to be constantly looking over my shoulder, I asked him? I am. And when I’ve got you drawing properly, I’m going to help you with your handwriting. I can barely read it. See if you can’t keep a straight line and quite using the words “he said, she said, I said” all the time, he said. Try using ‘he commented” or “I pontificated,” he said. OK, I said

Everyday and every day she had to see that everything came out from where it was put away and that everything again was put away. That was their way. Any way, she came that way to be that way. In that way she passed each day and each day passed away which also was a night too – Gertrude Stein – Blood on the Dining-Room Floor, 2008  p10

Grandpa  sits at the head of the table

So that I can see everyone, he says

He wears a plastic blue cap and red plaid shirt

Grandma sits opposite him.

She says, the breakfast menu is on the back

They each study their own cards

And I go back to my reading

It chimes 9AM

There is a big grandfather clock in my room

The bed is brass high off the floor

I floated in my feather mattress
I don’t want to get up.

Breakfast is served on sleeping porch

Enclosed for more than a century

Make sure you show up for breakfast.

The owner makes it himself.

Verna opened the restaurant nine months ago.

She had run the corner ice creamery

That gal that opened Aunt Sassy’s  had worked for her.

And she is crazy, Verna claims

Blueberry pancake breakfast.

All that you can eat

I ate five.

Sweet Fish ate twelve.

He had just finished the Maryland Challenge

Yesterday he had hiked forty miles

He is taking today off.

This is the country and the phone service comes and goes

For no apparent cause

Jessie is late. She was taking the kids to school.

The waitress was talking up a storm with her when the phone went dead.

Jessie finally arrived. How dare you hang up on me, the waitress says.

I didn’t hang up, it just went dead.

You could call in but you couldn’t call out.

My Visa transactions was the first one that went through all day

Smoky the Bear and Peg Leg finish their breakfasts

They are waiting for a 9:30 ride into Fredrick.

For Breakfast I have chipped beef over home fries,

One egg scrambled,

An English muffin and coffee.

I take the first bite of my croissant

And with the first sip of my coffee

I’m awake.

Too bad I can’t be served in bed

Flaky layers of croissant between the sheets

I roll over into a dollop of cherry jelly

And dripped coffee all down my chin

Nor would the would wait,  the sun is shinning down

No, no – breakfast over a campfire

Rain – Rain – Rain – I should grow webfeet and quack.

Breakfast and coffee – hunker down until the rain stops

The menu items are named after movies

I have the ‘Grease’  (hash browns, onions, peppers, mushroom, bacon, cheese and an egg on top).

I could have chosen the egg omelet – Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Get the idea, sure is cute

Breakfast and coffee, but especially coffee.

It’s brisk and chilly and everyone is bundled up – coats and hats

Except for me, wandering around in shirtsleeves.

Hell San Francisco summers are colder than this.

Esta bueno.

Free breakfast to him meant an English breakfast.

He searches for more to eat.

Su esposa arrives and he announces that they must go out.

His hunt for food is relentless.

Su eposa sits patiently with a cup of coffee.

He is a big man.

I wanted eggs and bacon,

And the old man leaves discontented

He only drank coffee in the morning.

He had his newspaper tucked under his left arm

You just have pastry?

And he left

Readers of symbols are forever at the mercy of desire – Donald Antrim – The Verificationist, 2000  p100

I’ve been watching movies in my sleep – critiquing the camera shoots and the scripts, editing the story lines, redirecting a scene here and a scene there. None of them are films playing at the cinema. These are movies that I am creating in my head. Damn it I wish I had a camera. But its only a dream. And these narratives continue as I awake from the nap. I am conscious that I’m awake and I’m conscious that this narrative is a dream, but I want to find out how it will end and the imagination and the dream states merge and I don’t go back to sleep until the credits roll – and there is my name, directed by, screen play by, but I don’t recognize any of the names of the performers – can’t afford any big name stars.

Last night’s movie - this older woman appears on a vaudeville stage (maybe it wasn’t vaudeville as the time period is the present). She teams up with a much younger man whom she has taught to play the keyboards. He doesn’t actually play it - he stands back and then launches himself at the instrument and pounds out a single cord with a pawing of his big hands at a strategic moments in her song. They both have long blond hair – hers is a wig, his is his own. She lives in a shoe and their act is a great success and they are driven around by a chauffeur who makes snide remarks to the camera about the differences in the ages. She has lots of kids, most of them teenagers. It continues, but I can’t remember any of the rest of it. As far as the movies that I’ve made so far this one is not one of my better ones but the rest are much better. There will be no Academy Award nominations. No lifetime achievement award for me.

Curious strangers, the world and I / Is there no stranger curious for me - / with a moon in his pocket and a golden key? / For my heart is locked up and I might die / with only a wishbone old and dry. // Oh who has the key to the golden city? / And the taste of the honey in the moon? – James Broughton – Special Deliveries, 1989 p30

JENNIFER STEPS INTO THE SHOWER - STEAM OBSCURES THE ROOM AND FOGS THE MIRRORS

I relit the fire this morning. Not that it was that cold. Yesterday had actually been hot. I’ll probably stay here another night. They have flush toilets and hot showers here (count your luxuries where you can). Sitting here in the woods watching the fire burn, avoiding all the chores that need to get done. The least that I can do is start a pot of coffee. I’ve been in the woods a week now without having turned on a radio – media, the self-medicating disease. Fire is calming. I’m shedding my anxieties. It’s the damn media that I blame, especially TV. Anxiety sells products, which buys time. I burn logs which also buys time. Consume for success – a healthy lifestyle. I sit and watch the fire. I’ll eventully get around to making breakfast – bacon and eggs and hash brown potatoes. The coffee is ready. Pour this morning’s first cup.

Incoherence is preferable to a distorting order –  Andre Gide

Property values is all that keeps them out of the streets

The politicians know that and weep

Bad news causes markets to plummet

We shall only have good news

             They have decreed

Or perhaps get them adicted

            To reality TV

And load them down

            With student loan

            Obligations

A lifetime’s worth and a subprime

            Mortgage to go

The best thing learned by these struggles is, how to prepare for another – Wendell Phillips, 1855

A third of high-school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives, and neither do 42% of college graduates

Anecdotal thinking comes naturally, science requires training – Michael Shermer – The Believing Brain, 2011 p63

According to Walter

He has, he claims,

Invented a new form of poetry.

It happened at four o’clock

            This morning

He had to find something

Other than watching Infomercials

            To keep himself occupied

So he recited to us:

            There was a young man from Nantucket

            Who kept show and tell in a bucket

Things that he found just lying around

Nice, I said

But is it not a Limerick

Just without the innuendo?

I had, said he, said,

That it was based on an older form.

According to Walter

A lemon half squeezed is no better that a lime.

And I said to Walter:

A lime a day will make you a sailor boy.

And why didn’t you just go to bed?

Veering toward/ the work of the world, / the days come / pearl handled / (and cold) / as a well oiled pistol – Theodore Enslin – Then and Now –1999 p161

Corporations get 40% of all federal discretionary spending

Three big noses Mrs Mother has, / they grow and grow in the night. / Sniff sniff sniff here naughty naughty dear! / And she also can smell with her ears – James Broughton – Special Deliveries, 1989 p6

Now it is time to play

Now it is time to work

Kick the ball, swing that hammer

Go to school and study hard

Work hard but play hard too

Ding-dong school is out, the wicked witch is dead

Blue collar, white collar, ring around the posy

Red neck, white lie, blue tie

Apply yourself, impress the boss

From the factory floor to the office door

The silver spoon and a golden paraschute

Pink slips, green cards, poker faces

Get good grades, earn big bucks

You too can be Mr. President

A poet crawling out from under the historical steamroller is better prepared to assume the tasks assigned to him than his colleagues in happier countries – Charles Simic – New York Review of Books, 12/22/11 p28

A debauched elite is faced with its own death. It’s choice is only in regard to the manifestation of it’s own demise. But instead it choses to fight on – try to keep the gravy train on its tracks. The bridge ahead is on fire. Insurgents are everywhere.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creatures, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions – Karl Mark – Contriutions to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843

It’s only half past twelve,

But I don’t care. I don’t care.

If we don’t have a hurricane, I’ll go insane.

A record high predicted today

Mountain strawberries and huckleberries,

Blueberries in the meadows cranberries in the bogs

Fields of corn, thrashing time coming soon

Jimmy Buffet down in New Orleans,

Margaritas and martinis

Grain fed hogs on steamboats coming from up north.

Magnolias, dogwood, the fragrance of roses

Feedlots sheep-dip

Goat ropers chuck wagons

Bacon, hamburger and hot dogs

            (pink slime – mechanically

            separated)

Miller, Bud light or PBR

This one’s for you bud

            Icy cold

The red, white and the blues,

Jazz, rag and the hucklebuck

Sousaphone, saxophone and vibraphone

And don’t forget Ken Nordine

Basketball football baseball

Season tickets, SRO, bleachers

            Box seats for the big shots

Play by the rules – respect private

            Property

‘Private life’ changes according to the Doxa one addresses: if it is a Doxa of the right… it is the sexual private life which exposes most. But if it is a Doxa of the left, the sexual exposition transgresses nothing: here ‘private life’ is trivial actions… less exposed in declaring a perversion than in uttering a taste – Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, 1977 p82

JENNIFER LET THE FLUFFY WHITE TERRYCLOTH ROBE SLIP OFF HER SHOULDERS AND FLOAT TO THE FLOOR

102 yesterday. It is supposed to get to 104 today. Damn it, I need to quite listening to the radio. It doesn’t do me any good at all. Can’t do anything about it. Walk outside and you’ll know everything you need to know about it. Ain’t putting up any hay, so what difference does it make anyhow? And beside if you’re like most folks you’d stay inside, in the house, at the store, at the office or in the car traveling back and forth (in-between), but your out here in the woods and you ain’t got no AC except for an occasional light breeze if and when it pleases. You’re a fool. And it’s hot. And oh your’re so miserable. Lay in the hammock all day and drink lukewarm beer until you pass out.

I prefer the wrong way… for at least the cracks and flaws and awkwardness show signs of life – Charles Bernstein – A Poetics, 1992 p2

I Have Some Questions

            Do you have any too?

What were you doing?

Remember what you were doing?

            (Watching on TV no doubt)

Rephrase that one

            Remember where you were watching the TV

What you were thinking as you watched

            What is he thinking

            That slow chase down the Florida highway

                        In the white bronco

And when the verdict came in

White people were stunned

And black people jumped

And we wondered how well we knew each other

We asked questions that we hadn’t asked in a while

Jesus is the answer?

The license plates all proclaim it

But what I want to know

Is what was that question again?

Can you give it to me in a sentence?

The art of living has no history: it does not endure: the pleasure which vanishes, vanishes for good, there is no substitute for it. Other pleasures come, which replace nothing: no progress in pleasure: nothing but mutations – Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, 1977 p50

They had just come off the trail. Said they needed the time alone. They weren’t very sociable. An image of the movie “Brokeback Mountain” came to my mind even thought there were no sheep anywhere around. “What brought you guys all the way up here”, I asked?  I answered by own question, “The nearest mountains, I suppose.” “Yes,” they replied. There was a big fire in the woods to the side of the road and I had passed through its smoke yesterday afternoon. A controlled brush fire I suppose as there didn’t seem to be any effort going on to contain it. It made for a great sunset.  Forest fires are good for that  as are volcanic eruptions (think of what nuclear bombs could have done for Turner). This place is too near the highway. I hear the jake brakes of big trucks all night. A car from with Minnesota tags pulled in during the night. The Tulane students left early in shower of gravel. There’s a blue and green tent pitched two sites away. We are on a ridge and the wind blows continuously. I break camp. Still no one is stirring in nearby tent. I stop at the Pines Café for breakfast – two scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns with coffee. A big ORV assembly in the parking lot; two dozen four wheelers. “Big trail ride?” “Oh yes”, the waitress replies, “trails all over the place, if your adventurous.” Down here an ATV is considered a second car; mobile homes on cinder blocks surrounded by old rusting hulks of yesterdays trucks. The café is a family operations; grandpa, grandma, daughter and granddaughter is my guess. The old man is fussing with the paperwork as his granddaughter, Linda tells him about Peter, “He’s working out with weights. He just started. His deltoids are really sore today.” She comes up on weekends to help out. She is complaining about the reception on her cell phone. Next door is an hand painted sign: “Ozark Woodcraft for Sale”.

The Crows were skilled horse thieves and stole from everybody, including each other. They claimed never to have killed a white man except in self-defense. They explained to one trader that if they killed white men there would be fewer to rob – Ian Frazier – Great Plains, 1989 p52

This is the time in which it is

            Not so hard to do anything

So long as obscurity is not

            The obstacle

No it is not a hard time – No

            Harder than a hard-boiled

Egg

            Two minutes at the

                         Most

Chasing and unnamable dream, / Unclassifiable, the dream of our youth, / Which is to  say the bravest of all / Our dreams – Roberto Bolano – The Romantic Dogs, 2006  p121

I hate this process (not so much hate it as fear it) of inventing, creating this world – such a responsibility – but I will not have it any other way.

You constitute yourself in fantasy, as a ‘writer’ or worse still: you ‘constitute yourself’ – Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, 1977s p82

His teeth are tobacco stained. He sis on the curb in front of the Citgo Station. He wants to tell me his story. I give him five minutes. He is from Marshall. Wanted to know if I knew were that was. I told him that I did. Said he’d didn’t have a driver’s license even though he’d passed the test on the first try (I’m sure there’s more to the story), not that he didn’t know where it was (it had probably been revoked, that would be my guess). He’d been down here for two years now, living with his grandmother. He came down here because there was too much trouble in big cites (meaning …). But in these small towns you can’t hide and everyone’s into your business, I said. His five minutes are up. I’m not very curious. I pay for my gas. Don’t ask – don’t tell. Have a great day, I say as I drive off. It takes time and patience to draw out the good (interesting) stories. I could have made the time but I didn’t have the patience.

O little squeeze shoes / on the pinchy tiptoe, / how long is the run through the tick-tack dark – James Broughton – Special Deliveries, 1989  p7

I played good cop bad cop

If you park there the ranger

            Will cite you.

Oh thank you, thank you

            I didn’t know

Later I just blamed the           

            Agency

The [unnamed agency] requests

            That you not park

            On the grass

Fuck you! Are you some

            Type of ranger, dude?

People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true – Richard M Nixon, 1990

I’m drinking cheap wine and I’m listening to feminist radio on a community station - women’s issues – women’s voices – brought to you by some pet communicator – intitutive findings - readings to guide your relationship with your cat - searching desperate for sponsorships. Feminist radio – community broadcasting.

Runaway thought, I wanted to write it; instead I wrote that it has run away – Pascal

The library and the brewery

A beer and a book

The bear and the bull

Then to the apothecary

And well

            If only…

Haven’t seen you

            In

Here before

            Now

Don’t go often

            This far

            North

With the other refugees

And now

            I’m one too

Never thought

            It’d come to

            This

And if I plan to leave / a mark / I leave so little / - mark that means a thing / as any - / less than a pisshole in the snow – Theodore Enslin – Then and Now – 1999 p186

Hugh Hefner reportedly paid $85,000 to reserve a crypt next to Marilyn Monroe’s. Jump them bones Hughie. Bones rattling in the dark when the moon is new.

Your conclusions are only as sound as your premises – Michael Shermer – The Believing Brain, 2011 p23