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
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