why don't they shoot more poets?

I have normal aspirations mostly. Maybe.
Normal: not wanting to be rich just successful in my own view, as a poet/writer mostly poet though.
maybe not so normal: the extreme of that success is being assassinated for being a poet, for aligning words in such a way that we are found to be dangerous. My example would be Lorca. I admire his poetry and plays, spent a summer translating a few of the poems. I envy his death tho it is not envious.
Normal: to write about what I experience and see others experiencing.
hummmm: to have large portions of my memory erased so  I can be in a pure place with my madness and write from there. It's the view of the world a poet has that drives him/her to write, the more that view is abstracted from the society the better the work to a point and I don't know where that point is and given enough time all artists cross it.
these are my examples for today, all questions will be fielded after the poem.

 on 04/30/1945 the world was rid of a monster, exactly six years earlier another monster made it's debut and has ingratiated itself into the normal consciousness.
the former being the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the latter being CBS television made it's first broadcast at the worlds fair. I don't mean to pick on CBS alone as they are all a conglomeration of pushers with their junk easily spread into the veins of children and adults. I almost never watch television programs or television itself anymore. I had my fill over a three year period where I could not do much more than lay on a couch and observe the box. I mean to pick on Hitler though and acknowledge that his mosterousness is incomparable to any contemporary person.

This is how I view ECT:

poetry doesn't have to make sense to be good
poetry doesn't have to cure social ills
poetry doesn't have to __________________

electricity is always running through us - we just
don't care for increasing the amperage.

what man does to man
man does not do to one self less he
be considered insane

poetry doesn't have to comment
poetry doesn't have to describe
poetry doesn't have to be well written


Electric chairs can be wired badly and still
kill with efficiency.


 - Hoc Scripsi (right now, so forgive if it is poorly written or not ________)


 I had intended for this to be a different poem. Something from my back stock about poets be assassinated for their good looks but it is now going to be the above write. 

yesterday I cleaned my .38 and 30 aught 6, today I get the scope mounted and dialed in.
I load my thirty-aught-six to board the downtown train...


but that's another poem...

not on today - or an off day where maybe I ought to go back to bed

Really seem to be off today. I am sitting and writing at the typer and waiting for the real inspiration to come out, maybe I am just thinking about it too hard. The inspira may have found me in this first draft which is now about 2.5 pages long or about half the length I imagine it at the end - might as well shoot for the stars -




ad astra per aspera




expecting too much form the muse puts a damper on the relationship and this doesn't work the other way around.

I think that maybe that isn't a very good post in general. Here is a ramble to make up for it.
I started writing what promises to be a long poem yesterday and I don't want to talk about it much now only to say that my mind is in that direction a great deal and moving towards my Aunt Kate who is still in recovery from a hip break/replacement.
The poem has started with the longest lines I've ever written and will probably be a bear just smaller than another poem I've been working on for several years. Today I will sit and just write to see where it takes me.
My Aunt Kate and I correspond with the written word and she has been in hospitals hospitals hospitals against her mind but where else do you go when you break a hip? She is heavily on my mind now as we have been trying to get on another on the phone and have thus far been unsuccessful in this endeavor.
have a headache that awoke me at 3:30 this morning and caused bad dreaming all night long. I went back to sleep around four and have enough sleep while the headache pounds away making my face twitch.
                                                          
don't know what I need but aspirin, ibuprofen don't cut it.

keeping things hidden.

Today we are celebrating the invention of the zipper as it keeps things hidden in our pants, prevents us from having to toil under the strain of too many buttons while having to race to a bathroom, keeps my boots on, and enables us to say to children, zip up your coat, it's freezing out there!
the "hookless" zipper received an American patent on 04/29/1918 and jeans would never be the same, nor the ease of reveal.
Maybe it's the Zipper that really caused those love-ins of the sixties.

Happy Birthday Duke Ellington, you are still missed.


this is the first part of a two part poem. I don't think I will put out the second part. This first part is perfectly fine on it's own.




2

Venus blue eyes
              sun radiant warmth
                             I collapse into your
                                                           thighs.
 - Hoc Scripsi

brain cancer

while noticing trends in older poetry that has started to correct in my writing, there is the thought to rewrite all of it to reflect the newer way and developed style of writing. I don't think this is a smart habit to get into as you will never be done revising what has been written unless you rut your style. I'm not even sure I have a style beyond avoidance of certain things.
I've thrown away a lot of work as it was no longer a fit and I couldn't justify keeping it around. It wasn't genius and it wasn't blowing anyone's mind, not even then unless the listener was still a teenager, then everything dark and brooding is good. Maybe I'm only talking about my friends. Friends are terrible judges of art.
Friends don't want to hurt your feelings, which is a problem as they should be the ones who know how to hurt your feelings in the most constructive way.

Americans cannot have a discussion on a topic where they disagree as a disagreement is seen as an assault.
Cell phones may cause brain cancer and you cannot prove a negative.
there are a lot of people who probably wouldn't miss their brain if it were gone - if the brain stem were gone - that would be different. but only slightly.
I don't mean to imply that people are stupid as much as people don't use the squishy tool for anything other than twitter.
I don't twitter as I am not a twit.
using twitter may not make you a twit.
I don't know.
As my wife gets her iPhone I am considering bashing my own in order to not have one at all. As it is it is 'lost' currently and I am happy.
I love the phrasing - as it is it is.



On plane headed to Phoenix

Draw no maps on my body
From the air there are no
state lines or divisions
This is how it is
how I am
My self has no divisions
no maps
No way of existing
only being

Sand leads into water
water into rivers
rivers into dirt
no thought
just does
& the clouds are always
changing

 - Hoc Scripsi

This was written while I was on a plane heading into Phoenix. It was a layover so no-one there had a chance to ask for my papers. The layover lasted the length of time it took to get from one terminal to the other at a dead run. It may have been the last time I ran.

suppose to be colder today, if you believe in such things.

as the weather man/woman's predictions - but they are false idols.

Barely awake, managing to sleep in later today (till 7:30am), while not regretting it, thinking I should be a lot more awake by now.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon shifting a pile of logs into a more orderly pile of logs, and looking at the plethora of felled oak left to split. What I need is a small group of strapping young men to effort my garden woes away for the year. I'll mow and seed, whatever from the comfort and fun of my smallish tractor, but all that remains needs another bloke to care about it and money more than I do.

Tchaikovsky will sober you in the morning.
Just when I expect there to be fresh coffee, inevitably, it is old or empty.
This time it was brewing.
I've trained my ear to hear the beep of the coffee maker above all other static. beep beep - ready and I must move as 'Rosie the Robot' doesn't work here - beep beep beep and I have to make more if I want to keep this caffeine high going until I fall to sleep.
I am still trying to train my ear to simply wipe out all the static to hear only the tintinnabulating in my ears from the years of playing in rock bands. If I can manage it then I will be able to write anywhere, as it is I need the quietness of my home or a quietness much like it. Coffee shops are right out but having run two of them I can tell you that no-one likes a guy on a laptop in a coffee shop. A typewriter now, that is tolerated slightly better but only if you are carrying a loaded weapon. Ive never tried the typewriter in a cafe thing as I live in Illinois and it may be illegal here to even admit you have a firearm.
I am babbling and listening to Tchaikovsky, waiting for the double beep of the coffee maker.

no-one minds the guy with a notebook neatly scribbling away anymore though. Interesting. Once the iPad is in the hands of every one then laptops will be okay I think. Or it might be now with the proliferation of texting, sexting and general bathroom graffiti.

but none of this is important. none of this gets me a cup of coffee any faster than my good leg will propel my body to get what it is that is desired.

I am tired of writing letters to people who never write back. I owe a letter to one guy who writes back but lives so close I think I ought to simply invite him over.
Maybe next time I send a letter I will include a sase and paper.

Letter #2104 (one I don’t want)

got your letter.

it reads like a broken heart
(miss our after moments

be mine again)
love letter.

it isn’t is it?
or what is it.

I wonder what it is you really miss.
is it me, or the attention I gave you.
is it our conversations or that you got to
feel important for the afternoon.
is it our supposed friendship or, now, 

you are bored.

I am not your midnight man.
I am not your backdoor lover.
only that which I have
always been for you,
a stranger on a distant
beach looking the other way;
or turned around
or something else entirely.

what’s the least awkward thing to
say here.

what is it?
                   you woke up this morning
and want me to care.

you see…
it fucks up my whole day.

 - Hoc Scripsi

it seems to be Monday morning, and glad of it.

When I worked, Mondays were always the easiest day, Full of paperwork and sitting at the desk to get everything in the mail on time, I would start early, around five AM usually and be gone between 1-2pm. Of course this necessitated waking up at 4am but this whole thing has been a digression.
or is it? as I am mostly unsure about the direction I want to be in this morning and thinking a little of this afternoon but mostly of sleep and dreaming, specifically last nights. I don't mean to live in the past a little but you have to admit, it is right there for us to do so.
I wonder if I will ever stop wanting to drink, smoke, take drugs.
I wonder if I will ever want to stop drinking coffee, writing, masturbating, playing with legos, loving legal voyeurism, among various other bad or dangerous things.
I don't wonder these things too much because if I allow myself to live in the future I can see that the day will pass when these are not options but memories that I will continue to scribble about.
I look forward to being a dirty old man.
I look backward at being a dirty young man.
Right now is the middle. between two dirty states of being.
my thoughts are often unwilled intrusions, and I don't act on most of them.
which is good because when I obsess, I obsess with the best of them.
I have a feeling that I will be adding to this later as I don't feel finished yet. But am for now.


crap

1.
how much that each
one of us writes
is the summation or
fruition of
last nights dinner
today?

2.
in Irish pubs
you are surrounded by
la  la and hi ho’s

in the American bar
only by tears and
lives regretted or
lost.

I prefer neither nor
drinking – pills and
pain are my fixations.

 - Hoc Scripsi

Where I write

I was asked recently, Via facebook, where I write. meaning if there was a place as part of a ritual with my writing. As where it isn't ritualized and I write anywhere, diners, the car, on my bed, in the yard - where ever, you see the inspira moves around a bit. But the majority of it is done in a little room, painted red at the back of my house in a secluded part of Elgin.

a painting of mine - the sides and top are cut off so it's like watching a letterbox movie in pan and scan - I face this when I write or it is in front of me but I face the page.

My IBM Selectric III in it's newest position with a stack of poetry and prose under a brass monkey reading a book. My return address on a stamp.

within reach. Normally there is a coffee cup there but I wasn't writing at the time, a stack of nice paper that my wife keeps me in, a page a day, a XDm 9mm - loaded, an old hunting knife, the Bose remote, meditation beads under the page a day tear outs, a frog reading a book, white out and Maitreya Buddha holding my mechanical pencil. and scratch paper.

any questions?

sometimes it's a colt .45 or a .38 special but all the rest is a constant.

not about xxx porn on the internet

Happy birthday Willem de Kooning. Love your stuff. 

no matter how long I live, life will be painfully short.
at times it has been painfully long.
even if I live to be  centurian, then dying of
old age,
how is life regarded and why is death not our inevitable friend.

- Hoc Scripsi

the fine art of the mea culpa

as I try to right my life
and hone my influences
there seems less to write about.
plenty of the ol’ inspira
but none of the drama.
none of the cascading
disappointments or pie unreachable.
no more life without happiness.

hard to admit,
that so much poetry can
only be written by the
chronically dissatisfied.

harder to admit
that this is preferential
to the former,
or that the former is
not missed.

and I am waiting for
my shoelace to break.

 - Hoc Scripsi

I wrote the above poem not from personal view as at the time I was slipping into a deep depression where I would subsist for several years but from the one where the writer can only write about being sad and never from the perspective of any other emotion. Like death would always bring about the birth of bards. bullshit.
On writing - the clearer my mind gets the better the writing gets, the easier it is to do. It may be that I write only because I have mental instability, diagnosed mental illness, that I am able to write but but but, I take medication to curb these effects so I am not affected - only inflicted.
Basically what I am saying is that most other writers are full of shit.
maybe I am too.

selling porn over the internet

I listen to sketches of Spain and think of Federico Garcia Lorca and remember how I was obsessed with both when K and I decided to get married. The album causes me to lightly weep and I am hearing it now though I am unsure that it is playing at all.
 Often there is this drive to know what Lorca was thinking when he was killed. Looking out at the sky on a moonless night, under a flood of car headlights or no light at all save the muzzle flash of the weapon that bored a hole into him and ended him. in that moment there would have been no fear as we do not fear what is actual and present, there would be no pleading or bargaining as Lorca would have realized the pointlessness of it. What were his last words? They cannot be known.

The world was more interesting before the porn was available on the internet. When you had to go to stores and into booths to replicate the kind of experience available now for free while in your captains chair. I am of course talking about variety now as home films and VHS have been around for awhile. 
These things are unrelated.
In a moment or two there will be a poem but for right now there is breathing and thinking and drinking coffee.
My son waits for me to be done so I can sit for breakfast with him.


photographs

you know how I admire
photographs taken in sunlight.

sitting outside back lit
against a screened in porch.
You have become art against
my love now and I am
thinking of daisies that once
adorned you hair,
softened by your face.

how I will always love you
tho I never loved you.

not even in photographs.

- Hoc Scripsi

This is only a sketch in itself, all thought is sketched of loose imagery tied together by patterns of language or images. this we call perception and eraser waste and graphite dust soil the windows.

it is unfortunate that there will now be a lot of poetry about volcanoes and planes traversing the ash.

unmade bed

this is/this was

here, this is/ this was
the scene of our love
left only now to misshapen sheets
and my hands on your hands
    hands of a body
    your body
    eyes of windows immensity
    after evenings hour
    your moonlit being

here, this is/ this was
the scene of our love
and configuration of sleeping bodies
     head to head
     on cased feather pillows
dreamt singing voices
     of your gravity
     after midnights hour
and my obeisant being

this is
this was
the scene of
our love
now a windowless immensity
after mornings hour
and your vanished being

 - hoc scripsi


at this time I am working on three long poems and a short one. The shorty is completed I believe (I'll check on it in a week or so and probably hate it) but the longer ones need more attention. After that they are off to the New Yorker, then Atlantic and Harper's to get rejected - after that maybe the better journals where the will have a chance. I mention all of this only because I have no prose today other than this. I am devoting my energies to these poems and picking up my new pistol today - Illinois has a 3 day waiting period.

The other day I was called a Buddhist with bullets and it is the first time I enjoyed such a thing as this. It's accurate so it's fun.

om

poem

As a child I would often look up to the outlaw or the seeming enemy. It was for his bravery, daring, disgust with the law creator. Today in 1918 one of my earliest and most beloved heroes was killed by the allied forces, the name of the pilot who shot him down escapes me now but my hero is/was Manfred Von Richthofen, the bloody Red Baron. I don't think it's that odd or anything, there are many boys who would want to be looked up to like that but one of the things I often would admire was that he was killed. Later in life I would liken him to Billy the Kid (who fought not for country) and Federico Garcia Lorca (killed for being a poet). As noted before many of my heroes kill themselves while some die of old age. What I didn't mention was that there are a lot who are murdered for being who they were.When greatness is recognized there is no recognition of Country. Even the British buried him with Military Honors as he was deserving. I also admit that I would not like to see the reign of hell he would have brought if he lived, but death doesn't allow the extraordinary to be such for too long, death or worse shuts the door suddenly.
going into war and perishing in it is not that different from suicide really, it is only easier to connect to the reason the person has died. The Red Baron flew in the face of his enemy and taunted them, baited death until it arrived. This is not the action of a stable brain.






POEM

S. Michigan Ave. & 43rd
or thereabout.
Standing south corner
looking up, with
nothing particular in mind.
 
-  Hoc Scripsi


listening to Arcangelo Corelli and I am thinking that most of my out put lately has been written to his music or silence. Such Perfect Baroque.
my hands are abused badly. Cuts, scrapes and dry cracking. I can't remember to use any kind of lotion unless I see it staring at me from the corner or counter. it hurts to type a little on this slim apple keyboard and they are not looking giddily with anticipation at moving over to the Selectric III later. The doctor tells me to wash my hands less than I do but they feel like they have a coating, an extra skin of grime so that my fingers don't want to touch each other or anything else for that matter. Right now they sting to wash but no matter I will distract myself suddenly and be done with it. 
This is also how to learn to fly according to the late Douglas Adams. Throw yourself at the ground and at the last moment - become distracted. I've tried this with no success. I would imagine that it would be easier to accomplish whilst heavily drinking but then I also think it would be less than intelligent to operate yourself while intoxicated while flying around as it opens worlds of things that you can now bump into.


Don't forget Literary Tonic.

Title - a dislocation

04/20/1808 Nepoleon became. 04/20/1889 Hitler became. Who would have guessed, two despots in one day.
And in 1999 I remember I was smoking a cigarette with a college friend by name of Matt, in the fire escape on building 600 on S. Michigan - up around the eighth floor when he told me about the Columbine massacre, it would be the last day I could safely wear my trench coat without wild eyed stares for about a year and a half.

Day two at Literary Tonic. Go there if you have not.

I've never understood liberals. Nothing has ever been liberated without the use of firearms.
I am a member of both the NRA and HRC and ACLU and various other acronyms - I see no dispute between these memberships.
I do not plan on liberating anything with my firearms - except a few bullets from their casings toward wooden and paper targets that never harmed anyone intentionally, this is no reason not to take my rage over paper cuts and splinters out on them. Both of those things hurt but not as much as compartment syndrome and while I do not shoot my leg (though I want to sometimes) I do shoot paper targets and wooden objects meant for blowing holes into.

but this has been a dislocation and I am ending it now that I have eaten breakfast. Honey Nut Cheerios with soy and vodka. Kidding of course - there was  no Honey Nut Cheerios with soy. And it was Jasper Daniels.



this is a dislocation


this is a
dislocation

a skillful assemblage of
et ceteras and
et ceteras

a cycle of soul drummers
and southern chicken sacrifices at
the front gate of Graceland

a loose impersonation of self
overlooking and
never sighting self

Our culture is jazz, blues
and poor elocution

a fragility of coffee house
poets and the war
machine

all
together-colored and successfully
uncollected disaffected ice cream eaters

 - Hoc Scripsi








of course I was joking. There was Orange juice involved.

creative drought

I keep thinking that I am in the middle of an existential crisis and am existing through some kind of creative drought. Neither are true, which gives credence to the former, but even still, existentially I am already aware I am wholly responsible for all my actions. Or I should say I already understand and accept as it conveys the proper truth that simply saying 'aware' does not.
As for the creative or Literary drought, I can look and see the output - it is higher than any previous year except when I was a teen and early twenties when I mostly wrote crap and was going out of my mind, delusional and electrocuted. Mostly then I excelled at being an asshole - a reflection of my surroundings which the insanity was also or maybe not but probably.
It is that I want to be writing more, I want to be creating constantly, the two finished stories and one nearly so along with forty some pages of poetry and a handful in the works all go to state my creativity is high then in those moments where I am not writing I start to think that I need to be. It is that my mind used to teem with ideas and now it does not. It comes up with an idea and then dedicates it to paper and works it out.
The ideas are still there, they just no longer scream, I should have said noise instead of ideas or go back and correct it now but I am not going to.
There is little noise now, and it makes creating easier. I don't require the chaos but thinking now that it is enjoyed to some degree. They were surprised when I said I felt I was getting better when they say most people report they cannot create on similar medications. I think that there is a genuineness behind an ability to perform while on multiple medications. I think if you cannot be creative on things that stabilize you and quiet the noise to a degree then maybe you really ought to stop trying altogether and try something else.
I was going to qualify that and am not now, it needs no explanation.


margins

   I find poems in the
margins of books I’ve read
   or tried reading
only to find them
poking out and asking
to be recognized.
                 and I may.
such as…
I run to catch up to you
tho my hair is mussed
and I’ve forgotten my glasses.

   well,
I’m left now to wonder
if I caught my presumed lover.
   I don’t know.
should it be recognized that it
may have been
someone else?

 - Hoc Scripsi


Published today at Literary Tonic. The poem - 'dying roses are not broken promises' - I am obviously going to support the site but I thought it was a great one before I submitted there, otherwise I wouldn't have submitted. Go there, comment, don't comment, light the candles, put on the incense, and give yourself a hard time.

This morning

Spending the morning listening to  vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot by Sparklehorse, which was Mark Linkous, who shot himself through his heart earlier this year. See this post for more about that. But this morning I am listening and saddened that he was in so much pain that it came to that. 

Most people I admire have committed suicide or lived so dangerously/recklessly that their death might as well been considered a suicide. This makes me worry unnecessarily for the people I admire that are still alive, but there are not many I admire and saying all are suicides is misstating the truth. Some have died as old men/women though not many.

The poem was written for my son.

the sun hides

   for Jackson

the sun hides
behind clouds &
cold wind
but
   wishes
      to
shine down on
my garden
for the flowers

- Hoc Scrips

Horribly tired today. Jackson got me up before six to play and look up information on Box Jellyfish - which I have learned I should be referring to them as Box Sea Jellies now as they are not fish and this was what J really wanted to know.

one off the cuff at seven-thirty Am

you can't even laugh at your own jokes.

but I don't know where to start.

we're stranded on a desert island
and we only brought one thing,

it wasn't the satellite phone.

a man crossed the road, longing
for the other side. or was
it a woman.

or a chicken.

I plan on never being as old as
my father, who is not ageless.

Miles Davis plays on the radio.

cleaning my glasses with microfiber.
abreast the impudent children.

 - Hoc Scripsi





This is my offering today. not much in it's own regard. I am working on two much longer pieces. and they consume a lot of energy.



it is suppose to rain today, I seeded the lawn yesterday. I assume it will not rain today.

vajazzle

this morning I got nothing. I titled this as I just saw a video on it and am left wondering why why why??? neat, but only while naked, shiny and possibly blinding with hands on hips.

Anyway

I’ve never met the man who isn’t torn between

clean, sober, right,
shame, bottle and heartbreak.

who isn’t sliding toward the selfish decision;
who isn’t the man he wanted to be.

prescription drugs, narcotics
bad poetry, tense moments

of quietude and longing.
leaning against rail fences

sun shining on his face.


 - Hoc Scripsi


I've been listening to Tom Waits all morning and this is maybe why I got nothing. This morning is about Tom Waits, which I was also listening to while watching the video (super soft porn) - so, admittedly, it was strange and leaves me wondering if I will forever associate - Way Down in the Hole - with Vajazzling, this might alter my life in the negative making it necessary to either get back on narcotics, heroin or simply up the other prescription medications.

 I think that I put the finish on the poem this morning (before the video), but I also know that it has been in the works for a few years and was simply bad on a reread yesterday. I axed more than half the original lines and wrote mostly from scratch.
So, as it is rare, I reach out for opinions.

gratis.

John Wilkes Booth goes from famous to infamous.

April 14 1865, A. Lincoln is shot while trying to enjoy a night out with Martha. Who knows if he is saddened by the death wound or relived. Booth, a famous actor in his time decides this is the opportune moment to ensure his name will be burned into the memory of all school children from there on out. His plan works decisively, and the bastard breaks his leg living his last out in agony.

On 04/14/1941 Julie Christie came into being and sustained fame in her own right or by virtue of her body in addition to her acting skills, she did not kill a president and thus we are unaware of her middle name.

Made coffee this morning while badly limping and in incredible pain. Longing for the narcotics that I've given up I sit down to compose this.

I'm still on so many medications that I am not sure my brain works properly.

Today is another day I will not write much if anything at all as I am taken out to the garage to focus on other things that are temporarily important but currently necessary.

there was something I was going to write here but then someone started talking and I lost the thought.

6.9 earthquake hits Western China (400 dead for starters) and once again Mother Nature makes it painfully clear that she is not too happy, but, we humans are only bound by our self importance so the significance is lost on the majority of us. A cyclone gets 85 people in India.

Listening to Nick Cave and Warren Ellis soundtracks - best modern classical style music. Warren has a great Beard and plays a violin so beautifully it forces the sociopath to cry aloud where ever they are standing.

I am afraid to stand and keep writing in fear of the pain overtaking my self and leading to the darkest of places at nine O'clock in the morning.




My body still smokes – I don’t

Have I mentioned how much I hate pain?
Have I mentioned, yet, how much I fucking hate pain?
maybe it’s that I hate fucking pain;
but regardless, my leg wants to walk away without me.
my head wants to have a temporary separation from my hip
and my ass bleeds and says “fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”

- Hoc Scripsi


if you have not yet, be sure to stop by Theather Underground to check out the poem Blank Pages.
If you haven't been by the Roadkill Zen Journal either - go there to read togethercoloured.

this title has been sent in place of the missing one.

For the first time in my life my brain is more or less silent. I've wished this for years and now I find that it was better with the chatting and screaming, singing and forceful memories like forced voyeurism. I don't think I was crazy then but to try and will it back into existence is a little crazy at least. It might be that there is more tiredness, last night I fell asleep around nine while I was trying to write. What a change - going from insomnia to somnolence and now to sleeping hard with occasional hypersomnia. Last night was an anomaly where I usually get about six hours of the hard sleep -(usually: these past two weeks.).
I tend not to write much when I am creatively involved elsewhere, like building a lemonade stand of furniture grade quality for my son. Today is the last day of painting it and then I start on new drawers for my wife's kitchen cabinets. I will need to take time off to write consciously I think, and organize my embarrassing garage situation. Writing is the more important of the tasks, I would allow the world to fall to ruin (luckily it's already there!) before I allowed my writing to be negatively affected.

Theater Underground has just published another poem of mine on their blog. it's a good read and Patrick Tillett has already seen it and commented (thank you, sir) - don't be left out!
TUG is a production company doing some of the best and edgiest plays of anyone around. It is especially impressive because one step too far and they lose it all as they are so small still. They have probably taken a few stops too far but it's great theater. If you are in the McHenry, Illinois Area next weekend (16th & 17th) be sure to see the plays. they are not to be missed.
once again the link: Blank Pages


Today's offering


Forget that the kitchen is so full of knives

Forget that the kitchen is full of knives.
You are so serious and
I worry because I love you.

The watches are broken with dead batteries
filling the catchall in the hallway;
how do you use up so much nickel-hydride?

You are so beautiful and I
masturbate when I think of you,
specifically on the couch,

in mid-afternoon when you are at work.

oh yeah, thanks for the paper.


- Hoc Scripsi



Commenting on this blog: a quick reminder. click on the word comments below and it should either give you a window or a box or both, or click on the title of this entry and it will give you a box at the bottom of the complete post. I so enjoy the comments I receive via facebook and I would like everyone to see them - unless they are personal. Comments can be totally random or on point, I don't care I just like to read them.

Guardame Las Vacas

Monday morning and my brain has ceased working sometime over the weekend. Maybe yesterday when I thought it was a good idea to go to a range and fire off two-hundred rounds. Fifty with a colt .45 Revolver, Fifty with a .38 Special and the final hundred with a Walther P22; I had abandoned ear protection. Everything but the loss of my ear protection was a good idea. I obliterated a home-made target and my index finger got some excellent exercise.
Had an interesting conversation about cows with my shooting partner yesterday. I would like to own a cow as a pet but I would think it would get lonely and create a mess in the house. I love the cows, my favorite animal really. I always wave when I see them and someday I hope that they will wave back. Interestingly enough - cows do not graze facing east or west and in herds all face the same north or south direction while grazing. This was only discovered because of google earth.
Anyway, I don't keep books in my truck and rarely travel with something to read. I am more inclined to observe and be meditative with my surroundings and may puke if I try to read as a passenger - reading as a driver is nearly as bad - more blood and less vomit.
Guardame las Vacas, is one of my favorite pieces to play on guitar.

these are more or less unrelated except thought their progenitor. 

X8mX

I’m happy to say that
I haven’t heard from you in awhile.

I guess… how are you?
what you been doing,
are you working.
how is the family if you
    have one.
is that a new car.
did you ever solve that
    crossword.
is your whoever still ailing,
or has the obligatory disease
killed them off yet.
is your day to day in
good griping order…
and whatever other questions
that I have accidentally left off
should now be answered in
whatever order you like.

me? I am roughly the same
and still disinterested
in this general conversation.

- Hoc Scripsi

Sunday, for a change

Sunday,
for a change I am not writing about a death,
if one has happened I am unaware of it.



Early Morning – Chicago

I have trouble recognizing
     daffodils on mornings
     full of river hyacinth;
or rusted wheel barrows
     with flattened tires
 on mornings of daffodils.

 - Hoc Scripsi

euthanasia

Euthanasia: from the encyclopedia Britinica: also called mercy killing act or practice of painlessly putting to death persons suffering from painful and incurable disease or incapacitating physical disorder or allowing them to die by withholding treatment or withdrawing artificial life-support measures. Because there is no specific provision for it in most legal systems, it is usually regarded as either suicide (if performed by the patient himself) or murder (if performed by another). A physician may, however, lawfully decide not to prolong life in cases of extreme suffering; and he may administer drugs to relieve pain, even if this shortens the patient’s life. In the late 20th century, several European countries had special provisions in their criminal codes for lenient sentencing and the consideration of extenuating circumstances in prosecutions for euthanasia.

1935 in England saw the first lobbying group to form for the purpose of legalizing human euthanasia - not the tyrannical fascist dictator kind but the kind borne of kindness and letting go. America saw the same thing in 1938 - both called 'the Euthanasia Society.' one of America the other doesn't state it's country as it started there. Finally in 2001, in the Netherlands, a law was passed legalizing/decriminalizing the right to end your own life in pain (see definitions above). Belgium in 2002. Oregon has a law allowing physician-assisted suicide. Why do I post all this today?
Well, it was today in 2001 that the Netherlands leagalized it.

I only wish that a post from a few days ago didn't contain the poem that it did - it's perfect for today - here is a link. Disambiguation - Wednesday morning 3:21

 today we have a altogether different thing:


(sipping coffee) I just don't know what that is yet.

listening Pachelbel's Canon  - and concentrating on the harpsichord in the distance - it foreshadows the build, and calm - like a great poem or play there are distant clues which I had not heard in this recording until today.

(sipping coffee) this is related to everything today. This was written before we moved to this great house and now no longer have a freezing basement where I think the pipes might give way at anymoment.

gravity

there’s a certain
affection for being a pariah;
black sheep goes better
with vodka & olives
than whisky & water.

I have an infatuation for
television personalities and
watch their shows love sick
with longing & heartbroken;
going through the same motions
everyone does while
waiting for the nude scene &
drinking bad housewife coffee.

but this is not enough.
there is no exception to
the rule of mortal law
as there is no exception to
the gravitational effect on drunkenness.

and so I sit here at
the typewriter in a
freezing basement
waiting for the phone to ring
or the pipes to burst.

- Hoc Scripsi

RoadKill zen Journal

The RoadKill zen Journal still has the issue up which contains the poem Togethercoloured.

Theater Underground has stated that they are going to be putting up accepted poem number two soon. I will make you aware.
Theater Underground and I were in talks for me to perform a reading during the intermission to their upcoming (this weekend, next weekend). I had thought everything was a go but have not heard from them since I last did when things were undecided. Well, it's opening night, I've kicked Narcotics or I am kicking them so there are now pain and withdraw issues to contend with and of course, it is too late for me to get ready for such a thing; even if they were going to ask which it is now painfully obvious that they in fact are not.

those be the noonish updates today, do not expect these everyday. Today I wanted to bring attention to RKzJ and to this: I hate when a submission goes out and there is no response. I hate it when people believe it is better to ignore an issue than deal with the problem.
here's what it looks like when I write the poison pen letters.

both of them are loaded.

coming, going, what difference?

morning came more quickly than I imagined. Hard time falling off to sleep, woke up a few times to wander aimlessly around the house, and a hard time awakening finally. Yesterday, after the second post I had found my way in and wrote eight poems, all 10 lines or under for a specific submission but I was proud of them all.

I need to thank Troy Ygnacio Soriano. Thank you, I apparently needed what you said, stole part of it and turned it into an extension of myself.



here is my tip of the hat.


blue rusted wheelbarrows

a quietness of living space
is required at 5 a.m.
at least around here.
only Jose, who mows the lawn,

is allowed to interrupt.

I have trouble recognizing
daffodils on early mornings.
Mornings so full of cool air
& blue rusted wheelbarrows
with flattened tires.

I think you like me most
when I am tired from
waking early, worn out from
a nights occupations or mornings sight of daffodils.

- Hoc Scripsi


That's all I got this morning. It fails at being much but succeeds at being.

how am I different.

I am sitting at my IBM Selectric with a loaded .45 wondering about the sounds in the house and the absence of anyone else, wife at the store with her mother and my son in school.

The writing is not going well and I stop after a little bit as I can see that I am not going to find the way in no matter how often I play with the safety, no matter how sharply I push my fingers into my forehead, wouldn't a smarter man simply walk away?
I don't know what a smarter man would do as I am not that smarter man but I think it is time to stop stop stop.
Lie down and try to get the headache gone.
I have decided this weekend to cold turkey narcotics. Don't be concerned - I have prescriptions and have them for the chronic pain but I am so tired of taking them and everything else that I need one gone - the narcotics make me irritable I think so they go.

this should be an interesting weekend.


shade of white!
              you took me by
         surprise.

Picasso, Buddha, Bach vs. Back and sadness.

Dear reader,

in 1973, Picasso dies on the Buddha's birthday which all is recognized as having had happen on the eighth of April. This also happens to be today, and probably not by coincidence or design it is Kofi Annan's birthday as well.
Today my wife goes grocery shopping, today she restocks us on sympathy cards because it has been a tough year and we've run short by one. My good friends mother passed suddenly and she is now going home. Today is a grieving day for many I know and I think deeply, meditate on what has happened, there is nothing I can do for my friend, there is nothing he has asked so I wait for further instruction. My thoughts are with him and his wife and his departed Mother. She was a good woman I hear, I was not of her company, and if you are the praying sort, pray for her now. If you are the meditating sort, meditate on the swiftness of death and the suddenness of her departure for her final, our final home.
Noah, I am with you where you are where you must be surrounded by love. Our hands are offered if you need but I doubt you will read this today.


I've discovered a poem amongst the completed poems of 2009 that had a word misspelled that completely altered the meaning and readability. So much so I couldn't figure out the word and had to refer to the original draft. Sometimes MS Word auto corrects Bach to be back without due consideration for the content of the phrasing. The alteration did not improve the whole but destroyed it. Now even with the word corrected the whole is a loss and needs to be taken down to the studs and begun again.

the last three lines (containing the error now rectified) go thus:

the radio switches to Bach;

I make leave to

urinate.

as a haiku it would suck - as the ending of a poem it is decent but now needs a poem in front of it. Speaking of Haiku, here is some - not-haiku. I don't write haiku, I used to but got tired of arguing with people stuck of the 5-7-5 but more than willing to ignore the necessary line references - Tomorrow I will excerpt my treatise on Haiku as today I talk about not-haiku.

Falling leaves:
      Magnificent!
Whose illusion?

____________________________

Killed a bug: my
life should be
so important.

___________________________

                     Melting snow.
The sounds of lovemaking
are infinitely brutal.

- Hoc Scripsi

There are dozens of these in my folders and binders. I really like to write them as an exercise in the correct words as they are meant to be painfully concise, and vividly detailed. I think each one goes through at least a weeks worth of revision and often ends nearer to the first draft than the seventh or seventeenth depending on how far I take it. Some - like the second were there immediately and took no revision. It was a moment when I had smashed some poor creature who was part of a greater whole, killed while performing some unknown vital task, and I took it's life instantly filling with regret at the realization of the enormity and importance of such small beings. It was a satori moment for me.

next I thought of David Ignatow and how he captured a similar experience in a poem about killing a fly. that can be found here and here is a page of the book it is from, scanned by Google.




my auto correct knows to capitalize Google but not how to spell Bach. humph.

my brain is cold

my brain is cold for some reason this morning. This isn't new only new for today. If this were another day it might even be considered normal, but not today.

The day starts with Pachabel, this is also the tune that my wife walked down the aisle to when we married. I am nearly offended when the spell check does not contain Pachabel in it's volume until I click 'add to dictionary' and then the world is in rights again. 

My knee itches and as I am trying to satiate the desire through my slacks the thought flashed through my mind that if I excised the leg about eight inches above the knee many of my problems may be solved - since one of those problems is also my life I decide to push harder with my nail until I know there is no moment when the need is satiated and the bother ceases.

I learn this morning (already knowing but not formulating into words) that while I am writing I can only do so to silence, Typewriter or pencil sounds and/or classical music but not Beethoven, otherwise my thoughts stop as if zero Kalvin is achieved and I am comatose in brain but brought to stark rage at the source of sound, like voices, or eyes.

 

Name dropping

Lucien Stryk makes me happy.

Plath does not but makes me want.

Bukowski makes me want to read Bukowski.

H.D. makes me want to read Keats.

Mainly now I want to go to bed or make more coffee.

With the tornado warning outside

I think I may simply go to bed.

- Hoc Scripsi 


Filling out copyright forms is the easiest thing to do on the planet next to running a coffee shop, but I hate doing both and only did one this morning. The other I haven't done in 3.5 years and hopefully never will again.

a poem not about E.E. Cummings

the morning after, I truly love being married to the specific person I am, there are reasons beyond the intense love making but this morning that is the reason.

Laura, the beloved muse of Petrarch died today in 1348 while mine lives not yet fully as I am living, but getting there.

at the moment I am listening to the incomparable Ana Vidovic, playing Torroba classically on a specific made guitar. These are fingers that I love to listen to, strings that squeeze my own heart.

there are other comments that go here and later I will place them in another post, or even here, who knows, I wanted to reach out with this now before I start my first busy day that is filled withsomethingotherthan writing.
speaking of which, I am becoming amazed at my daily output lately. First I write here, then work on my stories, poems and such - at night I write in my journal. Now, anyone can do these things but I never allow myself to write without concentration and intention.  Also, my journal entries would fill 3-4 pages typewritten. I apparently have a lot to say.


everything here is related.

a poem not about E.E. Cummings

Cummings wrote some wonderful stuff

about the prostitutes of France.

painting them remarkably deteriorated and

            painfully beautiful;

the fragrance of nightly breath enough

            to usher tears into existence.

so many,

I’ve painted and/or sketched words

about were this.

more we’ve made great who

were not, some

lent away greatness, now

insignificant.

never have I been a whole lover.

never have I known to give at such a level.

only that I have been the prostitute

in some sense of sense;

never the sexual admirer

that was E.E. Cummings.

- Hoc Scripsi

So, this is what happened...

Good morning. not sure but thinking that I am creeping back to the insomnia that has plagued my life for nearly the entirety of it. 

awoke this morning around five and made coffee. There was no desire to return to sleep or the dreams that were replaying there. I thought I heard my son yelling out, far away. I awoke and he was asleep between his mother and myself. I had only heard my brain I think. Do they make noise, is this a function that the scientists and practicing Medical people aren't aware of yet? 

I've started to write a cycle of poems about somewhat near history. Yesterday was the inspiration and today there is mention of Mr. Kurt Cobain and his shotgun head wound, along with the birth of Booker T. - interesting Juxtaposition. (I hate that word)

It may be good daily practice for something or may be good on it's own. I like yesterdays and almost wrote what I had here today but it really needed more work - as you can tell, as I used the word Juxtaposition to describe it. (I hate that word, was this mentioned?)

I am still quite delirious that my writing was recognized by Patrick Tillett and am not sure but have decided it is high time for those cards as it is official. - being award winning that it. I think I was a poet as long as I breathed. Matter of illustration, I asked my father yesterday to provide me with some of my poetry from childhood - I know it existed and he was talking about how they are starting to collect up our juvenilia in regards to our artistic efforts as children; myself (youngest without comment), brother (middle, mildly psychologically bitter about it) and sister (eldest but not bitter about it).

this poem is about someone I never actually met. but this is what happened anyway.

Disambiguation - Wednesday morning 3:21

She had committed harakiri

laying out on the floor with a packaging knife

her daughter had found her at about 3:21

in the morning

it was Wednesday

harakiri, on the floor, packaging knife

Emily home at three

not reading the morning paper

not letting the dog out

not spending another winter in Chicago

not thinking, not hurting

not cleaning the floor

not percolating coffee

not cooking breakfast

for Emily

anymore

- Hoc Scripsi

we end today with a quote...

"Put the incense on, light the candles, and give yourself a hard time." - John Lennon

The showing of humility.

I found out last night that I may be receiving an award today. 

I was humbled by the knowledge and have now accepted this from Patrick Tillett.

In his words - "Jhon writes some of the best prose and poetry I've ever read. Many of his poems have the cadence of a fist fight and hit just as hard. This is no "roses are red, violets are blue" drivel."

more than the award I love this comment and description of my writing. So First I want to say Thank you to Patrick and provide this link for all my readers to find him. His link will forever be connected to the picture above on the side of my blog as well.

I usually never post on a Sunday unless there is a death but this is a confirmation of life - my life. Today I will post a few things before checking out for the remainder of the weekend.
Patrick Tillett writes about his experiences and life. Quite often fascinating and harrowing. Occasionally funny and bombastic. I love to read his blog and have often found it just what I needed to read when I clicked over.
Again, thank you my friend, I hope you are truly well when you read this as I know you will.

Today's post.

Today in 1968 James Earl Ray became infamous.
today in 1968 the world loses one of it's
          greatest lovers.
today in 1968 @ 6:01 PM Martin Luther King Jr.
          went home.

the most peaceful of men,
the most violent of deaths,
the most peaceful of men,
has died for all time.

- Hoc Scripsi

I think there is only this to add now,

Vincent Van Gogh only painted while stable. I skipped my meds yesterday as I fear being too stable. I suppose it would have been hard for him to paint while having fits of seizures and sitting near comatose. I think not seeing the world through these eyes would make all writing difficult.

one more thing, if you will permit me this.
Thank you.

clocked out for the weekend.

So I don't know what to write today. I might be burning at the odd ends this week as my activity has been more than normal. I spent a large portion of yesterday on the road and at my Father in-Law's place. I say that as if he chooses to be there, as if it is his own and he goes out to mow the lawn on Sundays or asks me to help him tune up his car or tractor, like he has bills of his own and greater responsibility than playing tricks on nurses and other members. His home is a VA home in Manteno, Il. Where he has to be following a massive stroke over six years ago. He is now the ghost of the man I love as dearly as my own father. but I have digressed... once home I took another large bit and looked over what I have written this year to give final revisions and final typing. Two days ago I assisted a local theater company in the construction of some of a current set. Go to here to learn more about that show. It was fun to build something larger than furniture or small caskets for a change. That night I wrote quite a bit as well. This has been the steady of my week so far. each day it's own and full of something. I've been sleeping great for two weeks straight and I cannot recall when this has happened before. Maybe I am cured of one thing to now be without mind today.
the poem for Easter Weekend - having nothing to do with Easter but I needed to acknowledge that somewhere I think.

Title: 2/11/2009

black trees

gray sky

white earth.

the last snowfall

of the season and itself

the last guest of

day.

mute silhouetted tones

obfuscating sidewalks

and dirt pathways.

winters obsolescence in

early year and only

missed mid-summer.

but it is without

conclusion.


 - Hoc Scripsi


This is everything I have for now, if I think of something later I'll let you know.
oh! What are thoughts regarding business cards to feature my not-haiku poems on the reverse? Like eight different designs/ not-haikus? place any thoughts in the comments where you may also comment about any thing or non-thing.

pages and pages

My son brings me a scorpion... I am tempted to stop there as it is true, fascinating and white knuckle. He brings it to me and asks about how it stings you and wonders about its size and relative effectiveness (at causing death or illness). As we live west of Chicago there are no scorpions here, and especially these deadly ones that he brings me which is suspended in acrylic.
There may be some live readings of my poetry, performed by me, coming up. We shall see. I will film it and post that if any of these happens.



dying roses are not broken promises


literal or not
we bled on pages
and pages and
pages of uncertain poetry.

women bleed with efficiency.

dying roses are not
broken promises as
are crumbling petals
no longer red.

- Hoc Scripsi


maybe later I'll have more to say, now I only have this poem and a cup of coffee and the few comments above.

Happy you day, happy me day. Happy first day of poetry month

in 1984, Marvin Gaye was murdered by his father in LA. Who believed that?
in 1917 Scott Joplin died in a mental institution, it probably wasn't known for a few days back then. No internet and all.
I always laugh a belly laugh when I remember that the fledgling day of poetry month is A day for fools. That is what we are - fools.

a poem not about E.E. Cummings

Cummings wrote some wonderful stuff
about the prostitutes of France.
painting them remarkably deteriorated and
    painfully beautiful;
the fragrance of nightly breath enough
    to usher tears into existence.

so many,
I’ve painted and/or sketched words
about were this.
more we’ve made great who
were not, some
lent away greatness, now
insignificant.

never have I been a whole lover.
never have I known to give at such a level.
only that I have been the prostitute
in some sense of sense;
never the sexual admirer
that was E.E. Cummings.

- Hoc Scripsi