Memorial Day, how perfect.

It's getting ready to rain in Elgin, Illinois. Perfect Memorial Day Weather. I always try to avoid writing in the rain as I don't want to write about the rain. So many so called poets and rightly called poets write prodigiously about the weather patterns that I want to avoid it. What am I going to say that has not already been said better and worse.
Every time it rains I write the same thing. How I don't want to write about the rain.



the sky darkens and we
wait
wait
wait
wait
thunder, lightening, house shaking
and we can know that it is time.


Holy Peter, Holy Leslie, Holy Dennis, Holy Gary.... My head is still lowered in your honor.

Peter Orlovsky 1933-2010, so long old friend.

my heart breaks this weekend
let us sing a litany  for Peter Orlovsky who is now home with Allen.
let us sing a litany for Leslie who writes poetry in another place
we shall remember those who go before us and
strive to be what they were to those behind us.









life ends

life ends abruptly.

the shadow ceases.

loss is registered but
life goes on,

indelicately as it
must.

 - Hoc Scripsi

Leslie Scalapino, going home, writing poetry in heaven

And now our heads bow for Leslie Scalapino, poet.

What a weekend, Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper and now Leslie Scalapino - two actors and a poet.



I grieve

I grieve slowly,
quietly.

occupying the hours of
a day with meditations

of death and the dead.
often I consider my own death

and am not unnerved by it as
death is one end only.

it is ever the patient student
of the dead that practices life

so fully
as to die with ease.

 - Hoc Scripsi

RIP Dennis Hopper

and we shall now bow our heads and remember Dennis Hopper

that's the way the glue sticks

I've been staring at the screen for over an hour thinking of something to say that isn't this, well, it is now. I considered writing a letter to the reader, sort of a 'dear reader' thing but that idea faltered as it wrote itself and had it not been on the computer it would have been hung up at the range and shot. 
I would just put out a poem or the completed versions of one's published earlier this week but it's too late for that as I am already writing. 
one of the greatest moments of my life was the discovery that two of my favorite creative people bonded over an album - Tom Waits and Bill Burroughs, The Black Rider. I listen to that now and it is distracting as I am trying to think of what I am doing here without making it sound like a letter, I think I may be failing.
When you get a perfect sight picture and squeeze back the trigger you have a tendency to miss but it can be assured that the bullet went exactly where the gun was pointed when the hammer went down. Nerves, anticipation of recoil, squeezing the grip incorrectly, and other all lead to a fraction of an degree barrel displacement and that gets compounded over the distance to the target. 
I drink coffee and write myself into a sort of stupor where I wander around the rest of the day with a blank slate and a stupid grin on my face, it has been pointed out that I abuse the wrong tipple for stupefaction but I cannot stand what I write when in an inebriated stupor.
I think later today I ought to weld something, anything really as long as it's metal and not one of my typewriters that works properly. 





open window
the cat sits
undisturbed





one of these days

One of these days, I am going to die.
and leave behind all of my sorrow,
joy, and anger.
All the love, I’ll take if allowed.
ascend into the kingdom of exile
as a poet, lover, and sometimes madman.

death shall never rear its distortions
to me, but, it’s beauty shall be mine.
Its touch to offer warmth in solitude.
death shall, inadvertently, immortalize
the memories of this self
and bring with that – comforts to you.
You,
who, in life, had always been my companion
and brought me all it’s renderings
you,
who in my death shall have no place
and in your own shall leave no place
for me. In death, we shall not remember
the names of our dead.

 - Hoc Scripsi

my second award!

This award is is just simply cool and I am honored to receive it. Thank you Patrick Tillett for this honorific!

I can only hope now that my blog continues to live up to this.

fingers crossed and oh yeah,

no flash photography please.

I am beautiful

je suis beau!
I am a revolutionary
je suis beau!
I hear the morning song
     of morning song birds.
je suis beau!
drinking coffee black
but not in coffee shops
     where the coffeehouse
     revolutionaries sit and talk
     and talk and drink coffee
     starting no revolutions.
je suis beau!
on the front steps on the
     art institute
je suis beau!
driving to gas stations
je suis beau!
in the fruit supermarkets
je suis beau!

... unfinished  - Hoc Scripsi

cowboys and a bitches brew

Happy postmortem birthday to Miles Davis and John Wayne.
I have an appointment for a casual breakfast an hour away so there are only fifteen more minutes to complete this post before I must be going.
He wanted to meet at ten, a far more sensible time.
The reception dinner at my wedding played Sketches of Spain, to this day my favorite jazz album although once involved in marriage you begin to understand Bitches Brew quite well.
one thing has nothing to do with the other.
Hemingway wrote a book with short sentences, I long to write one with long sentences and short paragraphs about a fish fighting for it's life in the sea only to be caught by some old bastard who shoots himself eventually.
it will not be autobiographical.
My thesaurus doesn't have an entry for masturbation which was never really needed but interesting to look up (found the info on the net).
I'm considering not getting an omelet for breakfast, but french toast instead.
last year I would have just gotten both but I'm older now.


maybe I'll just get both despite my advancing years.


POEM

uncom
             mon
                       inciden
                                     t.
noting
             move
                       ment a
                                    nd colour
my
       eyes
                  watchi
                               ng
                                      when
there’
           s nothin
                          g to
                                  see,
but s
         hade i
                     nto
                            shade
creati
           ng f
                  orm.
                            so I
driv
        e on
                 knowin
                               g ther
                                           e’s
nothi
          ng t
                 o see.


 -  Hoc Scripsi

ad infinitum

The only great part about waking at five am is the quiet abound in the house. Even the cats still stalk the bits of paper and toy mice in silence. The coffee grinder makes noise but this early it is brought to the garage for it's duty.
I'm awake now because I was worn out early yesterday and managed sleep by eleven pm. The new dosages make my sleep sound and solid, they offer clarity for a time now and I can breathe slowly without malice.
I'm awake now because I've enough of dreaming, I've enough of the parallel universe where it is the only place stranger than here.
I'm awake now as if I wasn't this would not have been written,
I'm awake now to appreciate the body of the coffee, the smooth nature of the crushed bean.
I'm awake now because time is immaterial and time is only linear if man is.
I'm awake now.

I've had clarity these past few days and it is good, though I will doubt my own veracity tomorrow when the diseased mind takes control.

I still write love letters on her birthday and other hallmark recognized holidays, this is a failure as I should write them more now then ever as I am harder to love on a daily basis.

I am haunted by old friends whom I do not call anymore, I see them standing in windows looking on and through the corner of my eye, in the room with knives out.

the madness of poets is measured with a mythological ruler bought from a store called romantic bullshit.

today I will put holes through the words that failed to align properly and a memory that persists but asks for death and the mercy of a bullet (the papers are taped to targets and not my brain).

I'm awake now and can keep writing and writing this until I fall asleep again tonight.
so I will stop.


ad infinitum

my hair is dusty and I need to
take a shower.
I’ve been busy but I guess I
don’t move too much.

the sky has stopped falling and the
tractor has been repaired.

I’ve noticed that sex dreams only
get better with age and
experience.

same day same thought procession all in time
ad infinitum.

 - Hoc Scripsi

I load my thirty-aught six to board the downtown train.

I load my thirty-aught six to board the downtown train
passing aisles full of people chattering and marks of concern
while not noticing their silence
I load my thirty aught six to board the downtown train

 - Hoc Scripsi


this is the intro to a much longer poem I've written. For some reason it is only my mind this morning as I sit here in excruciating pain. My leg for some reason is acting up and once again I am thinking about excising it from existence.  somewhat common thought and most common on days where I didn't sleep well the night before - for various reasons not related to my behavior I ended up in my writing room on the Ikea couch most of the evening. this may well be the source but I am betting on the humidity that is present throughout the air.
yesterday a plethora of birds were singing at this hour and soon stopped for most of the day. I imagine it was the 86-90 degree heat in May. Once the sun started going down they resumed their melodies and plaintive songs searching for love. I can only hope today that their serenade lasts throughout the day as I love to listen, like eaves dropping on two young lovers secure on the porch swing of imagination.

fell asleep while writing this.

the noise/voices wont shut the fuck up this morning and allow me to reach in, to find a way in, this promises to be short and uninteresting. I didn't sleep well but fell asleep well after such good fucking. The brain is still refusing to work - so maybe a better post later.

If you read this before than I love you if not - here it is again.


the whole of earth

the whole of earth is
beautiful and I carry
a broken watch,
waiting for it to move.

the whole of earth is
beautiful though
we still drop bombs
on weddings and taxi drivers.

the whole of earth is
beautiful;
I am holy in it.

I keep impoverished in
my pockets.

the whole of earth is
beautiful and
I remember when I first
got laid.

               the whole of
earth is beautiful, we
watch home movies to remind.

the whole of earth is
beautiful regardless
of telephone poles,
regardless of
pornographic billboards.

the whole of earth is
beautiful, hearing
children play in the streets.

the whole of earth is
beautiful,
never to spite that which
vainly tries to
take its beauty.

-Hoc Scripsi

a poem for Jackson

the sun hides
-    for Jackson


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

 - Hoc Scripsi

It's friday and what do I want to say?

There are still wars being fought. I think a lot of us have forgotten somehow. I am anti-war and a practitioner of non-violence. Yes, I have a fine collection of guns and I love to shoot them, I never said I was a liberal or a conservative. Simply I never said. But today I think of war - our wars, Obama's wars, they were Cowboy's but now they are Obama's.
Maybe we should reach out and shake up a few people and remind them that our people are being killed and that our people are killing their people. two peoples fighting one another for kings that have some disagreement. I think we ought to bring back fist fighting as a way to solve the conflicts. Less death this way.
War. War. War. Why did we stop having our leaders lead the troops into battle?


Thought tonight on War Consciousness


It’s War,
do you accept
without question
what do you offer
your children
loyalty

do you accept
without agenda
believe
offer prayers
money
market share
retirement
It’s War.

do you accept
cold
inhospitable
non-responsive
indispensable propaganda
it’s war,
do you accept.
without question
without agenda
this that we offer
can only be as now here
do you accept

without question.

 - Hoc Scripsi

a short green blanket

susurrous inharmonious voices playing
on in our heads obfuscating true thought.
no alleviation but pressing pressing pressing and
drinking to augment the medication;

an ill-advised admixture.

sudden, jarring, unholy loud; eyes open
heart thump-ump, thump-ump
really going going going
fear sweat wetting hair and night clothes

body shivers from light breezes.
awake,

light low.
powder burns on fingers,
feet cold and uncovered.

a short green blanket.

 - Hoc Scripsi

not titled yet

 befuddled and stuck in this mire of wordlessness - or words that do not want to connect coherently in the best order. At this point I know that I am making too much of it and need to stop thinking about this estrangement from the muse.
This started with the composition of an excessively verbose poem - far too heavy handed but it doesn't want to get rewritten - I mean what I said and it sucks, or at least caused this ripple of drought to infect my very being. It's dramatic and drastic without being dynamic or interesting.
but here it is anyway and I am only putting it out there because I need to either own it or shoot it. Possibly both.

not titled yet

susurrous dissonance playing on in our heads through
voices obfuscating true thought.
no action, reaction; no alleviation but pressing pressing pressing and
drinking to augment the medication, an ill-advised admixture.

sudden cessesation and eyes open
heart thump bump thump bump
really going on and on and on
fear sweat wetting hair and outer shirt
body shivers from breezes.

awake

light low.

powder burns and night now.
feet cold and uncovered by a short
green blanket.

 - Hoc Scripsi

next week this goes to the range for a few holes in it to see if that offers the proper way in.

day off

I have decided that today is going to be a day off from the blog - no slings or arrows, no tempting a sea of troubles - since I am in a creative drought anyway I might as well take advantage of it and go to the range then mow the lawn.

have a spectacular spectacular day.

with much affection,

Jhon Baker

later, after range and lawn.

my mood waxes and wanes with the day and I find myself in a similar melancholic swing as has been plaguing me as of late.

I've been known to take long walks

reading old poems over and over
not knowing what to put out there.
the drought extends itself to judgment;
extends itself to dreaming.

a .357 can solve anything.

but,
I've been known to take long walks.


 - Hoc Scripsi (unfinished and probably not any good either.)

slowing down also known as writers block

a creative drought and slowing down. I've always hated the term writers block because I am not blocked by anything - especially writers. More than that I am simply not writing well lately which this triggers the fear that I will not write well ever again and have I ever written well. My version of writers blockade is that the ideas may come and there are no words to accompany it, no way in so I bite my bottom lip and try but even the typing is off and uninspired.
the last poem I wrote - the last thing of any value that I had written was a short poem that talks about fingering the muse - maybe I've offended the inspiration by thinking too much of my work and not enough of the source. Today's poem is not that poem. Today's was written at a point of high creativity - when the muse was working overtime and would wear me out daily, like a good lover or construction labor.



too lax to title

fuck you.
I’m tired, 

it was nthing
or something
                           I forget
butitdoesn’tmatteranyway
Like I said
Fuck you,
I am not working anymore tonight
not for you or anyone
I’m too god damned tired
and sore
I can feel the plate
it’s sickening
            like
watching you squirm when
I type out –
you’re wearing the wrong
size underwear

regardless,
I will not write
           this
           for you
    tonight

   I am too fucking worn
from the day.
   

pt. 2

of course I lie.
I’m tired
    worn
sore
like a man after a days
work
and you know whatitslike
bang
        bang
                bang
all fucking day

   so, goodnight love.
xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx
Let’s do it again tomorrow.

I had posted something here earlier and came to believe it the worst thing I've ever written so I am sparing anyone else the haplessness of such writing.

I am sorry to have written it and subjected anyone else to it. Accept this as my deepest and most heartfelt apology if you had read it.

I replace it with the following image...

I am the dog that ate your homework.

Sitting Idly

I've lately been reading a book by Alix Strauss called 'Death Becomes Them' - it's a morbid curiosity book about some famous suicides. Good read and I recommend, what I took from the book was further reassurance that we poets are the craziest/ most depressive bunch, a touch ahead of painters and fiction writers, of which I am all three. The other source is a study conducted by Professor Arnold Ludwig, M.D., of the University of Kentucky. The study was titled - methods and Madness in the Arts and Sciences which found better than 9/10 poets had a diagnosable mental illness (probably mostly Depression, bipolar/manic depression, and personality disorders) while visual artists and fiction writers were both in the seventieth percentile.
To me this says that the end of my life is predictable. Once I tire of the MDD (insofar), the chronic pain in thigh and hip and back, Tinnitus and susurrous murmur in my head enough the rest is knowable. On the other hand I am also in the category (according to Ms. Strauss' research) where I am apt to avoid letting go, married with child - both of whom I adore. So, I guess who the fuck knows. I'll continue in my obsession with death and suicide in the meantime.

death caressed his cheek and trigger
and sat idly waiting for the resolve.

I've noticed lately that my leg has gotten stronger and more capable. I can crouch down fairly easily now to do things like look at the .357s located on the bottom shelf of a display counter. The pain has been increasing with the strength which bothers me as I thought the opposite would be true and I am now more hesitant than ever to make the appointment with the doctor that I know needs to be made.

death/suicide
mental instability
weaponry (guns and knives)
aliens (the outer space sort who look in windows and take notes, also I thought for years that I was from Sirius or hoped rather)


forced voyeurism as being witness unwittingly
and at the moment the last one escapes me as it's on the downgrade right now.

the shortlist of current obsessions.


Right handed – Left caned

I haven’t always needed three hands.

two had been sufficient.

now it is hard to hold a cane
and do other things as well as previous.

at least
while standing.

- Hoc Scripsi



things are getting weird now.





thank you Troy  - me

morning Babble

five thirty this morning I started my day. By six am I was making paper airplanes.
My sons first paper airplane was completed today and he learns the lesson again of practice practice practice. This lesson in life cannot be learned enough, it lessens the burden of disappointment when things doing go as well as we had hoped.
I always walk up to this keyboard with nothing on my mind to say and today is no different. A large part of this is that writing here is usually the first thing I do after making coffee, half written before the coffee is ready I tend to fade in and out of consciousness while I am writing. This leads to interesting tangents on most days and others a garbled mess that I don't go back to reread. This is the price of a daily blog- the admittance that I cannot find a way in everyday, and there are bad weeks but I try to walk away from those intact.



rentrant

Because I am no more beautiful
    than you,
my tenderness is forgotten
my holy love is scattered across
    America;
with only ___________ driving me ahead.

And this is old.
this is the last thought of a 23-year-old man.
Discovered a decade later during a
time of low productivity,
(without which it would not have been discovered)
and since they say you can never go home.
I won’t.

 - Hoc Scripsi



Hey, let the bells ring.

the perfect blossom of a cherry tree

I love the cherry tree for its blossom, I enjoy the fruit as well and can do neat things with the stem but in all reality the blossom is preferred.
it's fleeting, beautiful and the center of many poems that range from okay to exquisite. O want to plant several in my yard and rid myself of the conifers. I wish to be surrounded by fleeting beauty, I wish to adorn my driveway with pink flowers that move like oceanic waves in the wind.
I've been awake for an hour now and wish that I could have slept through this storm, normally this is a non issue but not last night. After many years I had a good run of quality sleep and now this too has passed, I can honestly say I enjoyed it completely.
My favorite flower is the sunflower, I've yet to write a poem to the sunflower directly but it is not for trying. Those poems always end up about something else.


having trouble finding the way in

listening to Rachmaninov with lowered breath
while coffee cooks in the kitchen.
New York Philharmonic in zenith.
typewriter in ribbon bliss.

two floors down the Laundromat takes
four quarters to wash and four quarters to
bring the clothes and towels to a slight
dampness. two floors up, we dance on
tiled floor and make love on soft Chicago carpeting

some stop writing when it feels
finished.
some fight to line everything
correctly – verse/line/stanza.
others never thought about it and
just wrote until the words ran out.
I am fighting to make the end of this not read
‘soft Chicago carpeting’.

 - Hoc Scripsi

I am also listening to the Rach III while I write this entry out. The poem was written years ago and revised a year ago. I am able to date this one as it talks about when we lived in an apartment which was a very wonderful time that I know our retirement will look similar.
what follows may be vulgar so I am including a jump this time.

not posting today

I failed to sleep properly last night and that ended in me getting up late for an appointment I had this morning which was to last until the afternoon. I made the appointment but was unable to post until now due to these circumstances. At this point I think it is going to be easier to not post today than to post this terrible excuse and partial apology for failing in my communication duties.
I gladly slept for a few hours after arriving back at my home, on my couch with a laptop perched on my lain down body and this page up and ready for typing.

I did manage to write the beginning of a poem of indeterminate length but am not including it here. Instead I am putting down a poem that my 6 year old son has just composed.

clouds
when the clouds
blow
a journey

 - not mine

I always hope that I will someday measure up to the person my son is.

Salvador Dali while still dead has a birthday

I think this is all that needs to be said about Sal. Happy birthday if it's your thing.

woke up about five thirty this morning and moments before getting dressed I decided right then I needed to make coffee and right then I thought a shower would also be nice. The best part was spending the first part of my day nude. I dare not drink coffee without at least a shirt and underwear of some sort and feeling silly only wearing that I got dressed after the shower but feel clean though clothed now.

48 hour magazine is now available on mag cloud and while I am not in it, as I did nothing on theme as themes bother me and I reach out for moments and abandon themes. The theme also will not allow one to bend into the tangent regularly either. Regardless, the themed magazine is available now should you wish to buy it. I am only still doing adverts for them as they are going to pay the writers a portion of the sales. I will buy one, read it and review it here at my leisure.

yesterday, today and maybe tomorrow

wake
coffee x 2
read papers
coffee
e-mail/internet dialogue
write for awhile

lunch or
peanut butter and
raspberry jam
water
coffee

woodshop (garage)
write for awhile
mail/e-mail
play with son aged five
dinner

time with woman
read/write
sleep if possible if not

write till the river Lethe
washes over dry and blinking eyes.

 - Hoc Scripsi



every time I type out Hoc Scripsi I misspell it by one space on the keyboard. Don't know why - maybe an 'O' at the end makes more sense to me than the 'i' does.
Today I am going to go the range and practice for awhile, remember to breathe through the trigger pull and I ought to do well.

my bones feel oddly heavy and even lifting my fingers to type is an effort. This is not the first time I have felt my solidity or experienced a jaw so heavy as to not be able to speak. I am not connected as to why this happens but it always makes me feel heavy and serious.

Lena Horne isn't coming back, she's home.

RIP Lena Horne,

your jazz soul is left behind
to help us grieve
your beauty is left behind
to help us grieve
your song is left behind
to help us grieve

thank you Lena,
thank you.

 - Hoc Scripsi


She exists stage left, we bow our heads in silence as this is louder now then all her applause in all her years of bringing us beauty, songs and stormy weather.

It's Monday morning and I was swept away with the blues before my first sip of coffee. The news of Lena, while not surprising, is unexpected. 

on another subject but not tangentially challenged:

While not yet available of Magcloud, the 48 hour magazine has shipped on time in a kind of miracle mixed with experience. We shall see if there is an issue one... this started on issue zero.

This may be all I have right now.

Mother's Day

Mothers day and I am about to make pancakes and sausage with my 6 year old for his mother, my wife. I've put him off until the coffee is ready and I've had some; I am checking the overnight delivery of mail while waiting for the percolation. almost almost almost. My neck stretches and pops in near exhaustion at the wait but settles with relief.
coffee...
This morning I have received an offer from a S. African publisher to publish my poetry. I know nothing about them and while I research I am guardedly hopeful at this prospect.
But this is a tangent, and I am avoiding making pancakes this morning at least until I am awake.
Today at Noon PST the 48 hour magazine is out. I'll connect up with a link around then. I somehow don't believe I have made it but this is okay. all mornings should start with good news/bad news then pancakes with sausage with some coffee thrown in there for balance, my balance, meaning I don't think I can stand long without it.

the long title

full moon fifty miles outside Chicago 72° heavy
winds from the should standing under the starry’d night
sky and this is what I’m thinking…

ainsi il va.

I just submitted to 48 hour magazine. An interesting quest into the caves of putting out a full and complete magazine in forty-eight hours.
I pray for my inclusion and yours if you try to be included.
check it out - regardless of the outcome of my involvement I will post a link to it when said issue is out.

I have visionary angelic superstitions

A storm started last night around 2 am, or so that is around when it woke me up, only temporarily as I sleep well to the white noise of hard rain. It continues in earnest now threatening to wet our hair and jackets as we begin our day of juvenile doctor appointment, ophthalmologist appointments, various other things planned for me by wife, hopefully to get lunch at my favorite family restaurant which I haven't been to much since we moved away from it, there is a little pistol that I have to pick up purchased 67 hours ago, or thereabout.
This is life, not always exciting, not boring - just is and it keeps going for now.
luckily.

I imagine dozens of winged seraphs standing erect, flanking me as I am a poet and necessary.
my history of surviving deathly situations may well prove this out.


untitled

my breath stinks
my armpits smell
my stomach aches

I am not the man I thought I was
better to be dead
then have to spend a

lifetime dying. but
I’d be awkward as anyone
else in anyother life

so there is only
this and
with all,

it perseveres.

I cannot wash the
stain of maleness
off my clothes

I am not the man I ought to have been
only recently realizing
that I have to obliterate all

that should not be known
or read, less it be known
and read.

and still,

my breath stinks,
my armpits smell.
my stomach aches.

- Hoc Scripsi

wanting to lie together till night falls asunder
me reading HOWL and you
reading me.

 - Hoc Scripsi

Seis de Mayo

Chewing the skin off my lower lip
does not help the poetry arrive
or give me a way in.


I have been unable to find out what the cows, pigs and chickens were named before they were led to slaughter. In light of this I have decided to start naming all of the meat that comes into the house as a matter of honest and simplicity. Simplicity in that trying to chase down somethings name is impossible and honesty in that I don't want to look at something and become disconnected to what it was. A steak was a cow, bacon was a pig and eggs could have been chickens and most broths were chickens.
the overall task is a difficult one in coming up with different names all the time and then not sharing with those around me - not many people want to know they are eating Blue Betty who was raised for our consumption but would have rather been somewhere else.
I wonder if cows ever would thank Dr. Temple Grandin or curse her - I think they ought to be thankful as their death is made more humane and they were going to die regardless of her ingeniousness. Did Blue Betty (who is not tonight's or last night's dinner but will be in two days) ever think to herself, Wow, I'm not freaking out on my way to perish for the greater weight gain of America and for this I have Dr. Gradin to thank. My death has been made more pleasant. Why not? As a person I know I would be grateful to whomever could make my death more acceptable and calm - of course this is not true as I want to be assassinated - but, then again, so are the cows.

Loving Cows and eating them does not make me a hypocrite.
practice non-violence and own several guns. this does not make me a hypocrite.
have no qualms with taking medication to help me be a better buddhist.
I miss my chaotic mind and still take the meds. this does not make me a hypocrite.
writing poetry and rarely picking up a thesaurus in revision does not make me a hypocrite.



it would be satisfying to me if the packaging always had a name on it.
When I eat in Chinese restaurants I will often name the Kung-Pow
cinnamon or fluffy.


 - Hoc Scripsi

10:48 PM - Listening to ghost in the sky's ending and the realizing  that the world still spins, somewhat awkwardly but still spins more or less correctly without memory of its turns.

Karl Marx spends today dead

Karl Marx - revolutionary, author or pamphlets, economist and historian, an important figure to the history of man, an important name to begin many arguments between people who have probably never read said pamphlet.
Karl you are dead now but if you weren't someone or someones would be breaking the copyright treaties and singing you happy birthday on live television probably, but maybe radio. That will not be me. I think it may happen even in death - China would be the place as there is no copyright treaty there or if there is, they don't give a shit about it.
that is my chat about Marx this morning.

I am interested in the argument or the overall agreement of politics and art. Found this argument or agreement over at HTML and found the phrase  – ‘Art without politics is inconsequential.’ - Wow I said - I think that statement is huge and wholly incorrect. I believe art can only be about beauty and the reader/viewer/listener can apply whatever they wish to a piece. All good art renders some consequence and art about beauty or the bystander witness to anything certainly has importance, impact and other ‘i’ words but is by no means inconsequential. Once you make the definition of a word like politics so full of breadth it loses any potential meaning and is rendered useless but the poet.
If you’ve never seen beauty rendered so perfectly to your eyes/ears than I would suggest obtaining new eyes/ears.

Today's poem does not lack the broader definition of politics.
Hey, listen. I've placed this one in this blog before but that was awhile ago and this morning I altered it when utilizing it elsewhere. So here it is again... 

short-form

pen made in Japan.
 paper in Italy.
  thoughts from Africa.
these hands from Spain.

I was born with knowledge,
baptized a Lutheran.
yesterday I was an African tribal Priest;
this morning I am an American Buddhist.

these are my interracial writings –
give love to all my brothers and sisters.

 - Hoc Scripsi

post 102

So happy that post 101 worked out that I thought there should be another.

Animal control doesn't knock - just calls through the screen "did someone here call animal control?"
I show him to the dead raccoon which was alive when I called and has since been shot twice by a .22, the agent gingerly took him away and asked about exposure to any of us or the cats, no exposure and the dead animal can skip the after death humiliation of rabies testing. Upon hearing the description of it's pre-demise actions I am told that it had distemper and I am now more relieved that I ended it's misery not getting bitten in the process.

buddha with bullets.


enough

there’s not enough of me to love you.
as there is not enough of you to be loved.

this is a declaration.
these are my parting words for you.
        now go!

                      depart!

-  Hoc Scripsi

This is Post 101

I am waiting for my water to be shut off, drinking coffee and thinking that for my one hundred and first post I should write something memorable.

fuck.

mondaymorningnotenoughcoffee yetandthecomputerisbroken

Just a note this morning as I must run out to bring the iMac to the doctor and I have to leave in about fifteen minutes.
Tainted Love Poems has kindly appointed me an Officer Poet in their FB organization. now I have Officer Poet and the Buddha with Bullets as monikers. I like them both as my appointed titles in the wider world of the internet.
I wish I had more to say this morning and that there isn't more is okay.
My tiredness (each blink lasts several seconds) withstanding this mornings strong elixer regardless of the fact that I have to leave in about fifteen minutes.




 These are not-haiku

1
stepping over fallen leaves
and dismantled watches
making sure not to stumble

2
night and day
     arrive then depart
each casually



3
softened voices,
      wind travels easily  
through old trees

 - Hoc Scripsi

Later may grant me more to say. Later may have the main computer repaired without erasing the volume structure. Later may contain the multitudes of universe. Later is time ad infinitum. I always know that later will have poetry in it if I can only find a way in.

Later        Later        Later       Later       Later       Later

UPDATE on the main computer and the volume structure. Total failure and fatal errors... a new hard drive is in order. Luckily I have everything backed up on an external hard drive, luckily this went correct or mostly correct today.

I didn't know that later I was going to have to shoot a dying animal. I didn't know that later would contain these multitudes.
Later still my water will be shut off for 12 hours, later I will be applying for a job after not working for almost 4 years. It's part time and will help pay for my obsessions - no obsessions and no job, how else am I suppose to stay engaged?

Sunday

Listening to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and sitting in my writing room, not writing at all until now. No ideas but this is no excuse as all one needs to do is start with anything.
deciding to start with a post here and just see what happens next, which will probably be nothing as dinner is soon and listening to another poet never inspired me to create my own - only recreate theirs which is not an option.
could/should put on Sibelius  - the tone poems and then see what comes crawling to the surface for cleaning and consideration. But I am listening to "I am waiting" and that is what I am now doing. L.F. having far too much influence on me at the moment tho I cannot be brought to shut it off. there are only about 14 minutes left of the album and now I am waiting for it to end but is waiting what should be done, is waiting now only a thought deterrent while waiting for the medications to kick in.

A Coney Island of the Mind is like a nuclear deterrent of the creative mind.

here is a previously blogged poem but it is Sunday and I can feel good about this.


the platitudes of willful resemblances

some things have a harder time changing than others.
sleep comes hard,
now we recognize,
meds and allergy pills. a
little beer and hopefully soon to sleep
and dream along the platitudes
of willful resemblances.

 - Hoc Scripsi

the wife

Today is our ten year anniversary, so today is hers.



THE WIFE

it’s great, she
doesn’t ask me to help
clean more than pick up after
myself, or ask that my beard
be trimmed all that often.

she buys beer when I want it
and makes the coffee when it is
empty.

cooks, washes the
dishes, and makes sure that the
boy gets bathed often enough
and that he eats enough.

intelligent and reads a lot
so is easy to talk to and
we make love or laugh often
and sometimes there are tears
or both together.

I almost always have clean clothes
and she makes sure that
I buy new ones fairly often so
I  don’t look like a writer, or
a vagrant or a jazz musician;
which I am to varying degrees,
all three.

but none so successfully that
I can make the living at it.

           I
ask her why she does these things
with only the occasional complaint
(usually when she thinks I am
critical of her), and she says
that she loves me.

I believe her tho she never
believes that I am not critical
of her.
I am critical of
everyone else, even the self,
she is all that is close enough to perfect
that I don’t mind the headaches.

 - Hoc Scripsi