The end of 2010 and the start of 2011

let us start something new.

humm, how about a year?

okay, good, what exactly can we do with another 365 days?

-------------

on another note all together, I hear birds singing right now. It's six-thirty. My wife is starting to cook some pizza sauce and my MIL is helping my son clean the living room. Two cats are crying for their seven O'clock feeding and I am blissful at the sound of typing being done on my slim keyboard.

Back to the bird; This morning I say a pill bug by the front door and late yesterday morning my attention was drawn to a really fuzzy caterpillar. I think what I am trying to say is it is damn warm for Dec. 31st and nearly all the snow has melted away. Condensation is covering everything and just when I thought I was going to take out my motorcycle for a winter run - it started to rain, heavily. This was God mocking me.

It was warm enough to strike the outdoor Christmas decorations, put the chains on my tractor tires because I am tired of being stuck in the snow while I eliminate the snow from the drive. We were able to see all the newspapers that got lost in the snow storms and get them into the recycle, unread, I am already aware of what has happened from those days and the only important paper, with my friend featured, had been gotten already.
while striking the outdoor declaration of secular celebrations it was discovered that there were some cut lights. This happened last night I am positive - we were out smoking and we heard a noise - I loudly said something about getting my side arm and investigating while I finished my smoke. We did nothing last night thinking it was probably an animal and come to find it was probably a neighbor who is the killjoy of all things neighborly.One day he will be in the yard and learn that I am indeed armed. But it's Christmas time - I prefer to shoot people when Santa isn't looking too closely. Not that I've shot anyone before - that you know of...

Tomorrow will have new poetry. I've a Magpie to finish and have been tinkering with some words and forms. Today has had it's own poetry, tonight will have more as we fuck away 2010 and welcome fuck in 2011.

 - J. Baker

Sunday

I was hoping to make it to at least three-hundred posts this year - I feel as though that this goal is unattainable at this point without posting around forty posts that would normally have been one.

Just having come in from snow throwing the drive and having my two stage 44" thrower break it's second stage, I am fit for a nap. I didn't wake up all that early today but also didn't sleep well at all last night. Such as it is and this is normal.

I ran out of cigarettes last night and this was nothing - Kara had some and dutifully went out after we finished the drive to procure some more for me.

My desk is piled with crap that I am not sure what to do with - except for the property tax bills. Those I have to pay. The other bills I wait for them to send about three notices with at least one stamped in red before I can be bothered to write the check. Then I pay using the stub from the first bill they sent. Especially if there is a late fee attached. There is, however, a new computer mouse which isn't a mouse at all but the Apple track pad. Considering the state of my desk - I think have a mouse that doesn't need to move around is going to enable my lack of desire for a cleaner and orderly desk.

elements

eating dinner by
two candle power
light
& glasses of water like

goblets of wine
between us,
we eat slowly,

laugh heartily
and are only drowning

in concern

               under
clean skin, made
beautiful by artificial
means.

 - Hoc Scripsi 

it has been recommended to me that I post a bit about why I sign my poetry with the "Hoc Scripsi" - I think I will do this soon. 

If you have any other posting suggestions I would love to hear them - I may ignore them until I don't or all together but you never know. 

now to...

drink some OJ right out of the bottle,

step outside to smoke and turn my lungs a shade darker,

lay down in bed and nap badly until I am rustled awake,

dream of once again dancing a jig...

By the way - I never changed any names... 

Christmas eve-eve, on Santa Claus -

I've never written a Christmas anything - Somehow I never feel it in a way that I care to express in poem or story. Believe me, I love the holiday now, haven't always but now it is very special to me. Thanks for this go to my wonderful wife, who indeed is a Saint.
I recall in the second grade where I was and what I was doing when someone, who shall remain nameless but not blameless, told me there was no Santa Claus. I'll call her Kate C. - She seemed to not be bothered by this seeming fact but was finding me silly for still believing in such a Spirit. Apparently her older brother, whom well call Dave C., had recently told her while her parents did nothing to try to keep up the so-called charade. It was after gym class, we were standing by our lockers a few feet down from the Art room, which was taught by Mrs. Painter (no kidding). She was wearing a pink shirt and had her sholder length blond hair pulled up, I was wearing a blue button down shirt and jeans (then I always wore some shade of blue which had increasingly grown darker until it became black and stayed there) I believe Kate was also in blue jeans. We had been friends but this new information made me distrust her for the remainder of my childhood. We didn't really ever speak in HS - so really the friendship ended there. I was heart broken.
Later that evening, still very upset and inconsolable,  I finally came out with what I had been told. My parents were seemingly let down that the magic was gone while my brother acted like it was no big deal ( I secretly believe that he still believed secretly then but he was too macho to let on), I was sitting in my Dad's chair at the kitchen table. My Mother sat down and did for me then what will always be the greatest gift she has ever given me - she told me this story...
"when I was a little girl, I left my bicycle out in the driveway. My father ran it over and told me that I would have to buy my own if I wanted another - (interjection - he was a complete bastard who did horrible things to all his daughters), I couldn't earn enough money and really wanted a new bike. I wrote to Santa when it came to Christmas time and prayed every night for a new bicycle, it was my only escape. On Christmas day there were a few presents under the tree, a new doll, some clothes but no bicycle, I was devastated. After we were done with the presents and went to the kitchen to make breakfast we saw a large gift there, wrapped in shiny red paper with the biggest bow I had ever seen. It was obvious that it was a bike. I ran to it and it said on the tag - to Sandy, from Santa Claus - I couldn't believe it. My Father asked my mother right then where it came from - my mother didn't make much money and my father would never have bought it for me - no-one knew, it could only have come from Santa Claus.
"I don't know if there is a guy that dresses in a red suit with a white beard, that may be a story, but I believe in the greater Spirit of Santa Claus, and that to some people, he exists, he visits and brings what will make children smile."

I asked for a retelling of the same story from my Grandma (Grandpa being long dead - another good gift to the family.) and she told it roughly the same - swearing by Jesus Christ (she was very religious) that she didn't know where it came from - to her dying day she upheld the same story with only variation that time gives everything - My Grandfather, I am told, also swore to his last that he never bought it for her and why would he have - a complete bastard - horror of a man really.
This story gave me hope and I have thought on it for many years - I still believe in Santa Claus and the inner goodness of regular people when the Spirit overtakes them. St. Nick can be found many places in this world whether or not you believe, within people, as a person or a magnanimous being of some sort - I don't know how he manifests but I know in my heart that he does.

Having a son - I am proud to never lie to him and have told him that the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist - we buy his teeth from him - (he wants to keep them anyway and when he thought there was a tooth fairy he was not going to give her his teeth) - He has yet to ask about the Easter Bunny but I will be honest with that as well. As for Santa - I remind him that he does exist, I keep that alive in him and I hope to always keep that alive in him - If I could have it my way I would become Santa Claus for all the world and look forward to my hair going white so with my mighty beard I can play Santa at the malls and even throughout the year. Sometimes children from other countries here visiting or immigrating will point to me with my brown mighty beard and excitedly say that I am Santa now - I never correct them and have even been known to hug them. If only I could become That Man, my life would have more joy in it than I could handle - I have no wish to become immortal but to make this difference in the lives of all mankind and especially children whom my heart has enough room for all of.

Sunday from the fantastic world of - I haven't made the second pot of coffee yet and this may well be the result. I think I need a smoke...

I awoke from a dream to the scent of K making Lasagna for a Christmas party dinner. It is a departure from the Roast that she usually makes. I like both and understand that they both take a lot of effort, I don't cook anymore. I wasn't very good at it in comparison to K and I think that she enjoys it most days - on the days she doesn't I take her out. Simple, I think, but I may be fooled.
This year I think the three of us all wanted lasagna, bread and salad. Such a good meal.

I don't recall the dream - it was inconsequential which is odd for it to not have been either a nightmare or a night terror.

We made perfect love and I slept great.

Today is our first celebratory day of Christmas - is it wrong that I am looking forward to the end of it? I want to see everyone but I don't care for the stress of it - the whole house becomes a little more tense and preferably these walls are a sanctuary. Is it tacky if next year I rent out a small hall, make it a themed costume party and write up a bunch of trivia? Mind you this is a party for my parents, brother and his family, also my sister if she was in town but she isn't and it is more her loss than ours, not saying it wouldn't be nice to have her here, most certainly it would be but we've all grown used to our current customs and damn the earlier ones that involved me leaving on Christmas day.
I am looking forward to seeing my nephews - awkward teenagers always make me laugh.

I've made the coffee and now it is all about waiting.

I think I may start listing Coffee and Cigarettes under the medications heading in the form fill box on insurance applications. With the list filled with other meds they may not notice and they have medicinal value to me.
I don't think it'll be appreciated with the low cost/high value insurance I want.

I was going to put a poem up but I have to go clean something now. They are my parents coming after all. I'll throw one up later, probably something old, potentially already posted much earlier in my blogs life which most of you are probably unfamiliar with anyway, so we all win.
I think starting tomorrow I am going to start putting up excerpts from a long poem of mine that has yet to see any publishing or attempts at publishing. Still a long work in progress but we will have to wait and see.


don't forget my birthday is coming up and I expect a lot of really expensive gifts.

everytime I'm with you, I'm fucked up...

religious iconography isn't my thing.

When my impatience with people, cats, machinery et cetera come on - I know it is time to take myself out of the mixture for awhile, all in attempt to avoid the medications, the ward, having to make the excuses - I am lucky in that my wife is somehow able to calm me and distract until she can get me to a safer place. I live not only with bi-polar spectrum disorder with psychosis but chronic pain as well, and when the pain peaks it causes all the effort of control to spin wildly and quickly down - I need my pain meds, today crying a bit while trying to nap after snow blowing the drive I could only think that I wanted to vanish into Hawaii or the mountains to live as a crazy monk.



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




image from Magpie #45

Vivaldi gives me a hard on

but as I sit here and feel a mysterious depression untie me, instantly disbanding my intentions.
searching for the door now as it may be reopened that medications have washed out of me, forgetting my need and granting these recent lines of creation.
I've resurrected a bridge but decided to put away the friendship regardless. In some relationships there is no room for differences and the past isn't always what some gratify it to be.

I am not alone and I wish to not leave this room, I wish to seclude and isolate, intolerate the world as it has done nothing specific or even so much as made note of any particular individual existence -
the world is not out to get me - nor anyone else for that matter. (Unless it is and, wow, that guy is fucked.)
a general distaste for the gathered throng is beginning to percolate again, bending my aspect toward something new or different, broken, old or discarded.
something borrowed, something blue
I am climbing at the walls and tilting at the ills that govern my outlook.

my brother, secret hero, our ancient people vilified one another
our ancient people spit blood on ancient corpses.

I already regret saying "thank you".



words

the notebooks,
IBM Selectric IIIs,
et cetera
these are my shields,
protecting me from the world
from you –

My words are the weapons
I utilize

bludgeoning the audience
until they bleed from ears,
mouth, fingertips,
and eyes.


 - Hoc Scripsi

nothing I like more than killing them brutally with my words.

 - J.

hanging christmas decorations or handling shotguns

another Jingle Poetry Potluck Monday. This week theme being - Hobbies & Passions, Pastimes & Entertainment...


Merry Christmas
 
I was the only one wearing a John Lennon t-shirt
and not camouflage or distressed leather
conspicuously eying shotguns, .357s and a few AR-15s.

it was a last minute decision
to go
a momentary hesitation
to leave

having breakfast at Baker Hill Pancake House
drinking Superior or something
enjoying the company

and the plangent chorus of diners
on a Sunday morning,
too cold for hanging outdoor decorations.


and I am unaware of looks or gazes
in other directions.




 - Hoc Scripsi




Not my best effort but it is all I have left today. I am not reaching for compliments as I am always straight forward about that but genuinely unsure about this one. 


Earlier I wrote a mess of lines and efforted those to a nose bleeding degree. I'll sleep on this theme and revisit tomorrow or maybe harvest something old to offer the masses.

good night, good night, good night - With Patrick out of the hospital and on the mend, I only need concern myself with fellow chronic pain sufferers. Rest well my fellows, morning is around  the bend.

Edit: several, too many - probably going to delete this entire post around 3 am or in the normal morning.  
EDIT: obviously I didn't delete it but I assure you that I did rewrite it several times before the first comment.

Magpie #44

a moment is so difficult...

a moment is so difficult to surrender
tied to it
panic stricken
and momentarily blinded by
it's seeming appetite
for notice

and though I cannot smell it
I think I can
and inhale deeply
and smile at what
no-one else here can.

a small thing really

one of the small things really
but I hold on all the same
out of fright and exhilaration
afraid to exhale and lose
unable to cope
or replace.


 - Hoc Scripsi






Image courtesy of Magpie tales #44

One can increase the amount of 'sleeps till Christmas' by taking naps. This is recommended behavior.

in their own voice also Sylvia Plath

I've come into contact with a lot of live poetry via "The Academy of American Poets" archive Compact Discs. John Berryman, David Ignatow (a personal favorite), George Oppen, Robert Lowell, and three more collections with too many poets to list. I truly enjoy hearing the poet's voice reading from their works and I've managed a large collection of them - some pretty available and some not so much. All Digital now after many hours trying to remaster off of old cassette tapes. My proudest is my Sylvia Plath Collection which has become exceedingly hard to find. In all I have about 2 gigs of recordings not including some of my own which I've just begun to do.

My Sylvia Plath Collection is as follows...

Daddy
Ariel
Lady Lazarus
The Ghost's Leavetaking
November Graveyard
On the Plethora of Dryads
The Thin People
Hardcastle Crags
Child's Park Stones
The Lady and the Earthenware Head
On the Difficulty of conjuring up a dryad
Green Rock, Winthrop Bay
On the Decline of Oracles
The Goring
Ouija
The Beggars
Sculptor
The Disquieting Muse
Spinster
Parliament Hill Fields
The Stones
Leaving Early
Candies
Mushrooms
Breck-plague
The Surgeon 2 AM
Nick and the Candlestick (not a good copy)
Poppies in October
Fever 103


short list of some reasons I prefer to listen to poetry:
1. In the Poet's Voice how can you go wrong?
2. Sometimes the pains intensity makes it hard to focus my eyes.
3. I can enjoy poetry in a darkened room.
4. a good read can make me weep, gladly
5. hearing a poem in the authors voice is like experiencing it again for the first time.

If anyone has any obscure or hard to locate recordings I would love to wrench them from your tight grip. Also trade or even purchase. I hunger for more.


Sylvia part 1

I listen to your voice,
late November,

reliving a moment long
worn away by times
passing
and memory.

did you mean to see it out,
taste of poison
fruits? or come
back.
all questions lingering
and a scar,
a very real scar,
traces round our heart,

I'll show you if you come to see.
no charge,
no heart beats like ours

out of the ash, we sift
and sift, but find
no more

no phoenix burning
the midnight air.
...

 - Hoc Scripsi


EDIT: poem submitted for the Jingle Poetry Theme of Dreams Visions and Reveries because I've visions of Sylvia at times when writing and feel that connection (especially this last one) and at times I dream of her. Is it cheating?

Magpie #43

this door is an affront to my senses

imagine Adam, seeing in vision, that which would befall man

brought by disobedience,

how his heart must have ached.

 - Hoc Scripsi

image from Magpie #43

December, snow, ice and the general good time with whiskey

Apparently the 44" snow thrower attached to the front of my John Deer is going to come in handy tonight and through the weekend. Also of use will be the seed spreader that pulls behind filled with ice melter.
December already and it's going to be a white my birthday.

This is for Troy

1. the bending of steel

poetry.
coffee.
a love of hard liquor.
rifles, shotguns, pistols
revolvers.

men were bound by
thinner threads then these.


2. hammering to form

poetry.
coffee.
a love of hard liquor.
rifles, shotguns, pistols
revolvers.

man’s bind was broken by
thinner threads than these.


3. the fine blade

beauty.
art.
love.
the eyes and body move
of a naked dancing muse.

man’s mind was broken by
thinner threads than these

 - Hoc Scripsi


I am looking at the Magpie image and thinking now; I am looking at my own door, painted red with window, and thinking casually.

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately and seeing some quality writing and some not so much. I comment on about 1/3rd of what I am reading as time does not allow for expression and reciprocation on everyone's thoughts. On need to get back to Rabbit on his poetry as I said I would and am still pounding through the fall of man.
This blog needs more energy - needs more poetry while it is looking like I will finish the year slightly ahead of where I was last year. A good thing but I can see where I didn't use all of my time wisely.

Almost nap time.

This above poem was written for Troy, because without him it would not have been written. Although it has been turned down by two publishers I believe it to be a solid poem and have high hope for it over the next few months.
Any publisher that reads me and wants it may use it with notification.

ad a good breakfast with a friend this morning with coffee that rivals the best of normal coffee houses - she only need a better coffee maker to bring it to the next level. Good range of topics covered and I left before I may have gotten boring immediately following saying some profound things. To include, on the subject of the impossibility of perfection or an impossible definition of perfection as to human achievement - If I am the sum of my life's experiences, then I am perfect as I am. Some may say that leaves no room for improvement, but I counter that with I am only talking about now, not what is possible with the possibility of tomorrow.

Putting Sparklehorse's last album to play I am now going to close my eyes and pull the night mask on. The safety word is "revenge"


 - J.

world AIDS/HIV day

See RED today. World AIDS day - you owe it to those you love (including yourself) to get tested, support the cause or the particular HIV/AIDS charity of your choice. I supported - will you?