the platitudes of willful resemblance

if you are engulfed in flames

2012-01-05T09:08:00.000-06:00

attention please - there will be a silencing of the fire alarm system - please call 5555 to report a fire.

If you are engulfed in flames we will understand if you do not comply immediately but please, at your earliest convenience dial 5555 to report.

Attention please - there will be a silencing of the alarm system - please call 5555 to report a fire.

2012-01-04T09:43:00.002-06:00

and I'm still tired. Bukowski suggested that one ought to take a three day nap every now and again to recharge the batteries, being a father and husband does not allow such naps but would I ever indulge if there could be a way.
Two links - you might recognize them from yesterday but then again, you might not..

Take it to the streets
Conjectural Figments

These are both truly good issues put out by two very good publishers containing poetry by good poets and of course - myself - the first has one and arguably two poems depending on how you read them - I wrote it as one and a half so there it is. The second features me as a poet and contains three poems- both contain a lot of good writing besides mine and should be read a few times through for affect/effect.
- Just for updates sake - Yesterday my truck was broken and my diagnosis was spot on. Now it is fixed and waiting for the next coil to go.
Yesterday I wrote nothing after the blog post and today I think I am going to scribd something - my new years sort of poem.
Writing will become the object of today after I take a shower when I get home from the hospital where my MIL is receiving today's infusion and tomorrow morning will be more of the same while the afternoon finds me in a tattoo parlor getting the design finalized for the next portion of the left arm half sleeve.

my truck is broken

2012-01-03T09:49:00.003-06:00

Sitting in the Hospital now with my MIL getting her daily infusion of antibiotics I am reminded that I am going to give up a vice soon. Smoking. We will see how that goes as my commitment is only to the money I'll save and the example I'll set for my boy. Problem being that I like to smoke, enjoy it most of the time but winter makes it hard to enjoy as we do not smoke inside the house out of respect for our son and cats - they've opted to not smoke so why should we be damaging their lungs - we are already corrupting them mentally and emotionally - why physically as well?
I am also thinking of my Ford F150 is not running correctly - badly in fact. Pretty sure that I've blown another coil, maybe two and that this will cost me a few hundred dollars at least and be a complete pain in the ass for the next day or so. I've been thinking of getting a newer vehicle, something lower to the ground and better on the pocketbook in terms of fueling costs and the truck isn't making it easy for me to keep it. Is it a sign? probably no, if anything it is a sign that the feelings of the truck are hurt by my indecision about replacing it - mostly on the side of drive it into the ground but I don't like it when they start to cost money for repairs.

a link: poetry Another link: more than just poetry but my poetry

go to that link - read a bit, fall in love with my poem and others - print out a few copies and hand them out to complete strangers for nothing but the joy of force feeding people the beauty that exists around them always.

Where was I? In hospital, thinking of my truck and health in general, and then poetry always comes at odd times and sometimes like an erection in church, unwelcome and possibly improper. But for this we are thankful which is what makes it the most odd - thankful that poetry in the mind is like the massive erection in church or the day you decided to not wear underwear in jr high and had to go to the blackboard after rubbing the wrong/right way, laughter ensues and the pink never leaves your cheeks again so you grow a beard in your freshman year and learn to tolerate or kill, at least maim a little.
but that never happened to me.
I saw it on television which is as good as a memory of your own.
this post has no direction.
My MIL has been stripped half naked in the infusion lab for an impromptu change of her wound dressing because her wound vac wouldn't shut up which is because it wasn't actually working - only pretending. Poor woman.
time to go smoke.

a new 2012 and the year of the Dragon to boot

2012-01-01T11:46:00.000-06:00

live with abandon
love freely
hate no-one for it uses up energy that can be used for other things
try something new -
try something old -
try things -

try everything, and if you are really into it - try it twice.
make no resolutions - for they are set-ups for failure
if it needs changing - change it regardless of what time of year it is.

party wildly and in some unorthodox way.

dance.
don't wait for them to come to you, they might not.
if you still hold out hope - don't abandon it but accept its fruition may never come to pass.
don't look for Atlantis, Plato made it up and says as much, create your own Atlantis.
challenge the irrational laws - challenge the rational ones too.
start a swear jar to enable you to travel somewhere exotic you've never been.
swear a lot.
drink, smoke, fuck wildly and with abandon but only the one you love and that loves you.
don't be "that guy".
remember there will only be one 2012 and be thankful that there was only one 2011.
wish to be only the person that time and experience will make of you.
support a charity, I can easily suggest NRA or HRC - they both get shit done.
ignore the bastards (except me!), most of them will never help you but hinder.
sing.
sing in crowded places as if you were alone in the shower where the acoustics make a Pavarotti out of all of us.
but just sing.
make mistakes.
remember that most people have forgotten the mistakes you've made and most people will forget the ones you will inevitably make this year.
so do not be concerned with them.
those who do remember all your mistakes aren't good people to have around unless they are smart and kind enough to have pretended to forget them.
keep a journal or diary. it will be invaluable to your grandchildren or another generation - and if not at least it helped you organize your thoughts of the day and will help you to sleep better.
those who love you are Holy, keep them in your pocket at all times.
also keep spare change to feed expired meters.
time and space are one - so broken watches tell time just as well as others.
remember that.

for auld lang syne. - me

the great idiot of us all

2011-12-31T11:55:00.000-06:00

When I was growing up I was sure of two things. 1. I was retarded and 2. that I was adopted. - eventually I learned that 1. no and 2. no.

however, there is lingering doubt remaining about both only because my nature is different and odd and my nurture is fantastically imprinted.

I was also told that I couldn't carry a tune and was in speech therapy because I was monotone and thought to be tone deaf - both of these ended life being not true as I have become an accomplished musician and a pretty good singer.

If I was so motivated - this would be the start of my autobiography - or my memoirs as they call them.

what follows is probably terrible or terrific...

the great idiot of us all

the rain sleeps;
passed the nickel
through gates of wrath
after
observedly pounded on
windows and
doors and windows
doors and windows.

slept under lit porticoes
and flooded swails.

- last night I wrote this but may take it back

a busy day or at least a busy morning or how I learned to fill out medicare paperwork…

2011-12-30T10:27:00.000-06:00

Already having been here for an hour and a half and out of coffee but rich in apple fritter - the radio plays Steve Miller much to a lack of excitement about it from the general crowd gathered in the IV infusion lab at Sherman Hospital.

We started this morning at the wound care clinic and waiting for a surgeon to look at the near 7 cm wound in my MIL's chest.

but for another topic - I have bought a copy of my own book for my wife's first generation Nook - she now has a color Nook and I am borrowing her old one to read Mark Twain's Autobiography as it is a rather large book and difficult to hold while in bed, lying down and preparing for restlessness in the dark. Anyway - I then got an app for my iPhone that makes available my Nook books on my iPhone - the line breaks are not correct on the iPhone and I cannot imagine reading something like a book on the phone that should really be for making phone calls and not playing games, checking e-mail, taking photos and all the other crap one can do with the phone. I wouldn't be surprised if the next iPhone was designed to do everything including talk for you and organize your garage but not make phone calls - and they will change the name to what the device actually is - a handheld personal computer - desktop, laptop and the handheld - next real step is the implant singularity.

I am tangential by nature.

I like being able to carry my book, as in MY book, with me everywhere and have it take up no added room. This is especially handy as I don't memorize my poems and try to forget that I've written most of them - now when someone says - tell me a poem, I can bust out my phone and do just that.

St Sebastian

walked, mid January,
through snowy woods
stepping lightly the tracks
of those travelled before,
leaving some for those behind.

no turns but trees to rest upon
no crickets to sing or call
no voices but those of
my companions
no impressive sigh
but that of our feet
crushing through
and impermanent

as I looked further,
down the path
we traveled,
it was Sebastian I thought of
and his arrows.

- Hoc Scripsi

that is one of the first poems written in this year and I wonder what will be the last completed. I wonder what will be the first of 2012 unless the earth comes to a mind bogglingly spectacular end tomorrow night.

I do not look forward to organizing my paperwork for the tax man/woman/alien.

My MIL sleeps lightly in the barcalounger while being infused - I type and listen to bad radio commercials.

I am informed by bad advertising and pulp and the slush pile which my poetry occupies.

see it was like this when...

2011-12-28T09:40:00.000-06:00

There isn't anything better to do in an infusion lab than to surf the internet or sit here and write a blog post. I have had enough of surfing as there are too many waves that crash me and cause undo pressure on my brain - there is only so much I can learn and I prefer everything I learn have to do with my areas of interest - for those I have books and experience, these being the doors of true freedom.

Today my keep of classical music fills the infusion lab - Bach, two part invention BMV 772 no. 1 in C major and soon onto another but for now this is what it is.

I could go walking in the hospital and see how many surgeons are about and engage them in conversation about poetry - philosophy - blood; the typical elements of good conversation. I could go to the cafeteria and indulge in sugary pastries and see how long it takes for me to get ill and shake uncontrollably, I could go bother the security and behave suspiciously - but all of this will only land in different areas of trouble.

For another topic and stop me if you've heard this one... never mind - I think you have.

there isn't any poetry in this post

2011-12-28T09:33:00.000-06:00

This is a copy of a post from my word press blog from yesterday.... I'll be trying to post in both places until I bore of it. I will follow this one with my post from today should I find it in need of posting.

Paul Simon is on the radio and was preceded by Buffalo Springfield. Sitting at a hospital and waiting for the IV infusion to complete is not the most interesting thing I’ve planned into my day but it is not the most uninteresting thing either.
Last night while journaling I decided to simply write what ever I heard in my head – it isn’t the first time I’ve done this and I usually only do it every time I forget that there is no narrative to the voices
“I like that old time Rock and Roll” sung without any irony.
or dreams of close eyes just before bed contemplation. Interesting disconnectedness to it. Sometimes flow of consciousness isn’t going to be any good – or sometimes it is good and most of the time it is disjointed and sad.
phil collins now and I think the disc Jockey must be schizophrenic as there is no sense to the selected song list – Elton John earlier.
I’ve never really cared for radio save the classical station – WFMT – of which I am a member and it plays constantly in my car. Radio seems either to play to the vox popoli or a far too specific cast of listeners – as I am not a member of the VP – I am a member of a specific cast of listeners – those who listen to classical and jazz mostly so I don’t get exposed to a lot of current but the current makes me want a whiskey and water.
The patient falls asleep in her barcalounger while hooked into IV antibiotics. a severe lack of anything interesting for me while I have my computer must be mind bogglingly boring for her without any entertainment except for the schizophrenic radio DJ. The radio DJ brags about playing pop, rock and soul and he forgets to mention crap and filler and bad radio commercials.

why are you here?

2011-07-15T15:55:00.004-05:00

www.willfulresemblance.com

click above.

that is where you should be.

Moving day

2011-07-08T10:05:00.002-05:00

moving day has arrived and there are posts there that are not here.
I've decided to stretch my legs with WordPress a bit. I have been dissatisfied with blogger and all the recent changes to the dashboard and posting pages and such are enough to drive me batty. It isn't that I abhor change but I do like to be involved and have a bit of a say - especially when it comes to a platform that I am used to using. I will maintain this blog in addition to mental slip but will be posting at WordPress and combining those two blogs.
it is easy to find the new/moved blog - just type into your address bar or click - www.willfulresemblance.com - sign up for e-mail notification and never miss a post. I make no promises about posting regularity or profundity of poetry only that I will still be the proletariat poet and prostitute.
how's that for alliteration?
remember:
www.willfulresemblance.com

it will be a grand adventure - but now, I am off to the pistol range to continue breaking in my new 1911 Range Officer and 1911 GI compact.

life is good.

2011-07-05T05:00:00.002-05:00

I am fairly certain that I became an artist for the pussy. I learned that when you successfully sell a show there is even more pussy. Getting girls to come into my studio (where there was a bed) was never a problem and then getting them naked was even easier. Tons of pussy in painting if you do it right.

When I got tired of the pussy I stopped painting and took up jazz for the ass it provided.

Poetry has never gotten me laid except by my wife and that is only a maybe. I think it could but I am not interested in that - only the poetry itself.

Playing guitar also never really got me laid - and these are the things I continue to do to this day - guitar and poetry - guitar less so and poetry more so.

Also Ukulele.

Happy 4th!

2011-07-04T17:45:00.001-05:00

(if only I'd gone to school to learn to blow shit up, I could have done this for a living)

For my overseas readers - read the title line as - Happy Monday!

(this will have to do as finding an image for happy Monday that wasn't cheeky or didn't involve breasts and kittens was too much work.)

What I think is that we celebrate on the incorrect day. Unless what we are actually celebrating is the declaration of war or the intent to be independent and taxed by our own people.

To celebrate our actual independence it ought to be moved not to the sixth of July (which was the original celebratory day but the fourth sounded better (citation needed)) but to September 3rd in recognition of that fateful day in 1783 where we actually gained independance and collectively said "what now?" - to be answered by "I don't know, we're fucking broke - someone call China or start taxing the peeps, or both." (citation needed).

But, I write this in America where we love our violence and wars, bloodshed is best remembered with a lot of explosions and many many missing fingers.

So, today I am playing the hell out of my ukulele and spending much time on the about to be painted deck.
here is another image which I found but couldn't fit in anywhere else.

(this is the kind of stuff that eliminates fingers from children and stupid men.)

premature ejaculation

firecrackers, bottle rockets and gunfire.
July 3rd premature ejaculation punctuating
already poor sleeping summer night.

roman candles blue center light sizzling
like so many horribly dangerous sparklers
blinding and burning.

mortars shake the house and

dozens of fingers and hands sacrificed
at the alter of popular patriotism.

- Hoc Scripsi

A few links which contain the ability to have new poetry not only by myself but by others as well.
Pre-order - PigeonBike (beyond the broken bridge) here - DO IT NOW!!!

and free to read on the internet and/or print copies to keep and give away! If you give some away get photos and send them to me and I will get the to the proper place where each image will be celebrated.
Get one or all eight issues here - also, DO IT NOW!
I appear in volumes 1, 3 and 4 - however, a lot of my good friends and some excellent poets appear across all volumes so I suggest you read them all.

Judas

2011-07-03T05:00:00.003-05:00

For several years I've thought about Judas. My intention is a long poem. My intention is to visit this theme as a poetic eulogy and I've thought and thought.

The Jesus kisser.

I am informed by the Gospel of Judas Iscariot.

Judas got a raw deal.

I am also informed by the clarity of non-indoctrination and the curious mind.

Judas has been marked for eternity by possibly well meaning folk but misdirected and Judas' actions have been greatly misunderstood. What would you do?
What if your leader, companion, most trusted adviser and advocate asked you to betray. Would you be the friend that you have purported to be or would you actually betray by not following these wishes. We must remember that they were after Jesus regardless of Judas' finger and kiss and silver paid. We must remember that the wheels had been turning against him, he would be found but the only thing that could be controlled by the 12 (or 13, and I think 13) was how and where.

Asked not to understand, asked not to explain or have the revelation needed or peace it would offer, asked to send shepherd away to be slaughtered by the shepherd.

Judas was no coward but displayed strength and fortitude that I doubt many have, it must be why he was chosen from the go.

I mourn Judas, wish to eulogize him, offer him his proper epitaph, his song -

"You will exceed all of them. You will sacrifice the man that clothes me."

Jesus knew what has to transpire - and if there was divine vision, he knew before he shook that hand of the man who would kiss him.

this makes 4 in a year.

2011-07-01T11:28:00.000-05:00

All the raccoons seem to die in my backyard. There are now two perished which I will have to bury later today. K came in the bedroom weeping over the deaths. She is a mother and feels for the mother and children of all animals. Her compassion, sometimes hidden, has always made her beautiful.

nature has a way of knocking the wind out of you.

Ukulele's are a blast to play.

County stickers are due to be on vehicles today - I suppose I ought to go get one or two.

I've no interest in the goings on of wall street thought, again, I ought.

Now I need some wood, paint and a few other things that will go unmentioned as they are interesting only to myself and voyeurs.

night of the long knives

2011-06-30T13:23:00.000-05:00

1934 - a total usurpation of power in Germany.
and I've yet to visit the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Il.

This will be amended quite soon as I have always meant to go but not wanted to go.

In the distance there is a truck backing down a driveway and somewhere near here there are baby raccoons looking forward to a life of hiding and eating garbage.

102

2011-06-29T16:38:00.000-05:00

The boy is running a fever, the kittens are getting more playful and there is a load of dishes that I understand are my responsibility.
So I sit here smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and contemplate firing a vendor that works with our PTO.

This is draft two of this particular post. I don't blame the dishes or paper airplanes for the apparent lack of style today.
I don't blame the newly hatched robin or those awaiting to be hatched on the downspout adjacent to a window looking out from my typewriter.
a fever has no concern for the goings on of the lives it affects.

Reality is a pain in the ass sometimes.

2011-06-27T05:00:00.002-05:00

A few things for today - maybe no poem but we shall see.
I was reading a friend of mines blog where she shared an excellent story of strength through defiance and 24 year old bravado - you can read it yourself here. One of the commenters mentioned getting a CCL permit, which I read to be a CCW permit - a license to carry a concealed weapon. There are a lot of folks against this for various reasons but the aforementioned story highlights a point I often make in the face of the "wouldn't it be a better world without guns?" - my answer? - no. what? you didn't hear that? - It was a resounding NO.
Say the story ended a little differently and the 24 year old was beaten or worse by the two offenders instead of backing off. What was she or the guy she was with going to do about it if it escalated into an absolute horror show? Not a damn thing could have been done except possibly call the police who would have arrived well after what ever could have happened happened.
I firmly believe that all women should carry a weapon that they have been trained to use in the moment of need. I would feel much better if my mentally stable wife would walk around with her SR9c in her purse (and maybe she does, who knows?). 49 states have acknowledged that this right exists for a reason - self preservation, among others.
I usually give this scenario - imagine a large man who stands nearly 6'2" - weighing well over 200 pounds and no-one (including doctors) would describe him as fat. A large animal and can be terrifying to behold. If he met a woman or girl and decided that he was to be a brute - is there anything that can be done to stop him? not by most unarmed females, however, a smallish revolver or auto is an equalizer - one that would stop even the most vicious attack. It is far better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.
I'll end this here but I am sure it may be carried on in the comments.
If you can - get a CCW, train properly and have it should the need ever arise and I hope that it never will. It isn't that you ought to live in fear, it is that you ought to want to make it to bed every night and wake up every morning unharmed.

for some levity...
look what I found!

Four of the most precious kittens - between my and my neighbors back yard. Jackson has already named one.

mittens.

Almost cut my hair

2011-06-26T14:10:00.000-05:00

It wasn't the hair I was worried about - This is obvious to the onlookers as I allowed a seven year old to cut it - it was the beard I had concerns over. It survived the seven year old shearing.

Had I done it I would look a little different on top but he insisted and I like to encourage - so I am closely cut and all the scars on my head from years of flying through windshields, hitting pavement (M/Cycle) and one golf club to the top, are now showing.
I am not loved for the scars but because I managed to grow despite them.

Cold all night due to blanket in wash. White summer blanket used when I was younger now barely covering my shoulders to shoes, pulled taut between and wrestled within for some semblance of insulation. I did not wish to awaken my lover so I didn't get close enough to prod the embers of my outer layer.

Beautiful day, although a bit over done on the inside.

2011-06-25T14:29:00.000-05:00

Accomplished a lot yesterday and it feels good - warm and toasty like the hives or something. Body now a bit on the worn side and deciding what I am going to do today along the same lines. All thoughts include power tools but what I really ought to do is sit in front of the power tool that brings me that much closer to the goal - namely, the IBM Selectric III - best power tool I have.

The poem I was intending on putting up here today is becoming a broadside from free penny press and may be available for free through this blog - I don't think it has been decided yet on distribution - So, that poem will not be appearing here today or for a long time as I would prefer it be gathered up in the published form. So I will substitute.

only the poor know

only the poor know of love's intensity/ many know only of mergers (marriage)/thus propagating the common ideal.// for love you merge the bodies (sex)/thus propagating life./love, joy, obsession, fixation, release/ and good sleep.

- Hoc Scripsi

2011-06-23T04:17:00.000-05:00

good morning everyone - I'm going to bed now.

2011-06-22T14:30:00.000-05:00

I almost never write naked - there are times while in bed and after feeling enraptured beyond illumination or prose by the pressing together of two forms and bonding with sweat and efflorescent nothings whispered passionate in each others ear - those times I will roll and pluck out a small black notebook and pen a few lines before returning - but most of all is written while dressed and thinking back with forward anticipation.

pain and poetry

2011-06-21T09:54:00.000-05:00

From here, the days just keep getting shorter. This is what informs my day

What would you do if you knew you could not fail? this is the test to know what you should spend you life doing. it is suppose to be rhetorical and/or asked by every guidance counselor of every pimply faced teenager who doesn't know yet what they want to do. I didn't know then - or I did but it wasn't considered a wise career choice.
My answer now? - no longer live through the vagaries of chronic pain - find a way to free myself from the unrelenting haunt that are, the constraints of living that are, physical pain and mental anguish.

What I once wished was to be a poet - to varying degrees I am that now, I live it and it is possibly pain that has given me this aspect, pain that has offered me clarity through pain controlling medications, pain has offered me poetry that does not belong on even the most interesting hallmark cards.

a little on the self

2011-06-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

Last night, after making love, outside smoking and the coyotes were getting close, I had my 1911 but after midnight it is too loud - we went inside. Listened to them get ever closer as we fell to sleep.
Now I am looking for a good varmint rifle - something in a .223 as I refuse to be eaten by an animal.

I don't think of myself as a contradiction but as myself - unique as all people should be and alike as all humans are.
a Poet, Buddhist, gun lover, biker, romantic, cripple - these are not contradictions and I practice non-violence in balance to the gun I carry on my side.

Yesterday I got read a smallish version of the riot act by a very good friend for referring to myself as a cripple. He said he winces a bit every time I say it and that I need to find a better descriptor. Maybe he is right - certainly he is honest, intelligent and an excellent friend. It is that I feel crippled, I feel like a Quasimodo hanging from the bell tower yelling "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" - but I know that I am not a cripple but have been crippled - therein lies a a major difference. In terms of strength and size I am capable of being a monster, frightening to some who don't know me and gentle and kind to those who do. The leg has been shortened and crippled, it has been cut and lives on in pain but when need be I still pick up and hold my seven year old to calm his fears, his tears and his to remind him that no matter how he grows - he is loved deeply and completely. I am not a cripple and as was pointed out by my friend - I would bust the chops of anyone who said so to my face - I have been disabled, but not defeated.

four fingers

2011-06-15T01:37:00.000-05:00

sleep sleep - where are you now? on Benedryl max strength, ultram, cymbalta and norco - I should have passed out mid OJ guzzle - maybe to add whiskey.

I love for southern France,
with my wife,
beautiful and windy
like chicago,
but more beautiful,
like my wife.

- this at one thirty-six am, drunk off medications, OJ but no whiskey. - I'll take four fingers of your finest, please.

Focus on the writing

2011-06-14T08:25:00.000-05:00

Things are starting to get easier - I think. I may have a cold or allergies - probably allergies but the sandbox is finished and beautiful. I have to recharge the air filters on my motorcycle and truck and finish the application for disability and SSI - these are both things I've been putting off but can no longer.

7.62x54R

the madman levels his rifle
in calm calculus
bright cloudless day
78 degrees F (23 c).

7.62x54R forced from the barrel
spinning in terminal glory.

the poet stands, taciturn,
in the street with notebook
pencil to paper
calm calculus
accepting and falls to
his knees. Last poem penned
in darkest red.
78 degrees F (23 c)

- Hoc Scripsi

Here I am, cigarette in hand...

2011-06-12T10:18:00.000-05:00

but the coffee is running low and I've a sandbox to finish building.

I prefer sunflowers from my wife

2011-06-09T09:22:00.000-05:00

a bouquet or even a single flower

I don't notice the vase

a Van Gogh sitting on my kitchen table
with a note proclaiming love

I prefer sunflowers from my wife

to all other gifts.

coffee

2011-06-08T10:14:00.000-05:00

I need to start drinking iced coffee or maybe iced tea. I'm the only one I know that really doesn't care for iced tea and I absolutely cannot stand iced coffee. iced soy chai - now your talking but why go out and spend five bucks just to sit outside and fuck around on the laptop. It is never too hot to enjoy the home brew - it is never too cold to eat a bowl of ice cream, and all movies watch better with popcorn.

Today's poem is a few years old and has been published twice - once in Roadkill zen Journal and again in my book, hands on the hips (available from Amazon or signed if you order through the buttons in the upper right hand corner), I have put it up because RKzJ has closed their site and it is no longer available there - this is the bad thing about internet publication, it creates no history. I think I should take screen shots where my poems appear on this world wide web just to have the history for my self - kept in a box at the bottom of a closet.

togethercoloured

roadside diner,

a dollar for bitter coffee.

I want the hard rain.

I want the long rain,

HARD on my shoulders and face

with hands stuffed in pockets

clutching three dollars.

I want the drowning rain,

pooling underneath

walking feet. Running

shoes cleaned and soaking;

peregrination of two miles

in a Chicago summer,

toward a phone call, paper towels

and over-extracted coffee.

- Hoc Scripsi

Day of days

2011-06-05T14:07:00.002-05:00

Garcia Lorca, born today, today I love you, like everyday but today I weep for this love and its end on a moonless night.
a short vignette of sorts...

Garcia Lorca, my Federico - a poet born to violent end
we sing you, decorate your memory with flowers
we sing you and your thousand gypsy songs
we sing you, we sing you a myriad of songs and stars
caught in the heavens looking down

on a completely different subject depending on ones point of view

AIDS is first reported in 1981 and today is that anniversary (30th) - today I love but not love AIDS - today I weep, profoundly - I think of artists, musicians, dancers, lovers and free men and woman all dying or dead of a disease whose name was never spoken by the elected leader of the time - such ignorance and more research put into the common cold than in research for what was killing and would kill - a fantastically dreaded disease which eats not only at the body but at the mind, soul and spirit.
I was born before AIDS but in large it has defined parts of my life, touched others and, if I can say it, graced the rest.

and Micael, Micael... O, now forever on this day shall I think of you, dance to your being -

Holy Allen

2011-06-03T08:41:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday Holy Allen, Happy birthday Josephine,

may your poems and songs in heaven reach here where your voices are still needed most

the good doctor, dead today, heart stopped and body preparing for rest

today I go out shooting guns and laying waste at ranges to celebrate second amendment

remembering Holy Allen, Josephine and now the good Doctor...

we will all meet in Heaven if that be where I end.

a day in the life

2011-06-02T11:12:00.001-05:00

was with the same insurance company for about 14 years on the cars and cycle. Last August when I bought a new bike they quoted me three times what the same policy had cost four years before on a then new bike of the same make and model - I didn't go with them on that - when it came time for house and renter property insurance I went with the same company and although I thought it was high I went with it because what the fuck did I know - well just switched away from them and saved on the cars and houses about 1600 a year - haven't switched the Harley insurance because as of right now I am insuring through Harley and who knows motorcycles better then they?WIth the former company I insured through they would up my premiums every six months and I had to call and negoiate the rates back down and usually prevailed in getting them lower than they were the 6 months previous - yea for me but what a waste of time every six months.
Lesson - want to save money? shop around the insurance and give the big names a try - they will surprise you. I did not go with any company that hadn't been in the business for decades - nor did I go with any that advertised any specific or non-binding % off current coverage.

That is enough about the business side of life...

on the more fun side I have been on a lego building kick for a few weeks and am about to complete the Death Star which I received as a gift two Christmases ago. I love Lego and couldn't think of any better way to wind down the extremely busy weeks that have compromised the last two months - well, Lego and going to the range tomorrow with a good friend, Kevin. We are partners in pain - physical pain, not mental - physical which fucks with us mentally continually.

Not the best poet and certainly not nearly as entertaining as Pearl or Micael - but it will have to do.

a poem perhaps?

only sleep eases pain

only sleep eases pain

pain defines.

joy, happiness, collusion

love even distrust,

having dreams, night terrors, delusions.

all are unknown in entirety.

“how perfectly goddamned delightful it is

to be sure.”

every moments considered

length is by pains

varying degree.

- Hoc Scripsi

2011-05-27T09:50:00.002-05:00

"if it was up to me, honey,
my beard would be 3 ft. long
I'd never cut my toe nails,
live in Tangier
eating oranges and
writing poems."

"is that a poem?"

"no, it's simply not true."

If I knew what to write...

2011-05-26T13:26:00.000-05:00

I would have done so already.

There are thousands of words lined up waiting for attention at my IBM Selectric III. there is a tenseness in my shoulders which is found to be un-ignorable. I read the Harper's Index and as usual found irritation and disgust among its figures. There is no way out of this mess - only through it, maybe.
Life isn't a rat race but a series of uninteresting mazes without cheese at the end. No cheese, not even the government cheese.
certainly no wine and crackers unless you are in a daycare filled with white folks. proof of God's sense of humor can be found in every bathroom across the nation simply by locating the sink and looking above it at eye level.

written a year and two months ago - a revisit

2011-05-22T19:10:00.002-05:00

off the cuff

Most of the greatest poets it seems really are assholes. I believe poets to be highly opinionated egotists bent of displaying to the audience the poet’s mind and naked view, almost a forced voyeurism, of not only the world the poet occupies but the audience that reads them as well. As a poet you must be ballsy and arrogant to even consider participating in the art as an adult as a serious pursuit I mean to say.

hand some women a banana

and they eat it.

Hand it others

and they masturbate on the spot.

off the cuff

but most would talk

about it, indefinitely.

meanwhile, I'll

sleep as sound as poet in

post

coital recreation

aftermath.

This is clearly a post while avoiding an actual post

2011-05-16T10:59:00.000-05:00

I've managed to sit back at my typewriter these past few days and get out a few letters I owe to some folks - if you are one of those folks - it'll be in the mail today.

There is the greatest amount of unfinished poetry in my box right now and as where I've the will to finish it, I've not the words or the clarity to see where the fault in the line lies.

I've been avoiding the dentist because I am in no pain - even when I eat a candy bar, which is unusual. However, after remembering all the pain control medications I am on I realized that I wouldn't know if I were in pain or not unless it was as severe as my leg/hip/back/foot. There is a dentist appointment in my future.

I've been selected, without application, as the parent representative of my kids school to interview potential principles along with two teachers and the superintendent. It will be his final choice but my voice will be heard. Quite an honor to be chosen out of 1400 parents - some of whom requested to be the representative. I love interviewing and was always good at it, would have been a police officer if I wasn't so damn distrusting of them.
Some say it is best to change the system from within - I disagree as once you join the group you are part and parcel of said system and gain, though human tendency, a sense of amity and understanding within the group.
people are resistant to change and may villainize the agent of even the most positive of changes.

if never tested, principles mean nothing and have no value.

broke one of my favorite coffee cups today - it had the definition of 'nascent' relayed in a humorous fashion.

sometimes there are things for which no other person can relate without being in situ, alongside your experience. This is the struggle of my poetry about pain.

a recent poet needs to be wrought into shape as a poem - it was that good.

this will receive no such treatment.

there is a king

2011-05-11T13:34:00.000-05:00

tuned guitar and placed on the floor.
to live without.
waking up.

I've stacks of magazines on my desk awaiting notice of content, bills that I'd rather not pay as I fail to see the quality of the service and its addition to my life.

my watch has a broken off hand noticed only once at the airport and too late to change it for another. I love watches and collect them - nice ones but rarely wear them, preferring to be unencumbered from time and appointment. preferring to be unencumbered by diploma of life and riches and sun stained shoulders and neck.

but this isn't my life anymore and I don't work or add to a community that does not want words of perspective.
waking up.

ideation of end of life scenarios with tool of end game held firmly in hand but persistence of the flowers in the mornings and birds singing at five am -
waking up.

I remember a moment so brazen, bold - coming now with apple and white tooth smile hidden behind a beard or bad breath.
waking up.

suddenly 80 degrees Fahrenheit, suddenly humid and I sculpt memories out of tar and sand,
this is today.
this is where you can find me.
waking up.

poor poor Shel

2011-05-10T01:24:00.000-05:00

Shel, I'll never forgive you for leaving us, as I'll never forgive all those tethered to my heart except the one who left to leave behind her pain.

Shel didn't die those years ago - he just went home.

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.

2011-05-09T16:07:00.000-05:00

for our second post today - we give you a link -
click here.

Monday monday, pinched nerve and a hard on

2011-05-09T12:40:00.000-05:00

awoke with an inability to move my neck and a completely engorged member. This made it difficult to remove myself from the comfort of a king, stationary under a threadbare blanket.

I've three letters to write and have been ignoring my friends somewhat. Not intentional but a movement in a symphonic life teeming with incredulous memory.

coffee is unprepared but waiting.

I am growing more concerned about the influence of people who view me as an enemy. Don't they know I love them, don't they know I sit concerned at midnight about their health.

unfinished

one hand moves swiftly against the other,

(a final act of

expression.

a final act of

rebellion.)

wisping eagerly

against the fiddling wind

life dropping,

weighted,

still

on tiled, unclean

bathroom floors.

- Hoc Scripsi

happy coca-cola day!

2011-05-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

Today, 125 years ago, John Pemberton concocted his cure all tonic which would eventually keep America stoned until they removed the special coca ingredient - probably resulting in the seventies and eighties coke binges and nose bleeds.

I hear my son walking around singing and now I shift from soda products and soda jerks to the woman who everyday makes me proud and reflects a light that comes from a place I am not aware, My wife - the perfect mother and a fine woman. Baby, happy mothers day - I won't bill you for the pancakes and bacon this time.
It takes a fine woman to raise a boy like Jackson and to tolerate a man such as I.

I love you baby.

My Mother - a woman rarely spoken of here largely of her unwillingness to allow me to share her story which is a hell of a story - I'll wait for her to perish and tell it, damn her sisters that would probably be eternally upset by its truth. Anyway - Thank you for bearing me into this world and, variously, assisting me in becoming the man I am now.

My secondary mother - my sister. Thank you for never dressing me up as a girl, thank you for holding me in your lap and I bled half my bodies capacity onto your body and lap - you were twelve and mistaken for my mother - this is not the last time that has happened - now I call you my little sister as I am a manly 6'2", 300 lbs and you no where near it. It was so good to see you recently and I can only hope you take my wife's offer to stay here on respite from a blissful like in Colorado.

regret

2011-05-07T09:59:00.002-05:00

regret

things

parking

spaces

but never lovers.

one

thinks

looks

across

tables

rooms

but never someone who broke your nose.

- HocScripsi

Seis de Mayo

2011-05-06T13:56:00.000-05:00

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo yesterday I wanted a BLT but had chicken instead.
get it get it get it???

bad joke and I am not up on my game at the moment.

Illinois failed to pass a law legalizing the right of the citizens to protect themselves from harm. All criminals rejoice at the easy pickings! Also, it is an estimated 40 million that the state would have seen in increased revenue from the licensure alone over the next two years. A state going broke turns down revenue by three votes and once again Chicago is the cock block.
better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.

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

sunlight.

2011-05-04T05:00:00.002-05:00

I can sleep in sunlight,
natural light,
but not artificial light.

no matter how an artificial day attempts to be
my body prefers the heavens radiation.

prose/poem/prose poem/ as I opine about my poetry slightly

2011-05-03T08:44:00.001-05:00

I've started another blog because I liked the url that was available. I have yet to do anything with it other than ramble about my mental abberations.
it is http://mentalslip.blogspot.com
don't expect much there as this blog is still my main place of blogging communication.

I am having trouble choosing poems for the next print edition on PigeonBike - the first four I sent were rejected much to my surprise but upon rereading I can now see what the publisher wants - this is an important lesson in submitting (submission), knowing what the publisher is looking for. Now I am considering the voice that the original two published there were written in. They are heavily influenced by David Ignatow which is a voice I like to write in as it is similar to mine. What I would like is to find a place for my half poetic prose half poem pieces - this is an honest voice that I love but have found no takers that I know of yet. There are some out there right now but we shall see.

as an example:

stunned and lovely

I'm suppose to be writing the most perfect of poems but am sitting around doing nothing. I'm disgusted by the news on the wire and prose badly written meant to move us to tears. but this is nothing that we haven't seen before this is nothing that I've not written before, it's not my birthday so there is no excuse and the book on my nightstand rests with the mark on page 309, SO I trade in bonds to pay for new landscaping and feel really stupid and wonder what I will hear next but not from who.

most of all I really want to be stunned and lovely.

fuck the songs that say differently, it is never easy unless it is. Standing out strongly but in fear and not beautiful but gently. It was last friday night and suspecting that this would be here like it is and I'm not saying good bye.

here's to life!
here's to life.
viva la vida -
a star, quarter,
four fingers of Johnnie Walker
chocking back the innocence
to truly gain perspective.

- Hoc Scripsi

I love this style and am still learning to breathe in it.

now in NC

2011-04-30T05:00:00.001-05:00

From a response to a comment left on this blog with some additions and edits for clarity, namely my own.

We are now in NC - arriving this morning we were greeted by my extended family as though we were the most dearly loved people of all earth. These are some of the best people I have ever known as they have always been like this toward my wife, son and I.

Lunch, attempt at a nap and dinner with dessert and some memories shared. A beautiful occasion.
It had not occurred to me when I was asked to read the poem and the paragraph from the letter that I would be the only one to read outside of the person giving the eulogy. Out of the myriad of people that my Aunt knew and were ever so close to apparently it was me that she felt a true bond outside her daughters and husband.

I learned today that she kept my book beside her bed where she spent the last eight months of her life and my letters adjacent - often rereading them with utter joy. The weight of the honor I feel and indebtedness to her and her family is immense without being burdensome. We never know how much we truly mean to someone in this life and I am now so touched to know how my letters, phone calls and poetry had lifted her - her daughters even went so far as to say that the letters were a reason she kept going. I only wish she had read the one I was writing when she passed.

though I can no longer dance, I still think every day of the twostep.

That letter along with three more I delivered today among the pile of read/received letters. The total aspect of loss hit me in that moment. If I could ever live so fully and beautifully as she - even half that I would perish a loved and good man.

Today I read my public testament to her - my words of embrace to her loved remaining here without her deepest constant grace. The most beautiful of words can never offer what she simply did in her warmth and friendship.
Forever I will remember her, always as my beloved friend and her love's magnanimity.

for your name is scrawled across my heart, for these memories tethered there for all time.

2011-04-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

We are on a plane at the moment and this was written before I went to sleep yesterday. I cannot express anything on the status of the planet in the last 24 hours and have no comment on even the birth certificate of Obama.

be well all.

I am sure NC is beautiful and I am told the cherry trees will be in full bloom.

a re-post from the twentieth.

for Aunt Kathryn

My heart is broken.

the post office doesn't deliver to heaven.

and you've crossed the bridge

and are going home

--------

this is my star.
          bewildered,
     hanging down
     our heads
this is my star.

this is my star,
          vainly wishing and
     wishing on planets
     and suns
this is my star.

on bended knees
with clenching fists
praying or raging at your
Christian God

this is my star,
         to wonder and
     wonder and
     wonder,
this is my star.

- Hoc Scripsi

For Aunt Kathryn

2011-04-28T13:13:00.000-05:00

As was proposed yesterday: here is the second part that I am going to read at my Aunt Kathryn's memorial service on Saturday, which we will be leaving for in the morning at approx. 4am.

There needs to be a way that I can step out of my door and straight up to yours, bend space and time, bend light and dark, dematerialize and reconstruct in an instant - there ought to be a way, not eventually, not in the next life but now. It would please me immensely to sit for a cup of coffee or tea with you right now, have a scone or doughnut and laugh at quaint jokes and remark upon the headlines of the local paper. We need this ability more than we need another war, another fastest plane, another super computer or another convening of the Senate.

I lift this coffee mug to you, be well.

with love,

There has been some push back for my want to read this and the poem (read yesterdays blog for poem) selected partially for the reason as it was the last poem of mine she had ever read and this paragraph is the last thing from me she had ever read - both are important to the relationship that we shared and her immediate family who have given their blessing.

I cannot comment too much on the push back but to say - what the hell is wrong with someone when they believe they can dictate the manner in which we grieve? When they can pretend to know what is best in these moments for others. We each grieve on our own, in an individual way; our personal memorials are largely dictated by what we ourselves actually require to heal. What we ourselves need to learn to brave the day without the person we loved so fully.

Listening to Nick Cave and I couldn't be happier about the rain

2011-04-27T10:04:00.004-05:00

Target shooting this morning, indoors at my favorite range - going with my favorite girl and my favorite pistol. The inspiration for Guernica was laid today in typical bloodbath inspirational fashion.

One of my favorite paintings - another one would be Van Gogh's wheat field with crows painted shortly before his death - arguably his final painting.

This weekend there will be a family reunion of sorts in NC - memorializing the death of my very good friend and confidant - Aunt Kathryn. I've two siblings - A brother (an Actor of Theatre Undreground fame (yes, that is the spelling)) and a sister of Denver Co. Vet tech profession. She will be going while I am sure my brother will be home holding down the fort of my fathers business.
one and a half days there only and I wish death had better timing that we (K, Jackson and I) could spend more time.
I'll be doing a reading of the last poem I sent to her and the last paragraph of the letter the poem was sent in. I still am unable to properly quantify the loss as I continue to write her letters that I am unable to send. They will be hand delivered to her in Heaven should I be able.

the poem to be read:

the artist dreams of nightsong and thinks of his paintings
- For Aunt Kathryn

I wish the birds would sing
in the middle of the night
in winter,
though the windows are never open.

I wish the birds would sing in winter
though I stoop to pet a plant
inadvertently knocking over a light fixture.

I wish the birds would sing
in the middle of the night,
lights low, the party over
and missing every painting I’ve ever sold.

I wish the birds would sing
in the middle of the night
in winter,
though purple flowers want their bloom

- Jhon Baker

I'll later post the ending of the letter but as of now I am intertwined in memory and bereft with melancholy.

2011-04-26T14:42:00.000-05:00

Woke up late and decided that the coffee was perfect. Made a few phone calls and decided that I still need a new phone but am really trying to make the one I have last as long as electricity is being used. Perhaps even longer.
Waiting on a letter or two and needed to write two myself - or three but one would be to a person no longer counted among the living. I write her anyway because it makes me feel whole - or at least less wandering.
There is nothing wrong with being a wanderer or a traveler in this world - what am I looking for? I'll tell you when I get there, this will possibly have to be a postmortem conversation.
Like the one I had with the raccoon the other day.
I've recently sent two books out that were purchased from my paypal link to the right. I hope that they arrive fine and I've learned that Hardcovers need to either be sent media mail or priority, this ends me spending more on priority as I think media mail is for suckers.
Oh, well.
installed a new printer yesterday. Bought because the old one stopped communicating with my router. The new one didn't communicate with the router either so I have determined it was the router, which only needed to be reset. now I have two printers but this is okay as my writing office is moving to the lower level of the house - next to the bar - and there is no printer down there for my laptop or to copy things which is all I tend to use the printer for. A copy machine.
Yesterdays poem must have sucked as the comments were too specific. I might rearrange it and do without the third and fourth section.

I long for slow waltzes in the company of my imagination.

Monday, isn't it?

2011-04-25T11:09:00.000-05:00

Fortunately the Easter Bunny had already hidden and left his wares by the time I was awoken and mistook him for a six foot intruder. Needless to say there was rabbit on the table for dinner and eggs for breakfast.
being a non-christian, non-catholic, non-pagan, non witch or warlock type (did I miss something?) makes celebrating these things a bit odd. But there is the children - or child. I want to give Jackson the best of childhood memories for his impending memoir so I aside personal beliefs and offer candy, presents and a good time had by all - sans the shooting of the Easter Bunny - I don't know how I am going to cover that one next year.
I jest about the bunny but did find another dead/dying raccoon behind the house of the walk out steps from the lower level. I allowed rigor to set in as I didn't want to handle a floppy dead two stone animal. I imagine this also gave his brethren time to grieve properly and if they didn't there is always the garbage can to go to for visitation until Thursday morning.

it's starting to rain and I must bring this inside.

On the front of good news - after a year or so of waiting I finally found the most talented cobbler and had new boots and a pair of New Balance (unpaid advertising) made for me. No, I am not some rich weirdo who can only wear shoes made for him - I am some weird cripple who needs shoes made a certain way so I can walk.
The new boot and shoes are so perfectly made I almost forget that I am crippled when I walk, almost if not for the pain. On the cycle I now completely forget that my leg isn't whole, that I am not broken. My ride to the food store yesterday was the best ride I'd taken since the accident.
If any readers need shoe mending and are in the north of Illinois - I strongly suggest going to Geneva Shoe Repair for this service (also, unpaid advertisement).

But back to the business of poetry.

it's monday, isn't it?

awoke, fitful night of dreaming

convalescing

a chapter before sleep or

Chopin waltzes

in interstellar time space conversion.

Pleiades, the seven sisters, gathering together,

gathered and looking down

in a pirouette of secular astonishment,

or not looking but close eyed

fancying

intersection of some young girls jeans;

these are the seven wives of the stationed

star rishis of the Great Bear.

Sterope

Merope

Electra

Maia

Taygeta

Celaeno

Alcyone

in dream,

stirring in twilight rest;

looking up,

looking out

sextant guiding the way home.

- Hoc Scripsi

Rolling hills. grassy knolls... - First Draft, be kind.

2011-04-22T05:00:00.003-05:00

A beginning/Setting of the scene

Let me tell you about an exquisite land. It rests above the ninth parallel and west of somewhere. I've never been to the little town located somewhere within lush valleys, rolling hills and grassy knolls, but have bared witness to many tales from a former inhabitant in a little joint on the west side.
One in particular I would like to tell you.

A history

The flowers seemed constantly in bloom and birds of all kinds made a pilgrimage stop there on their way out and home. Honey smelled sweet in the lower valleys where millions of docile bees sucked greedily at each budding flower. The vast beauty of this land was to never be found in poetry, paintings or any other text or artistic vehicle until now and this storyteller had never seen it personally. Neither had the former inhabitant. He was, and probably still is, blind. His mother was blind as was his father and sisters and brothers. All his schoolmates were blind as were their parents and their grandparents. There were no books to speak of, as there had been little assembly to the outside world. In the history and parables passed down throughout the generations it had been lost as to how every inhabitant had evolved this way. Some said it was punishment from God for something an ancient had done to offend. Some say it was a curse from gypsies long ago while most chose to not really care to consider it. This was their life, their lot; they accepted it and sought no reprieve.
One would tend to wonder why as any of us would question or lament blindness but we never stop to question our lungs, our liver or fallopian tubes and vas deferens until we are brought to consider them and this is usually in a medical setting. They had vestigial eyes like most have tonsils, appendix and coccyx; useless and largely forgotten by all but those who have a need to know.
They knew little of the flowers and bees; they knew little of the land past the town. Some ventured out but fear of getting lost was large on the minds of everyone. The homes were built, stores erected, jobs performed and there were artists - sculpture and mostly anything tactile was in high regard. The poets told the histories, the musicians sang the songs, people fell in and out of love and life was largely unremarkable for most as it is everywhere.
Like most towns, there was a group of men, five, who held weekly meetings at the Waffle House. Seated in a corner they decided on everything that was going to happen or not going to happen. They would decide on new buildings, new businesses, approve the messages of the religious leader, create laws and give or revoke blessings. All of this was done without election or direct acknowledgment. The mayor was still elected, the police chief was appointed by him publicly but privately but the wisdom of the five. Nothing could happen without the unseen nod of these paternalistic five.
This is like many towns, many cities, and many countries. It isn't questioned by any other than youth and that is brought into line soon enough.

The man/the former inhabitant

I talked with this man (who we shall soon cease to call this man or former inhabitant as his name is his own, not to be shared lightly) many nights over many glasses of Merlot (when he bought) or Pinot (when I did). I never brought a recorder or took notes but often drank heavily as he spun tale after tale. He was this town’s poet/historian, whose eventual meeting of a stranger brought him to walk into the verdant green on the outskirts, walk through the bees, walk through the river and past the heavy forest. After he met the stranger (who we shall continue to call 'the stranger') his histories were redacted, censored and eventually outlawed, his journey out may not have been so much a choice as a followed mission to relate to men and women his poems, his mythos.

The Man may now be called - the Historian. This is not his name but his profession. This is how he shall be known, as his name is his own while his histories are for others.

The stranger

On a day, any day that strikes as important be it a Monday or Thursday but not a Sunday, the stranger wandered into town seeking refreshment, food and maybe a place to sleep off the miles spent camping, foraging and wandering alone. Not that it was a notice but he probably walked sure, with an even gait and like all the residents he walked with a stick but not a similar stick, a walking stick carved from fallen spruce and adorned with trinkets and a leather band where the hand was to grip. His walking stick only stuck out as it made a thud with the flow of his feet against the earth instead of the smack from the impact against walls and doorways.
The stranger first encountered the historian in the Waffle House on the imparticular day, it was lunchtime or thereabouts.
Without needed a menu the Stranger failed to notice there wasn't one, without looking for any direction he failed to see the lack of them, he ordered what the former inhabitant was having.
Once presented with the fare, he remarked it looked good and deeply inhaled the perfume of coffee, waffles and maple syrup.
No one else had heard it, the unusual word spoken, no one other than the historian.
The stranger ate prodigiously, while the historian waited patiently, listening for more interesting words.

The stranger spoke first.

You have such beautiful gardens out beyond the town (thought the town had its own colors they were wholly unremarkable). When I saw the honeycombs I had to taste their sweetness and I can tell you I've never had honey as sweet, as delicious as that.

The Waffle House started to quiet.

What do you mean by these words - looked, saw?

The stranger noticed then that the Historians eyes had no color. He looked at the waitress and saw her eyes had no color. He replied

Common enough words, even blind men have heard them.

At this the historian realized that the stranger could see. The stranger didn't have to feel, the stranger knew a different world than the towns inhabitants.

We are all without sight.

The stranger notices now there were no signs. The Waffle House now stood silenced.

Everyone? Remarkable, how do you...

Follow me.

They exited and started down the street. Everyone else in stayed amazed and in disbelief, they moved not another inch, not to follow or to comment. This would have to be brought to the five who were to meet that next day.

Tell me everything, tell me about the sky, the flowers, the bees, the grass, the buildings. Tell me everything I cannot see.

As they walked the stranger explained everything he could but he was not a poet, he was in need of words for how can you describe blue? How would you describe black or stars to someone whose language does not possess even many of the words used to relate this story? But they walked on and the historian listened intent on experiencing the world as he never had.

That night the Stranger spent the night in the home of the historian who fed him dinner, provided him with his only bed and blanket. The world now opened to the historian like never before prevented any sleep, provided only new words and histories to tell and all night the historian thought on them. This was a happiness that he had never known.

Morning comes as it always does.

When morning came so did an end to this happiness as the five were now informed, as the five had now begun to campaign against the stranger, the heretic who had come to destroy the way of life of the towns inhabitants. God had not sent the stranger but an evil, for this man was full of lies and deceit, meant to capture the towns attention and steal the very food from off the table of everyone.

The stranger and historian ate a full breakfast and spoke of many things. As amazed as the stranger was to learn of the histories the historian was more enthralled with the many things that the stranger had seen along his journeys. He could not hear enough and longed now to tell of what he was learning, he also began to feel the deep loss of having never had sight to have seen clouds or rain, the shades of his own skin and whatever blue was. They left the house and started off for the fields surrounding the town, everything was described as best as the stranger could as the historian’s thirst was insatiable.

The five had done their meaning, they had spoken to or through all the inhabitants warning of the lies the stranger brought and a plot was had. All the town now waited to hear the thud of the strangers walking stick. They did not wait too long as lunch was approaching.
As the stranger and historian walked back into town with the historian holding onto the left arm of the stranger, the stranger began to describe the towns people all gathered by the Waffle House. The descriptions went from clothes to hair, to expressions of anger on the faces of everyone. The five old men parted through the crowd and spoke first.

Stranger, why have you come here?

To rest.

A lie! he has rested and is still here, he has eaten and is still here, he has taken into the house of the historian and stolen the food from off his table! Historian, are you in danger?

I am not, I have learned much, let us eat now and I will relate.

The stranger poisons him, the stranger fills him with mendacities, do not listen! Pay no heed to his vile words! He will tell others of how easy it is to convince us, he will tell others to come! Take his eyes! Take his tongue; he has nothing but illness and pain to share!

Without another word the throng of blind men, women and children descended upon the stranger and tore at his clothes, tore at his eyes, ignored his screams and silenced the stranger.

Now he cannot leave, now he cannot spread his lies, let him die in the street, let him find his own way.

The Historian stood perplexed. Then wept. Then gathered the newly blinded and mute stranger who held onto the historians left arm as they walked slowly to the house where the stranger would surely die with none to tend his wounds or cease an assured infection.

The historian was isolated, quarantined. Once the kind, sighted stranger perished not only from loss of blood but a heart broken by his own kindness, the Historian quietly wandered out of town taking only a small bag of clothes, water and the stranger’s walking stick. He wandered a long time.

Moral: in the land of the blind the sighted man is a heretic.

poem

2011-04-21T05:00:00.002-05:00

without dismissal

I am your opus,

your final creation,

an abstraction

from acts of love or anger.

it was accidental

without dismissal.

how do the mute seek absolution

in anonymity,

how are curtains drawn against Johari,

freedom exhausts itself drawn in circles,

concentric and misleading, misled.

I am your opus,

your final creation,

an abstraction

from acts of love or anger.

it was accidental

without dismissal.

the scars are there, mine

imbalances accounted for, mine

glass walls firmly held in situ

but cleaned.

the stale air loosening.

I am number three, four if your must know.

but I deny one as I am not denied;

bearing witness wasn’t easy but I never turned;

now bearing the marks of each life I saw took.

I am your opus,

your final creation,

an abstraction

from acts of love or anger.

it was accidental

without dismissal.

For Aunt Kathryn

2011-04-20T05:00:00.002-05:00

My heart is broken.

the post office doesn't deliver to heaven.

and you've crossed the bridge

and are going home

--------

this is my star.
          bewildered,
     hanging down
     our heads
this is my star.

this is my star,
          vainly wishing and
     wishing on planets
     and suns
this is my star.

on bended knees
with clenching fists
praying or raging at your
Christian God

this is my star,
         to wonder and
     wonder and
     wonder,
this is my star.

- Hoc Scripsi

read this recently and thought - yep.

2011-04-19T05:00:00.000-05:00

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, This phrase is a dependent clause in the sentence. and as such can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence. Just as in this example: Like most girls, Ellen plays with dolls."

You may shriek all you wish, but the grammatical fact remains that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is independent of the dependent clause. "People" means exactly what it does in the First, Fourth and Tenth Amendments.

Your understanding of American History is flawed as well. The event that finally sparked the American Revolution was the attempted seizure of an 'armory' of guns and powder held by the state militia at Lexington. Like your modern day totalitarians, the Brits wanted to collect the guns and ammo to prevent freedom.

I make no corrections or additions of my own to the above anon statement, but simply like what I had found.

For Aunt Kathryn

2011-04-18T05:00:00.004-05:00

though I can no longer dance.

I think everyday of the twostep.

but, Jhon, what have you been doing with your time?

2011-04-17T05:00:00.001-05:00

Dear Jhon,
It has come to our attention that you have not been keeping up on your blog. The one that over a year ago you vowed to keep up nearly daily, the platitudes of willful resemblance. I can only hope that you recall the blog that I am talking about. After thorough research we have found that you have not been writing at another blog or moonlighting with a clandestine blog, so the short of it is - what have you been doing with this so called poetry blog lately?

signed,
all the readers you lost due to your inability to continue writing something here on a daily basis - not like it's hard mind you - just something.

Dear Reader,
I've been busy writing and breathing, AKA - the only two things I do well by any measure - although, I've taken up smoking again so I am not so sure on the breathing part.
I realize that some of you have been clawing at the walls for more poetry and I assure that the previous posts poem isn't an anomaly as of late - I have been writing and coming up with new things to compose - only I haven't wanted to share here - I want to share through other publications so my energy has been placed there.

yours, Jhon

the artist dreams of nightsong and thinks of his paintings

2011-04-16T14:57:00.001-05:00

I wish the birds would sing
in the middle of the night
in winter,
though the windows are never open.

I wish the birds would sing in winter
though I stoop to pet a plant
inadvertently knocking over a light fixture.

I wish the birds would sing
in the middle of the night,
lights low, the party over
and missing every painting I’ve ever sold.

I wish the birds would sing
in the middle of the night
in winter,
though purple flowers want their bloom

- Hoc Scripsi

a few publications of interest

2011-04-08T09:06:00.000-05:00

The new issue of Bicycle Review is now out - I strongly encourage everyone to go there and read the issue and pay special attention to a little poem called - still untitled - This issue is the first issue which features Lynne Hayes as an editor and it is an astounding issue.
Also, if you haven't gotten your issue of PigeonBike "trash and crackers" yet I strongly encourage you to do so. By strongly I mean that if you don't I may have to pay you a little visit.

- me

Here is my answers to my own inane quiz.

2011-04-07T13:09:00.000-05:00

1. Do you write in the margins of books? - Yes
     a. if so, what do you write, - notes, poems, observations, arguments, agreements.
     b. if not, why not? - I just said I did.

2. How particular are you about your clothing?
Very, I wear black dockers, black socks with a gray toe - (one style, one maker, one color set, can't recall how many pairs I've bought) black boots or new balance gym shoes, black shirts, only one style/manufacturer underwear. few variations if ever,

3. Do you listen to music when you write/draw/paint/do what it is you like to do?
Classical or Jazz and sometimes blues - all instrumental - no vocal. Paint or write.

4. Do you intentionally or mistakenly mix metaphors?

both, and why not? Normally intentionally though.

5. Do you finish more than seventy-two percent of what you read?
      a. please approximate how much.
I think I complete about 90 percent of what I start - it takes a while for me to finish poetry books as I read them a bit at a time. There are only two books I can recall I've never been able to finish - My Antonia (Willa Cather) and a book on the history of Art in regard to the evolution of man. Boring stuff - but I am still chipping away on the latter.

6. What are your personal feelings about cliche?
     a. realize that it is cliche to hate them before you answer.

Do it well and you've got something, do it a little bit not well and you've lost me as a reader. I avoid them in writing but tend to use them as themes if I can do it effectively as a vehicle to move something more important underlying.

7. Do you use a thesaurus?
Oh, yes. Many. I use the Merriam-Webster online and then the M-W Writers Thesaurus, a few more specific ones - I tend to read them cover to cover as well.

8. What is your preference:
    look carefully...

9. what are your vices?
Writing, smoking, love

10. If you came across a bag of money, no-one around for miles, how would you justify taking it and not reporting it to anyone?
I wouldn't. I couldn't - even if I attempted I would turn it into the authorities and hope that no-one claimed it. I have a very loud conscious about taking things that do not belong to me.

11. if the coffee barista never charges you for your really fucking expensive drink, how long do you wait before insisting on paying or do you just keep the latte train rolling?

If I am a long time customer and it is occasional - okay, no problem. If it is consistent I insist on paying my way. I say thank you so much but I would rather be clear in that I think I should be paying for this.

12. How do you sleep at night living in a world without Don LaFontaine?
Badly, it wrenches my heart that he is gone and television and movie trailers will never be the same, never be as good, they ought to cancel the whole voice over thing as Don had it squared away - there can be no better than he.

13. How much research do you put into a statement before making an ass out of yourself in front of someone else who knows better.
I try to only comment on things I know about. I hate being wrong on a point or being caught unprepared for the verbal discourse - I tend to say that I am not prepared to argue my opinion when I think I am not researched enough on a topic. I will also tell other people when I don't think they are prepared to argue with me on their point.

14. Define theft.
the taking of something that doesn't belong to you. The taking of something trivial that doesn't belong to you. The taking of anything you where there is no agreement in the social contract that it should be yours unless you pay for it with money you've earned or given to you freely or bartered or traded for.
claiming intellectual property as your own that isn't. Plagiarism.
quoting without citing.
If you cannot afford to feed your family and there is no food pantry where you are - stealing food isn't theft.

15. Define theft as it applies to you.
As where I know a lot of people that do define it differently when it comes to themselves stealing something (downloading music for example) I do not define it differently for myself than for any other. I would be apt to hold myself to a higher standard.

16. Define honesty.
the alignment of words, actions, thoughts, intention without greed, malice, justification, personal gain.

17. define how you want it to apply to others about you.
speaking to me without regard to my emotional reaction so long as it isn't designed to injure.

18. quick, how many fingers am I holding up?
all of them - I'm typing.

19. This being the last question as asking 20 goes against my sadistic tendencies (I know there are the OCD sufferers out there reading this) I will ask, simply, if you only have 30 seconds to make a permanent judgment about a man - what would your criteria be - is it the same for a woman?
I use my gut a lot and haven't been proven wrong often. I have no set criteria. That said, I can read body language quite well and will often simply feel something that turns out to be correct when I have doubted it in the past.
all that said - I try no to judge too quickly but admit that I am only a man and as a man I am prone to judgment and error.

21. kidding. lying. What is your most harmful obsession?
K. - and the working of my own self.

Is it a rant? it may be a rant...

2011-04-01T21:38:00.002-05:00

So, I always try and succeeded in keeping this about poetry or the process of it - I do this by writing directly about poetry/writing and indirectly, but today I break this tradition.

I've largely left my politics out of my work and certainly off this blog - I appreciate that there can be a connection and sometimes things need to be said - Like my poem 'meditations on the death of a solider' - also available in my book hands on the hips (shameful, I know.) - there are other times that it has crept into my work on a slightly less obvious scale - as in 'shortform. However, I have gone to minor pains to not allow others to learn of my political leanings for the simple reason that it has nothing to do with the appreciation of my poetry and words. While other creators have made their career about being one way or another or on a particular political topic I have never wanted this for myself, it is largely a personal decision.
There are many things I am not shy about as I see them as human issues and not political and other things I've managed to comment on without divulging my personal view - like in creating bumper stickers that say - Abortion - or - GUNS - or - Gay Agenda - - on these I have managed to keep my personal viewpoint secret (well, not the gay thing, I'm pretty open about that (also, this bumper sticker business idea - it's mine, don't steal it.))
Those bumper sticker will available soon, Here and anywhere else I can place a button.

This brings me to today. As I read commentary about the current debt issue and spending issues and who pays and who doesn't - I let fly my political beliefs in response. I was sickened by the way our thought process has been framed from infancy. All public and private and religious institutions play into creating this framework and breaking it is near improbable - people simply cannot see where they really stand in the eyes of the political machine and in the eyes of the elite - which are one, working together to maintain status quo where it cannot simply rule.

- my comment is below -

I amazes me how many people are now casting blame on Obama alone for this - or how many people cast blame on the machine of the GOP - "they" will keep winning as long as they can keep us infighting about which side is right and which is evil - neither side is right or working for the better of the taxpayer/voter/citizen/mankind - both sides are in it for themselves - their own pocketbook, their own retirement. Think about how they always vote themselves new raises - every year and for a few years now there is no COLA for SS or Disability - that Vets gets their benefits razed in order to find the political machine - none of this is for our benefit - when will the populace wake up and realize that it isn't GOP vs Dem - Not Left vs Right vs Middle - but US vs THEM. That is how they see it - if you aren't in the top 3% you never will be and they will make damn sure of that - the 97% without a real voice need to work together, because combined - we have the guns, we have the numbers, we have the ability to change everything - damn near overnight - this can be done peacefully and damn well should start now.

In its shortness it is a call to arms that will go unanswered - tomorrow when people wake up they will still buy into the America that says you can be president some day - you can be the next Bill Gates - eh, maybe - maybe that can happen, you may be able to create something that everyone suddenly needs and you become fabulously wealthy - will you still be considered one of us? or will they bring you into the fold? Question - why is it important to have more than you need? why is it important to have more than the neighbor? why is it so important that instead of paying out 800 bucks a month for insurance for yourself - you could pay out 400 bucks a month for insurance for everyone. Why is 'mine' so damn important anyway?

I am not thinking foolish - I would not allow a stranger to come live in my home, loan out my truck or motorcycle to someone I didn't know so well that they could also be trusted to watch my child on a friday night. I am not foolish enough to say that socialism is the way - I am also not foolish enough to say that democracy works for the majority of the people, I am not foolish enough to say that this America is righteous - there is reason beyond personal protection from armed street thugs that I want to protect our second amendment.

The first amendment does nothing for those that do not buy ink by the barrel. The first is largely controlled by others but some of us can and have cracked that - we can cause our voices to be heard - once heard it is hard to not listen.

You can only get so close and still be able to hate another, you can only get so close to an idea to still believe it false and dismiss it.

This is probably enough out of me - I am going to unleash the hounds of my opinion on my art - I can no longer be happy crating pretty things without saying in the same breath that all the bastards at the top need to start feeding the tree of liberty - with their blood - to allow those of us to have what we desire most - freedom and the ability to exercise it...

Thank you Thomas J. for the tree of liberty thing.

EDIT: - Cathy commented (see below) and I I responded with full heart about the health care thing. I thought it was well written enough to post here. a little redacted at the end and keep in mind Cathy is Canadian so the written thoughts are with that in mind.

With health care - my deal is simple. We (US citizens) are already paying an insurance company upwards of thousands of dollars a month (some as low as 400 for individual) - it would actually be cheaper for us to have our taxes raised by several hundred a month to pay for universal - if we can spend so much damn money killing people - even our own people - why can't we be bothered to heal them? What BS - and yes yes yes - the Canadian and British Health Care Systems are victimized in our press which is controlled by the government which is controlled by insurance and other big business - so the lies and propaganda trains keep rolling.
Health Care for all works most everywhere it is done. With the unbelievable American technologies and money we ought to be able to have the greatest Health care system in the world - which we don't as is evidenced by our infant mortality rate and our average life expectancy - we are below thirty on these when our supposed perfect system should and could be pulling out a top 5 - like a whole bunch of countries with Universal HC.
I don't think that in most US cities - you could get a prescribed procedure and proceed to have said procedure in four days, normal wait time for non-emergency is a week or more - maybe four days for an emergency for a doctor without some clout. All this and - my prescriptions cost me over 1400 a month. - one thousand four hundred USD per month. Such Bullshit.

To add - and this is an ugly truth - A large portion of me believes that the only reason we don't have it isn't because of some fear of socialism, which exists, and we have anyway (police, fire, USPS, DOT, Medicare, Social Security and so many others) but that those with the ability do not care and simply don't want to help the people that are different from them - the power here is held by the white privileged christian male - if you are not of the first two - they would rather you leave or perish. I said it. If you are black, Jewish, Mexican, Asian, Indian, Gay, mixed, disadvantaged, handicap, transgendered, sick... you are fucked without paying for their help - and you better pay it all in advance otherwise they own you for the rest of your life. Debt is only another way of placing people into servitude. Most debt - real debt is created from medical expenses and lost time at work due to medical necessity.
Maybe I ought to shut it now...

Let us talk, communicate via things I wonder about everyone

2011-03-28T04:39:00.000-05:00

I decided last night, or rather the insomniac morning at four-fourteen am that I could or should come up with a few leading questions and ask for responses - like a quiz - the rules are simple - answer what you want if you want - in the comments or on your blog to perpetuate the idea. If you participate, please leave the link in my comments section. I will answer at a later date but all my answers are known already by me so there will be no cheating off others papers.
Oh, I do not think that the answers to these will really tell me anything beyond what your answer is at the moment you write it. There is no one question that leads to the profound truth about a persons person.

1. Do you write in the margins of books?
     a. if so, what do you write,
     b. if not, why not?

2. How particular are you about your clothing?

3. Do you listen to music when you write/draw/paint/do what it is you like to do?
     a. if so, what?
     b. if not, okay then, next question.

4. Do you intentionally or mistakenly mix metaphors?

5. Do you finish more than seventy-two percent of what you read?
      a. please approximate how much.

6. What are your personal feelings about cliche?
     a. realize that it is cliche to hate them before you answer.

7. Do you use a thesaurus?
     a. If yes, how many different kinds do you have?
     b. if no, how many different kinds are you hiding?

8. What is your preference:
     a. a frog reading a book paperweight, or
     b. a monkey reading a book paperweight

9. what are your vices?
     a. what are your real vices?

10. If you came across a bag of money, no-one around for miles, how would you justify taking it and not reporting it to anyone?

11. if the coffee barista never charges you for your really fucking expensive drink, how long do you wait before insisting on paying or do you just keep the latte train rolling?

12. How do you sleep at night living in a world without Don LaFontaine?

13. How much research do you put into a statement before making an ass out of yourself in front of someone else who knows better.

14. Define theft.

15. Define theft as it applies to you.

16. Define honesty.

17. define how you want it to apply to others about you.

18. quick, how many fingers am I holding up?

19. This being the last question as asking 20 goes against my sadistic tendencies (I know there are the OCD sufferers out there reading this) I will ask, simply, if you only have 30 seconds to make a permanent judgment about a man - what would your criteria be - is it the same for a woman?

21. kidding. lying. What is your most harmful obsession?

ah, that was fun and slightly inane.

2011-03-27T22:28:00.001-05:00

Two new links - I hope they both work - one, on the left, to follow by e-mail and the other - on the right, to buy my book from me directly, sometimes cheaper and always signed.

edit: the button for the book works! Thank you to Kevin Shear for being my Guinea pig on that one.
Still waiting to hear if the e-mail button works.

as a side note

2011-03-25T13:18:00.003-05:00

as a poet I am venerable,

vulnerable.

I cry.

weep.

stagger.

close my eyes tight.

hope.

dream.

love.

hate.

dance.

I am not weak.

vulnerability is not a weakness nor a reflection of weakness.

I defy any human who fails to see my strength,

with my toothy bared teeth,

my child's smile,

my care free

turn of daffodils and dandelions.

I do not recite the Lord's prayer,

I am a poet,

I shall be beatified,

I have my own.

- Hoc Scripsi - a mediation on Saul Williams and his expressions

as an aside and I hate to put this here:

support your favorite poets...

click here

Today

2011-03-19T04:44:00.000-05:00

I am fairly embarrassed to call myself a blogger lately - as you can tell I've had other things on my mind and keeping up with everything is difficult - So, I've read almost no blogs, written very little in mine and in general am none too fazed by this.

The words on the page look foreign to me and today we recall the death of Willem de Kooning. Becoming a ghost of his own brush stoke today in 1997.

Listening to Chopin, Opus 34, no. 2 in A minor - Writing a letter to a friend who I owe more than just that letter. I managed to nap between nine pm and eleven pm. awake now or still I can only think about Willem and Chopin, My friend and my pajamas.

Magpie #57 - spontaneous from prompted poetry

2011-03-16T07:54:00.000-05:00

wanting the birds to sing in winter,

I stoop to pet a plant
inadvertantly knocking over the light fixture.

I miss every painting I've ever sold.

- Hoc Scripsi

Image Courtesy of Magpie Tales #57

this has kept me up all night

2011-03-15T03:59:00.000-05:00

I just don't think it would be that hard to figure out who Banksy is.

What I know for sure...

2011-03-10T22:02:00.003-06:00

.
.
.
..
.

.

.

..
..

....

....

..

...
.
.
.
.
.

....

.....

*

.

.

.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

......

..
.
.

...

.

every dog my parents ever owned has bit my father.

as of May 21st - this will no longer matter

2011-03-06T17:56:00.000-06:00

not that it is of great import now either, but it seemed important at the time.

I've lost count how many "end of the world" scenarios I've lived through so far, I can only be sorry for the ones I'd missed due to the year of my birth - it could have been more possibly. From memory most have been from 1988 to 2012 - obviously I have yet to survive the Mayan end (didn't that culture already end?) and am looking forward to the May, 21st 2011 Rapture where everybody I know will wake up on the 22nd - and the real party can begin.

I wish to publicly congratulate Lynne Hayes on her editor ship of Bicycle Review - I've been known to use connections before...

Also, there is a new cat around my house - a kitten in fact, five months old, cautious and loving, the other cats are keeping their distance for the most part and the kitten hisses more then the established - I think it will only take a few more days and they will all tolerate each other publicly and love one another privately.
Now we have - Mingus, Ellie and Billie - a Jazz trio. We use to have Miles but he got ornery and didn't want to play in the band anymore. We still miss him dearly.

last thought for the day...

pow

pow

dazed and tripping backward

blood pouring from my nose

tears bursting from my eyes.

it’s not the first time I’ve had my nose broken

but it never feels the same,

it is always unexpected;

and no-one ever remembers a broken nose

or the stains left on the street and

your street clothes.

and the pretty face

my mother loved

is never

going

to be

the

same.

- Hoc Scripsi

I'm sorry, please hold.

2011-03-04T19:19:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted much lately.
frankly,

I've been busy.

when life....

2011-03-01T02:40:00.001-06:00

Hopefully you get sugar and water,
hopefully there isn't too
much blood
on
the
dance floor,
but
you'll probably just learn to suck on a lemon for a long time.

Untitled

2011-02-27T18:54:00.002-06:00

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

2011-02-24T15:26:00.000-06:00

Mad Swirl

or also

Mad Swirl

2011-02-23T16:32:00.000-06:00

new blog policy - I thieved it from Micael Chadwick.
Since I was never any good at replying to comments left for me, I now respond personally to them via e-mail. You have to have your email addy enabled for comments otherwise I will not respond but do appreciate the commentary.
it's better this way I think. and for some reason, it is easier for me to respond to everyone rather than write one response that covers everyone.

I hope you all can dig it. I can dig it. Man, I can dig it twice.

West Coast Image

2011-02-22T17:52:00.000-06:00

A good, longtime, friend of mine sent this photo to me - taken from his cellphone. I am in love with it. I haven't seen my friend in nearly a decade, he smartly left Illinois and has made a life for himself by greater beaches - I'd known him since we were both small, both naive, both hungering for a greater tomorrow and freedom. I think of him often, without heartbreak, as ours is an unspoken commitment of kinship.
This image is from the younger brother I never had. and it's poem is building within me as we speak...

nearly this weeks magpie - but it isn't.

2011-02-22T01:30:00.003-06:00

the light has sometimes painful burning but I miss the sun on my up turned face.

the
light
has
sometimes
painful
burning
but
I
miss
the
sun
on
my
up
turned
face.

                                           the
    light
              has
                      sometimes
                                           painful
                                                        burning
                                                                        but
                                             I miss
                                                            the sun
                                                                           on my
                                               up turned
                           face.

- Hoc Scripsi

2011-02-18T14:05:00.000-06:00

Today, everything is beautiful.

the weather is beautiful, the sky is beautiful, the hum of the IBM Selectric III is beautiful, Chopin's Nocturnes are beautiful, my wife is beautiful, my wife is beautiful, and there is nothing else.

2011-02-17T21:06:00.002-06:00

everything looks ugly today.

have the mother effin flu tuesday

2011-02-15T10:49:00.001-06:00

Charlie Chaplin died on my first birthday. I don't remember if there was a pall over the celebration or for that matter, if there was a celebration of any measure besides the obvious, Christmas.

I've been getting sick for the past few days and today am full blown - too headachey and tired to write worth a damn, mainly posting to let the people I owe letters to that I haven't forgotten them. I will write soon, this week in fact - just not today.

February 15
and I sober from
valentines day, sober from
cards revealing love
and whatnot
sober from peanuts specials
sober from cupcakes
sober from closeness
sober from rich dinners
prepared and consumed
with bread

- unfinished, Hoc Scripsi

Happy Birthday Gregory Heins

2011-02-14T13:32:00.000-06:00

oh, and it's Valentines day too.

a love poem

I caught your glance

and offered a small gift

which you refused.

an apple,

a token, to toe

the water.

another month and you would acquiesce

to my teenaged display of nerves.

I was twenty-three

you were soft and scared

and thinking I’d meant to use you

but I’d love you instead.

you humored me

answering every question

I had.

you were twenty-five

and I knew, over coffee

that first night

at Denny’s,

our life would be braved

unknown

together.

Oh, what a weekend.

2011-02-13T16:00:00.001-06:00

Every muscle making a fist, the half muscles left my leg twitching and contracting, expanding in rapid succession; spasm is what I am talking about but wording my way around.
Listening to Fryderyk Chopin - Nocturnes, Op. 15: No. 3 in G Minor at present.

drinking well made coffee from a comic mug and helping my son write Valentines for his class and a special one for a special girl. He will unfortunately be ill for the party tomorrow. Poor kid.

I am leaving this post unfinished and later am going to take a muscle relaxer while I sit down at my typewriter and write my fellows - return the letters received, work on my newest poetry, and try to start writing a play for Theater Undreground [sic]. I know the play I want to write, I've been thinking about it for years, and they've asked several times, the least I can do it try.

You've seen this one before unless you haven't - I think it fits in with Jingles newest theme so I will place my name there as well.
Tired and no excuse to be so.

Let the coffee flow, flow, flow and the cigarettes smoke curl in query marks, curl into hearts, curl into clouds of what children lay and witness.

3 poems fitting harmoniously together

third rate diner

writing poems on

paper napkins;

inadvertently blowing my nose into

the most recent.

modern medicine

modern medicine is/was always a marvel

no matter the year

until we need for the end

then it’s simply horrible.

loving

such good loving

such good nurturing,

such good loving,

such good fucking.

- Hoc Scripsi

Monday Monday...

2011-02-12T02:17:00.000-06:00

but it's Saturday.

Two Am.

Shoulders tense, fingers missing a number of keys and the birds are not singing.

I cannot sing this early or late, normally I'd be singing or gesturing gutturally, but it is as stated, two Am.

It's is difficult for me to watch the small calico cat shivering outside. Capturing her is a fate not intertwined with my family, there have been efforts, she likes the food we buy but not the warmth and carpeting.

I've somewhere to be eight hours, roughly, and I've no desire to back out.

At least the accustomed mood has lifted while the noise reasons.

I've yet to determine if I should post daily or as daily as I feel moved to. Either is accomplished with ease.

The Calico (Momma Kitty) perched on the railing, cleaning herself while the surfeit of raccoons have fits and theorize and chatter.

There are fucking raccoons - big ones - on my three season porch. it's too late to fire a gun. Lucky fuckers.

This has been brought to you by...

"no cure for insomnia inc."

where people rock back and forth all night,

muttering balderdash and realities.

Gimmie Some Truth Friday

2011-02-11T15:45:00.002-06:00

I woke up late,
I need a shower, badly.
I spent a few hours in a mall where the people observation was all the out of work and didn't shower today crowd.
I've considered learning how to juggle running chainsaws but decided on sporks.
My son asked me if you could stab someone with a fork, and in saying yes I had to relay when I did so in High School. The guy stole my fries. I was provoked. We weren't friends and I haven't heard from him except for once when he saw me in a restaurant and ran out the door. I don't know why.
I am not a violent person but do suffer from various mental aberrations which leave me unable to predict behavior when provoked. I always feel at least a little bad.
I once went in to sign up for the Marines. When I spoke with the recruiter I asked if they were hiring Generals, he said that I shouldn't think that I couldn't...., cutting him off I said that I wanted to apply for the job of General and if they weren't hiring for that I would try the Navy. He was less than enthused by my joke.
Years later I almost joined the reserves with a friend of mine, who is a transvestite, he was x-military and wanted the bonus. I wanted the bonus too and felt that I could get kicked out or just put up with it for four years. K wouldn't allow it and I was very happy about that.
Yesterday I started a letter to a pen pal, two pages in I felt it wasn't good enough, I wasn't smart enough, I crumpled it and tossed it. A similar thing happened to yesterdays post - on the same topic as today's.

If I am the sum of all my experiences, decisions, mistakes, loves, triumphs, showers, deformities, delusions, et cetera, then at present I am perfect.

- or - as I put in on another blog...

if we are, indeed, the sum of our experiences and actions to date - then we are, in a word, perfect.

I don't need a gun to defend myself, I am capable of being a reflection of my size - a monster. I need a gun to prevent me from killing an offender. Often the display of force is enough of an equalizer to prevent a further confrontation.
I am a Buddhist who has let go of the materialism of being a Buddhist. Many people see this as me not being a Buddhist - I have no alter, I have to shrine, I do not sit on my Zafu and zabuton (I can no longer sit in lotus anyway) - they are long gone, I do not carry my beads anymore, I make no physical declarations of my philosophy, I do not claim to be transcendentant, I do not claim to be enlightened - I claim no thing.

okay, now I must shower.

Poems not by Jhon Baker, poems by one of my favorites -

2011-02-09T18:16:00.001-06:00

Did I ever tell you that my son writes poetry? I think I have (this post)- I love his efforts, such as:

Stars beneath

Stars are beneath
the clouds
in the sun and rain

- or -

o, dear, O
dear
what shall we do
in the horror

- or -

Rain

Rain falling
from the sky
really, the clouds

- or -

wow
wow
wow
how many candies
are there?

All by Jackson Grey

His favorite poets are Shel Silverstein, William Blake, his Daddy, Bob Dylan, Sylvia Plath, Bukowski, Langston Hughes, Jack Prelutsky, Carl Sandburg, Garcia Lorca, Emily Dickinson, Ogden Nash, WCW, Paul Simon, and so many others
when asked he says - "mostly it's you, daddy."

"My poetry is great, but I still need to write poetry in my poetry book that I'm making. I make poetry because my Dad, he makes poetry." - Jackson

He want's to add -
"Jhon is a great poet, everyone should read it and tell your friends and they should tell their friends, and everybody should read the poetry, tell everyone is the whole wide world." - Jackson

Magpie #52

2011-02-07T22:04:00.000-06:00

from across the street

we've sat across one another for years;
you, always green
me, always gray.

I sit and wonder about
the trimming of your lawn
about the condition of your bath.

how we've stood through better times.
but it is not proper to discuss these things
until we've grown at least this old.

- Hoc Scripsi

image courtesy of Magpie tales #52
follow the link and discover others -

a few earlier Magpie efforts...

Magpie #51
Magpie #50
Magpie #47
Magpie #46
Magpie #44
Magpie #43
Magpie #42
Magpie #41
Magpie #41 a different one
Magpie #37
Magpie #36

Monday, in the gloaming.

2011-02-07T18:31:00.000-06:00

My last cup of coffee for the day and it is burnt. The smell coming off the mug is too much for me to have my head around.
such a shame.

I need a cigarette and an off button for my brain.

yes, both are for my brain - because smoking does nothing positive for the lungs and I hate the way it stinks up the joint.

I've been creating and writing lately but have nothing to offer here as of yet. soon, soon.

more snow but I did nothing about it

2011-02-06T19:46:00.000-06:00

a few more inches or nearly a few inches - I did not step outside today.
I have little to add. Little to express. It is Sunday and I have spent a few hours in my writing room and have not smoked enough or drunken enough coffee to be nearly genius enough to keep going. So the blog suffers.
my mind suffers, but what is new?

Magpie #51

2011-02-04T09:59:00.001-06:00

I've never fallen to my knees
     and prayed to God;
tumbling on loose cobblestones
in old town squares,
I've spilled coffee over my shoes
but not often new ones.

perplexed but not quite daunted
or reversed stretching out at the frailty
     and being only man among men,
     poets.

2.
walk with me,
though I do not walk so much as sway, pitch
or stagger.

walk with me,
though I shall be muted, scarcely
swinging my arms at the sides.

walk with me,
though hell I walk, ancient seraphim
in ash and agony.

walk with me,
though hell is too wide for eidetic
narrative.

- Hoc Scripsi

image by Tess at Magpie Tales #51

beginning of Year 2

2011-02-02T18:03:00.001-06:00

Here it is at my one year anniversary and I've been out for the past nearly seven hours clearing the drive and digging out 1 of 2 vehicles. I am exhausted and going to go lay down.
I might post later on, I might not. We shall see how the evening progresses.

a poem though -

hors de combat

for the dead and dying; to you, I bow low.

it is another footprint we

leave in death, last

of our own,

another in the scores

of the bewildered mourners.

you did not break form when

abandoning the body,

exchanging it to worms for dirt.

those left shall make new footprints

from remembrance of you.

leaving fading impressions in the grass.

- Hoc Scripsi

a comment reposted.

2011-02-01T11:06:00.001-06:00

Have I ever mentioned that I studied philosophy with a mind to be come a philosopher - instead going to fine arts as the job prospects were the same while the papers I had to write were less. I am reminded of this when I read blogs like Weaving the Moon today and I comment thusly:

now involves so many things, past present and future all tied into a non-linear fashion, how can one focus on the now without proper regard to a timeless essence permeating the outskirts of consciousness?

of course my bent of philosophy is tempered by my poetic style but there you go. That is my thought for the day.
I was awake last night fairly late and begun work on a magpie write, that'll be tomorrow probably or later today. Who knows? I don't know what I should post for tomorrow as it is my one year anniversary of blogging. I've damn near made a year! unless I perish while snow-throwing on my tractor today a year will be accomplished.

I can be proud of myself now.

bathe every open wound

2011-01-30T05:25:00.000-06:00

five am -

nothing like not being able to sleep due to the feeling of the skin crawling off the muscle and the emptiness invading broken bones.

A cigarette now and then back into bed -

my skin feels oily, my chest is going to explode.

insomnia - the supposed friend of writers everywhere.

try being a cripple with a cripple walk and then try wearing slippers. Mine have the image of Freud but even that bit of funniness doesn't make them stay on any better when i cripple walk up a single step into the kitchen from the garage where one will fall right after I have outed the lights, followed quickly by the other in a scramble to replace the foot. crawling works better.

there is a child staring at me from the crack I've left in the door. It's not mine.

This is probably disturbing as hell to my wife who is going to read this when she wakes up and realizes that I did not get to sleep at all or at least until six am.

she's just learned that I've been cutting all my meds for weeks now.

this might be disturbing as hell to anyone reading this - or just mildly interesting.
I am not altogether invested in your reaction, although it is nice to read.

I didn't post yesterday because a friend lost someone and I didn't have words to comfort them.

I will probably delete this when I come to my senses later on.

until then - here's a pome...

bathe every open wound

bathe every open wound

murder me a rose

forgive the violations

adolescent pornographic magazine libido

a dirty young man

who has

old bones

who has

atrophied musculatures

who

doesn’t wear helmets

who

awakes in a plain mood

who

scribbles indecipherably

ill lighted back corner lots

who

limps triumphantly

dances incessantly

who

tears wildly at television commercials

who has

piles of unpublishable odes and laments

who

walks around with guns in pockets

who

gives to the rich

gives to the poor

gives lavishly to self

who

send out letters, mid-twentieth century formatting

who

masturbates feverishly under covers before trying to sleep

who

smokes privately, drinks publicly

who

once, in youth, stole a copy of John Lennon’s “imagine”

who

answers what, who, why and when

with why, what, who and now

who

walks lonely at night for no reason

who

cuts himself to cut out the childhood monster still haunting in dreams

who

quietly ignores the family dynamic of drama

who

sits up hours on end listening to poets in their own voices

who

uncompromisingly refuses to get up until all stiffness is diminished

who

rides motorcycles at 75-80 mph in route to therapy sessions

who has

forgiven people their existence but holds self at higher standard

I’ve given up

offer me that flower/rose from you garden

the one you promised me.

The grand business of writing for a living, also, I eat a lot of ramen.

2011-01-28T08:21:00.002-06:00

I've hired an agent.

I pay her in raw, unbridled sex.

though the secretary might get a bit jealous.

the secretary doesn't get paid, only attention

and my agent gets 50 percent, and sex - I'm assured this is scale.

Magpie #50

2011-01-27T01:39:00.002-06:00

St. Sebastian

walked, mid January,

through snowy wood

stepping lightly the tracks

of those traveled before,

leaving some for those behind.

no turns but trees to rest upon

no crickets to sing or call

no voices but those of

my companions

no other sounds,

the winds unfettered,

but that of our feet

crushing through

and impermanent.

as I looked further,

down the trodden path

we traveled,

it was Sebastian I thought of

and his arrows

- Hoc Scripsi

image courtesy of Magpie Tales, #50

wearing this flesh

2011-01-26T11:01:00.000-06:00

it always amazes

in conversations

when the perfect word

coalesces

into the

argument.

I have to stop a

moment to collect

it back

and see

that maybe words

are a skin

we wear.

That

wearing this flesh

has endowed me

a language.

- Hoc Scripsi

woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across... no I didn't

2011-01-25T18:32:00.000-06:00

I finished eating the remainder of a bag of potato chips to cap off my lunch. I nearly hate them as think they are greasy, tasteless abominations. I ate them as I was hungry and not in a mood to be any more decisive.
I am having an odd day and the body and mind are not operating as a unit.
Having intended to nearly end my facebook profile and all things connected to this blog on the weekend - I did it last night, not wanting to put off the difficult task of deleting a little over 1500 connections to people I never knew and have not gotten to know - no matter what the intentions were. For now I am okay to leave it with the people that are left there, people I actually know or have gotten to know through this blog - facebook brought me no readers, sold no books or so few that I was unable to notice. Not worth the extended effort that it took.
I feel the pain of losing another close friend though. A person that I have associated with for 12 years and knew intimately, personally - a bond established before either one of us owned a computer. He is not at deaths door but at the door of something which I have been unable to join him, uninvited I do not intrude.

Life is becoming increasingly isolated, medications have proven no assistance as my mind's mettle cannot be undone by such simple ingredients. The New Yorker's jokes have become stale and it's commentary mundane and repetitive. Altogether my connection to the outside world is through magazines, tired of them all - I am reaching out through the space interrupted, the space between.

Today has many famous birthdays, but we recall that today my brother-in-law would have turned 31. He is remembered nearly daily around here and his magnitude is greatly missed.

Facebook

2011-01-24T11:52:00.001-06:00

This is a direct quote taken from their user agreement:

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

It is for this reason that I am going to be ending my relationship with facebook as I have concern over their utilizing my intellectual property and copyrighted works for their own monetary gain - more so that they can sub-license (this means to a third party) without notification, permission or acknowledgment. The obvious question to me would then be "have they done so to my works" - not that I know of, but I cannot be sure as they are not required to report this activity to me.
A light example would be - while using facebook - have you ever seen a friends photo or avatar on an ad saying something along the lines of - "so and so likes this - do you?" - those ads are paid for, facebook sees monetary gain, the friend of yours did not. In an article on Mark Zuckerburg in Time Magazine they talked about how facebook has revolutionized the advertising market with its ability to target consumers directly for companies based on their likes and dislikes - no big deal, it's actually a little smart - they then use this same information about their users to sell this marketing, advertise it on facebook directly to you, in hopes that you will click on the link because your friend did so. In addition they sell this information, using your photos, other images, words, statements, your copyrights and allow it to be used for further marketing by third party companies - not as small of a deal and while clever, totally evil.
it is possible that while I use facebook you could see an ad for some company - say Pepsi or Coke or that says - "when life gives you lemons, shut up and eat your lemons. drink 7up" This would normally be in direct violation of my copyright, registered copyright and even not copyrighted it would still hold copyright status anyway - and I would be able to sue the living wallet from them and recoup my dignity. With facebook's user agreement containing the statement above - I would be unable to do that as they would have been able to license this major phrase from facebook for facebook's monetary gain while not even acknowledging I exist. All I can do in this world is protect my self, my family and my creations from those that would mean themselves gain by our harm. I have weapons in the house for such abuses from criminals but no such redress with facebook.
For those seeking out irony in my direct quote - it falls under the purview of fair-use as outlined by copyright law and subsequent statutes.
When in college I studied copyright law - not because I wanted to be a lawyer, but because I wanted to be able to protect myself from lawyers. In saying that, as funny as it is - my best friend is a lawyer - and a damn fine one at that.
facebook can get away with this because, among many reasons, it counts on its users not actually taking the time to read through the plethora of agreement for use of facebook. They are correct in assuming that the vast majority of us would never read such a thing and if we tried - become too bored with it to finish. I didn't even read all of it - just enough to learn that I don't want to be party to an advertising company without my direct consent and applicable royalties paid. Having used facebook as long as I have I am embarrassed to have not read it, I even read cell phone contracts.
A friend sent a link to an article dealing with the following issue - facebook needs some or most of this permission to be able to host your images and other content and to do so worldwide. This is true, however, if they were not intending to use this same content for their own personal corporate gain (which is now a company traded with foreign investors only) they would state that. It would be a simple addendum to the existing language to say that they will not seek gain by your intellectual property and that they can be held liable if they do - but the language is written specifically so that they can seek all the gain they can sell easily.

or maybe I'm just paranoid.

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!
GO HERE: facebook_sponsored_stories

it feels good to be ahead of the curve on this!

Sunday and just a few things

2011-01-23T14:11:00.000-06:00

To begin, I thought I would post a few links back to older posts that I liked or that I want you to like and read if you haven't.

A recent post - one that I truly love and if you haven't read it, please do. A note from K
why don't they shoot more poets?
When life gives you lemons, shot up and eat your lemons
being shot is not an everyday thing, but it doesn't surprise me.
stunned and lovely

that is all - I am sure that this is too much, but it is hard for us crazy people to control ourselves and I don't come here for control.

To end, at Rabbit's Creative Den there is a question regarding where we write and I thought it best to refer to an old post covering this topic but add a few more photographs to that - of the remainder of the room.

an old view from before I moved the typewriter - but it gets most of the room.

A current view of where I sit and type - sans chair in this photo.

view from the door - also sans chair.

here's one with my chair - it isn't too comfortable as I don't want to get lazy while being engaged.

Any questions? The photos contain every thing from a Dictionary, A WCW collection, an LCP .380, Gibson les paul custom, dean 12 string, Other reference materials, couch, painting of mine, Various typewriters (total of 3 - one is under a cover on the bottom shelf of the book case.

I will be changing my desk soon, so I can move a typewriter down to the coffee bar/library room and have more storage for reference materials. The room is always in some state of flux and more so when I am spending the appropriate amount of time in it.

Other wise - this is where I usually write my blog - other times I bring the laptop to the garage or the writing room. Rarely anywhere else - except for notes of course.

The last place I do any writing should look familiar to most of you...

Post 300 and it's nothing special.

2011-01-22T16:13:00.000-06:00

I like to write letters. I like to write them with my 1983 IBM Selectric III. It is not that I am of another, former, school or that I feel this connection to other notables who used similar machines, I simply get more out of the experience as it is tactile, auditory, visual, visceral, emotionally invested, and so on - This is my pleasure. I also get from this a poetry of substance as poetry often fills parts of the letters, written as I type and sometimes good and sometimes not, the whole process lubricates the synapse and fingers. Allows new ideas to come.
So, this I propose - I have had a few pen-pals the last few years but I am down to my last and she is no longer able to respond to my letters, she is reaching the end of her life, I already miss her terribly. My heart breaks even to consider a world without her direct influence. I am not looking for a replacement, there could be no replacing my current, when she goes into a place where there is no pain, I believe that I will continue to write to her anyway - I'll just have no-where to send the physical letter to anymore.
I would like to have other letter friends, communicating in the old way and helping the USPS (if you are in the Americas) or who ever does your post at the same time. Would there be any takers among you? You do not need a typewriter or even nice paper. Long hand works well as does printed out from the computer. The key is that it is mailed and it is thought out somewhat. The key is a quality communication.
If you would like to write to me - I will respond, it will be typed, it may have poetry, there may be misspelled words and bad sentences - there may be disorganized thought and sporadic insanities - one can never tell. But it will always be honest and unvarnished. Also, sometimes I draw on the paper if it sits in front of me long enough before getting into an envelope. Not that I can draw worth a damn - but it may be interesting.

Any takers? if so, e-mail me and I will give you my physical address. I promise any sent letter will garner a response be it one sentence or four pages of them. Who knows - this may become a thing.

AND NOW a word from K, my wife, on what it's like to support/live with a writer

2011-01-21T20:26:00.002-06:00

This post in in response to the 'significant other blogfest' The theme of which is "what it is like to support/live with a writer'.
Written by K., My wife, partner, lover, ardent supporter and needed critic --

In true Jhon fashion, he signed me up for this without actually asking my permission. It’s always so grand to put someone ‘on the spot’ that hates being anywhere near the center of attention. Well – in the “public center’ anyways – at home I like to be what is first and foremost on J’s mind.

I love that he calls me K and I call him J. It is something very ‘us’ – and should not be invaded upon by anyone else. To everyone else, I am Kara. Kara – with the first “a” being long and the second “a” being short. I would hate for anyone reading to have the wrong pronunciation of my name going through his or her mind. Yes, I am extremely territorial, hardheaded and opinionated.

What is it like being the ‘significant other’ of a writer? Hmm, well that seems to be too narrow of a question, as I cannot separate the writer Jhon from the rest of him. The title of ‘writer’ makes up who he is – just as does friend, husband, father, lover.

He does have those ‘things’ that only writers have – always carrying around a moleskin and pencil (has since I met him 11 years ago), scraps of papers, napkins, receipts filled with ideas, no book he reads goes unblemished of notes, idea and wandering thoughts. When he has a thought – he must put it to paper – no matter where or when – even mid-conversation (at which point I am shushed or a ‘wait” finger goes up.) Sometimes I am surprised that he waits until we’re done ‘recreating’ before getting out that little black notebook. I try not to be offended when that ‘thought’ he must just put to paper has nothing to do with the love making that just transpired.

A ‘must’ on our list when looking for a house to spend the rest of our lives in – was that it must have a room just for him to write in. Of course that room is more than just a place to write – it is a sanctuary to meditate, breathe, create, read, study, and sometimes watch Family Guy. It is where all of the typewriters are kept. He prefers to type the old – fashioned way, which is highly romantic, and sometime a bit on the loud side. I have only myself to blame for that as the first Birthday gift I gave him was a typewriter I rescued from a resale shop.

Jhon is inspired by everything around him – and sees things so differently from most – and this really comes through in his writing, music and art. He feels with such depths of his heart and soul - and is such a wonderful and good human being. His thirst for knowledge is astounding –and I don’t think it will ever be quenched. At any given moment he is in the middle of reading 2 or 3 books, several magazines, researching his latest obsession online, and of course keeping up with what you all are up to in the blogging world. I must admit that some of the blogs out there bug the hell out of me – and I don’t see the point of them really – other than being romance novel sort of entertainment or on the lines of hustler. I’ve never been a romance novel reader or an ‘adult magazine’ connoisseur – and the point of networking through such sites is – well a little beyond me. But sometimes one does have to stretch outside the box to become more recognized.

Of course, there are the times when Jhon is extremely hard on himself; does not like anything he’s written and can’t stand to read his own work any more. Aren’t we all our own worst critics? If we weren’t we would never strive to be better and continue to learn. I always try to be as supportive as possible. I think Jhon’s a positively brilliant writer – and I probably don’t tell him that enough.

I try to support – by keeping him well fed, well sexed, being aware of his needs – to know when to leave him the hell alone, and getting him a pair of clean socks everyday.

As his wife, the one who knows him best, I have the distinct honor of getting to read almost all of his work – and have read more than anyone else. I love having the chance to be his editor and agent. It takes me a while to digest and to really be able to comment – which I think, drives him nuts sometimes. But, it is an always-honest review of what he has written. It speaks volumes of our relationship that he is able to take criticism from me, and even advice on how maybe to change things.

Jhon’s love of learning is truly an inspiration for me to keep learning as well. It also inspires our son to love learning – it is wonderful that he already has such a love for the written word, writing his own poems and stories just like Daddy. Jhon is a renaissance man – with so many passions in this life. At times such a seemingly contradictory man, a Buddhist, a gun owner, an animal lover, a human rights advocate, a PTO Co-President. Well, I guess the the only contradiction here is ‘gun owner.” But, he also love knives, too. (I forgot Biker!)

This seems to have been a ramble of sorts – it’s always been very difficult for me to pinpoint my feelings about Jhon – they are so overwhelming – as I am so in love with him. He’s my best friend - and through everything we’ve been through over the past 11 years – nothing will ever come between us. Being a writer is just who Jhon is – has always been – since forever. He has overcome so many obstacles to get to where he is today – a very respected writer. It’s hard to believe that anyone could have ever told him that he was not smart enough – just goes to prove that our past is what makes us what we are today.

And on one final note – one of Jhon’s favorite stores in Chicago – right down State Street from the Art Institute happens to be Blicks. (We went there after our first trip to the Art Institute together.) I have been witness to Jhon’s wholehearted generosity more than once in the past years – and it always amazes me to be in the presence of such an Angel. He’s my Angel - and I would not be here without him. I only hope to be as good of a person as he is one day. Through his writing, I hope that his light will shine on you as well.

2011-01-21T10:43:00.003-06:00

It was -25 this morning with the wind chill. So I went for a motorcycle ride. I died.

I didn't mean to take a nap yesterday

2011-01-20T02:08:00.000-06:00

It's god damned cold outside - or rather, in my garage where I am writing this at a little after one in the morning. I can often be found out here in the wee hours of the morning when I can't sleep, simply, I can smoke out here. I suppose I could in the house but I detest the smell over everything and care about the lungs of the members of my family.

I took two showers today for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.

I keep tinkering with a few lines and haven't been able to decide what I want to do with them, maybe they are no good but I am attached to them these past few days.

there always is the undertow of violins, violas
played by the fingers of air

even around the smoothest of lakes
in the quietuses of night.

(hoc scripsi, unfinished)

It pleads for more but I can't think of it. I like it enough that I don't wish to regard it to the pile of unfinished and stuck poetry which is getting large. Going through today to organize last years efforts I couldn't find my original typewritten copies of nearly everything I wrote last year - such distress! Nearly in a panic I located it filed about three files away from where it should have been - such relief!

BTW, now all of my past posts have been labeled and can be found in groups (where that applies) at the bottom of the page, at least until Rabbit redesigns everything and I no longer know where shit is around here, like when K cleans everything without my being around; I get lost.

I think I have decided to break up last years efforts into a few (read two) different chap books. So I am going to start the deal of submission and rejection and hopefully acceptance eventually. I like the idea of something smaller and cheaper that may be easier to digest. For the paper impaired (I'm looking at you Patrick) I will insist that they also be available in an e-reader format or just do it myself and split the proceeds with whoever publishes. Any Suggestions? I don't expect that they'll be available this year as I am still trying to place many of them in journals and online and they will need tinkering and such, but this is now in the thought process.

okay I am a bit scattered tonight and it's taken me about an hour to write this and fuck around on the internet a bit (no porn though, don't worry my love).