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

four fingers

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.

this has kept me up all night

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

Monday Monday...

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.

bathe every open wound

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.

It's about four in the morning or so

well fuck it, I'm staying awake tonight to see if I can pull this insomnia at night thing into the more normal 'trouble falling asleep but doing so eventually anyway' and away from the 'I watch the sunrise and then get sleepy' category.
I am currently digesting Paradise Lost by Milton and am going to go through the epics before I return to normal reading. As I am not a Christian or Catholic I get to read this from a pure poetical standpoint and dig deep into his word and line - which are beyond measure beautiful and striking. Interesting is how words have changed meaning over the years, i.e. reeking - now it refers to something with foul and unappealing odor and when he wrote it it meant more of vaporizing or disintegrating.
While not as cool as Beethoven being deaf or Monet being nearly blind  - Milton was totally blind when he wrote all 12 books of Paradise Lost. being unable to see what needs to be worked and writing in iambic pentameter is astounding to me not to mention being able to keep the complicated narrative of Paradise Lost in mind while doing the aforementioned composition. oh, and he was also hated at that point in history by the powers that be so he did this in hiding and was jailed at some point around then as well, not for being a bad guy but for saying the wrong things about the powerful.
This is not to be taken for better perusal of his history and selected from my memory of a blurb I read somewhere - probably the preface to the tome I am reading.
I feel ashamed for waiting this long to read it and can only admit that I have skimmed the other epics (Odyssey, Iliad, Aeneid, Metamorphosis, Beowulf) some fairly heavy skimming but still. I am correcting this oversight presently.

I spent the day sleeping, in bed.

well, no I didn't but while I was walking around, pumpkin shopping, having lunch, dinner, reading, smoking and all that rock n roll - I was asleep. Now, I am awake at one twenty-seven am.

I hold no grudge.

walking a thin line of relation

I am waiting
calmly, cautiously

I won't take my life in 2012
it won't be taken from me

the GMT constant isn't

the world will not end then
as it has yet to do

I wish to arise unknowing

ignorant of the stars predilictions

 - Hoc Scripsi


I am posting this today though I think it may be crap. I may delete it or drastically alter it. Right now I am tired from not sleeping well and dealing with the continued pain of walking, lying down, sitting and breathing so my ability to flesh out the thought may be incomplete. I take the meds again and realize that it's been nearly four years since I've known a morning or afternoon or evening without being intimate with bone crushing pain. I need a new drug and I am addicted to not being in pain. Shifts of season and lack of proper sleep aggravate the situation.
The path my life has taken since the accident is one I wonder if given the chance would I relive and make a different decision that day - it was such a perfect day - tragedy gave me a gift and exacted a price. There is nothing that I can change about it so I try not to wonder if I would.

Friday and the rain comes

It's raining finally. Meaning that I will not have to go out and water the lawn, the clouds and atmosphere are pulling together and putting water and nutrients into my half assed attempt at an enviable lawn. Rained all night but that didn't come with the usual good sleep, flashes of lightening, bad dreams, and strange noises kept me awake with one hand on my .45 (the strange noises) but last nights sleep was an improvement over the night before. I had seemingly been cured of the plaguing insomnia or I had nearly been convinced that I had been cured through medication which may have helped the sleep and is now weeping out from my skin as I have suspended this particular prescription. Why? I couldn't write and I was too medicated to be angry about it. I've thrashed most of what I had written while on this last attempt at stability. I realize now that I prefer walking on the fine edge of a razor blade to the life that medication offers you.
Wow, from simple rain to the complex world of anti-psychotics.

The walls may start to bleed again, disembodied eyes may watch me from the windows, the noise is coming back slowly slowly slowly and I'm getting the headaches again here and there, here and there. Still not feeling anger but able to meditate and breathe when the air isn't suffocated from under the glass walls.
- it's the good rain that does it, makes me nostalgic for a more unhinged period of my life.


elements

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

goblets of wine
between us,
we eat slowly,

laugh heartily
and are only drowning

in concern

               under
clean skin, made
beautiful by artificial
means.

 - Hoc Scripsi

this is what I am thinking as I am picking the sleep from my eyes.

Had a nap yesterday that didn't feel like a nap and last night didn't feel like sleep until about seven am which lasted until roughly nine. I'd call it sleeping in if the night was full of sleep. Most nights since I stopped taking the anti-psychotic have been fine but the main reason to stop taking the meds has not reversed itself as of yet. My mind is still clouded and the creative drought still exists. There is the other thought that I am splitting my mind between too many things right now to be able to concentrate on new poetry or prose.
I decided this weekend that I ought to have been applying labels or tags to each of my posts for easier reference. As I had not been doing this I am now going back and having to skim each one to apply the labels or tags and avoid the temptation to revise and rewrite passages that are not on the level of quality that the others are. Last night I did over a hundred thus completing the bulk of them and tonight I may finish the project but now I am thinking that I would be better off thinking of about 15 tags and only utilizing those which would mean that I would have to start over. I am not being kind to myself.
This morning is a Tom Waits morning and currently the song "Kentucky Avenue" is playing - brings me to tears every time.
My coffee is good and thanks to Kara for making it this morning when I was refusing to rouse myself. There is nothing better than walking into a kitchen where there is fresh, hot coffee and clean mugs - I drink it black and burn your fingertips hot.

I wonder what is done with medical waste and what will alien anthropologists think when it is found?

I'm almost sure there is a simple explanation but I am too nervous to use Google thinking that flarf may lead me into a new direction where there exists the pornographic denizens of the internet.



Words are dry, meaningless

words are dry,
expression faceless.
the ladybugs came here to die
on my window;
baking in the sun.

a hundred portraits
unhung,
composing city life.

walks along South Michigan
in Chicago;
children think I am homeless
and dirty.

find Buddha in the patrons .
find Buddha in the hall.
find Buddha on the front steps
of MOMA.
je suis beau!
find Buddha in me!

on these steps I ask for a light;
and I am
not thinking that I’m going to write this
a year later, or more, sitting at
my desk. where
ladybugs come to die
on my window.

- Hoc Scripsi

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

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

 - Hoc Scripsi


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

fell asleep while writing this.

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

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


the whole of earth

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

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

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

I keep impoverished in
my pockets.

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

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

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

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

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

-Hoc Scripsi

the perfect blossom of a cherry tree

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


having trouble finding the way in

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

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

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

 - Hoc Scripsi

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

This morning

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

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

The poem was written for my son.

the sun hides

   for Jackson

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

- Hoc Scrips

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

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

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

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


Today's offering


Forget that the kitchen is so full of knives

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

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

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

in mid-afternoon when you are at work.

oh yeah, thanks for the paper.


- Hoc Scripsi



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

I believe it to be Monday

Monday morning, as I am an insomniac I've decided that posting this at 3 am is the best thing for me to do at 3 am.
This poem was published here not that long ago, I've wanted to repost it as the line breaks were removed from it for some reason. I hold no grudge but it reads better this way. It's one of my favorites which probably means it isn't very good. I think it is, the life forms looking through the windows remain silent on it while others have expressed interest but they don't count as you can never expect people who care for you to be honest in such matters.
I am thinking about why more poets aren't crazy these days, I think the answer to be simply that they are not poets. It is believed in the science community that about 95% of Poets (as opposed to people who write poetry to get laid) have a diagnosable mental disorder - while only 28% of the sciences. (professor Arnold Ludwig, MD, "method and madness in the arts and sciences")
I am not Catholic but my favorite of the Saints is the relatively unknown - Juan Grande Pecador - which translates as - John The Great Liar.
I am responsible for the translation of de Andrade's poem at the beginning, if there are any errors in this wonderful poem they are all mine and not his.

I SKETCH UMBRELLAS
TO REMIND.
OR,  JUAN GRANDE PECADOR   

“and now, José
the party’s over,
the lights out,
the people left,
the night turned cold,
and now, José?
and now, you…”
-    Carols Drummond de Andrade (trans. J. Baker)

1.

I sketch umbrellas to
remind,
and that I am tired of
being only a man.

Hungry all the time,
eating  avocado chicken
and tuna fish.
Drinking only coffee,
   water;
and sketching umbrellas
looking out from
third floor
balconies.

Closing mouth to
emulate good men, wise
to not debate with
women, enjoy
dreaming of youth but
disappointed in memory.
I am tired from this
and being only a man.

Naked and not
   entirely unbeautiful.
lights on, off,
standing, lying down.
Showing scars from
deep wounds.
Innumerable on my,
arms, chest, legs.
Chicago, Seattle,
South California tattoos,
trying to define shape
and color of self.
I am tired of this body
and being only a man.

I sketch Umbrellas
to remind.

2.

Juan Grande,
I am your son but
you are tireless.
Juan Grande,
I am you student.
Tired
from looking, or
searching or
questioning
or being
only a man.
Juan Grande,
how do you cope?

Juan Grande, I
use a typewriter because
it does not correct me and
it is faster then pencils.
Juan Grande,
I cannot be a
Saint because I am not dead.
I am not dead
tho’ I do not feel lucky
because of it.

I am only a man,
and in that, only
your progeny.

Juan Grande,
not nameless but
unknown father.
How is it that that
you made confession,
how is it that
you came to be a saint.

I sketch umbrellas
to remind,
and that I am tired
from being only a man.

I recognize
death, its face
and proximity. I
do not regret my life or
that I am only a man.
I am only a man
sketching umbrellas
to remind.



3.

Woman.
I am you lover
entering the bedroom,
distressing the bed.
Not dissimilar to tilting
at windmills trying
to surmount destiny,
or hallucination.

Woman, I am tired
from being a man,
cleaned body washed
on rocks by the shore.
I am tired from this.
Incapable of more
and incapable of less.

Woman,
it is late now and
you are still with me.
Tho’ I’ve offered nothing,
tho’ I will offer nothing.
You are still with me
tho’ I am broken
and resplendent with
anger. Tho’ I clench fists
at phantoms and shadows.
Tho’ I am only a man,
I sketch umbrellas
to remind.

4.

and lastly.

Stopping for a moment
to collect my thoughts.
I think of this attempt
at beauty. It is not an
attempt at describing your aversion
to be naked in the confines of
a shuddered apartment.
It is an attempt to show that,
even tho’ rarely thought about
or admitted,
nakedness is not hideous.

After all,
I am naked and not
entirely unbeautiful.
Only tired and
sketching umbrellas to
remind.


 - I wrote this.


I've noticed that, as where I don't look at the keyboard while I type, I make a lot of mistakes while typing in the dark. Please indicate corrections that are necessitated by this lack of ability.

written on a small scrap with editorial department address on reverse

poetry wastes a lot of
paper that could be used
for holding leaves off the
ground.

there are some things
that trees will never
forgive us for;
art – is not one of them.

no matter how bad.

- I wrote this


didn't sleep last night, slept the night before but not the night before that. I did not keep track of previous nights only to know that most of them were not fit for sleeping. It amazes me how much two ailments can define your life, Chronic Pain and Insomnia, they are related but it is not a causal relationship as insomnia has far outlasted the pain thing.
this has weakened my current creativity or the current will to be inspired. This statement has been horribly alliterative and I must stop at all costs.
Another lit blog I read posed the question - 'is everyone an artist? - I think the answer is clear, however, the clarity I have on it is not shared by the many so called 'artists' who produce less art and more sentimental bullshit that is only capable of relating to the so called artist. This is not art and as the definitions are straying away from the meaningful I have simply stated that I am not an artist. But these questions that the so called artists struggle with is possibly part of what separates them from the real and the so called. This is not entirely accurate but what I would ask is this - if you go into your garage and change your oil with any amount of required skill or acquired knowledge, does this make you a mechanic? or if you cook diligently a meal that feeds yourself and maybe even a few friends - does that make you a chef? you see where I am going with this I hope. The effort and even the correct result do not make you the arbiter of such titles because that would be widely considered a gross misapplication of the terms. You are not an artist because you happen to create something or your friends like what you have done. A wall painter is considered a wall painter and not a wall artist. It seems that the fine arts are under attack by the same unjustified assumption of entitlement that is plaguing our streets and making me fear to leave my house for too long that I might accidentally add murderer to my short list of titles. I kid though I am often tempted to add aggravated battery to that list for the same reasons. I don't as I don't want to go to prison, feeling like you are more than you are is not really a corporal punishment offense (tho why not?) and mostly because even though I am a large and intimidating man - I am not a fighter, I am however, a poet.

Shipping and Handling

Really tired at the time I write this and I think that I could rename this blog/journal - the tired associations of J. Baker.
I believe that I am going lie down to read TIME, Robert Gates is on the cover so it may be an informative read as this is someone I don't know a lot about and I am betting no-one I know does which is a shame as he is the Defense Secretary.From what I know already I would make decisions differently [about defense] but I wonder if I knew what they/he [Gates] knew, would my decisions be the same as theirs or now? Ignorance is not bliss, it is ignorance. Bliss is bliss and I've no idea about it at all.


shipping and handling

  - deleted after writer actually thought about it
  - a little more while no longer under the
  - influene of whatever it was he/she
  - was on that day/hour.
  -
  - thank you for your interest.


          - I wrote this

Words are dry, meaningless

Insomnia sufferers of the world unite, or at least get together as to not be bored in the wee hours of morning.
I've "suffered" from this malady for as long as I can remember, there must have been a time where sleep came easy and I awoke rested and spry, wasn't there? In addition there are many poems that begin with the words - can't sleep - or are about not being able to sleep. There are many tricks to falling under the spell of hypnos and with the exception of drinking warm milk, I've tried them all and most seem to work for a few days but all eventually stop working. The only cure it seems was to drink copious amounts of Jack or Johnny Walker or SoCo, those who knew me then will advise against this tactic tho especially as I am not even sure that I even slept, there are only periods of time where I remember nothing and awoke in places I didn't remember being and all that implies.
I've also written profuse amounts of poetry and stories when I should have been dreaming, I would say it is a good time to write but there is always a lot of revision to clean up the mess that was the night before so I prefer to write in the day from when I start going on to when I finish while sometimes stopping for lunch or love.

words are dry, meaningless

words are dry,
expression faceless.
the ladybugs came here to die
on my window;
baking in the sun.

a hundred portraits
unhung,
composing city life.

walks along South Michigan
in Chicago;
children think I am homeless
and dirty.

find Buddha in the patrons .
find Buddha in the hall.
find Buddha on the front steps
of MOMA.
je suis beau!
find Buddha in me!

on these steps I ask for a light;
and I am
not thinking that I’m going to write this
a year later, or more, sitting at
my desk. where
ladybugs come to die
on my window.