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

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.

Moving day

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

more snow but I did nothing about it

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?

beginning of Year 2

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.

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.

Facebook

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:

1. 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

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...

I didn't mean to take a nap yesterday

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).

Good morning and the world somehow looks different.

I can't decide if I want to now file the 2010 poetry separately from the 2011 like I have always done with past years, so far there doesn't seem to be a nice cap on last year but I am still working on several from the past few months, but the finished product would go in this year, not last year. I will probably do what habit dictates but we shall see. I usually give myself until February when I do the taxes to have all my files straightened out and properly stored for long term.
Last years output wasn't bad at all, more than the previous year and this has been going for awhile. I wanted to have written more and while I dealt with the three and a half month creative drought I cannot seem to allow that to be an excuse - though it be a damn good one.
This blog is finally recovering from said drought and I hope to keep up the pace for awhile. We shall see. I've never been the most prolific writer, but have always focused on making each offering the best it could be before it left my possession and entered the world on its own, others can do this faster than I but I don't mind that as long as I've got the process going - usually on several at the same time.
As of right now I think there are six or so nearly complete poems - including a long one (a few hundred lines) and in that one I owe to a great friend, Kevin - nearly complete but still struggling with a few lines - not perfect yet, soon - soon.
There is also a moleskine with many ideas for new work, several typed pages with ideas and of course - there are the notes made in the margins of what I've been reading lately and my brain which teems with ideas that float along through the noise waiting for better formulation to be written down.
I believe in Allen Ginsberg's "first thought, best thought." I also acknowledge that even this first thought is not always best said with the first words that come to describe it. A. Believed this as well - evidenced by his journals and early copies of his poems. He would work on some things for years and others would come off on the plane trip home. I refer to "Father Death" in this last instance.
When writing Haiku I usually come up with most of the wording right away - as it strikes me, a satori moment if you will, and then work hard to file it down to as few words as possible, sort of like Ezra Pound would focus on later in life. Then it is meter - the syllable - each one considered for its metrical flow. This seems clinical but it isn't and it thrills me while I am doing it. The act is also very taxing for me and sometimes I will require a mental break away from it lest I lose my mind again.
yes, I edit my poetry and I know that to some this is sacrilege. I am trying to do something with the line, the poetic form, and I am zeroing in on it. Hopefully, by old age, I'll have it sussed.

Why have I written all this out?


I have no clue.


now to work on my magpie prompt.

Sunday

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

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

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

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

elements

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

goblets of wine
between us,
we eat slowly,

laugh heartily
and are only drowning

in concern

               under
clean skin, made
beautiful by artificial
means.

 - Hoc Scripsi 

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

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

now to...

drink some OJ right out of the bottle,

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

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

dream of once again dancing a jig...

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

unfinished

I think what I need to do is to come up with a long list of possible topics and/or post titles - this way I will not be sitting here trying to think of what great or insignificant piece of knowledge/experience would best be displayed on this page.
I wouldn't mind your suggestions, i.e. what would you like to read my current opinion on.
One post I have planned but not the will to write is what I am trying to do with poetry. More or less a short treatise on what I believe makes good, lasting work.

this poem holds no bearing on the former post.

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

HOME

at last, I am home and there will be no interesting post today. This morning (6:30) we left Washington D.C. and arrived home to Elgin, Illinois at ten-thirty pm - A lot of miles for me now, used to be able to do twice as much in the same time but now - no, and I am proud of how I have lived my life.

more tomorrow, back to normal.

home.

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR LEMONS.

ticking of a clock

wife chopping up
vegetables, going through
cabinets and drawers,

cooking dinner with
great efficiency.
the child playing his

computer games and
the cats meowing for some
attention or fresh water.

the furnaces turn on and off
heating a room to 67 d Fahrenheit
(19 d Celsius)
somewhere outside there is

the sound of radios playing
modern urban music
the engine braking of trucks

coming to stop on
or slow toward Shales Pkwy
on Rte. 20.

or the other way around.
but
it drives men mad.

- I wrote this.


New added feature, now you can follow this blog via face book. Look for the widget on the left column and click follow on either the blogspot one of the facebook one. Llike all people wanting to be famous, my happiness is measured by the amount of followers I have. Joking, I am never happy. Happiness is like the theater candy 'good & plenty' - this is only true before you open the box, when you invariably find that where they can pass for good you always want one more or maybe two more, but there was not "plenty" available without spending another seven USD - which considering how much journals pay for poetry these days is a lot of fucking money.
That is a really long plea.
Last night I slept well, taking only my normal amount of medications without supplementing with anything herbal or over the counter or out the back door. I hope that this means I will sleep well agian tonight. But, as Bob Dylan once said -
"hope is just a word that maybe you said
maybe you heard
down some windy corner
down some winding curve." (last thoughts on Woody Guthrie)


how short is this life?

we are still in mourning over Todd Moore. Go there for more thoughts.

Weekends

I've decided that I want to spend my weekends playing chess with my son and not necessarily post more than once here. I ask for no-one to be offended as I am not entirely sure I would be able to have any sort of appropriate reaction to such a thing. Not sure, I think it entirely depends on the state of my medication at the time.
Anyway, posting here doesn't take long depending on the length of the poem I am posting - I do not cut/copy/paste - I retype and hope that I have the sensibility for something new in it. Mostly I like them or do not in the state they are and they remain unchanged.


Go here.

or here  it's last year but there are two there and I like them.

here is good as well. Again, last year but the one here I've always had affection for.

these made me feel good.

I will post more in the future when I am feeling this lazy again.

That's Charlie. I'm Jhon and you are going to have an excellent day.