My Latest Publication is Live!

Lars Palms' Ungovernable Press has just published my recently completed Another Shadow? as a lovely e-book. Isn't its cover photo a beauty thing? And it's free! Enjoy. Thank you, Lars. You are my favorite Swedish guy.

Desire’s Torque

The problem
With Realisms

Is that
They’re all

A knot
Of fictions.

Most thoughts
And perceptions

Don’t translate
To speech,

Go unasserted,
Uninserted

Into discourse,
Or go

Awkwardly forth,
Distorted by

Desire’s torque.

I have been sick for the last couple of days. Left work early Thursday to go to the doctor. (You know I'm sick if I go to the doctor.) Then I called off on Friday. ( I haven't called off sick for quite awhile. Don't remember the last time I did it.)

Anyway, this weekend I've been vegging--sleeping, reading, watching TV. Daughter Claire lent me the first season of True Blood on DVD. I watched 7 of its 12 episodes today.

Vampires. How about that?

*

OK. I took a break for a coughing fit.

*

I gotta wonder how Geof's doing in Finland. Suppose he's eaten any Reindeer yet? On Donner and Blitzen!

Are we

drunk

on each

other's grammar?



What is

the structure

of our

acts of love?

Sitting here in Ohio time I'm cognizant of the fact that the memorial service for David Bromige in California is probably just now getting under way.

I had unfinished business with David and will miss him. Damn. I'll miss him.

*

Shanna Compton would me proud of me. This summer we subscribed to a CSA (community supported agriculture) program with a local farm. For an upfront fee every Saturday we receive a bundle of fresh in-season produce. Today we roasted beets for the first time!

*

Allen Bramhall has posted movingly today about the place of poetry in our lives. With specific reference to my exchange with Geof and his own ongoing exchange with Jeff Harrison.

*

I've been working my ass off this long weekend. House and yard work, babysitting, reading, writing and etc. I'm tired. I've read about 400 pages of poetry and another 100 or so pages of miscellaneous books. And that's not including newspapers, blogs, etc. My eyes are blurry.

*



I think I've finished my little long poem _Another Shadow?_. Now I need to try to move back to some older projects and see if some resolution can be achieved. I also need to focus and ask Rebecca Loudon another question.

*

I'm roasting a chicken. Tarragon is the perfume of the moment. Sauvignon Blanc is the password I'm responding to now.

*

Wilco in constant replay throughout the weekend.

*

Cheers.

I went to bed quite early yestereve and rose quite early this morning. I've been getting a lot done: writing, reading, errands, etc. Before grocery shopping I went to the corporate book store and bought the new Wilco album at a steep discount (I am listening to it now). I wasn't planning on buying a new notebook but did so when I saw a fat one with robots on the cover (BUY ME, BUY ME!) . It looked meant for me (MUST OBEY!).





It was a rainy morning and it's supposed to be cool all day with temperatures not getting out of the 60s. Unusual thing for July in Ohio, but not unheard of.





Last night Barb and I watched Marley & Me and sobbed. I don't ever want to be too sophisticated to care about pets or children. Even formulaic writing can be the bearer of great truths. Perhaps it is truest to say that all writing is more or less formulaic.



Poetry, I believe, is a special case of writing. By that I mean that all bets are off. Anything is truly possible. And yet it is all mostly pretty transitory. My work and I will likely be forgotten pretty quickly. There are many different kinds of reason for that. There is no fairness guaranteed for any one of us.

You can stalk me, you can diss me, you can give me any kind of shit you care to. It won't give you greater access to what I am not. It won't make you something you are not.

A First Postscript to Buffalo

So, while I think the Buffalo event was not without its issues, and a probable failure from a performance standpoint (at least in regard to the attempt at a public conversation proceeding from the interview), I learned a few things. This is not to say I'm surprised that there were glitches, hesitations, stumbles, stutters along the way. (There are in all of my projects.) Risks were knowingly and unknowingly taken.



The event wasn't put into play for its entertainment value, it was enacted as a learning experience (this, anyway, is my sense of things). Geof may feel differently. I think we'll do better next time, if there's a next time.



And if there isn't a next time? I'll still value the experience of Interpenetrations: Buffalo for what it was in all of its imperfections and joys, value it as a step along the way. That experience never had anything to do with expectations. Geof and I embraced not knowing what was going to happen. Just as we had in the course of our yearlong exchange.