Saturday, August 29, 2009

Didn'ts

Okay, so I didn’t start the poem yet, didn’t get my desk cleaned off, didn’t get my bicycle trainer moved to my office which means I didn’t work out. Been quite a day of didn’ts.

Read a couple newish poems at open mic Wednesday evening…people laughed…they weren’t intended to make people laugh…having problems getting things right it seems…third one I read didn’t get any laughs…guess I got the dirge down…a bloody dirge…go figure. It was suppose to be an eulogy for my second wife…been trying for eight years to write an eulogy for her…actually have written several…all crap…last attempt became a dirge…like I said before, I don’t write poetry, all I do is type…now why would a poem pick someone like me to be its typist when I’m such horrible a speller? I am good with a dictionary though.

A side note about spelling: One of my students turned in a draft this week and used the word “turnt.” You know, the past tense of “turn,” as in, “I heard a noise and turnt my head.” Holy shit, can you believe someone doesn’t know what the hell that red wavy line that appears under a word is? I tried to give the person some credit and thought perhaps she had the spell checker turnt off, but had to throw that thought away since she also couldn’t figure how to put the page numbers in the header.

This poem keeps adding to itself in my head and I have a feeling that soon it will tell me to start typing. I hope so, because when poems keep popping in and out and giving more hints about what they should contain frustrates me…just tell me to type and quit screwing with me…spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings…whatever Wordsworth.

If I stop smoking, start eating tofu, volunteer for some charitable organization or better yet, organizations, stop cussing, stop cussing in the classroom, quit mean mouthing god and religion in general, stop wearing red shoes, cut my hair and look respectable, get a dog and a couple of cats, not wait two or three or more months to return e-mails, call my brothers and sister more often, be more environmentally conscious, get a hybrid vehicle, bring bags to stores to carry my purchases home in, use mass transit, use less water, recycle more things, don’t buy things that can’t be recycled, stop cussing stupid people, stop thinking so many people are stupid, let people ahead of me in line, grow a garden, stop cussing the kudzu that keeps trying to invade my yard because it is, after all, just doing what kudzu does and truly doesn’t have a vendetta against me, send Christmas cards, stop gagging at the “cute” messages in the Christmas cards I receive, stop making fun of the people in the family photographs they put on their Christmas cards they send me, pay more attention to the news, feel sad when someone I’ve never heard of dies, stop laughing at the way young people dress, stop laughing at the way young people wear their hair, stop laughing at young people because they truly believe their current crisis is a crisis, be happy that someone or someone’s wife at the school where I teach has a baby, be nice to people who come to my door to preach and share the joy of their religion with me, stop cussing telemarketers, stop hoping telemarketers will call me so I can cuss them, ditto for home security representatives, be glad that all six vehicles that ran the red light made it safely through the intersection instead of wishing I had a M-series vehicle and could plow them down to teach them what the hell a red light means, stop cussing the ninety-six percent of drivers who don’t know how to use their turn signals, stop cussing drivers talking or texting on their phones and truly hope they get home safely, stop cussing the students who text in my class, stop wishing I had the nerve to drop a lit cigarette butt in butt crack of my students who dress like whores, stop thinking some of my students dress like cheap whores, stop laughing at people who wear the bill of their baseball cap backwards and then squint because the sun is in their eyes, listen to Easy Listening music instead of AC/DC and punk, stop cussing people who work so hard to look like they think they should look to be accepted instead of having enough self-confidence to look the way they do look, then I wonder if maybe I could channel “nice” poetry that people would like.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

A Poem Will Be Written

Okay, read over past postings…what crap…either I write good stuff or shut this thing down…I teach, I write…teach is listed first because it takes so much of my time…writing does also but it doesn’t put food in my mouth…my prose friends have schedules they follow to ensure they have time to write…Trollope did too and once that fact was published in his autobiography after he died he rather fell out of favor…seems “real” authors didn’t write on a schedule…ah, times change…me, no schedule to follow…I’m not a disciplined writer…I wait until I have something to write and usually let it stew for a few days or weeks before actually beginning…reckon I’m lazy or not a good writer or just not motivated or perhaps I’m not really a writer…I may be just one of those folks who want to be a writer but put forth little to no effort…

A week and a half ago I was hit with something to write…nothing new for me but a different angle…not certain there is anything new to write, just a different angle…life hasn’t changed…people are people…customs change, attitudes change, lots of things change, but we continue being people just like all those before us…we tell the same stories over and over with a new twist that places the stories in the present day…seems like we would have learned something after hearing the same stories for centuries…ah, we’re just people…actually got a line, maybe a line and a half written last Friday about the “new” ideal…only took a week and a half to get one line or maybe a bit more written…and it’s crap, but a beginning…fact is, I’m not certain I really write…I just sort of tap on the keys of this computer and stuff gets written…then it sits for a week or more before I look at it again and attempt to polish it…sometimes that fails and it sits for another week or two or maybe a month or more…it makes that decision…I just try to listen…

This new thing has to do with my father’s family and their friends…first generation born in this country…hearing first-hand accounts of the “old country,” which, in fact, was home for the ones who came to this country…strange to think how differently life was for their children…maybe not all that different except for one thing, opportunity…the children were bilingual…Italian spoken at home and in their groups, English everywhere else…how the children sort of had a foot in each world…and other things as they grew…embracing baseball…surviving the Depression…serving in WWII and fighting in their parents country, their parents home …becoming Americans…

This shan’t be an easy piece…but, if I listen well it might not be too difficult…if it wants to be written that is, and I’m guessing it is since it presented itself…I’m not certain I write poetry, poetry writes itself…maybe prose is that way too…don’t know…I can force a poem…decide I am going to write a poem about this or that and punch it out on the keyboard like a machine…sometimes they aren’t too bad…but I don’t find that satisfying…sort of like the Vic20 program I wrote while sitting on a mountain top for a year…didn’t like poetry back then but writing the program was an exercise and kept my mind occupied for a couple days…guess some folk are good at popping out good poetry and maybe I could be too if I practiced doing that, but I’m not certain I want to…life should have some mystery…Trollope was accused of being mechanical and not working from inspiration…Trollope may have been super inspired daily, maybe he had an inside track, so to say…don’t know…lots of poets turn out tons of material…maybe I’m not really a poet…maybe I’m don’t listen well…maybe I’m too thick to be inspired daily…don’t know…I’m rather happy as I am…I’m a patient man…maybe that’s laziness…maybe not…maybe it doesn’t matter…since I’m content and happy it probably doesn’t matter…life is sweet if you don’t wrap yourself up with things that truly aren’t that important…the sun will rise, birds will sing, a gentle rain will fall, a smile will fill your soul if you permit it to, and a poem will be written…

Monday, August 17, 2009

Blogging, Scientists, and Poetry

Okay, my buddies got me into writing this blog and so now here I sit writing this damn thing and not writing poetry. Sort of makes me wonder if they planned it that way. Hell, if they didn’t like my poetry they could have just told me so. They didn’t have to trick me, you know. But what’s done is done and the earth spins, or so I’m told. I ain’t too certain the earth really spins because otherwise I figure we’d all be dizzy. Those science types will tell us anything and we say, “Oh!” We are just like little kids. We’ll believe anything scientists tell us. Back in the ‘70s an ice age was coming…”Oh!” Now it’s gonna get hot…”Oh!” Cold, hot, me, I’m holding out for when they tell us it’s going to not get above the low 70s for daytime highs and maybe in the 40s for lows in the winter. You see how this blog thing works? I mention something about poetry and zip…here comes a weather report.

There is a reason poetry is spelt the way it is…and no, it has nothing to do with any Latin or Guatemalan or whatever roots. Poetry begins with “po” because that’s what you are going to be if you rely on poetry as your financial support. Now you see a scientist can come up with some half-baked idea that ain’t nothing more than a theory and get everyone to say “Oh!” You know what a theory is, right? It’s a maybe. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…a maybe, and we fall all over ourselves eating it up, reading everything we can about it, watching television programs about it, listening to anyone on talk radio talk all about it, and preaching it to our friends and to strangers we’re stuck in an elevator or on a bus or whatever with. But poetry…”Aw man, that’s some boring shit.” I mean poetry is that crap in the card you give on holidays like Valentine’s Day or birthdays to show how much that person means to you in hope of getting lucky. And the mushier the better…sort of like my French toast with butter, peanut butter, and real maple syrup…over indulgence over hill over dale over the river over the top and if the gods smile on you, in the pants. That’s the purpose of poetry…it’s expected on certain occasions to maintain a peaceful life…and maybe loosen a belt or two. “Oh!”

This summer I was covering poetry in my Comp II class (I never mention I’m a poet to my classes but they eventually figure it out) and most, like most, don’t care for poetry and we’re talking about the poets and one thing leads to another and most of the class agrees that male poets aren’t manly. I mean come on…since poetry deals with emotions and real men only know maybe two emotions…hate and anything to do with balls of any shape or size…then male poets can’t be anything other than sissies…”oh,” i say. And women don’t want sissies, they want manly men…”oh,” i say. So I keep my mouth shut about me being a poet for a few more weeks and I keep reminding them about open mic at the school and eventually someone asks me if I read there and I say yes and the class sniggers but I bring in some poetry that ain’t in their book and we read it and they say “OH!”…even the manly guys in class...and the women sort of half swoon even though the poem I read by Etheridge Knight had the word fuck about a dozen times in it and it is a powerful poem and it’s a love poem and the guys understand what Knight is saying and the women understand what Knight is saying and it’s beautiful and the guys and the women both can feel the beauty of the poem and all I can do is say thank you to Mr. Knight for opening my class up to emotions and movement and beauty and poetry.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Weight Loss Over the Rainbow

So I go to the doctor a few months ago and he tells me I have type 2 diabetes and “Shit!” falls out of my mouth because the last thing I need in my life is any sort of diabetes because I know the severity of diabetes seeing as my second wife was a type 1 and it killed her so I know I gotta get my act together and lose weight and eat sensible and start exercising again because 256 pounds on a 5’11” frame is asking for trouble even though the doctor checked my body fat and it’s only two points over the max for someone my age which sort of means I ain’t grossly obese but am still too damn fat and the doctor tells me if I get down to 200 pounds I’ll have this thing beat but damn I like eating and I mean eating really good quality food and seeing as my wife and nephew and I love cooking we eat some great meals and I’ve learned how to cook things I love but have trouble finding in this area and am more than happy to spend three hours batting out a curry or anything else for that matter and can cook a steak that makes you want to fall in love so I start watching my carbs except for breakfast because breakfast is like the greatest meal of the day. Now I love supper too because that’s when we usually have our big meal but breakfast…OH! Beautiful, beautiful breakfast…I want food within half an hour of waking, I need food when I wake up, but I don’t go to sleep thinking of breakfast. But oh, when I wake I anticipate the flavors, the textures, the smells, and if breakfast includes French toast well then you know that all is well with the world and four or five slices of French toast slathered in butter and peanut butter with just a drizzle of real maple syrup will make me weep, but alas, today I have maybe one slice of French toast on the rare occasion with low fat margarine, no peanut butter, and a drizzle of some fake low fat or low sugar crap that someone decided to market as maple syrup. Healthier? Probably, but what the hell is the point of it all? Food isn’t just something to keep the body functioning, it is passion…sort of like the difference between masturbating or having wild passionate sex…masturbation will keep your eyes from crossing but wild, wild passionate sex makes you feel the marrow in your bones. But now I only eat half a steak, half of the curry I indulged in…moderation…that’s straight from Buddha’s mouth…a wise man…but if I sort of indulge for breakfast then I’m pretty satisfied for the rest of the day and I started poking myself twice a day and got my sugars in the normal range and have dropped to 232 pounds in a sensible amount of time but now I’m perched on that damn 232 ledge and need to drop another 32 pounds which seems like its sitting at the end of the rainbow but there ain’t no damn rainbow to be seen.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Quest

Somewhere, somewhere, inside me there is a home I’m searching for…perhaps not searching for but more like one that is calling me…it isn’t the home of my youth…it isn’t any place I’ve ever lived…but damn, somewhere is nagging at me…at least I think it is home…might be something else…ancestorial perhaps…that is probably closer to what I mean than what we consider “home” to be…but I reckon that is about as home as one can get…it’s almost a primitive calling…
something from way, way long ago…some sort of connection pulling at me…keeping me unsettled…it may be some sort of belonging…something nagging at me to get with those I should be with…not immediate family, you know, not mother, father, sister, brother sort of family…a larger, older family…one I don’t know, or at least am not aware of…I guess the closest I can come to describing it is much like the gypsies I met in Austria in a camp ground years ago…a large extended family…probably twenty or so caravans…but they are connected to an older heritage, an older family…in many ways I feel as if the old ways are pulling at me…I just don’t know what those old ways are, or even mean…perhaps that is the cost of our society…a loss of foundation…my father spoke Italian, which was spoken in his family since his parents came from Italy…he didn’t teach us Italian…although it wasn’t spoken of, I learned much later that he wanted us to be Americans…although he didn’t experience the poverty of his parents and grandparents (who all came over together), he certainly must have learned of it…his family wasn’t rich but knew opportunity…he also lived through the Depression as a young man…and me, I’m not half Italian, I’m full American…how can I be otherwise?...both my parents were born in this country…I am my environment…I didn’t grow up with “When I was your age…” or “Back in the old country…”…hell, the old country was poverty and the lack of opportunity…why would anyone wish to return to that?…but yet there must have been a connection…an ancient connection of generation upon generation…a common grounding of the soul…a knowledge of the ancient ways…a knowledge now lost so as to provide for immediate needs…to stay alive…they’re all gone now, and have been for many, many years…the old ones…the immigrants…the first generation born here who surely heard the stories…the ones who could possibly let me know what is nagging somewhere inside me trying to have me remember that which I never learned…working on a family tree would do no good…poor people have no genealogy…hell, neither do rich people…I read once that there are only three or four families in England that can trace their family back to 1066 with any certainty…and none beyond that…so I sit and think often about what may be calling me…to ask why would be a waste of time…that can be asked once the first answer is found…I wrote a poem (a poor one) many years ago about wanting the ancient gods of my fathers to be returned to me…I think that was the beginning of my quest…a quest unacknowledged at the time…a poem I didn’t think about writing but one that just appeared across my screen…the first whisper...once I was asked why I was asking for the ancient gods to be returned to me, why didn’t I just embrace them…I had no answer for that question then…but perhaps that was the question to be asked…why don’t I?...I’m not certain…maybe because I’m not certain what to embrace…I could certainly research the ancient gods from the area my family came from, however, something tells me that isn’t the area I should be searching...I’m not even certain it is the ancient gods I am looking for…in fact I doubt it is, but they may in some way be connected to this quest…not an end of the quest, but rather a marker as this quest has never felt like a search for the supernatural…quite the opposite…more of a quest for the tangible…my true home.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Biking

I love bicycling...biking is just me and the bike and the road and the motorists and dead stinky things on the side of the road and dogs that chase you and the beauty of nature and rain and snow and kids in school buses who throw things at you and crap on the road you don't notice because you're mind is off wandering about things that are best be left unsaid that puncture your tire and you have to fix the flat on the side of the road with the hot sun beating down on you and even though the pump you carry on the bike will pump the tire up to 100 psi it's a real pain in the ass because it is a small pump and takes what seems like forever and stoping to stare into the eyes of a deer crossing the road ahead of you and learning that deers are real good at staring and can stare you down every time but not giving up trying to stare them down becasue you don't often get to have a staring contest with a deer and running over a snake because again your mind was wandering and you were watching the cows in the field and didn't notice the snake in the road until half a second before you ran over it and hoping that it doesn't somehow get wrapped on your tire and flung up on you because you can't tell if it is poisonous or not and even if it isn't you figure it is going to be pretty pissed off getting run over when all it was trying to do was regulate its body temperature and is going to do its best to bite this idiot who ran over it because he was watching cows in the field as if he had never seen cows before instead of watching where in the hell he was going in the first place and you know you can't blame the snake for biting you poisonous or not because you learned in grade school science that for every action there is a equal and opposite reaction and that snake is going to react but perhaps not equally becasue it is going to try and bite you as many times as it can even though you only ran over it once and butterflies that smack you in the helmet when you're doing 15 mph or so and get stuck in one of the helmet vents and you can hear its wings flapping against your helmet but you don't stop to remove it because it is getting dark and you didn't bring your lights with you and you know you are nothing more than a shadow on the road without your lights in the dark and that no one worries about driving over shadows and bugs of all sorts and sizes that provide you with unexpected protein and it's climbing a hill into a headwind with your mouth wide open gobbling up as much air as you can and learning as you near the top of the hill that someone decided to place a pig farm at the top of that hill and swearing to god that if you ever get on the up-wind side of that pig farm you'll stop giving the finger to motorists who squeeze you on the road but which you continue to do anyway but it's mostly about young calfs that stare and stare at a biped on a bicycle because all they see for the first time is amazing to them.

First Posting

Okay, this is it. My buddies made me do this...well, that's a lie...I just want to be cool like them so this is my first time blogging and this is blog #1 and I know that the page don't look all neat and cool but I'm still trying to figure this thing out and it may just improve...or may not...I reckon that I ought to put things straight right out the door...just because I teach English, don't expect this blog to be all proper like writing wise...there's a time and a place for that and this blog, I've decided, ain't it...if you have problems with that you can go snitch to my momma about me or simply hit the "Off" button...which when you hear folk complain about what they read or watch seems to be beyond their capibility...if that is your problem then you probably shouldn't be allowed to have electronic devices...of course you could always grab your axe and cut the power cord (that's the wire plugged into the wall) but if you are on a portable computer then it will still have me hanging around for an hour or two until the battery craps out...sort of like how your headlights eventually go blank if you leave them on all night and your car won't start in the morning...BUT, with all that being said...written rather...I hope you stick around and montior my wanderings...if I'm wrong please let me know and we'll enter into a conversation, work things out, hug each other, and live happy lives.