This one comes fresh off the presses (or permanent marker) from the Adjustment project I’ve been tinkering with off and on for awhile now.
That House on Word Wednesday
poetry
The Friday Five | May 15, 2020
This is a collection of things that I’ve been enjoying, doing, or thinking about through the week. Since it’s been a little while since my last gratitude post, I thought this would be an opportune time to share some things that I am thankful for right now.
Please note that some obvious things (family, food, shelter, etc.) aren’t going to be on the list below. It’s not that I’m not grateful for them, it’s that there wouldn’t be room for anything else if that’s all I focused on. So let’s just take those as a given, okay?
- FATAL FLAWS. This might seem like an odd one to start off with and probably deserves its own post at some point. Before the pandemic, we’d been in the process of discussing how our business needed to change and/or adapt for the near and far futures. Along the way, we identified some flaws in our business model along with one potentially fatal flaw (to scalability and expansion that is). Now, as we’re hurtling towards week nine of lockdown, it turns out that the fatal flaw has been our saving grace. Just a reminder to approach things from multiple angles.
- TOM ROBBINS. Being caught shorthanded with fresh books to read was an example of a problem I’ve been trying to look at from a different angle. The positive being that I dove back into the work of Tom Robbins over the last couple weeks and was reminded how much I love his writing. It’s also been a flashback since I remember clearly the time in my life when each one was read and in some cases, the location. That’s not to say fresh books aren’t on the way, but it’s been a fun spin down Memory Lane.
- BLATANT FOOLISHNESS. Another positive of not having many places to go is that I’ve been able to spend every Sunday night recording a fresh episode of the Free Range Idiocy podcast with my friend Tim. We have no aspirations of fame and fortune (which is good being one out of a billion podcasts in the universe), but it’s an excellent opportunity to spend a couple hours laughing our way into the new week.
- NEW MUSIC. Throughout my life, I’ve spent a lot of time looking backwards with music instead of looking at what’s coming next. From my elementary school years spent listening to The Beach Boys up until now when I’m more likely to be pulling an old Verve jazz record out of my collection instead of prowling the new release section of iTunes or Spotify. However, the last couple weeks have given me some good excuses to look at the present and even the future, so here’s a couple of recommendations… The new Lettuce album Resonate is absolutely outstanding … Ditto with new Fiona Apple album Fetch the Bolt Cutters (but you probably already knew that one) … And here’s one to look forward to – Maceo Parker has a new album coming out in June, but hit us all up with a new version of his song “Cross The Track” as an appetizer.
- PASSION PROJECTS. I suppose the podcast would count in this category, but here I’m specifically talking about the poetry project I’ve been working on. Same as with the podcast, I have no illusions about this book taking the world by storm, becoming a bestseller, or catapulting me to a level of recognition that results in me being taught in a class some day … but … it is fun and it is something to do. Sometimes, that’s enough.
If you’ve enjoyed any of this, I’m glad. Feel like sticking around for a bit? Check out some of my more recent posts below.
Word Wednesday Out Of Time
Sometimes, it’s fun to mess around on the page (or screen).
a man out of time had Bukowski lived in the Age of Facebook, you know damn well he’d have been trolling at 2am instead of writing poems drunk as hell, giggling as he typed another flamethrower reply then sit back & watch the show which is how i comfort myself on nights like this when nothing is getting done.
Part of me does wonder about what someone like Hank would’ve thought of today’s world. Another part thinks he would’ve thought about it the same way he did about his own world and time: poorly.
Either way, the image of Buk sitting down at his computer, cigarette ashing on his shorts, surrounded by beer cans, and typing furiously on social media just to start fights is pretty amusing to me.
Word Wednesday: Adjustment 25
One of the drawbacks of being involved in multiple projects (being in a creative flow as Robert Rodriguez would say) is that it’s easy for one to slip to the side every now and again. I used to get pretty upset about that until recently when I realized that’s okay – as long as it gets picked up again (and nobody is sitting around waiting for it), what’s the harm? After all, most of these things are for my own amusement anyways.
All that to say that I haven’t been making many blackout poems lately, but here’s one that I did.
Word Wednesday Contraptions
After not writing much new poetry while I’ve been stuck in Revision Land, it’s been a veritable explosion of fresh material here!
Okay, so it’s been a couple poems. But still! That’s something.
Here’s one that I wrote yesterday.
contraptions stubbornly sensual, hands reach to caress - lips pout to kiss & find only empty space filled with air & questions. think of that: emptiness filled. an artless definition of love or a crude state of being? all of us, empty & filled in various ways - jury-rigged apparatus on the verge of catastrophe, asked to bear “just a little bit more”
Early Words
I know that it isn’t Word Wednesday, but I woke up to snow in Southern Maine on April 28 and a lack of motivation to write much besides and endless stream of cuss words and other “get off my lawn” – ish grumbling.
So instead, here’s a new poem that I was going to save until tomorrow.
bon voyage holes poked in the stage curtain sky, shine down on me as comets chase their tails - money, in its various incarnations being shifted around the globe in elected electrons - down here, it’s steady as she goes while first class places another bet on catastrophe and low prices - only the poor bastards up there in the crows nest know for sure what’s coming - & we stopped listening to them a long time ago.
Word Wednesday Gone To The Birds
Reaching back a bit for this one because I’ve been living in The Land of Revision as of late instead of writing new things. I’ll be glad to find some sort of an end to this project if only to say it’s done. In the meantime, enjoy this little chestnut from a few years back.
birds of a feather because birds of a feather who never quite come together are pulled apart from the part from which they want to be a part... something whole for once instead of a piece without peace that never quite finds that lease on life - first or second that they’ve heard so much about and without a doubt the hardest part is the softest spot because that’s where the dagger goes and it shows in the way that she curls away from life in general - the way she turns away from even the slightest compliment or passing glance that never quite passes without a chance to cut... or pierce that veil of stale air that surrounds her inside that armor shell
Upward On Word Wednesday
There are four certainties in life. Death and taxes seem to get all the ink, but I firmly believe there’s two others. One is that the quickest way to get a bunch of tables when you’re a waiter is to order food for yourself. The other is that the quickest way to wind up writing about something is to say you haven’t been writing. The universe likes to point out how foolish we humans are.
So yeah, after my little diatribe yesterday about my lack of writing and late 90’s music, I got myself in gear with some prompts and cranked out the poem you’ll read today. And you know what? I like it. There’s a bit of editing and sanding of edges to be done, but this one felt good writing it yesterday, felt good typing it up this morning, and feels good sharing it.
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This Desert Life
No, this isn’t a review of Counting Crows 1999 masterpiece of an album. Although, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, you could do a lot worse in terms of listening material from the late 90’s and I’d argue it’s their best work by far in terms of songwriting and musicianship. The reason why you might be unfamiliar with this particular gem? 1999 was also the year we got Californication from Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Battle of Los Angeles from Rage Against the Machine, Enema of the State from Blink-182, …Baby One More Time from Britney Spears, There Is Nothing Left To Lose from Foo Fighters, Play from Moby, Significant Other from Limp Bizkit, Astro Lounge from Smashmouth, Supernatural from Santana, and many others.
While some of those albums are extremely suspect looking back now, we all know that several of them were in our Body Glove CD wallets on the passenger seat of some car back in the day.
And yes, this entire intro was an excuse for those of us of a certain age to feel really, really old.
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Sitrep Saturday
It’s been a bit since I’ve checked in with this sort of thing, so I figured why not? Sure, it’s only half past midnight, but it’s also technically Saturday and I’ve got Wes Montgomery’s Willow Weep For Me on the hi-fi, so might as well make the most of it.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve finally completed the first round of editing of poems for the book I’ve been working on for what feels like a couple decades. Most of these poems were written directly into a word processor, so I like to change medium for editing, meaning that all of these poems were printed and revised by hand. So I spent a decent portion of time last night (a couple hours ago) transferring changes from the printed pages to their files on my computer. I’m about a third of the way there, which is pretty good considering this project was dead in the water a month ago.
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