Friday, October 14, 2011

I’d Give Up Years Yes Years of My Own Life for Such a Gulpable Semblable



Took I-68 west from Hancock through Cumberland to Morgantown then I-79 north to Washington PA instead on the Turnpike and gorgeous, what we could see in the rain and the fog, what we couldn't see in the rain and the fog. There is a farm on the right heading west just shy of Flintstone, just before crossing Town Creek, that I could put 36 holes for disc and Earthgirl could raise llamas and alpacas, it's what I want for Giftmas, please buy it for me.




More, more photos, few links, poems, music, below fold



Made great time, even driving through downtown Wheeling - the above is the I-70 bridge over the Ohio between Wheeling and Bridgeport, which of course requires I give you this poem (for the umpteenth time):


IN RESPONSE TO A RUMOR THAT THE OLDEST WHOREHOUSE IN WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA HAS BEEN CONDEMNED

James Wright

I will grieve alone,
As I strolled alone, years ago, down along   
The Ohio shore.
I hid in the hobo jungle weeds
Upstream from the sewer main,
Pondering, gazing.

I saw, down river,
At Twenty-third and Water Streets
By the vinegar works,
The doors open in early evening.
Swinging their purses, the women   
Poured down the long street to the river   
And into the river.

I do not know how it was
They could drown every evening.
What time near dawn did they climb up the other shore,   
Drying their wings?

For the river at Wheeling, West Virginia,   
Has only two shores:
The one in hell, the other
In Bridgeport, Ohio.

And nobody would commit suicide, only   
To find beyond death   
Bridgeport, Ohio.






Well, making good time until Bethesda! (also near a Barnesville!) where Ohio DOT caused a ten mile back-up on I-70 so two fuckers in neon vests could smoke cigarettes in the right lane of bridge over US 22. Fuckers. Still, made Zanesville in little over six hours. Planet needed finish some papers, so didn't drive to Bamgier, instead tried a local restaurant the hotel desk manager highly recommended (we could walk to an Olive Garden or Red Lobster from the hotel, and fuck that).






Muddy Miser's, on the banks of the Muskingum. We sat at the table under the fish in the website photo. Earthgirl had the walleye reuben, I had the walleye fish-and-chips, yummy, charming.






Bamgier tomorrow, Parent's Weekend activities then dinner with Planet's new buddy (who shares Planet's name, her fifth friend with the same name, we thought we'd picked not a unique but a pretty and plain little used name, and no, Planet's generation is full of Planet's real name) and her parents, then back to Zanesville to sleep before Saturday. Expect more photos.












PHILOSOPHER ORDERS CRISPY PORK

Heather McHugh

I love him so, this creature I do pray
was treated kindly. I will pay
as much as pig-lovers see fit

to guarantee him that. As for his fat,   
I’d give up years yes years of my   
own life for such

a gulpable semblable.   
(My life! Such as it is! This
liberality of leaves! The world

won’t need those seventeen more
poems, after all, there being
so few subjects to be treated. Three

if by subject we mean anyone
submitted to another’s
will. Two if by subject we mean   

topic. One if by death we wind up
meaning love. And none if a subject   
must entail

the curlicue’s indulgence of itself.)




6 comments:

  1. So now that you've tried I-68, will you ever go back the Penn. Turnpike?

    How was the drive up Cooper's Rock (east of Sabraton and Morgantown?

    When you have a clear day and time for it, I recommend a stop at Sideling Hill.
    ~

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  2. To go to the ancestral homelands of Fayette and Westmoreland Counties we took 68 to Keyser's Ridge all the time (then 40 to Uniontown), so we've stopped at Sideling often (and take old 40 around the hairpin now and then for nostalgic fixes). Yesterday it was completely enveloped in fog, could barely see the engineering feat.

    Gonna take the Turnpike back just to compare mileage - I'm dopey this way. And there are times to skip Garrett County in the winter.

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  3. The same name? I knew that whole body snatchers thing wasn't a hoax.

    You say tossing internets crap off in 45 seconds like it's a bad thing. Hell with the guillotine, hit 'em with a krauthammer, skull's bound to be nice & sturdy.

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  4. Yes, there's something marvelouly expansive to be said for measuring one's life in acreage, not square footage, being ravished by beauty every waking moment. Thank you for today's inspiration. I was talking recently to the editor of my new manuscript about a certain eroticism, one that's not permeated by enslavement to the Symbolic maw. Rather one he defined as "mutual sensuous exposure." Words to put with your images. I deleted what I was going to say next, being as this is a family blog, and all.

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  5. Frances, that reads like Dilliard.

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  6. There's a motel that looks like a Windmill in Hagerstown, Maryland, or at least there was when I drove through in 2000. Did you have a chance to see it?

    I wanted to by some Hagar slacks in Hagerstown, so I could tell people that I had, and maybe even show them the receipt, but I was running low on cash so I didn't.

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