Friday, January 8, 2016

A Friend from Boston Wrote Something to Me Last Week About Not Having the Intelligence to Take as Subject for His Poems Anything Other Than His Own Life





  • Bowie is 69 today. That's my favorite Bowie song. Forgive me, that's all the fuck I got. Here's last year's playlist, and you can click this for lots more. Yes, he has new music, forgive me, I don't like it. I'll take the blame.
  • Work sucks. January is always difficult in my work cycle, and because of budget cuts, library politics, and deceit by bosses I had always trusted, I'm drowning and pissed, so pissed it dribbles into every outlook on every subject.
  • So, attention slut though I be, you'll not get the poem on this anger. You're welcome.
  • The things I write about I won't show anyone. You're welcome.
  • And the motherfucking chirpy fuck who walks around library screaming Happy Friday! at everyone just walked through, O, My Kingdom for a Shovel!
  • UPDATE! Because it a long-running gag been dormant, I trademark the word Clusterfuckocene.
  • So my indifference to America's lamest motherfuckers needs weighing in light of my total lack of give-a-fuckness.
  • Hillary & Trump: it's not going to work out for Clinton?
  • Speaking of which, speculate on who Trump will name as his veep nominee.
  • Making the world safe for asshole oligarchs.
  • Angry pathetic white assclowns are not the problem.
  • Don't let the perfect be the enemy of hypocrisy.
  • Through the eyes of a child.
  • Dead enders.
  • The gnashing of teeth.
  • This week in water.
  • Ethan's 2015 reading list.
  • Don't forget my dog.
  • This morning Earthgirl used the word Houdini to describe Olive's skills at escaping rooms she's isolated in for breakfast (she inhales hers, covets others), and Earthgirl used the word bungalow to describe a friend's house, so Long Fin Killie and XTC are in my head.









ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT RESCUE

M.L. Smoker

The time is important here—not because this   
has been a long winter or because it is my first   
at home since childhood—but because there is so much   
else to be unsure of. We are on the brink of an invasion.   
At a time like this how is it that when I left only a week ago
there was three feet of snow on the ground,
and now there is none, not even a single patch   
on in the shadow of the fence-line.   
And to think I paid a cousin twenty dollars   
to shovel the walk. He and two of his buddies,   
still smelling of an all-nighter, arrived at 7 am   
to begin their work. When I left them a while later   
and noticed their ungloved hands, winter made me feel   
selfish and unsure. This ground seems unsure   
of itself for its own reasons

and we do not gauge enough of our lives   
by changes in temperature.
When I first began to write poems
I was laying claim to battle.
It started with a death that I tried to say
was unjust, not because of the actual
dying, but because of what was left.
What time of year was that?
I have still not yet learned to write of war.
I have friends who speak out—as is necessary—
with subtle and unsubtle force.
But I am from this place and a great deal
has been going wrong for some time now.
The two young Indian boys who almost drowned
last night in the fast-rising creek near school
are casualties in any case.
There have been too many just like them
and I have no way to fix these things.

A friend from Boston wrote something to me last week
about not having the intelligence
to take as subject for his poems
anything other than his own life.
For a while now I have sensed this in my own mood:
This poem was never supposed to mention
itself, other writers, or me.
But I will not regret that those boys made it home,
or that the cousins used the money at the bar.
Still, there are no lights on this street.
Still, there is so much mud outside
that we carry it indoors with us.




1 comment:

  1. You're lucky it's just the Drifting Chirpy. Each Friday, after crossing the Styx and getting sorted out at The Great Gate, at my Place Of Witless Labor™ the Freakshow People (banned from contributing to the gene pool) use Instant Messaging to schedule the sending of inspirational messages to a list of people each Friday.

    You will understand just how much the baby jesus loves you (You will, and Ted Cruz will see to it). You will see the famous Kitten-Hanging-From-Rope photo, together with "Hang In There!" You will get a brief story about someone named Sally that extols virtues of caring, sharing, and lovingkindness, and get an invitation to Chtulu's baby shower. And once you get on these lists, to ask their authors to be removed is considered... unfriendly. Antisocial. *Mutant*.

    This practice was debated here at Witless, seriously, and was allowed by the Powers to continue... as it is "harmless". If the messages were political or 'Other', they'd have their senders' guts for garters, but baby showers? No Problem.

    Happy Friday.

    ReplyDelete