Wednesday, July 15, 2020

I Know That I Braid Too Much on My Own Snapped-off Perceptions of Things

  • Covid test taken, one swab for both nostrils, push it in until it starts to hurt then swipe and twirl, second swab for back of throat, push it in until you start to gag then swipe and twirl
  • EZ Pass transponders received, loaded now with turnpike tribute
  • This block originally typed in scrivener my pens finally organized down to my favorite four pens and my four favorite inks
  • I scrawl on a single line of 5x5 per inch quad
  • My handwriting, you’ve seen my handwriting
  • If what I’m writing might end up here I’ll spare my eyes and transcription time and scrive for here there
  • Planet and Earthgirl and Maine and cairn puns, what is the best way from 95 just into Connecticut to 95 crossing the Mass-New Hampshire state line?
  • But this is what I do, I migrate from tablet to tablet, from scritch to tap
  • Butterfly weed season in local meadows









              
THE ONE THING THAT CAN SAVE AMERICA

John Ashbery

Is anything central?
Orchards flung out on the land,
Urban forests, rustic plantations, knee-high hills?
Are place names central?
Elm Grove, Adcock Corner, Story Book Farm?
As they concur with a rush at eye level
Beating themselves into eyes which have had enough
Thank you, no more thank you.
And they come on like scenery mingled with darkness
The damp plains, overgrown suburbs,
Places of known civic pride, of civil obscurity.
These are connected to my version of America
But the juice is elsewhere.
This morning as I walked out of your room
After breakfast crosshatched with
Backward and forward glances, backward into light,
Forward into unfamiliar light,
Was it our doing, and was it
The material, the lumber of life, or of lives
We were measuring, counting?
A mood soon to be forgotten
In crossed girders of light, cool downtown shadow
In this morning that has seized us again?
I know that I braid too much on my own
Snapped-off perceptions of things as they come to me.
They are private and always will be.
Where then are the private turns of event
Destined to bloom later like golden chimes
Released over a city from a highest tower?
The quirky things that happen to me, and I tell you,
And you know instantly what I mean?
What remote orchard reached by winding roads
Hides them? Where are these roots?
It is the lumps and trials
That tell us whether we shall be known
And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.
All the rest is waiting
For a letter that never arrives,
Day after day, the exasperation
Until finally you have ripped it open not knowing what it is,
The two envelope halves lying on a plate.
The message was wise, and seemingly
Dictated a long time ago.
Its truth is timeless, but its time has still
Not arrived, telling of danger, and the mostly limited
Steps that can be taken against danger
Now and in the future, in cool yards,
In quiet small houses in the country,
Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets.

4 comments:

  1. I think you're a mensch. That the third line over't th'other place brief did flummox me. You're a mensch, I think.

    That's nifty feelies. The link to your rechirp of our great nation's WH supply chain task force lead syncs with an item from my first thing every morning German news this morning - said that in the future companies in Germany will be legally required to observe human rights along their supply chains because too little is being done voluntarily. Imagine.

    May Maine make mainly merry marches, mensch.

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  2. I agree: Bask in the Menschlichkeit. And enjoy the North.

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  3. Between Ira's Yo La Tengo & the Feelies, I'm feeling that 90s nostalgia. Now work in a little MBV, GBV, & maybe Luna or Teenage Fanclub and we'll be all set. Safe travels!

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  4. that's a good looking photo of plants

    a road trip traversing massachusetts would, to my ears, be improved by listening to 'roadrunner' by jonathan richman and the modern lovers

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy88-5pc7c8

    ian welsh's main point in his most recent post Feeling and Acting Powerful in Catastrophic Times is worth copying and pasting

    You can’t always stop history, but you can always decide how you act and react to history, and to catastrophe.

    as the firesign theatre said, about the future

    this is the future - you got to live it, or live with it

    [to which i would add - and eventually, get out of the way

    but until then - bop til you drop - love lures life on]


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