I love the clarity of this piece. It relaxes me, somehow, and helps me to feel content with my personal “diligence”.
"Poverty’s child -
he starts to grind the rice,
and gazes at the moon."
he starts to grind the rice,
and gazes at the moon."
— Matsuo Basho (via moderateclimates)
Upon Hearing Footsteps
The neighbors said he was crazy.
When I moved into this house, I knew that the previous owner lived out of state, and bought it for his father. He was selling it because the old man had gone into an assisted living facility. That’s what the realtor said, anyway. I also knew that he struggled to take care of the house, leaving it grimy and in certain disrepair.
And then I found the pillow. It was in the basement, in a cement corner, tucked behind the furnace. At first, I worried about squatters, wondering if my new home was vulnerable to intruders. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a curtain around the area, and multiple extension cords leading into the tiny space. It was like a child’s hideout.
The next weekend, as I raked leaves in the front yard, Jeff from across the street ambled over and asked, “You find any loose dirt in the basement yet?” He told me that Gunnar, the previous resident, had two lodgers … but only one was seen moving out.
“The guy, he didn’t stay long,” Jeff shook his head, “but the lady, she just disappeared.” He smirked, “When Gunnar said she skipped out on the rent, but left all her stuff behind, we wondered.” I did too, and took a closer look around.
The couple next door told me how relieved they were that I had moved in. Apparently, the old guy had called the cops because their front light was too bright. On the other side of the house, they said he complained about their dog barking, even when the old spaniel was inside.
Each time I talk with the neighbors, any of them, I hear a new story. Shots fired into the air in the backyard, his crazy attempt to lay a path using firewood, and that he crashed into the fence, stumbling from the car steaming drunk.
The more I heard, the sadder I became. More than one person had mentioned that he was a vet, and they speculated that he might be in the protective care of the Veteran’s hospital nearby. I wondered what combat he’d faced, what terror he’d seen. The strangeness of the house transformed from creepy to heartbreaking. I imagined him in the basement, behind the curtain, perhaps with a radio, feeling safe. I imagined him scared in the nighttime, the blinding porch light peeking through closed curtains.
As reported by professor and former poet laureate Robert Hass: Police officers face off with students and poets in Berkeley in the very spot where the Free Speech Movement started.
Here’s how to get your hands on it …
"One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."
— Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (via aepocrypha)
(via moderateclimates)
Art and Yoga
Tonight, as I lay in Savasana, I thought about something my teacher said: “Yoga makes you a better observer.” Earlier, she had noted the changing season and daylight saving time — that the studio would be dark before the end of class, and then the dreaded: “it may snow tonight.” I moaned a little with my sweaty forehead pressed to my kneecap, slightly annoyed by the distraction. She then added, “Hot yoga helps me tolerate the cold better. In the same way, I tolerate heat better as well. I don’t judge the hot or the cold, I just observe it. It is hot. It is cold.” This may also be the case as I deepen my artistic practice. Admittedly, I’m not reading as much as I’d like, or rather, I’m reading differently. I don’t read longer works like I used to. As an English teacher, I read the same works over and over, and that’s enough for me right now. Can one ever read Hamlet too many times? Things Fall Apart? Brave New World? I’m happy to report that I still enjoy “A Modest Proposal” as much today as I did 15 years ago. It’s become more relevant for me today anyhow. An observer? Yes. Decidedly so. Distractedly so. I can’t watch a movie without tearing it apart by its imagery and locking away turns of phrase that I might weave into some poem. I heard an anecdote today about a science teacher whose lab experiment went haywire and I made a note to fold it into a story. Detached from judgment? I’m not sure yet. I have always been overtly positive about art — rarely critical, but not inarticulate. I appreciate a “bad” seventies B-movie, especially in the horror genre, as much as a good David Lynch film. It’s just a different appreciation (and you can’t tell me he didn’t study those movies, too.) It’s art. Not hot, not cold. Just art. Does it matter what the purpose is? Sure it does. At least, it still matters to me, in the sense that I’m still moved. Aesthetics is still critical to creating art — otherwise we are like strictly technical jazz musicians with perfect timing but no swing. No soul. Of course judgment is still involved in my observation, but there’s judgment about form and technique, and then there’s the life of the piece. The luminous heart of the work. That which induces a trance-like state for me, not unlike the bliss of a sun salutation.
But thankfully, it will never explain my swoon.
George Orwell
Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:
(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.
(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.
(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
(iv) Political purpose. Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.
It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time.
(Source: wordpainting)
Previously Unpublished
This goes out to all the blogging writers, posting poetry and snippets of prose: You do realize that you won’t be able to submit this work for publication, correct?
Most publishers won’t consider works that are published on personal websites … which is why I’ve been removing work from this site, after enough time passes for me to not hate it so feverishly.
Don’t get me wrong, the whole reason I set up a blogging site in the first place was to hold myself accountable for a little regular writing. I wanted to be more active, and write consistently, and then I started thinking it would be nice to interact with other writers. Mostly, my mom commented on my work, each poem my “best yet!” according to her.
Writing, posting, editing, posting, revising, writing … it was enough to create some momentum and courage. I kept writing. I kept posting.
I go through phases where I send out work like crazy. I’m licking envelopes the old fashioned way and submishmashing at the same time. I make trips to the post office on deadline days. I get puffed up and confident. I know it will be awhile until the rejections arrive. Now it’s time to get serious, for real.
I’ve taken down the old site and made sure this new one is linked to social media sites for purposes of self promotion (you’d better believe it, twenty-first century baby). It kills me to write a new poem and keep it to myself, and yet I love wanting to share it after so many years of hoarding. Now I’m not sure what I’m writing for daily consumption, exactly. Stuff like this, I suppose. Commentary and reflection, and blah, blah, blah. Just like everyone else? Thanks, but no thanks?
The golden age of letter writing has passed. Now, we document grave and trivial moments in 140 or fewer characters. Margaret Atwood referred to social media and blogging as modern diary keeping — it’s just public now. We are all exhibitionists.
I’ve been avoiding my nonfiction goals for almost four years. I just need 35 pages of text to circulate, but it’s been killing me. I guess here is as good a place as any to hold myself accountable once again. Just don’t be surprised if the posts disappear after a few weeks.
A Brief, Humble Opinion Inspired by National Novel Writing Month
There is no such thing as the great American novel. Earn respect when you: wrest words, fashion text, craft language. Not because you check a box, or hop-skip-jump through hoops, or lube the path to publication. There is but one reason and one only, to write a novel: Because you cannot live unless you do.
