No Church: Walking and Reading

Today I decided to stay home from church because I didn’t get home from school until 130 in the morning. I finished the grading and now I just have to read my stuff for class. This week, my students’ rough drafts are due, and then I have nothing to grade from them until near the end of the semester. I am looking forward to working on my stuff for a change. At any rate, I decided to stay home and get my reading finished and get my response papers written. I also have to say that I am kind of addicted to the long walks I take with my dogs in the morning, so as soon as I get finished with this, I plan to go for one. I think I am going to do the longest one we do that goes past the wetlands. I want to see how they are progressing. I am trying to do this thing were I write a poem a day. Or at least I write something a day. Initially, my blogs were to force me to write daily, but that hasn’t worked necessarily, so I am going to be a little more intentional about it. I need to keep working on my writing even though it has apparently improved a great deal! All that said, time to walk the doglets!

a peom a dya

Yesterday I read some poetry by Allen Ginsburg’s lover, and it had a lot of misspellings. I embrace that given the fact that I don’t spell well; actually, I spell just fine at a fourth grade level! I am not sure incorrect spelling takes anything away from the poem, so here it is:

I empty the garbage on the tabol.
I invite thousands of bottles into my room, June bugs I call them.
I use the typewritter as my pillow.
A spoon becomes a fork before my eyes.
Bums give all their money to me.
All I need is a mirror for the rest of my life.
My frist five years I lived in chicken coups with not enough
bacon.
My mother showed her witch face in the night and told stories of
blue beards.
My dreams lifted me right out of my bed.

Nathan

I picture him insolent, insurrectionist
chopping wood
riding an ATV
driving a tractor
sunburned by Midwestern sun.

They used him unstable, uniformed
shooting hot bullets
bobbling inside a helicopter
driving a Humvee
leathered by new desert heat.

Once he asked in jest to break
up the Church instruction:
Where do babies come from?

I should have answered
in seriousness: Nathan,
we should be asking where do they go?

I remember him tall, lanky
wearing tight, cowboy jeans
shoveling snow for old women
buying two-liters of soda
instructing others on monetary conservation.

They turned him thick, manly
ensconced in Marine blues
touting an agenda of hate
pushing a deadly rhetoric
teaching others to fear our bad decisions.

Just for Abster!

Could you email me please? I lost your phone number, and I only have Ed’s. I called you for your birthday, but I am not sure if Edwin actually let you listen to it or not?!? Oh, yeah, Hi, Ed!!!! Oh, and Bec got you something really cute, so could you send me your new address, too?

A poem a day…

…the poems flying amid the jukebox
music, the olding Beats and the Baby Beats and the commies,
the surrealists, the anarchists, the socialists, the jazzmen, the ultra
screwballs, the walk-in weirdoes, the beautiful women begun and
developed here, and the tots, those fooblezeegs, always so welcome
and alive at this street level…

Pizza Prostitute

Shifting pizza from oven to cardboard circle:
slice chop: cutting counter to cardboard box:
snap crunch: box closed: ring up on cash
register: with some creative license plays
the intro to Pink Floyd’s Money.

Juke box johns slide coin after coin
into her slick slot: she sings Fancy
and Me and Bobby McGee. Lights swoon
to music humming out of her bowels:
discs click click change and spin a tune.

No commies, Beats, or surrealists here:
only want-to-be cowboys homophobes
blue collars lingering waiting listening:
Fucking faggots, Jews, pinkos: this from a man
in dirty jeans plaid flannel and trucker cap:
not worn for style.

Five years I tolerate it:
talking judging the world
outside these imperceptible walls: holding us
inside progress outside: slip change discs:
Good-Bye Earl.

Here no women grow beautiful: but haggard
they become. Two Taylor boys slide skin past skin
under the table: walk-in weirdoes still come condemn:
no socialists no anarchists: the fight well removed:
2+2=5. And she sings: Yes, I Am!

Hillary: Here and Gone

I should have gone to hear Hillary, but there is something about the idea of my house being right across the river that assuages any bit of regret I could have had. The facts that I had police circling my house, and that our road was blocked off so that her bus could enter Muncie Central’s parking lot, sort of brought home the state of our states. We are under constant surveillance, and that isn’t a good thing! I still love some Hillary. Unfortunately, Becky and I will be canceling each other out in the primary, but I guess at least we are both voting in the same primary, which is nice. I have several friends/students who got their pictures taken with Hillary last night. They both volunteer and work for her campaign, something I said I would do, but I don’t have time to do. I am glad I can live vicariously through them.

Today, I am grading, reading, and going to Ivanhoe’s for dinner. I NEED a milkshake! Yeah, I’m cheating the animals!