Don't you try, try to tell me what to do

 Find this clip very, very MUCH. Old, crippled man singing, raving, dancing a young man's song. Sad, joyful, disturbing, profound. Can you feel it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL9p-GhnEVE

Today's Verse: 26 June 2025

Suffered enough

Not hurting anymore

Unless I move

Unless I think

Talk's distracting

Compresses the wounds

Sleep's a relief

Question Mark

Black ink on the sheets.  Be careful now.  Grab it as it drops, falls into the net.  Becomes a bark.  Not a bark in the street but a bark on a river, smoothly, grably, only as it dips.  Clearly tracing five parallel lines.  Staff, key, clef, time, all falls.  A rest or a black note.  The paper boat in a puddle will yet make its way to the sea.  Untie the knot and let it go.  And then the smell of mushrooms on the page like rotting bark, like the scent of a question mark

Oily eddies swirling. Look in deeper: creatures in the shallow tide pool, a kingdom of sea monkeys reciting stories of the mad ones, the ones who fill their pockets with pebbles, each one like a word in a note, bent and meant to weigh them down. That’s how they drown or float on notes, on white notes without words.  The blank notes, a whole note wrapped in black that’s scarcely a gift at all.  The note’s been stained all inky dark like a question mark

And why is the house filled with crows now? Everybody else went to the park.  I couldn’t stay up that late.  The birds pick at my hair, they pluck.  They’re grooming me I guess.  Floating like tomatoes.  You squeeze in and pop ‘em.  But dark tomatoes, not ready for the table.  And look: plastic forks and knives. It’s all set now, I’m being fed like a baby bird, finding words in my mouth like chewing gum I didn’t know I was chewing.  And plop, a glob, a horrid clump bent and twisted like a shark, in the shape of a question mark

All that my squiggle-body hides then reveals.  It’s like that game, making the monster you don’t need. The body laid, displayed on the altar.  Burn the words. Burn the message. A prayer of sacrifice, an offering, even the question of an offering.  The smoke rises up, twisting around on itself.  See? Look up.  Printed out in the sky, there’s a question mark made of stars.  The Big Dipper, the Great Bear, pointing to the lode star, the True North.  Oh ha ha what a lark.  Just a big old question mark.

Farewell

 

Little Ghost Live

https://youtu.be/ib0O3dNNeM4 

2024 Effigy

 

Little Ghost

Little ghost, little ghost

Come closer, little ghost

Don’t be afraid. I’m glad you’re here.

Jump up, Little Ghost

Go ahead.  Fly home.

I thought you’d knock things over 

when you came, Little Ghost

I thought you’d be very loud.

You’re quiet though.

Very quiet and gentle

I know you’re here, though.

Jump up, Little Ghost. Come on.

You’ve been knocking to come in

But now it’s me knocking on your door

Maybe you’re not even there

It’s OK, come closer.  I miss you.

Your life brought me joy.

Let’s not end in fear.

Your life was a mountain

Your death was a mountain as well

But there’s a little valley in between

Cross through there, Little Ghost

Cross through the valley.

You walked on water, Little Ghost

What I mean is, you walked on the ice

It didn’t break, Little Ghost

The water held you up

As if we were on a boat on a canal

And then I realized that I’m on the boat 

and you’re there on the pier, Little Ghost

I’m floating away and you’re folllowing

But soon you’ll be gone, Little Ghost

Or it’s me. Maybe I’ll be gone and you’ll be here.

You don’t belong here but I’m so happy you are

It’s so nice to think you were picking flowers

Once you were picking flowers

Now it’s time to go, Little Ghost

It’s time to go home. I don’t want to send you away.

I don’t want you to leave me.

Jump up, Little Ghost. Fly home.

Goodbye, Little Ghost

Goodbye

And a happy birthday to you, Jimmy

 We created it, let's take it over.

Happy birthday, Johny!

 You can retire now!

 I wrote this in my sleep last night: "Starting Small in America was the last man in the world to wear a tie to work."

Night Coffee

The sun set long ago

The dusk’s already gone

The Milly Way’s spread overhead

We may never see the dawn

Oh night coffee

Lit up only by starlight

Let’s brew another pot

And drink coffee through the night

I like mine sweet and creamy

You like yours straight & black

We’ll go screaming through the night

Like Cassidy & Kerouac

Oh night coffee, 

Our nocturnal delight

Let’s brew another pot 

And drink coffee through the night

Folks in bed

Counting sheep

We live our dreams

While they’re asleep

The night lies out before us

Our heads are strong and clear

We’ll go flying through the darkness

Up beyond the stratosphere

Oh night coffee

Like Charles Lindbergh on his flight

Let’s make another pot of coffee

And keep flying through the night

What if indeed

 I scare myself

Today's Verse: 20 August 2024

If I had a beard
What would it say?

Come close, my dear?

Go far away?

If I had a beard

What would it want

In the night?

In the dark?

How would it relate

To a lesser expression

Of my true self

The hair on my head?

On my chest?

In my ass?

In my nose?

My ears?

And under my arms?

When I die

Will the mortician care

To understand my feelings there

To wash and crop, perhaps perfume

The best of me, my salient plumes?

Today's Verse: 3 May and 11 July 2024

In the after now

Dreams come true

And nightmares too

In the after now

What I want

And what I dread

Are making out

Inside my head

In the after now

What I am

And what I'm not

Half-remembered

Half-forgot

egina nantara    nijavaguttave kanasugula

                         mattu dusvapnagalu kuda

egina nantara    bayakegalu mattu digilugalu 

                          muddu madittave nanna taleyolage

egina nantara    naneno enallavo

                          ardha nenapu

                          ardha marevu

Recollections of a Shining Youth

When we were young 

We vowed that we’d shine

As brightly as the sun

We’d stand and defy

Like gold we'd refine

Every star in the sky

When the stars saw us try

So jealous were they

Of their place in the sky

They told us up here

By night or by day

We don’t belong in their sphere

Ah but the Sun by his grace

Froze Time’s mad race

Stood still in his place

Whatever we were meant to be

Just for one moment we could see

That we shone for all eternity

And now we’ve grown old

We look back and we know

If we weren’t really gold

If we popped or we flopped

We stepped out of the show

For us just once time stopped

We glowed and we shone and time stopped

Ode to the Wheel

The wheel really is quite a simple machine.
A circle on a stick. But someone invented it.  
We know this because we’re always being told not 
to re-invent it. “No need to re-invent the wheel,” 
we’re told.  Because it’s so basic.  A simple machine.
The circle is the simplest shape, the most perfect form, 
all the points equidistant from a single point.
It’s how the universe should work.  Revolving 
without rolling.  And is there rolling without wheels?
There are no wheels in nature.  Someone had to invent it. 
But once you’ve seen it, of course you want to invent it.  
Put it a circle on a stick and we can use it to move things. 
The circle, the perfect shape, the perfect machine. 
We all know nothing’s really round, but what if 
you could make something nearly round. Nearly perfect.  
Like the human heart, so beautiful, so imperfect. 
But if you could make it frictionless, it could 
carry anything.  Love, you mean. Yes of course, 
that was invented a long time ago.  Simple, 
perfect, frictionless. If only. Don’t tell me
there’s no need to re-invent it.  Re-inventing 
is what we all need to do, every generation, 
every person, every lover.  The wheel will turn.  
We’ll invent it. Let it turn.  Reinvent it.

Ode to the Pulley

And here’s to the pulley.  It seems 
like the most old-fashioned of the 
simple machines: it powers 
a flag pole or a theater curtain.  
A dumb waiter. A pail in a well. 
Something that should creak.  Something 
that might be called “a contraption,”  
that Wile E. Coyote might rig up 
to drop a heavy weight.  Something 
Rube Goldberg, himself an old-fashioned 
20th century construction, 
might use.  And terms like winch
or block and tackle:  muscular words.
Sweaty men in sailorsuits 
hoisting up the rigging.  Oh,
you could use motors.  You could use 
electricity, have it work
with the push of a button.
No need to put your back into it. 
Even then, it’s still old-fashioned.
Let us pull a curtain over this scene:
Skreeeek 
skreeeek 
skreeeek 
skreeeek

Ode to the Wedge

The wedge doesn’t move things 
or lift things or attach them.  
The wedge splits things.  Divides them 
apart.  Blows them up, unlike 
the screw which leaves a hole 
no bigger than itself.  
An axe is a wedge. It’s a wedge 
on a handle, so that 
you can swing it.  But who
is it that swings the axe,
who is it that pounds the wedge? 
Who cuts the trees and digs up the stumps? 
You have to clear the land
before you can build on it 
then plough it, another wedge.
Who is that mighty arm? Is it 
Progress?  The Will of the People? 
The Blood and Soil of the Nation? 
The Common Man? The Mother Church?
The ideal of Truth and Beauty? 
Freedom? Brotherhood? Does the axe 
rise higher than the head 
of the one who swings it?
Whoever drives the wedge picks
the songs the rest of us will sing.
Or maybe it’s the other way:

whoever calls the tunes drives the wedge.

Ode to the Inclined Plane

The inclined plane is so simple. 

It’s like math made visible.

I guess that makes it physics.  

Look: if you have to lift an object 

straight up, that’s a 90° plane. 

Make it easier, construct 

a 45° plane.  

Still too hard? 30°.

15°. Find your angle.  

Small angle, less effort! Oh,

but more time spent pushing.  

Large angle, short path.  But 

what if you could reduce 

the angle to almost nothing?  

Very little effort needed but

unending path.  Poor Sisyphus, 

it turns out he made the wrong wish. 

The work must be done, anyway.  

Less effort, and the path never ends; 

short path, and you have to keep pushing.

The work is always there.

Incline the plane and make your choice. 

Some people lift and some people push.

It’s a matter of inclination.

Either way, the work must be done.

Ode to the Screw

Pity the screw.  Poor screw.  

You know why.  In English 

its name means—you know what.  

We’re not supposed to say.  It means 

“fuck.” Screw means fuck.  Not gentle 

loving-making, but screwing.  Screw you!

He’s screwing his secretary.

Really screwed that guy over.  

Poor screw.  It’s a helix, you know  

It turns, it doesn’t pound.  

A nail goes straight in: bang! bang! bang! 

A screw turns a circle into 

a straight line.  You think that’s nothing?  

Listen—the ratio of a circle 

to a straight line is completely 

irrational, it’s pi, it can’t be expressed

as a fraction. But look at the screw go, 

turning and turning the circles 

into a delving straight line.  And look: 

it leaves something behind.  

Not sawdust, not debris, look: 

little wooden curlicues. 

Little spiral images 

of itself, made up of

the material it’s screwing 

or being screwed into.

Lovely screw.