More Rain

The good news is you couldn't start a fire in the woods with a can of gasoline. Point of saturation. The driveway is running twin creeks in the ruts and the leaves are turning black. Much colder by the end of the week, so things will be a mess. Feeling vulnerable I call the gun-totting poet, McCord, and he recommends a .38, shoot at ten feet, center of mass. I can buy and keep a pistol at the house, carry it anywhere on my property. Sounds like good advice, need to nip this paranoia thing in the bud, somebody coming at me with a knife, as has happened several times recently on the creek, I'd have no problem shooting them. Southern Ohio, with meth labs everywhere, is become the wild west. Maybe all of rural America has. What we had imagined as our margin of safety has disappeared. I can survive in adverse circumstances, but not if people steal my food; I have to draw a line, I mean really, they took my winter gloves, went through my drawers, took socks and a coat, if they were on food-stamps they make more than I do, but they steal from me. It's not right. Evil fuckers relegated to the lower levels of hell. Satan encased in a block of ice. Dante is so clear, once you crack his language, like Emily is; I'm reading Wallace Stevens now, as poetry of choice, because I love his language, and I don't have anything new from Steven or Skip or B. I was thinking about poetry today, the way it condenses experience to a line, a phrase, even just a word, how magical that was, that it could operate within such constraints; understanding that desire, the mandate, and choosing to let the lines wrap, whatever my computer wanted to do, because I wanted to tell a story, without leaving out the juicy parts. Even Olson said, didn't he, "opening OUT", which I took to mean, also, probably, form. The Wrack Show engages form. I like the way it's addressed. Make what you will. I walked a group through today, they were amazed: it's quite the show, what it draws from, what it is. Rain, on the metal roof, establishes several patterns, an interval thing that always makes me think of Bach. A Partita. If you listen closely there's a sub-text, you don't even have to hear it to enjoy the music, he's that good, but it's always there, something underneath. Like your last string quartets, when you could no longer hear. What you have to do is listen closely, feel the music in your bones, then you can dance. I only assume a high ground because I chose to live on a ridge. Everything flows downhill, it's simple science. Ridge-tops never flood. Keep some beans and rice around, you probably won't starve. I leave to rest up to you. Stretch a bit before you carry. Be careful. Same advice you'd give me, what goes around. I know, I know, the wings and arrows, they fling, a shit-storm, wear a hat, cover your back, do what you need to do. Cover Your Ass is the operative phrase, CYA, in the acronymic wave of the future, the way this new world is constellated, shoot anyone that is a threat. I have to think about this, I'm not a violent guy. I don't really want to carry a gun, but confronted thus, they are dead meat. I imagine a cartoon scenario where I'm just trying to get home and something gets in my way, needless to say I bulldoze it out of the way, whatever it is. I'm focused here, where ever this is. Like a black-mouth cur on a boar. That may be too specific, but you get my drift, what I thought I meant. I hang the new Outhouse Calendar, finally, on the 6th of January, early for me, I often don't hang a new calendar until April or sometimes May. I don't care what day it is. My only interest in month is length of day. There'd be a blues riff here, you're sense of time and my propriety. Listen to the double bass, he has something to say. Transposing Bach. Who could imagine? Love you, and your extended.