Just Images

One of you asked me about the year 2007, and I don't remember. I could reconstruct, from my writing, the calendar of shows at the museum, and what various other people might say about some events that might jog my memory. Actually, as I think about it, I could probably do a pretty good reconstruction, the weather, what was eaten, who I talked to about what. Probably a music list and a book list. Could be an interesting project. But if I did it as a separate project I'd need a grant to pursue it, because I couldn't use this writing time to work on it; I don't want to stop doing this, therefore there'd have to be an additional writing time, and I'd have to stop reading as much as I do, and reread myself more. I might or might not be able to do that. I require x amount of contact with the natural world, that's time; I could cut back at the museum, if I could find anyone who cared about the floors, but I need the social contact the museum supplies. This is a standing problem, I've been asked to do several different sets of text, manuscripts, I guess, and I haven't been able to supply them, because my lifestyle and habits, reading, and writing these paragraphs, pretty much takes all my time. I'm sloppy with it, no question, but I don't know what the exact mix actually is, that allows me to be moderately happy in my skin, and allows me to do my work, which are the same thing. I yam what I right. Could use a bit tighter structure. It's fine that I read 5 books this past week-end, because it rained the whole time, but I do have some other things that need doing. The pair of Peregrine Falcons were out, looking for a likely pigeon. Duck Hawks, I grew up calling them, raptors for sure. They sometimes hit 200 MPH in a dive. To look one in the eye is another whole experience. I've known some Falconers, dabbled myself, so I've 'known' some birds, and they scared the shit out of me, talk about a thousand-yard stare, what vision; I feel the same way, walking with Little Sister in the woods, wishing I could smell a fraction of what she smells. I play with words, it seems a distant remove. Living, the while, in a world that has never heard the word mercy. It's Archaic. Which is the drift of art since Picasso slipped into that cave. The bull in "Guernica" is the bull from Lascaux. 40,000 years compressed into a heartbeat. The primitive is not un-sophisticated, merely doesn't talk the same language. You'll develop a language soon enough, a patois. I harbored a Russian dancer once while she was making her escape, and we developed a system of signs that mostly concerned the bathroom, for whatever use that might be. Artists return to the archaic, because it gives them a history. I'm very like Emily, if you think about it, offering my pure white ass to whatever your prick would demand. I have to think about that. Would she have posed for Playboy? Maybe, I don't know. No one ever offered me a new car and a clean slate. George gave me an old Ford, this was a long time ago, and the head-gasket was blown; I effected a repair with library paste and that worked fine, until things got hot. Fucking dog is upset about something and the moon is full, draw your own conclusions. I'm forced into the position of an idiot, blasting away with a shotgun, to get the whip-o-wills to move away from the house. I taught mopping, for a couple of quarters, in grad school, and was struck with how helpless most of us were. I try to not draw conclusions because I can't draw. What I can do, and it's no small feat, is imagine. I may have fouled my nest, but I'm still fairly independent. There's a miniature or stunted Iris at the top of the driveway, I'm sure it has a name, that is so beautiful it takes my breath away. Like that. Or the light this moon casts on the gathering green. Caps are just a kind of punctuation. The Natural World. Little Sister has chased the rabid coon away, maybe I can snag some sleep.