Slumping Hillsides

Too much water, the ground is saturated, and a lot of these back country roads are through narrow cuts with steep hillsides. Road crews steady clearing rocks and dirt from roadways. They start re-paving RT 125 next week and I'll have to take the long way around. Auguries: the wind's lalation through soft new leaves; two turkeys, young males (Jakes) on my back porch when I get home; suddenly the world is green. Great conversation last night, and I do love good conversation. Jess (Debbie) said she averages making $500 a night in the better clubs. The gig in Columbus was a guarantee of that. Bonnie spent the whole time I was cooking reading me online. Then, while we were eating, asked the usual questions about how I did it. I read them a couple of pages, after dinner, and they really enjoyed listening. I had to give them the short version of how I ended up here. Then I went into listening mode and asked them about their lives. They both felt that stripping was a perfectly fine way to pay off college debt, and are both well situated for jobs in business. Bright, beautiful, and self-confident; with augmentation that is arresting. They showed me their tattoos, I showed them my scars; the only slightly awkward moment was when Jess cupped her breasts and asked me what I thought. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I told her they looked good to me. Gather enough morels to make a white gravy, and serve myself on toast, it's really good, I probably could have eaten more, but I ate all there was, and it was enough. I sat at the reception desk this afternoon, after running personal errands all morning, did the laundry, bought a new espresso maker, went to the library, because it's supposed to rain all weekend and I need to plan ahead. I have enough of everything, I think, to get through whatever. Flooding or hillside slumps. Wet weather springs. One of my former wife's lovers came to me, said he felt guilty that he hadn't said something. He thought I knew. What does that mean? Butt and pass is just a method of construction, not something philosophic, just a way of tying sticks together.

Dead calm, the green
is almost repressive,
the way it covers, like
a blanket.

Tom.

Dead calm, the green
is almost repressive, the
way it covers, like
something we might replicate.

Just saying. Read more...

Dinner Guests

Strippers have to eat too. A convoluted story that began years ago, when my Mom was making costumes for exotic dancers. She said it was the best job she ever had because it was nearly all profit and she was always paid in cash. Seems there's a kind of stripper underground communication network. I had misunderstood, I didn't actually know either of these women, but they knew a woman who still had some of the specific holiday costumes my Mom had made for her, and when this woman, learned that Bonnie and Jess were doing a gig in Columbus, they should try and find me, because I was supposed to be a good cook and lived an interesting lifestyle. Fascinating evening. Made a great dinner, tenderloin medallions with morel sauce and a vegetable dish that I haven't named yet; quite complex as it involves roasted items and caramelized items, then simmered in a chunky roasted tomato sauce, served on saffron rice. They were surprised that I just broke the bread. I guess they expected slices. The conversation was wonderful because it was so honest, I could ask them anything and they could ask me anything. Both bright, both single moms, both put themselves through college, stripping; knew they could bank 6 or 8 more years. There's been some surgery involved. Bonnie was aware of the upcoming water crisis, and we talked about that, water being the new oil. They seemed interested that I composted my shit, giggled about peeing in the yard, remembering times they had. April, the art teacher at Portsmouth High, called, just after I came in the door this morning, wanted to bring her art classes over, so I opened early, public service. I think April's hot. From my position as staff overseer. She wears odd clothes, which is always a giveaway, a tell, as they say. She doesn't care, that much, about what she looked like. I'm confused, really, at this point, I'd probably been drinking. There was never anything approaching recreational sex, that must have been a joke that I missed. I'm not around strippers that often. They're both asleep upstairs, one of them snores slightly, nothing to shake the ground, a quiet combination, because I'm listening to the Cello Suites and they sweep me away. The trillium are spectacular, where you find them. You can eat wild asparagus, rip roe from a live herring, but you really just need to be there, in the spring, when winter is finally over, so you can preen a bit, fluff your tail-feathers, dig some roots.

That pileated woodpecker
sounds like a drum solo,
a modern piece of music.

Tom

What is modern? What is a piece of music? What is a video that tries to capture that? Other fish to fry. What I'll say to you tomorrow. Read more...

Windy

Blowing a steady 25-30 mph, enough to rattle your brain, but the sun was out all day and it was a lovely thing. Blackberries are fixing to bloom, going to be really lovely here in a few days. Puttered around the museum today, kept going outside for smoke breaks, lolling on the loading dock. As I am now, officially, the facilities manager I spent some time looking at the facilities. Need more light in some storage spaces. Took Astra Anthony's friend's bread to take to Issac's parent's house for the crab boil on Sunday. Several kinds, and this is as good as any bread I've ever had. Marilyn and I ground wheat berries, and other things, and made extraordinary bread for years. This is that good. She was worried about what to take. I love crab boils. At my parents, we did them almost weekly all the years in Florida. Put the crabs into boiling water on the big grill in the backyard, cover the table on the screened porch with newspaper, throw some corn in with the crabs, melt heart-stopping amounts of butter, placed in ramekins between diners. Mostly we used nutcrackers, but some people had small wooden hammers they carried in holsters. Large gray cloud-mass moving in from the west. No thunder yet. I SAVE anyway. Enough morels for an omelet. Life is good. I found a few stalks of wild asparagus, which means there was house up here, but damned if I can find any trace. A little rumble of thunder, but it's coming from the southwest, this particular front of gulf air, and my power comes from the northwest. I should be OK to keep writing. I just went back and added some commas, I needed more pauses. To be clear, and I was trying to be clear, and to set the cadence. I wanted the natural voice. Sometimes I can find it. But it's difficult to hold on, when every aspect of modern culture is pulling you away. The delicate nature of things. I watch these May-Apple blossoms explode in the under-story, and that assumes certain things; this time of year, I carry a shovel, as part of my kit. I address certain drainage issues, and wonder if I make any difference. Probably not. A few notes from the field. An attempt to redirect the flow. High wind and rain, you can't really do anything with that, a fact of nature. Hole up, hide under the stairs, avoid the shattered glass. Other people's problems are not my own, and I have problems enough. I seem to have agreed to make dinner for four of us. Don't see a problem with that, dinner for four is a no-brainer, just something I imagine; but two of these people I've never met. I yam what I yam. Right? Slaving over a hot stove. No one mentioned authenticity, which was the real issue; look back closely, you'll see what I mean. Blossoms in the under-story.

Tom

Three crows mean
nothing, a simple
distraction.
Read more...

Crazy Day

I'm of several minds, maybe that's the problem. I told the chairman of the board I'd find where the water was coming in and big rains forecast for tonight, so I stayed in town. The janitor, with flashlight, in the basement. The water is coming through the walls and around the old cast iron pipe we'd plugged and capped. I knew this to be the case, but now I really know it. I stood and watched it, in my yellow rubber boots, looking, for all the world, like the village idiot. Duh, water. A whisper of musk at lunch, I couldn't track it down and I didn't want to get arrested. Scent has become a subliminal pathology with me. Barnhart, his wife Amy, and Drew, from the college, surrounded and joined me for lunch. We exchanged mushroom stories. They all read me, so they knew about the rattlesnake. We exchanged snake stories. The vagaries of life. I'd come upstairs, from the basement, and Anthony called, wondering if I might be there (he'd seen my truck) and I let him inside, for an after hours drink and conversation. He's hurting, emotionally, and I'm a good listener. If we do this in what is now referred to as my office, we save a hell of a bar bill and I can hear better. It's hard to nuance when the base is playing lead. The May-Apples are blooming in the understory, lovely things, like watching the Lady-Slippers in New England. Why I had my outhouse on skids when we lived on the Vineyard, so I could move it about, to where the current action was. I built bleachers there, to watch the sunset over the terminal moraine. A former brother-in-law was impressed. He was pretty sure I was crazy, but he liked my work. Due diligence and I'm no poseur, I actually do know the breeding habits of certain salamanders. Rarely do I learn something I'd rather not know. Now that I have a designated computer at work, I look up shit all the time, it just takes a few seconds; a particular Singer portrait, right, there it is. I use it, but I'm uncomfortable in the ease with which I find things now. Used to be I'd have to look through several books, now, I just call up the image. By your name, and the various interconnectedness, you shall be named, "Membership Green", what was I thinking, that's a terrible name. I could have called it Sassafras Leaves, or New Mown Hay With Bacon, and I called it Membership Green, I should be shot. Read more...

Water Works

Of course, when you stop water from entering at the point of least resistance, it will, being the liquid it is, find another point of entry. Nice early drive in to work, so I could stop and admire the various flowering bushes. The barberry and the few remaining dogwoods were stunning. The redbud seems to generate it's own light. Yellow phase, Timber Rattler, is when they moult, Ronny said; Jenny, the naturalist isn't home for my phone call. Very beautiful thing to see. Anyway, Ronnie wondered what was up, I told him about the snake. Everybody around here is an amateur naturalist, they all trap and collect roots. Did well on morels this weekend, 6 meals, but also ran out of butter, hiked another pound in tonight, more cream and juice. Supposed to rain for several more days. The flooding is now, I think, the most extensive I've ever seen. The Mississippi was as high today as during the 1937 flood, same set, then, of circumstances, nowhere for the water to go. Flaubert came up in conversation Saturday, so I've been reading him a little, jumping around, maybe reread him next winter. I owe him a debt, the realist twist. Writing didn't come easy to him, sometimes labored over a page for a week. Ironic bastard too, said "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless." Although, maybe he wasn't being ironical. I spent the day in the basement, shoveling shit and pumping out water, thinking about Flaubert and Proust, it was a good day. I put on the yellow rubber boots, so I could wade around. The sump-pump isn't much larger than what used to be a one pound coffee can, it's sitting in a one gallon plastic bucket that has holes drilled in the bottom and around the lower edges. It clogs up, and needs attention, so you really can't leave it alone for very long. I'm doing this in the dankest deepest darkest hollow of the basement. Some bounced light gets in, enough to allow you to remember some really bad trips. I have a metal folding chair I've sacrificed to the cause, I pull it close to the sump-pump, so I can tap away debris with my stick. Janitor duty in spades, and I don't mind doing it, it's interesting. At least I'm not watching a musical. I have a headlamp Howard sent me, and I use it to read, in these situations; strikes me as funny, 'these situations', who finds themselves there? Where is that? Barb wanted us to try the new menu, at the pub, and I was chewed out early on. I can only eat so much. Anthony questioned where my knife had been, I viewed it as a friendly question. Maybe I should take some classes. I could certainly ask leading questions; maybe I should just go along, to identify reptiles. If they bought me a room and dinner. Otherwise, I'm out of here. I'd rather, you know, drown, in that amalgam, than have you throw something in my face, rice or tin-cans. I'd rather do nothing, with a certain grace, than intercede in anything. Strikes me as a little harsh, but I guessed wrong again, the power is out to the house, I could have stayed in town and written. But the sky was clear, and there was no reason to not go home, where at least something would be familiar. The fact that I write longhand, when the power is out, just notes, nothing of account, but a record. I do this only because I must, means nothing; you and your various lovers. Too many commas. Whatever is said. Fucking Whip-O-Wills, 113 repetitions, I get the point, variations on a theme. I'm not really suited for a relationship: like Flaubert said, I'm too selfish. Not unlike Emily, so wrapped up in the moment. Billy, at the pub, asked me out on a blind date, seems his girl friend had a friend, and she'd heard about me, the recluse from the ridge, wondered what I'd be like. I wondered too, depends on where you find me. I ask them out for dinner. When all else fails, I can cook. I'm a better than average cook. I'll do a pork tenderloin with wild fennel pollen, roast some root vegetables; we can talk, see if there's any common ground. Read more...

Still Light

What's the deal, that I can still see? Twilight glooms around, but the darkness is held at bay. Simply a candle, with a mirror I use to magnify the light. You asked a question, I couldn't answer, we were locked in that eye to eye conversation. Where everything meant a great deal. Who is that, in the background? No one plays a jazz flute that well. Sounds like Miles, just the occasional note, to let you know I'm there. Kind of blue. Oh, wait, "Kind Of Blue" then "Bitch's Brew" which certainly alerted me to something different. Blow your own horn. Nice batch of morels this morning, so fried a shredded potato cake with a egg over-easy, topped with mushrooms and shallots. A few hours later I eat the same thing again. Second time out, I run into a Timber Rattlesnake in its yellow color phase. We both back up. The color threw me off, but I remembered reading about it when I had my last run-in, they're usually quite dark. No doubt what it was. Muggy day, more rain forecast for tonight and tomorrow. I reread some food essays by John Thorne, then the wonderful final section of Levi-Strauss's four volume :Mythologiques". I might be the only person in Scioto County to have read all of Levi-Strauss. I find him difficult and rewarding, like Beckett on Proust. Wrote a page that I saved a couple of lines from, and threw the rest away. Too esoteric, even by my standards, and too revealing, by a long shot, some things are best swept under a rug. I was trying to do something, in language, that I couldn't quite pull off. Good to try, good to fail, indicates a learning curve. Nothing succeeds like failure for leaning. Drawing the sheer-line on a lap-strake boat is no easy task, making an eggplant dish interesting, raising a child. Most relationships have, embedded in them, the seeds of failure, been my experience; that the very thing that was an attraction turns unbearable. Her laugh, for instance, becomes haughty, an insistence on buying new appliances, or a fixation on a scent that costs hundreds of dollars an once. I standardly break open anything, to smell what's inside. More a habit than anything. Mother Mary comes to me.

Three crows, nothing said,
a silence you could
drive trucks through.
Read more...

Mirror Image

I've probably eaten enough. I got an egg sandwich, coming out of town, and I've eaten morels twice since then, on toast and in an omelet, both times with potatoes on the side, and an avocado with the odd Minnesota hot sauce, which is really just a slightly spicy balsamic blend. Washing my hands in the men's room, I caught sight of myself in the mirror over the sink. I seem to not care what I look like. What I saw reminded me of some Walker Evans photographs, a share-cropper with barely enough to eat. Wilted some early greens with bacon fat, which seemed appropriate. Mopped up the juices with a hunk of bread. Boot up, one last time, to walk out to the graveyard. Almost a path, but serpentine, clearly displaying the various sidetracks: an acorn midden, a deformed poplar, three rocks in a perfect triangle. I suspect human intervention. One of the graves holds water, ridge-top clay, and I see myself again, palimpsest against blackened leaves. I don't see myself often, and twice in one day throws me for a loop. The me that other people see. An ugly bastard, really, but with a kind face. And I listen well, if I care to. Otherwise I retire to the basement, humming a song I only half remember. I need a live-in editor, I could cook for, who would remind me to change shirts. It's a sorry state, if I am who I saw in that puddle. I only kept that tee-shirt, ragged at every hem, because I like the way it feels, hanging on my body. An old friend, what can I say? Some articles of clothing reach a cult status. That Henley shirt, the last woman that slept in my bed, has been retired. It's hanging above lane 13, where I bowl on Thursday. All relationships are designed for failure. Drinking single-malt scotch, it seemed obvious. Maybe it was Irish whiskey. At any rate, I was imagining the sheer line of a boat I might build, a coastal schooner I could live on and not make waves. Safely offshore. I could even do a gambling thing there, and it wouldn't be out of place. A simple nod to Janus, who guards the opening. And we're in. Who would have thought. It's only significant that lover pulled you from the grave. Listen, I had a minor epiphany, almost a heart attack, everything seems to mean something. I have to think about that.

Tom

The red-buds are so beautiful
there is no comparison,
your silly rug. Read more...

Spring Storms

American Tonalism. A book from the library. Stuck at the museum, flooding, torrential rain, water in the basement; I'm pumping it out now. I was watching Hulu, catching up, when the server went out. Trip to the basement, to check the pump, then to the library. I don't know exactly what Tonalism is. For that matter, I don't know what Easter is, bunnies and bonnets, a ham or something more kosher. Electricity and phone were out at the house, when I left in the rain this morning. Water everywhere. The spillway was running 14 inches of napp, which, hitting the curbing at the bottom, set up a standing wave four feet high. Frothy red clay. The roads are flooded. Painted a nearly perfect green stripe on the entry hall. Handsome. The the first coat on the ugly blue wall, tough free-hand cutting of edges. D stayed an hour late, sump-pumping, I told him I'd stay, do it again tonight and again in the morning, then go home. Supposed to get a hard violent cell later, and I want to watch for where the water gets in, but I'll make it home tomorrow, even if I have to go the long way around. I work better at home. The hard life is easier. Driveway held up well, the chamber kept the water in the ditch, and the flow was self-cleaning. The top culvert, 14 inch diameter, carries most of the water away, and it sounds like an aircraft carrier at takeoff. Jack Cassidy, playing base for Hot Tuna. Thinking about the next movie, I'm Glenn's Klause. Run me through a few hoops and see what I say. I like the idea of working without a script, at least initially, to see where we might go. Always favoring Barnhart's music. Becoming a tone poem, maybe I do understand Tonalism. To contain a certain drift of pallet. Broad reaches of art are more informative than whole segments of reality. The janitor, in yellow rubber boots, cleans shit off the floor. Quite the picture. Was that just yesterday? D and K were watching me scrape rotted plaster from the ledge they had decided I needed to paint. From their vantage, on the balcony, it was simple enough, but what they requested; when you got into the rot, was more difficult. No matter. What needs to be done, and it's a good call, that particular ledge looked awful. I'm on a ladder, with my head just above the ledge, K has gone off, to answer the phone, but D is hanging around, watching me work. I've raised the blind, to allow access, and tangled the cord in the slats, so it doesn't get in my way, and a woman walks by, on the sidewalk outside, she fairly glides and I admire her ankles. It's all I can see, but D calls me a pervert. A Vermeer, perhaps a Stieglitz photograph would jar your memory. Just one color, or black and white, minimalism, a simple spread of color. Intrigues me because I am a fan of simplicity, the way shadow may introduce color, or even the idea of color. Taking or defending effective depositions is not my cup of tea. May-pops and black cohost spring in clumps, I could sell roots for a living, but it's too much work. Been there, done that, you don't need to know, now, all I want is quiet. What I get are squall lines that shake the museum floor. Peace (piece) of mind.

Tom

Four pages I think
I can hammer into
a paragraph.

Bird song in the morning reduces me to tears. Just saying.
Read more...

Moderate Flooding

Rain held off until just after I got home, then the deluge. Huge squall line. Fireworks, thunder, and waves of rain sweeping through the woods. Quite dramatic. Didn't want to log-on, but the first system is now off to the southeast. My electricity comes from the northwest. Prepped the entry hallway for a green stripe to accept white vinyl signage that will tie membership and Museum Day together. Something like that. It's a very good idea. D and K conspired. Excellent, from my point of view, because I was getting ready to paint the whole wall. The wall's about 16 feet long, and I want a 12 inch band of green. D and I draw a pencil line, using a 10 foot straight edge (yes, I have a 10 foot straight edge), measure up from that and level another line then two rows of blue painter's tape, which I burnish down hard so the paint won't bleed under, then two additional rows of tape, overlapping, so I can do the whole job with a roller. The actual painting will take 10 minutes. We sump-pumped the basement this morning and this over-night rain will test several theories. First, you define the problem. I had one of D's colors, from the membership flyer, scanned at Porter's Paint, and they mixed a gallon of paint, semi-gloss, because the vinyl releases better from that, and I named it Membership Green, which I thought was a really dumb name, but I wanted anyone in the future to be able to reference the color, and it's now in Porter's data banks. On the landing, going downstairs to the classroom, there's a wall that's painted dark blue. It's just opposite the wall soon to have a green stripe, and I have the paint, so I'm going to paint it green too. Painter mode. The woods are filled with an after-rain fog, then another wave of rain, but no thunder. I have candles lined up, and a legal pad, at the island. A Boy Scout, after all. Had designs on a fairly fancy dinner, ended up frying a nest of shredded potatoes with an over-easy egg on top, the last of a triple cream brie, another avocado, a few black olives. This weather sucks, and it's supposed to go on forever. Rain. All the lowlands are flooded, every bottom is a lake; the Sciotto, the Ohio, are well out of their banks. Moderate flooding is a relative term, a line you might build above, if you're conscious at all, on stilts, if you have any smarts, so you'd be above high water. More thunder, I'd better SAVE and go. Hold that thought. I can't, of course, because I can't remember anything. Every thing I say is suspect. Not that much really, I generally tell the truth, but sometimes, remembering, I'm pretty sure it's fiction. I certainly never did that, I just imagined I might have done whatever it was. Stop that thought, I'm too fucking facile to not understand what's actually going on, a buff guy in a loincloth, saving the maiden. Knights in white satin. Even just a horse, any escape. I'm not that, but I only argue, it might exist. Last train to salvation. Maybe just a pose, but when I caught sight of you, in the middle of that parade, you looked like something from a dream. So I saw where he was coming from. Direction is indicative of something. Where the sun rises.The rain wakes me, it's so loud.

Tom

That iris is perfect,
purple, and calling
everything into play.
Read more...

Lacking Intimacy

A blues standard. Something got me thinking. Birds making love on a transformer, then another pair of salamanders wrapped in a curious embrace. Went for a beer with Anthony and K. He was at my place last night, fed him a variation of the pork tenderloin dish, with asparagus and potatoes. Went to Kroger to get fish, but I didn't like the look of it, and bought another pork tender instead. I like to try several variations while everything is fresh in my mind. A big event, International Museum Day, coming up next month, and I started cleaning corners, doing a little patch and repair. The janitor surveys the scene. I was mopping what looked like spilled soda in the main gallery today, had finished, actually, and was leaning, with my mop, against one of the free-standing (by definition) columns. Ornament, in this case, fake columns, but it has a nice Greek feel. I like leaning there, with a mop, the iconic image. The worker at rest. Anthony and I talked about the little gallery again, wanting to do an installation there; it's open, we were just going to hang some items from the permanent collection. I expect we'll conspire on this. There may be foam involved. We both like foam. I've cooked for the last two nights, so I just snack, some brie, some black olives, an avocado with a dash of really good balsamic, some fancy crackers. It's good, I love grazing. Always a cheap date, I prefer saltines to almost any other cracker-like thing. The vehicle of choice for the various liver spreads I favor. Something bothering me all day and I can't put my finger on it. Beal Street, a solo harmonica, longing. An old story. Seems I dig out an embedded tick for every morel I find. Mississippi John Hurt and that slack delta guitar. Rhythm. Cory Harris. That scene in the movie. pregnant with emotion, poignant, where both your lover and your old dog are killed when the pick-up stalls on a railroad track. That kind of thing. Everything in play... both the nickel and the dime... butterflies cover the ground. I move commas around. Only a life by extreme measure. Note: the napp at the spillway could drive a turbine, three hungry ducks looking for a hand-out, a solitary crow, in a snag, across the way. Nothing means anything, or anything is nothing. I don't like being used, I'd rather just spend my time alone, but I'm drawn back to the world, the tangible natural world, where I spy a cluster of mushrooms and consider my breakfast. I'm human, after all. I need to eat, though I tire of chewing.

Tom

Small flowers seem
to say something,
a burst of color.
Read more...

Sweet Whimpering

Walking up the driveway, birds in the under story, scratching and singing. I don't know the songs, but they make a certain sense. Maybe it's the time of year, but there's a longing that isn't there in winter. The salamanders were courting again, in ways I don't understand. I barely understand my own species, oblivious as we are, to where we find ourselves. The napp at the spillway was running full spate, you could kayak Turkey Creek right now, though you'd probably die just beyond the second ford, where the slate slips down a level. K asked me, and I said that I always cooked for my daughters with love. You can caramelize squash if you're willing to take forty minutes. Starch is sugar that doesn't know it yet, a little butter, a little salt, and a lot of time. I do a pork scaloppine with the sauce, caramelized onions and red peppers and squash. It's very good, I haven't fixed a meal like this in a while. Tomorrow should be another morel omelet morning, and I'm looking forward to being late. Local seasonal highlights. Miss the morels here and you really don't have a clue about where you are. It's the same anywhere. This time of year, you don't miss the asparagus in western Colorado, the herring roe in New England. If the locals say you eat cat-tail roots, then that's damned well what you're going to eat. Free-range, and free-choice, for that matter, depending completely on what's available. We all set boundaries, it's part of the process, no one wants to feel threatened. I wonder about my boundaries. No snuggling, not even a kiss, reality is a blur. Rain on a hot tin roof. I had a cat once, Herbert, she'd come in to my room late at night and sleep on my head. I watched her die, another motor vehicle fatality, right in front of the house where I was living at the time. Her body was broken, she looked as me, green eyes, and licked my hand. I buried her under a spread of Iris bulbs, those deep purple ones that mimic the night. Years later, living on the Vineyard, I found a bunch of bulbs the same color, blooming at the edge of the land-fill. Came back in the fall and dug them up, they became my flower of choice. A favorite song, Bob Dylan, "Tangled Up In Blue" or Son House making a point about levels of suffering. We are not given to know. What we extract is the barest amount we need to live. Whatever the trace elements we require. Take my bed, I don't need it any more. The frogs are, finally, louder than the rain, which receding, beats a final Bach Partita. A strict mathematical progression. Somehow emotion is trapped in the numbers. Explain Bach and the world is explicated. I drank, so as not to cry; wrote you, my soul exposed. Eventually, even the Whip-O-Will fails. I listen too closely. It's a habit. I take the rain as a metaphor. Nothing is what it seems. The finger of dawn. I want to wake you, but I don't want to be intrusive. We've slept enough, the night is over, the rain has receded to individual drips, a fugue, if you will, and it's time to make breakfast. Read more...

Further Thought

Something woke me up, probably a dead snag falling. Then there were the frogs. I knew there was a cup of coffee in the pot, with sugar and cream, nuke it. I drink coffee the rest of you throw away. It's not so bad. Sometimes you just need a hot liquid. Tree frogs are early. Peepers. Whip-O-Wills. Be hard to get back to sleep. I turn on the radio, for no reason, and it's K.D. Laing, covering a Bob Dylan song. She has great phrasing. Stumbles a bit when the words get too close together, and it's endearing, or whatever word you'd use to be politically correct, I like her voice. If I whisper in your ear, it's only because I take you into confidence. The jury pool, venire, is a matter of chance, a random selection, the next stage, where we seat the jury, is a matter of challenges, voir dire, to speak the truth. What chance is there of that? Can 12 randomly selected people actually decide what happened? I'm suspect. Not to confuse the issue, but the very ground is confused. It shakes. What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart? A romantic, tangled in bull vine. I try, I don't know why. Denial almost always lies. Look on the face of it. What you might have said. Emily said "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul." I have to turn the radio off, kill the breaker for the fridge, there's something I'm missing, that piece of the puzzle. Crypsis. Then I have it, a bleached flamingo, nothing ever was. I fall back in my chair. Finally do fall back asleep, on the sofa, reading Terry Tempest Williams. "Refuge." Bright beautiful morning, and the wind has died down. Put on a sacrificial long-sleeved shirt and Carhartt bibs, go out to harvest breakfast. Five plump morels are enough for another omelet, toast with hot pepper jam, several cups of coffee. Back outside I'm finding many small morels just breaking through the litter, several in clumps. I mark them with clipped sticks, to let them grow for another day or two. In the afternoon I carve a path to the graveyard, then beyond, to the next ridge running north. A couple of years ago I found a coon dog in the woods, took it home and called the owner (dog tag) and when he came to get her, when I wouldn't accept his money, he told me that particular ridge was good hunting grounds. It is. I bring home another dozen and have them on toast. Dozens of yellow swallowtails flittering around the yard. I take a beer and a smoke over to the driveway puddle and watch the salamanders. They're Spotted Salamanders, ambystoma maculatum. Two of them are engaged in what I take to be a courtship ritual, one has the other wrapped around the neck with his hind feet, they spin like a caduceus. One of the others seems to be eating salamander spat. They eat each other, I didn't know that. Cannibals. A guest calls to cancel, and I decide to take a bath on the front deck. I smell like the leaf-litter at this point, a musky, earthy smell that I quite like, but I have to go to work tomorrow. So I flip over the sheep watering trough and heat water on the stove. Warm enough that I can bathe outside, soak my hidden scars, replenish. I stay so long, musing, that I heat another couple gallons of rain water, and immerse myself more completely. I need someone to rub my neck, but broken sun is enough. The promise of tomorrow. So little, really, to go on. A fretwork, a web of rebar. I had no idea the camera was rolling, I was just fixing dinner and trying to write. I seem to mumble almost all the time, whistle a tune badly, it's a character defect, one of many. It's amazing I can appear in public. The unwashed me, on the ridge, is a different creature. Soaking, I was thinking about this natural world, where I find myself in a sheep watering trough, listening to the birds, and its relationship to the world out there, the strip malls and fast food. No conclusions. "I'm just a janitor but I'm OK." Lull myself into a sense of order. Nothing a dram of Irish couldn't cure, or rye, since I'm really not Irish, whatever your chosen poison might be. The sweet whimperings of various birds at dusk is a lovely thing, I toast the portal and the various attendant gods and goddesses, Janus or Janice, that make it possible for me to hear birdsong. I'm expecting a pound of mushrooms tomorrow. I may have to take off work. I have all the components for a Cream of Morel soup. Never had it before, but it seems like a logical step. I think I'll use coconut milk. Just because that's all I have, if you're doing this at home, use half-and-half or whatever soy product is equivalent; I'm confused, but I use the blender, and it works, what I say to you. Go figure. Read more...

Solitude

Temporarily lost in the woods, sometime after noon. Stopped at a stump, to have a drink of water and eat a banana, thinking about how our life wraps around us. I know the way out, I wasn't really lost, I'd just never been in that place before. A different hollow, maybe in the next county over; might be able to find the spot, on the geodetic map tacked to the wall behind the dining table. Enough morels for a nice omelet, and a lot of small ones that I left in the ground, with cut branches around them, so I could find them tomorrow or the next day. Morel management. They just seem late this year. There's another area I want to look at tomorrow, on my other ridge, across the hollow; also would like to get down to the head of Low Gap Creek. Rarely find morels, in the open, on a ridgetop. They like dappled light and debris. Head of the creek could be perfect. Jenny, the Park Naturalist, can find them anywhere, I think she uses an electronic device. It's both quiet and noisy in the woods, no extraneous sound, but at one point I dropped over a ridge line, stopped dead in my tracks, there were turkeys in the bottom, working through the leaf-litter, and they sounded like a young army, moving through hostile terrain. The first time I ever experienced this, in Missip, I thought I was being followed by a bear. I stop often when I'm walking, it's not a track, I'm not trying to set a record, it's a slow dance in the natural world. So many acorns last year, that they are constantly underfoot; many have swollen, in the rains, burst their cap and shell, and halved, presenting a withered root. The turkeys are fat and I think about killing a young one, but banish the thought, I'm done with killing. Except for wasps. I killed 19 today and every one of them felt good. I've developed a kind of Issac Walton flip of the wrist approach with the flyswatter that guarantees death at a single blow. It's satisfying, but I'll have to clean the windows. Back from another outing in the woods, I'd talked with Mom about dying, sat on the back steps and rolled a smoke. It's flock consciousness that allows us to go on. Terry Tempest Williams says that "A museum is good place to be quietly subversive on behalf of the land" and I agree with that. The future glistens with irridescences. Not just sparkle, but the remains of that mirror ball, scattered across the floor. Fragments of glass in the joints. I couldn't help but notice. Spread widely and seeking the lowest level, like glitter, and finger-nail polish. Mostly, what you have to be careful about, is watching where you step. Don't track shit from one place to another. Get's you nowhere. What is it you want? Read more...

Equipage

Stayed at the museum last night, more rain and floods, I needed to monitor; wrote on the Mac there but our server was down (and again today) so you'll get that tomorrow. Hopelessly out of sequence. Today is almost over and that was yesterday. A janitor day, today, cleaning bathrooms, restocking supplies, and I got to do some mopping, keeping up my form. Couldn't wait to get home and look for morels, found a few, enough for toast points, but I need to broaden my search area, so I go back outside with the long handled clippers and start a couple of crude paths. Just a way to get through the under-story without ripping your clothes to shreds. Can't wait to check the graveyard area, but it'll require effort to get there, so many snags. The natural world is a thorny mire. Somebody sends you a nice new shirt, a heavy duty denim, in your preferred color, and you put it right on, wow, cool, I needed a new denim shirt, and on the way home, for some reason, you're drawn into the under-brush. Looking for morels or watching a fox dig voles, whatever took your attention. I had the thought that I write in paragraphs to disguise the sentences. I had to think about that, I know my writing self really closely, but I could easily deceive myself into believing anything. Respond-ability. You might just have a degree in the wrong field. I became a janitor late in life, and that's too bad, I could have been Head Janitor at the Met. Which doesn't bother me, listening to tree-frogs. There's a valence, not just a vessel. Look closely. I think I know what I'm saying. Imagine a situation in which you could say anything. That you trust anyone so completely. I have text in two different places. Equally spread, as we are. The way life is. Another day, literally, came home and found the beginning of this paragraph Waiting To Be Sent. Three hours cleaning the kitchen today, the jug band evening was a food and drink event. Ran some errands and left town at three, to beat the rain. Needed supplies. The lower hollows, down near the river, are greening nicely. On the ridge the oaks and hickories are more careful, but they are budded. Blackberry canes are leafing. At the lake the napp is thunderous, going over the spillway, crashing into the breastworks below and shaking the ground. A sonorous groan. Ten inches of flow, 42 feet wide, crashing down a proscribed slope to build a standing wave at the revetments below. Great theater. You can't hear a thing but one single sound when you're up close. Rain on the roof, and the wind is a roar like trucks in a convoy. Freight trains moving through. The soundscape is certainly different here. Bright, vibrant, alive; drives me crazy sometimes, those fucking goat-suckers, tree-frogs, and a cricket, inside. The older daughter, Samara, called, she was stuck in traffic in Denver. Wondered how it was going with the morels. Told her I'd found a few, but my feet were hurting and I wanted out of work-boots, I'd found enough for an omelet. We discussed morel omelets as a seduction tool. If you don't mind washing sheets, egg on your face, all of that. Listen, I once birthed live pilot whales from a dead mother, not that that's unusual, but did you ever do it? Just happens I always carry a knife, prepared, in that sense, that I actually have a knife, and swung it open; flipped it casually, backhand, said something. I don't remember what it was. Read more...

Conversation

Opening reception for the high school art show last night. Good music. I kept musicians supplied with beer. Stayed in town because I'd drunk a bit myself. Dealt with the plumbers all morning, planning an attack on the leaking pipe. Finally settled on taking off the old cap, plugging the pipe with quick-set cement, then double capping the whole mess. President of the board called, he's a plumbing wholesaler in three states, and agreed it sounded like the correct course of action. Another mess to clean up. Then it was set-up for the jug band tonight. They're good, playing now, I left my door open. I get frequent visitors and the occasional odd request. Technical assistance after the show has started usually. Make a pot of coffee, dole out a shot of whiskey. The salamander egg cases vibrate and move a little. Steve McQueen, "The Blog" kind of action. Quite creepy. I'm tempted to cut into one of them and getting a spat out for examination. Start a little row of bottles with pickled salamanders at every stage of development. Maybe not. But I did have the thought, for when I give my salamander recitation. Docented a high school group, art students, through nearly the entire museum this morning, the full tour except for the artifacts. Spared no detail. I used a few mild words and talked about nudes, they liked that. The salamander eggs are hygroscopic. That's how you get a fist-sized egg case from a four inch skinny momma. After the opening, last night, went to the Mexican place and had a drink while K ate, then back to the museum, helping her sort photos she's taken of the museum and events, to see what might be appropriate for various PR uses. A lot of images. Fast and fun, she's nimble on the keyboard. Helped the jug band unload, nice guys, they've played every sort of venue and all they require is an electric plug. Good crowd, responsive, finger food and a drink. Tables spread through the main gallery. I always worry about the paintings. When the band finishes, and they sound like they're winding up, I'll help them load, get this place closed down. Now it sounds like they've gotten a second wind. The staff is exhausted and wants to go home. Two events in two nights is a bit much. I'll get the place cleaned up tomorrow and go home early. Supposed to rain but the morels should be out. Two more inches in the forecast, and there literally is no place for it to go. If the leaves were a little further along, they'd take up a huge quantity, but right now, most of the water will be run-off. The flood season. West of town, where the floodplain is broader, the bean fields look like giant lakes. I stopped to look at the egrets and saw the ripples of fish feeding half-a-mile from the river. The red-buds and the few remaining dogwoods are blooming. Color returns. One of Pegi's kid's moms from the Cirque was flirting with me tonight, and I flirted back, in so far as I understand the ritual. I know the woman, from other events where she's volunteered, and she's attractive. I know she's recently divorced and was asking about me. Which is flattering. But I flirted with her, really, because she's kind of depressed and needed some attention. I had some free time, asked some leading questions and listened. She really is attractive, but she's very straight and has two young boys, and I'm odd, not suited for any kind of normal relationship. I have to take all kinds of time-outs, retie my shoes, watch slowly unfurling events in real time; I get distracted so easily. Genuine distraction. I think I've proven I'd be hard to live with, I'm all alone. I am a good cook, and I have other talents. I can skin a rabbit like taking off a sock, I can build anything, certain fundamental things I've learned to do. Not so much a bag of tricks as what was necessary at the time. Conversation figures high in the equation, that final algorithm, why else would you want to be with someone? Read more...

More Flooding

Server’s down, but K set me up so I could write someplace else and SEND tomorrow. Deviation from the norm. When it comes to writing I’m such a creature of habit. Big rains, flooding, I decided to stay at the museum, monitor the water in the basement. Chairman of the Board came right over and we talked about the phantom drain. Same conclusions. Hydrostatic pressure. I know what to try first, but I need for things to dry a bit and figure out how to remove the (failed) clean-out without getting 20 gallons of water under 7 pounds of pressure in the face. Linda, responding to the ongoing conversation about punctuation, said that, as an actress, she found that when she could crack the punctuation she better understood the part, what was being said. Then Grimnir posted that lovely punctuation piece. Made me want to read “Gravity’s Rainbow again, which I certainly will, but now is not the time. Next winter. Made 46 labels this morning, for the high school show, “Visually Literate”. Spray glue the paper text onto matt board, then vacuum-press them, then trim them, then make little circles of blue painter’s tape around my finger, two loops on the back of every label, press them to the wall, with the bottom of the label at 57 inches, which is the visual center/line here. Mindless work, but time consuming. Pegi wants me to do a show of staircases, so her Cirque students could slither over and through them. It would be a great show. An enormous amount of work, but I have friends that might build a staircase, for such a show. I imagine six of them, four that lead up to a platform, maybe 12 feet square, with an interesting railing, and two of them free standing, maybe with landings. Pegi would have to sell the installation to a couple of other places, the materials, even at cost, would run to a few thousand dollars. Foolish speculation, but it is interesting to think about. Anthony calls, we’ll meet for a Paddy with a Murphy’s back, later. I’m distracted, flooding and all. I don’t know where anything is going. I’m comfortable here, writing you, that’s really all I know. You look all your life for that, don’t you? A place to be comfortable. Right now, shoes off, in a sagging sweatshirt, warm, who could ask for anything more? The jazz standard. Single notes slung off into tomorrow. The way it happens. No expectations. I’m way beyond that. What’s remains is a charnel pile, a midden, a dump of some sort; not the slight depression and the scent of you on the pillow. That part was certainly a dream. A mist becoming a fog. I tried to call you, the line was busy. So it goes. Read more...

Rain Sheets

Woke me up. Hot tin roof. Cats. I'd fought the duvet to a draw anyway, needed to pee, and the rain was playing Coltrane loud and clear. Can't stay in bed when that happens, one in a million, like those monkeys with the typewriters. Power had failed, sometime, and the one clock was flashing. Had to boot up, to get the time. I'm privy to several layers of private jokes, it comes with the territory, waking Grimnir from his slumber was an added bonus. A belly laugh, is what it was. Tears down my cheek watching Slothrop tango. Punctuating the false dawn, and the spatter, as jazz morphs to Bach. Sonorous drops. They must be larger, or maybe it's a question of velocity, but that doesn't seem right, gravity being what it is. Consider the newts in the field. Nice tail. She's got to know, when she waves it like that. We share a passion for Norse Mythology. Something Starbuck. Wait, I can find it, it's posted on my wall. This is why God invented flashlights, so I can search my walls. The information there! But mostly in a language I translate badly. I find it, a semi-flattened wad of paper that says FEET IN HERE, and I know what it means, because I work next to a furniture store where they do some assembly. There, at the end, it's a lot like Beckett, you notice that? Thanks to Diana I have an actual rubbing of Emily's tombstone, it's at the framers now. I don't have a place to hang it, which means I'm going to shuffle art at the house. That Faulkner poster, for the Yoknapatawpha Conference, will have to move, which posits a whole domino effect. Listen, my scars are mostly hidden, each of us carries a burden, whether on your sleeve or not. The price we pay for living. Shit accumulates, and soon all the flat surfaces are covered, you can't park a car in the garage, and the garden shed is bursting with free samples. Loki is a lot like Coyote, if I read Levi-Strauss correctly, and that salamander's ass, well, what can I say? Made me realize I wasn't dead. Raining hard now. End of the world hard. I know this drainage, and there is no place for the water to go. We call this flooding and the only question is how deep. I don't have an answer, only projections. What they say. I'm OK, because I live on a ridge. High ground, easily defendable, I have a potato canon. Secure in my position. Everyone knows I'm loony. Whatever I say is suspect. Therefore. Sheets of rain, dancing across the roof, nothing, really, but an imagined pattern. Just sounded like a banjo I'd heard once, Bela, in Telluride. Read more...

Idiopathic

Full of vim and vinegar. Assemble the dirty laundry, collect the garbage, head down the driveway. Partly cloudy, but rain forecast for after noon. Library, laundromat, and liquor store; Kroger, for the makings of a ratatouille, but the eggplants are all bruised, so it'll be a variation. Home before the rain, I dump everything inside and take to truck back down the hill, walk back up, put things away. Clean linens. I hadn't made up my bed in months, sleeping on top of the comforter in my down mummy bag. Flannel sheets now. Just time to walk in the woods, widely spaced raindrops on the leaf-litter, and I find a few morels before the rain runs me indoors. Enough for an omelet. Fried in butter with just salt and pepper. I have a duck egg and two quail eggs. Delicious, a transport of joy. While I eat, at the island, I'm reading the Britannica article on the ossuary at Sedlec, a monstrance. The things people think of to do. There is a certain artistry, but the medium is so strange. Mistaken identification. What I took to be dead frog eggs, because the shape was not right, are actually salamander egg cases. The frog cases are a random jumble of individual eggs, the salamander cases are more like a smooth fist sized glob. A colloidal mass, almost smooth on the outside. I have what I used to think of as my frog field-fit, which I now call my amphibian field-kit, and intend to study them. I know these are salamanders, not newts. A malaise overtakes me mid-afternoon, thinking about my parents, lost loves, my daughters, the price of tea in China. The budding foliage is soaking up this rain. Could be a good year for blackberries. I'm tempted to make a wine, get a zinfandel extract from California, balance it with native blackberries, and that Elder Blow. Get it to go deep into a second fermentation, so it would be drier than smoke, with all that character. Communication is weird. I have a lot of time to talk to you, because I make the time, I don't do anything else, other than hanging shows and mopping, reading. I read a lot, but it's just my nature. Really, I don't know what other people do with their time. I'm rarely bored, I have a list of things I have to reference. It takes longer, to turn pages, but I enjoy the act, actually turning pages. Linda voiced a position I agreed with, but it really is necessary to separate the artist from the work. A good poem is a good poem. Breaks through. 'Called Back' suddenly pregnant with meaning. Linda is my best reader, she understands what I'm saying, almost no one else does, she reads me as the narrative I am, not as anything else. That rubbish pile of colappsed images. I talk to some health care workers. Seems it doesn't matter what you do: it all falls apart. Read more...

Grand Central

Shortly after I got home yesterday, a voice from the driveway, Drew, history professor from the college, with his young son, were on the ridge to visit B but stopped over on the way. We shared a rye whiskey, then B showed up and had a nip. Brought a new and lovely book of his, just published. We talked mostly history, with the usual detours as Drew picked up books from the table and asked about them. Still mulling my dream, as I don't remember many of them. Slept late, not knowing I was so tired, then made a very nice omelet with caramelized onions and asparagus tips. Started with the house cleaning, then retired to the sofa to read the Henning Mankell novel, probably the last of the Kurt Wallander books. A good read, in the reading for recreation category. Still no morels, they're there, I'm just not seeing them yet. Talk with Mom, officially now has congested heart; Dad can't see and using a walker. They sound marginal, and I'll probably have to get down there soon. Leaves like mouse ears. The sassafras buds are exploding, huge buds, glowing yellow. It's a sight. The big tree, behind the house is dying, beat to death by ice over the last few years, is putting on a huge, gaudy performance, maybe her last turn. A lot of red today too, the red-buds and the red maples. A few frogs eggs in the puddle, a lot of either newts or salamanders, and I've gotten quite confused about which. I hadn't intended to study salamanders. The 11th Britannica has several good pieces. I spend so much time reading those, with a magnifying glass (my set is dense, compact, and small, printed on bible paper) that I get a headache. Go out on the back porch with a smoke and an early afternoon drink, just a splash on ice, sit, with my feet on the step, take in the sun and air. Solid breeze out of the northwest. Because I know what caused the headache, it's easy enough to tilt my head back, stretch my neck, eyes closed against the sun, and will the damned thing away. B came back over today, for a cup of coffee, to talk about the driveway, to see what I thought about the new book. He knew I'd have already gone through the thing, and I had, 158 pages of really solid narrative poetry. I read a third of it, last night and this morning, I'll read it all, and more slowly, in the coming days and weeks. It's very good. "Enridged" Brian Richards, Uno Press. We write about the same place and some of our concerns are the same, so it's especially interesting to me, to see what he talks about, how he talks about it. It's normal to encounter difficulties in a relationship. I just took out a comma and a sentence became more clear. Simple pleasures. I've taken punctuation seriously my entire life. Call it a fetish, or whatever, like my fascination with ankles. Just something I notice. There's a whole list of things I notice, because I take the time. No other reason, just stop and look. I'm the opposite of dangerous. I know some things, I've learned some things, but they prove nothing, repetitive motions that result in a product. Building houses, binding books, the issues at stake are greater than that: is it a good book, does the house deserve to stand? We'll probably have to get into that, but I don't want to right now. I was chasing something, another dream or a mirage on the horizon, another place you might be. You being it, of course, the cosmic explosion and all that. My muse. It's only because I'm read that I exist. Bear that in mind.
Read more...

Student Show

I lost a day. It happens, first thing you know it's tomorrow and you wake from a dream, or maybe you're not awake and it is a dream. Maybe you got up to pee and went back to bed, fell quickly back to a dream state, continuing an earlier fantasy. I'm late for work, though this is actually a day off. Call D, tell him the dog ate my homework and I'll be running an hour behind. Started hanging the student show, yesterday, working like a man possessed. Easy enough to finish up today, except for one piece, on which I need to lengthen the monofilament, so it hangs at the proper height. Someone's brain flying away, half a beach ball with the top of a skull flying beneath it, suspended over the rest of the head. Did I say I love this job? Latent heat is generated by the condensation of water vapor to a liquid. The phantom smell of dreams. I swear there was a scent there, as though I had been visited in my sleep. Making things up, I tell myself, but still, sniff my fingers. Nothing succeeds like a smell. The day wears on. At some point I have a question for D and I don't ask it, just hand him an object, and he doesn't answer, just shakes his head, all lines of communication open. He's busy, so I hang this show by myself, mumbling a lot and calling numbers out loud. Some time after three, he comes out and lights the show, while I finish hanging. A well oiled machine. I'll do the labels on Tuesday, show opens Thursday, we're good to go. "Docenting After Hours" isn't a bad title. The janitor puts his mop away and points with a cane. He's pointing away, over there, off camera, as if something was happening. It's all fiction, of course, what we really see is paint on canvas, not the thing itself. He goes into that, naturally, in one of those rants we'd rather forget. Embarrassing. The way he over-explains. By the end of this scene you want to shake him, explain that post-modern is so over. He's gone underground by this point, only conducting small tours through the reconstructed ruins; coming out of his cave for tributes of whiskey and tobacco, as if that were owed him, for the hours he had spent composting shit. I due tend toward running sentences on. I always want more information. Right now, I know way too much about newts. It's an occupational hazard, every rock I choose to hide under, there's a goddamn salamander, waiting to start a fire. The less you know, the better. Seriously. Ignorance is bliss. There was a person at Janitor College, Sven Svenson, a great guy, he could accurately predict the weather from the pain in his ankles, he's crashed a few times; downhill, I know next to nothing, I can ski cross-country. He can. Right.You see where things might be going. That eternal apple. Read more...

Frogs

I was sleeping with a window open, because the house is winter bound and a bit musty. Spring cleaning in order. Walked in at the ridge, so there'd be transition between the world outside and my sanctuary. Carried in a full pack, but I wasn't in a hurry, a saunter, really. Some movement, in the frog puddles; ripples, like a perch slurping bugs from a lily pad. Salamanders wondering where the tadpoles have gone. Weather extremes had killed off an entire generation, a hole in the food-chain. They may be newts, what's the difference? I made a note to find out. Then make a list of all the things I should have done. Like shut the window. Bull frogs fucking in the dead of night will get your attention. 4:30 in the morning, I make a pot of coffee and read about newts. Their defense is irritating secretions. They live for several years, mostly under rocks, coming out at night or after a rain. For the first year in forever I forgot to read the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English. I can remember the first few lines but I can't find a copy. Glenn can do the whole thing, Harvey could, maybe it's the test of a real poet. It's the most beautiful language I've ever heard, and I've listened closely my entire life. Off-Broadway, Richard Burton reading the Manhattan yellow pages; anyone doing Shakespeare decently; coherent conversations in a string of literate pubs; any situation where language is treated with respect. Like Aretha said. Some of the best poetry I've ever heard, was Harvey, as the world became crepuscular after a hard day at the press. We'd be sitting on the floor, nursing a quart of Ballentine Ale, passing a joint; and from a dark corner, off the top of his head, he would recite Lorca, in Spanish, and the hair, on the back of your neck, would tingle. The end all, and be all. I still cry, remembering his voice. I try to write like that. Taking off the blubber in long strips and melting it down. Oil, for lamps, so I can read at night. Trying out. Oh, wait, acting. I get it. Life as performance, nothing you can't be, do, whatever verb. Living is simply a matter of diagraming sentences. You make sense of the information you've gathered. There's no choice in the matter, other than the avenues of thought. The bifurcations. Consider this or that. First Whip-O-Will, 6:19 in the morning, April 8, 2011, another millstone. Consider you have to listen to them all summer. Rain on a metal roof. What's your sanity level? Take the most beautiful map you know, locate yourself precisely, now, who is a saint?

Three crows ---
they seem to be saying
something. Just noise
really, not anything
to write home about.

Something to think about, as the light begins, another day. Drumming rain drops. Heat some water, wash your hair, shave: do, as they say, what you need to do. Time is precious, and this place is ephemeral. Tuck and point. Read more...

Unseasonable

Too warm too fast. Very still this evening. Straight home after work, to walk about in the woods. No morels, but a splendid time, poking in the leaf litter. After you find the first mushroom of the season, you learn to see, again, the subtle difference in shades of brown. At first everything is the same color, and the textures are maddeningly the same. Needle in a debris field. Part of that ancient tie to the earth, what you can harvest when. On Cape Cod, for many years, this was the season for herring roe and wild asparagus. Hundreds of meals. Tonight I make a meal of dandelion greens, that I wilt with hot bacon grease and top with a lovely cheese, a Taleggio Ca D'ambros. I wash these greens well, because they come from the medians in the parking lot. I'm not a clean freak, but I have my standards. I do enjoy musky smells, as Napoleon famously wrote to Marie, "I'll be home in a couple of weeks, don't bathe". Dated a cross-country runner once, Rachel, as I remember, and dated is not the correct term. She came out to run up and down the driveway, and I'd fix her dinner. I insisted we make love after her exercise; and while she cleaned up, under the solar shower, I'd fix a great meal, that would earn me another roll in the hay. All of that was fine, but she was dumber than a rock and we couldn't talk. I choose carefully, how I spend my time. Conversation is critical. What you're left with, after the fact, is snippets of dialog, which you clearly remember being said. I'm not suspect of the text, but I question the sub-text. Question everything, really, when It comes right down to it; tomorrow is another algorithm. My older daughter calls, and we talk about everything. No secrets. She knows what makes me tick, what I covet. And we can laugh about that. I've inadvertently raised some good daughters, they respect me in spite of everything. Lord love a duck. Read more...

My Plate

If someone had warned me, I might have taken the day off. Just not what I was expecting. Of course I would be here, I have to crate the last three glass pieces. Electric and phone out at the house. Dead trees from the fire took out the phone line, and the nice lady at the electric cooperative said, "Well, Mr. Bridwell, you are the end of the line". I knew that. Storm debris everywhere. High winds and several rounds of hail, which actually sounded terrific on the metal roof. You can't really do anything else at that point, but listen. I've been writing some poems, on the side, but I don't keep copies. They strike me as very flat. I'm playing with that flat surface. When I finally hear myself in them, I'll start including them. They pursue a line I've been interested in for years. The window crew arrived just after me, a small grant is paying to change-out and old single-pane, for something low-e, double paned, and argon filled. Good crew, they know what they're doing, I monitor them. I crate and clean. I need to take out the trash, but Sharee arrives with the student show two days early. I can deal with that, I just have to make some adjustments in my schedule, which, after all, was just an outline. Of course I cut myself, on the raw edge of some OSB Brent had used to make the shipping crates. A little blood on the packing materials. I think it's a nice touch. A little blood never hurt anyone. I take a walk in the woods and come back bleeding like a stuck pig. Too close to things, I think. A certain remove allows a disconnect, the very escape you had imagined. I don't have to do that, because Tom will. He probably will. I know him well. My only advice is to guard him closely on the perimeter. When he drives inside, he misses everything. An outside shooter. I get the high school show spread around the gallery so D can arrange things when he's here Friday. A decent show. I'm struck with how derivative art is, as it should be, at this level. Copy what you like, until you can outright steal without anyone knowing. Perplexing drainage problem. We capped off an interior roof drain, and old 4 inch cast iron pipe that was rusted away to nothing. It used to go into a storm drain in the alley, but that drain doesn't exist any more. We lowered a scupper in the roof parapet to deal with the water. Clean water still gets into the basement, so I put a five gallon bucket under the clean-out for the old pipe, Today it was full of water. Hurts my brain. I go to the library and look at Matisse paintings. Summer of 1905 and the birth of Fauvism. Last two nights, getting a beer at the pub, I've been given dinner. Waitstaff dinner that someone didn't want. Warm outside, makes a person want to go fishing. An urge I haven't had in years. Catching native Cutthroat trout, above the beaver dams, where the stocked rainbow can't reach. The Little Cimarron headwaters. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Had to leave once because of a snow storm in July. Where I liked to fish was 17 miles in, off the paved road. A little baby fly rod, six feet, with two pound test leaders. The river, there, was only 15 feet across and eight inches deep. The water was so cold you couldn't stay in it. The flesh of those fish was the firmest I've ever experienced. Cooked in a cast iron skillet, with a little bacon fat, then a squeeze of lemon, right on the creek bank. There were some cut-banks, with deeper holes and bigger fish, but I was always happy to catch a mess of 10 inch Cutthroats. Nothing has seemed the same since, fishing wise. Now I read art history on my days off. Think about a film about docenting. The Docent, as a working title. There's this guy, he's a janitor, he lives alone and works at a museum. What you might call an eclectic autodidact. He docents everything. It's his nature to find out about anything that interests him. He knows a lot about the breeding habits of frogs. With his cap turned backwards, kneeling on a piece of foam, peering at frog eggs in a petri dish with a magnifying glass, he talks about the anti-freeze properties of the sugars in the individual eggs, pointing with a conductor's baton. He always dresses the same way. He has theories. There are very funny stories about Janitor College. He docents Art History classes through the museum with a mop in his hand. One minute he's demonstrating The Modified Chevron mopping stroke, the next he's talking about Jackson Pollack's lifetime love for Thomas Hart Benton's wife, the lovely Rita. Maybe some of his habits are odd. He tends to skip meals, if he's involved in something, but otherwise eats everything, including acorns and roadkill. It's rumored he's asexual, but several animals have filed lawsuits against him, their owners, but nothing has ever come to trial. Drunk, one night at the pub, someone remembered him saying he was "saving up for a Panda". I got off track there, but docenting is an interesting text that could carry a great deal of sub-text. Sara called, after hours, and I was here, so we chatted, and I brought her up to speed, from my perspective. The ridge tomorrow, maybe morels. Read more...

Much Later

Screaming like a banshee. The wind woke me, shaking the house. That odd sound of trees groaning, as they bend through 45 degrees. On the coast, we'd call this a full gale; the surf, at high tide, would be smashing against the breakwater. My tell-tail is a humming bird feeder I no longer use, I couldn't stand their petty squabbles, and the disused feeder swings a dangerous arc. A few occasional stars, but mostly it's deeply dark. 64 degrees at three in the morning, I start a small fire in the cookstove. The secret, in big winds, is to get the stovepipe really hot, and heat water for a sponge-bath; strip down completely and pad around the house naked. Scrub myself pink, a change of clothes, then scramble three eggs, with store-bought mushrooms and minced onion. By rights, I should lose power, a tree falling on a line somewhere, but I fire up the hardware anyway, to see if I can write a sentence. When I remember, I SAVE. Thinking about Glenn's next movie, the weary janitor, leaning on his mop, talks about Thomas Hart Benton, how Jackson Pollack was in love with Benton's wife, Rita. What was said in those endless conversations. A few mindless strokes with the mop. It's after hours, cleaning up after an event, spilled wine, or water over the dam. Voice over, a discussion about modernism. Barnhart does a music piece that drowns out the words. A wall of sound that becomes the Ohio in spate. Black out. Color returns with dawn, our hero is examining frog eggs with a magnifying glass. He stares into the middle distance. Walks back to the house, perplexed. Starts a fire in the cookstove, steady mumbling to himself, fixes an eggplant marinara, then later, over a neat whiskey and a hand-rolled cigaret, pontificates about tadpoles. This wind, though, I don't know what to think, things are blowing apart. We could docent the wind, but It's hard to define what can't be seen. The cello suites rise from the background, he looks up, ignores your eyes, fucking wind is hammering the ridge tops. Finally go back to bed. Up again. Rain forecast. Severe storms and high winds tonight. Get the truck to the bottom of the hill. Clean out the fridge, clean and oil with heat a couple of pieces of cast iron. Rain starts and I harvest some water, make a pot of coffee, sit of the sofa, reading poetry for several hours. Emily, Olson, Zukofsky. Later, I switch over to whiskey and fiction. A lot of rain, driveway taking a beating, and I think about the basement at the museum. When I get in tomorrow I have to pack the last three pieces of glass, clean that gallery, the high school angst show comes in Thursday. Lindsey should be back at the pub, post-baby, and the banter level will go up a notch. Winds up again, I'd better SAVE. Good thing, as the power flickers. Put a small flashlight in my pocket and get out the oil lamps. Cooler tomorrow, but this rain and warmer temps the rest of the week, morels for sure, next weekend. I've been looking at mushroom recipes; a stew, for sure, and what sounds like a good mushroom lasagne, maybe a cream soup. A rough list of things I need from the market. Pantry badly needs restocking. I keep the radio on, low volume, to hear about local weather warnings and various outages. Extreme event out there, but most of it seems to be missing me. Drive into town should be interesting, if my yard is any indication. Branches down everywhere. I hear a few frogs, this rain has given them new depth, I'm not worried they'll survive; I'm more worried about myself, hung out on a limb. Too much information passes through my fingertips. Read more...

Off Day

Reading is a freedom made of words. It distracts me from sleeping and eating. So windy the crows, on wing, appear drunken. Two red-headed woodpeckers cling to a dying oak, their feathers are rumpled. Single leaves, freed from the thick mat that covers the forest floor everywhere within my extensive view, fairly whip across its surface. Startling cracks, like rifle shots, as branches break free. The top of an old snag crashes to the ground, on the path to the graveyard. I beat a hasty retreat. Anabasis. Better part of valor. No grilling for me. I open a tin of baked beans and eat them cold, right out of the can. I like cold beans. Wonderfully improved in my education, having spent the morning rereading, probably rerereading, some Guy Davenport essays, I tackle Olson's great poem "The Kingfishers", for the hundredth time. I've worn out two copies of "The Distances", the book in which it appears first, so I can always remember where to find it. Teenage angst will be on display at the museum next week: the high school, juried, art show. Always fun. Usually hard to hang, simplistic ideas about attachment. Beckett, when asked about the meaning of "Godot", said, "Oh, it's just me and the wife." A fake lady-bug lodges in my keyboard, for a while, I just don't use the 'o' but finally I turn the damned thing over and give it a good shake. A mistake. Desk and I covered in a rain of debris. Before I clean up the mess I study it with a magnifying glass. Mostly tobacco, with an odd admixture of insect legs and what I take to be small cracker crumbs. Reflects my lifestyle. The desk is such a mess I need to take everything off and clean it, but that would be a Herculean chore, so I opt for simply blowing everything out of sight. I reason that soon I'll need a nursemaid whose sense of cleanliness will exceed mine. Some house guests get a room in town, only visit after dark, when the squalor doesn't show. Steady killing wasps all day. They're slow and disoriented, latch onto a window. I have flyswatters at either end of the single room that extends across the entire front of my house, 13 windows, stretching from cookstove, at one end, my desk at the other, 36 feet in all, and there is a small pile of dead wasps at every window. Offerings to the Wasp Goddess, she of the carapace and black wings. Now a stink bug, on the window to my left, as I write, and I have to deal with that. It's approaching a lighted wasp from behind. I have to stop and watch. The stink bug realizes it has made a mistake, the wasp runs it away, across the glass. I wonder how I could install that show. I wad the stink bug up in a piece of paper towel, kill the wasp. In truth, I don't hate the smell of stink bugs, just like I don't really hate the smell of skunks. Some smells I can't abide, rotten potatoes or onions, chicken guts; but most smells don't bother me much. Smelling the stink bug now, on my fingertips (even through a towel) it's kind of nice, in a country way; the dry-down softens to a musky thing that you could probably market. Same would be true of a skunk scent. Skunkweed is the name of a very high end pot, usually Indica buds that are not fertilized, consider your demographic. Sunset brings some phenomena into play. A partial hazy cloud cover, with lots of sun breaking through. En Soleil is a term of heraldry, meaning surrounded by rays, like a rose, maybe for the House of Roses, might have that; but I suppose, because of the moisture in the haze, I'm getting these halos around tree tops. It's cool, prismatic and fetching. I killed the breaker for the fridge, the only sound I hear, is the wind roaring through the trees. I'd better SAVE. Because of something someone said I'm rereading Whitman. He uses the word 'yawp' for the way a hawk sounds, himself as an osprey, the "barbaric yawp", certainly true. His sound, at that time, was unheard of. No way you could say what he did. Not unlike Emily, in the uniqueness. Wherefrom spread. Three dots that seem to say it all. What constitutes meaning? Is three dots enough? Ellipsis. Glenn wants to focus on the docenting, the explication, and I'm good with that. This whole combined art thing is interesting for me, because I'm used to working alone. Working with others is both interesting and problematic. There will always be a clash of wills. Count on it. Even just two people can't work together, much less any more. I write alone for a reason, I can say what I want, I really don't need any approval. What I see. Read more...

Remains

The legacy of a Class Three Extraction is a back hall floor that has to be refinished. They took everything out that way, so steam cleaned that floor too, and the steam took the Terraglaz finish off. Packing up there glass pieces, paranoia time. The delicate balance between using too much foam, and breaking a piece by compression, and not using enough. K and S both in before lunch, conferring with D. We all went to lunch, then I pack, while D was working in his office, then at four we both managed the large piece. Barely fits through a doorway or the elevator door. We took it off the pedestal, onto a piece of foam, D stabilized, and, on my hands and knees, I dragged it to the elevator and in. Downstairs we carried it (no doorways) to the crate, pinned it in into a muslin shroud (we don't know why that's there) then put it in the crate. It took over thirty minutes to roll and pack it in place with high quality eggshell foam. Got four of the seven crated. I'll finish alone on Tuesday. Had to get home, but after we closed D and I had a beer in Sara's office and smoked a cigaret. It's emotionally draining to pack a show like this one. My hands were shaking. Driving home, green is happening, across the river, in Kentucky. Three ducks, in a snag at the lake, I stop to hear them squabble. Stop again, in the State Forest, to watch a pack of turkeys. They tear up leaf mat, scratching violently, looking for any bug or worm. The driveway is an easy climb in two-wheel drive, I park beyond the puddles, but there are no frog eggs. Don't know what that means. There should be some, from the second fuckfest. Thought I knew my frogs. Supposed to warm up tomorrow, and I've never known them to fail to produce the next generation. Tomorrow night could be noisy. If it doesn't rain, maybe I'll grill a tenderloin, I was just building a rub, cleaning the fridge, the sundry chilies and other powders people had sent me. It's too hot, but that's OK if you blacken the tenderloin, you just get small pieces with a bite. Tonight I dine simply, on olives and brie, but tomorrow I want to cook. A blacked tenderloin, with grilled asparagus and a salad. A decent old vines zin. Dusk, a pileated woodpecker, and I know the very bird, his comb is unique. Like whales and their flukes. Forget what I was talking about, go outside one last time before I put on my slippers, and the last rays of sun are slipping toward the horizon, up-from actually, lighting the underside of the clouds. Several phone conversations later, I realize we're going to make another movie, Glenn is, and my older daughter is electrified by the idea. I merely mop a modified chevron, it's what I do: lean on the handle and answer questions. Read more...

Natural Causes

Noon Smart Talk with Michael Barnhart, one of my favorite people. PHD, composer, plays all instruments, knows the history of music, in order categorical. Interested in electronic music. Composed a piece for a church organ here in town, All Saints, and when they recently rebuilt the organ, they added electronic potential. Mike can play it from his laptop. Composed a piece for that instrument. Great big piece of organ music, a wall of sound. I liked it immensely. Played recorded versions of a John Cage piece. The piece itself is lost, the original tape fell apart or something. But it can be reconstructed. Actually, can be reconstructed in endless ways. It's a set of instructions, a vessel, as Mike called it, into which you plug little snippets of music you've recorded from vinyl records, according to strict time and volume indications. Mike has done it five times, the latest using just Cage's music, is coming out this month. He wants to work with Glenn again, so that probably means we're going to do another movie. Probably also about drainage. Glenn's a thematic kind of guy. Pegi just breezed through, having forgotten her car keys, thanked me for being here, as I may or may not docent a group of doctors through the galleries. Told her I was comfortable writing here, it's very quiet and warm. At the pub, Astra was cutting the last of the lemons from a bag, and the bag was a perfect morel collecting bag: open mesh, plastic, strong. I asked her to get it out of the trash for me, because I needed it. Then had to explain about, hunting for, and the cooking of morels. And it is time. Barnhart and I compared notes. He had the information on his laptop, last year, April 5th 29 morels, April 6th 29 morels, April 7th 54 morels. If you find yourself with a basket of nice plump morels, three or four inches long. Clean them, I don't use any water, I consider small pieces of leaf part of the whole morel thing. Slit them open enough to stuff them, they're essentially hollow, stuff them with an herbed goat cheese, tie them shut with a strip of Nori sprinkled with just a touch of wasabi. Mostly I eat them on toast that I no longer cut into points. Rain and warmer weather, next weekend I'll find them on southern slopes in their range. The best omelet I make, hope to eat my weight in them, the next 8 or 6 weeks, is a caramelized onion, morel, sprinkling of cheese thing, that is so good I just stare into the middle distance and remember an impossible past. Sometimes I wonder, it happened today, some insignificant event reminded me of a chain of events that had engaged me years ago. The glint off a piece of silver I was polishing, the shape of a cloud, the way my sandwich didn't hold together. I ask for a fork, they give me a spoon, with a twist at the end. Itinerant text. Suppose something meant something, how would you precede? I generally just open the door and walk through, duck low to the left because most people shoot high and to the right. Playing the odds. I've lived this long. A testament to living cleanly, do docent the doctors around, it's K's tour, but we play tag. I like the way she uses her hands. I over think everything. They're impressed, which is the point, I think, that the janitor knew more than they did. It was so cool, the way we handed off the ball. It seemed rehearsed. I'm a student of this. What's actually being said. Read more...