Sore Muscles

I haven't dug in a while. We agreed to take it slowly, an hour a day, in the early morning. Today's task was digging out the catchment at the top culvert. It was completely silted-in. Remove the fines and spread them on the driveway. We didn't talk much, saving our breath. I needed whiskey, so after a second cup of coffee I went into town, then right back home and read an early Richard Russo novel I had missed, "Straight Man". Had to take an Aleve and read on the sofa. Couldn't face cooking, so I just had beans on toast. Sorting electronic mail. My editor emailed and wants to see the "Janitor College" manuscript, which, of course, isn't finished. The equipage issue. First off I need a copy of it here, and they told me I can get my old computer from work. Then that project can be completed rather quickly, at least as I currently hold it in my head. Buried in a sea of paper. I lost the list of words I wanted a soprano to sing, and I just started it Saturday. Massive storm front moving through, I have to go. Read more...

Caviar Complex

Not that I expect to be awakened before my first meeting of the day. Nor do I expect a fruit cup with plain yogurt. A cup of coffee and a cigaret, watching fog burn off the lake, is reward enough. That's when she touched me, as I remember, the only time there was physical contact, I still bear the wound. I can argue that it was just static electricity, a stored charge. The third night I really wanted to be with her, but I was done with people, took a long slow bath, and washed my troubles away. I assume we'll have occasion to talk about that. What wasn't said. My specialty, as it happens: it's usually what I don't say that's important. My close readers are always chiding me on that point, that I should somehow do something about it. I say fuck it. I miss Diehl, I miss my place in the basement of a de-sanctified church, and I miss, most, the way the fog rolls in. Lake fog is a different thing. Read more...

Indeed, Lutheran

I went down to see B at his new place, I knew he was finishing the back porch, an entire reconstruction, and that digging out the grader ditch was the next order of business. We agreed to meet at 8 tomorrow morning and work for a couple of hours. Thus we display our madness, two old guys with shovels, laboring against the forces of drainage. In their dotage, let it be noted, they were still digging ditches. B was in good form, the back porch (the main entry) was nearly done and looked elegant. The Vireos were singing in the trees, the Monarch butterflies were actually getting in the way, one landed on my hand, delicately licking salt. We should have such problems, flinging off butterflies while we turn the compost. Back on the ridge, I read some pages, then added or deleted some commas; mostly what I do now is add or delete commas. I think of them as fox tails, whisking one way and then the other. In the story of my life, commas are a characters; interesting, that you don't have to explain much. Meaning, such as it is, is supplied. If I had a TV right now, I'd be watching soccer six hours a day and I might refer to the footwork. Those guys are good and they know how to take a fall.

Fireflies
weaving in late
summer light.

She's singing directly upstage, back to the audience, there's a percussive interlude. Lentils falling on cymbals, they're flatter, and they linger longer. Dried peas don't work at all, too round, too bouncy on a hard metal surface. So it's lentils by default, they fit the bill, in terms of shape. Flattish on two sides. Much later, someone says I couldn't have been there, that I was actually somewhere else. I don't think it matters. Just the idea is enough. I could have been there. Read more...

Farmer's Market

Lovely to sit with Ronnie and watch people at their dalliance. A fine day in every way. TR and I discussed the opera over lunch. He figures that light (as in fireflies) should be a character. I've helped write songs before, but nothing on this scale; then I have the thought that I might write some haiku about fireflies and memory. TR called back and we talked for a long time about point-of-view. We're warming toward this project. Safe to say it will be non-traditional. A soprano, two or three percussionists, and an old guy, sitting in a chair upstage. It's a piece about memory, which, now, gives me a place from which to jump. Not that I trust memory, we lie to ourselves constantly, but I jump far enough aside when the scree slips, to gain footing.

Stillness---
sinking into the rocks,
the sound of wind.

The old guy is a kind of me. When I mentioned it, TR lit up, like I'd finally got it. Heat lightning, and Black Dell is bitching about overtime. A real ruckus outside. I've repacked some shotgun shells with rock salt, the wild dogs are driving me crazy, and I fully intend to blister their asses, anyone else that gets caught in the way. On the way, down the way, across the way. I have an old basket I use when I go to the market, made of white-oak splits, a beautiful thing. I rarely go home empty-handed. People like to put things in my basket. God bless them. Read more...

Drainage

Let's assume you knew. I should have known, that any creek that fell down into Lake Erie would make a waterfall, drainage being downhill and all. While Diana napped and the kids were off I went down and walked the shoreline. Battered and torn as it was, and I felt right at home. There was a large flat rock, as promised. I had a couple of nips of Makers Mark in my jacket, left over from the literary festivities, and my tobacco. I sat there for the longest time, watching gulls work the shoals of bait-fish. The best hot-dogs I've ever had. They take sausage seriously in western New York. With raw onion and a gritty mustard, these were world-class. I took State Route 37 down to Route 22 and missed Columbus completely, fields of waving corn. Last Saturday night, I walked Patsy back to her room, and now it's merely memory. We disagree about some things, but it doesn't matter; she's strong on precise detail and I just make things up. I kiss her on the cheek, I love her, I can't believe I find myself in a world where I kiss Patsy Sims on the cheek. Read more...

Nothing Everywhere

Steel gray dawn. The rain has stopped, the frogs and birds are filling the soundscape with a raucous chorus. I'm hungry, so I make an onion and cheese omelet, a piece of toast with jalapeno jam that would wake the dead, and a double espresso; not a bad beginning for a day that promises more rain and flooding in the low-lands. I don't really care, politics and weather are passing fancies, extremely local and ephemeral, while bedrock can stay the same for millions of years. Look at your hands. Shelby, for instance, has never done an honest day's labor, not that it means she's not a nice person, and she has great ankles, which in and of itself is enough to get by, the way the world is constellated. In times of crisis, I retreat to a tree-tip pit, a tarp as a roof, a stump as a desk, and write a few words. Mostly I focus on the middle distance. Nouns and verbs. Look at the Exeter Book, all that Old English unfolding. The library calls and I have some books waiting. Enough patches of blue to make a Dutchman's pants, more storms forecast for the afternoon, so I dash off to town, run my errands, get a back-up bottle of whiskey, all the makings for a ratatouille, and get back home just as the first drops spatter. Rain like pouring pee out of a boot. Serious rain, then that squall line blows over, the sun breaks through, and the world is so beautiful, sublime, that I weep, waiting for the final curtain. I stopped by Terry's place and he wants me to cook, maybe next week, and then on an irregular basis after that, which suits me. I'm cooking ox-tails now, the smell is killing me. I hate beef stock, so I'm cooking them in chicken broth and a very good Chardonnay. I scraped off the little pieces (bits) of meat, from the outside, into a lovely gravy, and dug into the marrow like man possessed. Smear this on toast and you have a feast. Another line of thunder storms, I'd better go. Read more...

Bells and Whistles

I had to turn on the AC. Black Dell was being recalcitrant, she says one thing and seems to mean another. I know I'm well and truly home when I stop down at B's new place and we talk about digging out the grader ditch. Back in the saddle. Deny as you will, what it comes down to is moving fill from one place to another. Hot running water, did I make a point of that? Such a treat. Statistics indicate that very clean people rise more quickly in the job-force. I 'bathed ahead' at the conference, and got an email today that indicated SUNY Press wanted a manuscript. I should bathe more often. I need new equipment, and I need TR to set me up. I think I could get "Janitor College" together in short order, a month or so, now that I'm not at the museum, and my time, as they say, is my own. Digging out the grader-ditch is a serious under-taking, cubic yards of material that have to be moved. I already know my back will hurt. I want to pay someone else to do it, but B insisted that we shouldn't pay for something we could do ourselves. Spreading fines across the road. Big loud thunderstorms. The house shakes and the lightning flares. I have to shut down, and when the power goes out, I read by headlamp. Basho. He reminds me of myself.

no moon, no blossoms
just drinking sake
all alone

No idea what time it is, not even what day. It's dark, is all I know, and the thunder echoes through the hollows. The Romans said that Echo was a nymph in love with Narcissus, but when her love was not returned, she pined away until only her voice remained. Read more...

First Impressions

So good to get home to a quiet ridge and not a person in sight. I stopped in town, for whiskey and tobacco. Drove home in nine hours, but that included a couple of stops; a museum outside of Canton and a stop to watch some birds wheeling about. I have to think about everything and unwind. Came home on secondary roads and avoided large towns, I did drive through Edinboro, on the way up, and Lancaster, on the way back, to admire the brick-work. Lovely. I don't have any lost time to make up for, it's all right in front of me. I had some great students and the time, after hours, was like a graduate seminar course, Phil and I discussing dear sweet Emily. The porch people were swiveling in their chairs, as if they were watching tennis match. Wonderful conversations. Living the life I do, it was like cramming two years of socialization into three-and-a-half days. I was so exhausted that I didn't finish my first drink and smoked only a single cigaret before I crashed. It was 87 degrees inside when I got home, and Black Dell, under her extended contract, would have refused to operate anyway. When I turned her on this morning, she was cranky, and acted as if she didn't know what she was doing. If I had left her on, she probably could have written paragraphs for me while I was gone. The faculty readings were great, and certainly one of the best audiences imaginable. I fell in love with a young poet and she deigned to chat with me a couple of times. There's an implied intimacy in a gathering like this. At Diana's cottage on Lake Erie, where she and I retired after the long farewells, we realized we were both dead in the water; she immediately went for a nap, and I sat on the bluff above the lake and read Raymond Carver. The stories didn't hold up for me. There was an eagle (yes, Christine, they follow me around), and later the sun setting over water shot up dark rays. There was an alley under the second story breeze-way that connected the annex from the main hotel, and I'd go down there for a last cigaret, late at night. Met several of the staff. Alexis asked me to read her a paragraph and I read her a piece about the fox. The next night she showed up with a friend and asked me to read again. They were both writing majors, going into MFA programs, and couldn't afford the Festival, needed to work for dollars. I talked with them several times, and when I'd pass them, when we were all at work, we'd address each other by name, and she'd poke a workmate, I could see her mouth the words ---that's the cool guy--- and we'd go about our business. The fog on the lake was spectacular. I noticed the Venturi Effect everywhere, buildings packed together and walkways and alleys, and always the breeze off the water. The breeze off the water and the lingering scent of people that didn't want to smell, awkwardly, as if they had been doing anything. Frankly, I loved it. I wanted to hug a girl that was wearing Tommy Girl, but I refrained in time. I chatted with an older woman, about the original Shalimar, before the synthetics, and I almost went home with her, to look at the original bottles; but I was needed elsewhere to mediate a discussion about the modern American poetry canon. Back into real time, I have to sling-blade a path to the outhouse, then clip away the blackberry canes that block all access, so I can, at least, limp to my Jeep without feeling like a stuck pig on the way to be butchered. Bleeding from a thousand cuts. Fucking blackberry. If I should ever have times to sort things out. I don't usually remember my dreams, for me the scene opens with a stylus, oak-gall ink, parchment or vellum. We'll talk about this later, where you are, or where I might be. Thunder storms. I have to go. Read more...

Getting Around

Went to town for no good reason but to get out of my head and I wanted sushi for dinner. Stopped at the pub, for a beer and a plate of hummus with crackers. I hate salty tortilla chips. I don't use much salt. A young man came in, familiar, I met him years ago, at the college I think, Reese. He'd been off earning a master degree in geology, moved back to the area, bought some acreage out north-west. A comfortable conversation. The place was deserted, Steph the lone waitress, and Jason alone in the kitchen, when a party of twenty-five came in. Fucking zoo, but Steph handled it without absolute aplomb. Another acquaintance came in, then the drummer from the band that was playing tonight, to set-up his kit, and we all enjoyed another beer. Glad I went to town. The diversion. I still have a few things to do, move some boxes, pack my bag, but if I leave by two or three tomorrow I'll be ahead of schedule. I'll be away for ten or twelve days. It doesn't mean I don't love you. It just means I'll be away. I haven't been away for several years, I don't actually like being away, but I do like being on the road, once I wrench myself from the ridge. That last storm has turned the back roads into tunnels, the greenery is draped like a satin shroud. Even a single day, everything changes; spring turns to summer, soft leaves turn brittle and the wind begins to rattle. An off-beat drummer with nothing to lose. Read more...

Micro Bursts

I guess the storm on Wednesday did some damage. It nearly took out the driveway, and we have to spend a day down there, digging out the catchments, but I'm going north and B is headed to a family reunion at the same time. We'll do it when we get back. Perfect timing, I got my three bills paid and in the mail (Visa, power and phone), and stopped by the museum to see the first major show that I didn't hang. A good show, well hung, just a couple of mistakes that I could see. TR printed out my Goggle Map for the trip, so I can be reimbursed for mileage, and that's the last thing on my list, except for moving a few things around (getting books off the floor in case a derecho took out a window and water blew in) and packing, which in my case is fairly simple. I'll take my ratty old sports coat, it looks fine with a denim shirt or a black tee-shirt, and I bought some new shoes, as work boots seemed inappropriate. I wrote my group, whatever I'm to call them, a welcome note, and that was fun, actually. Just a few lines, but I tried to strike a very casual tone. I write so slowly. It took an hour to say hello. I mistakenly sent out a fragment, a partial paragraph, when I sent out the welcome note to the group. I apologize. Half formed thoughts. My level of control is minimal. TR swears he can get me into a better format, and I don't doubt that it's true, though 'better' is a relative term. When I came back in, I was driving slowly, windows down, smelling fecund spring. Leaf rot with a top note of green. The dry-down is fresh cut hay with a hint of patchouli. Drove down to B's house, where I knew he'd be, and he was tearing rotten floor-boards off the back porch. He got me a cold beer, tickled with the fact that he now had refrigeration, electricity; a pale ale, hops add that level of astringency, like sucking on an acorn or kissing a railroad tie. Memory plays a part in here, but memory is not to be trusted. I only thought I remembered. An icy spiculae. I would neither deny or admit any hanky-panky. Read more...

Preparations

Phone calls and emails, another trip out today, to do laundry, and buy a 'burner' cell phone that I can use to call AAA if I need a tow. The mammoth rains of yesterday (every rill running spate) have buried me in a jungle of green. The cell phone thing went very well, I finally found someone attune to my needs, that I needed a cheap phone and thirty minutes of call time; that I'd probably never use the damn thing, because I didn't get reception at my house. I got a phone and sixty minutes for $25. Got my laundry done, got the last supplies I'll need for the trip, travel sized tooth-paste, shampoo, a small plastic bottle of lotion that I'll use as after-shave. Talked with my contact person, Diana, and we had a few laughs, and she assured me that I'd be fine, that four nights of hot and cold running water probably didn't endanger my soul. I'm not so sure. I had to give them my selection for a specific meal on a particular night: which entree. They all sounded good, but I went with the steak, because of the potato and turnip gratin side-dish. I have the sense that everything is hammered out ahead of time. I have nothing to do with it. The lake is over-filled, too much water; Turkey Creek is rampant. I set out, now, against the tide. Read more...

Site Specific

A train across the river. Just a light breeze and the spring leaves are still soft so the only other sound is a susurration and a Mocking Bird imitating a Towhee. Kim got away in good form, off to the races, and I piddled about, read a few things out loud. I've been working hard to align the written word with the spoken word, and I spend some time with that, watching the way words form in my mouth. I'm not even an average naturalist, so I don't pretend to know. That stuff out there, the other stuff, is beyond my pay-grade. I watch frogs, I have a casual relationship with a fox; in my defense I'm actually a pretty nice person; I rarely lose my temper, ask any of my friends. A whole grain cereal, for breakfast, force-meat on toast for lunch; and an afternoon comparing alphabets from two extinct languages that have never been deciphered. I had to fire off a couple of emails concerning the upcoming gig, and I'm not used to staying connected. My idea of staying connected is that someone would find my body within a couple of weeks. Brautigan, right? Lew Welch is better, where you just wander off and there is no body. Drew emails that he and Barnhart, the music guy, want to come out when I get back. The clouds are dark all day, thunder, it rains so hard I can feel it, shaking my bones. This is it, pretty baby; I have to go, it's rumbling like crazy. It stopped raining, finally, at around midnight; the cessation of drumming awakened me. After the power went out I'd read for a couple of hours by headlamp, harvested several buckets of clean rain water. The house was close, from battening down against the rain. I opened several windows and was struck with that cool post-storm oxygenated air. A lovely thing. When I go outside to pee, the ground feels like a sponge, and the tree-rain patters. It's very quiet for maybe half-an-hour, then the frogs break the silence. The power comes back on, the house hums and the light is almost unbearable. Get a drink and roll a smoke, my solution to almost everything. Six hours of hard rain, and I wonder how the driveway handled that. I restore order, as well as I can, write for a while, teasing out a couple of sentences; cook a large breakfast, potatoes, eggs, toast with force-meat, and read at the island, pulp fiction, just something to occupy my mind. Light is just breaking and I need to sleep. Read more...

Drunken Spoon

Strong sunlight, very few clouds, but the greening is nearly complete, and the light only exists as shafts and patches. Beautiful and mesmerizing. Dancing leaves. The focus is so intense. That same female yellow Timber Rattlesnake was back in the same area, so I won't be walking that section of logging road until next fall. It's so disconcerting to see an animal that's the wrong color, a black squirrel, a white deer. Reading Mark Twain for four days straight has been interesting. He was a quirky guy, and he knew how to lose money, invested in all the wrong things. Pulled himself out of bankruptcy by doing an around-the-world lecture tour, paid off his debts 100 cents on the dollar, and ended up more than comfortable, after Harper's bought out the rights to all of his books. My good friend Kim was up from Tallahassee for the last couple of nights, on his way to Montreal for a F1 race. He hand-carves beautiful spoons (of which I have several) and I had asked him to bring his tools and carve one here, with a full twist in the handle, a signature design. Saturday night after dinner, in four hours, he did just that. I watched and we talked the whole time, having a couple of drinks. He's a great house guest, bringing good whiskey and more than paying for the food; and he has his two drinks a year at my house. Excellent conversation, great company; we'd worked together in theater for years, shared stories, caught up on friends. Sunday he was slightly disgusted with what he referred to as his "drunken spoon" and spent another hour refining it. We visited B, when down to the dam reconstruction project and poked around, then went to town to walk beneath the flood-wall, to see what might have washed ashore, and recounted his coming up to lash the sticks of the Wrack Show installation together. A lot of history. Came back home the long way around, switch-back turns on a winding Upper Twin. The next force-meat I'm going to use an apple brandy, instead of wine, for cleaning implements and lubricating the blender. B was on his porch when we passed his place, so we stopped and chatted again, sat on the front porch and waved at two pick-up trucks in an hour; looked at the water system, checked out an old well. Three old guys that have solved problems their entire lives. Kim thought that B's work, on a cobbed together share-croppers shack, was elegant. We talked about elegant solutions, how we all loved them, how difficult they were to attain. I mostly listened to them talk, two of the coolest people I know; listen and learn; after Kim had gone to bed, I made a few notes. Very bright people you know have an affinity for each other. That's what this was like. I went over to the porch step and rolled a smoke, to get out of the cross-fire and just listen. Read more...

Delivery Guy

It's too funny. My pate delivery route takes me down Upper Twin to the river road and people greet me with great claps of joy. Once down at the river road, rain not looking immediate, I decided to drive the 15 miles along the Ohio, and get a beer at the pub. I'd scarcely settled, watching my half-hour of ESPN, when Charlotte and Mark came in with Sara. They ask what I'm doing in town and I explain the delivery service, and Sara says she's sorry she wasn't on the list. I tell her not to worry, that I have an extra tub in the Jeep, and go and get it so she can sample. I ask Cory to get them some crackers. Cory takes a bite and declares it the best thing he's ever eaten, god love him, so I give him the rest of the tub. He buys me another beer. Sara asks me to join her for a cigaret after lunch, no one else smokes. We talked about Carter and American Realism. Between the two of us, we are the Carter archives, by dint of the museum's holdings. It's lovely, to sit outside, without any constraints of time, and discuss something that no one else cares about. On the way home I realized Kim was going to be here for two nights and a day, and I thought that we might just poke in the wrack with a stick. No one I'd rather poke in the wrack with. And the recent floods have left copious piles. . Then I go to Chautauqua. Then I harvest blackberries. Then I take off my shoes and get comfortable. I just tell stories, nothing magical about that. People have been telling stories for a long time, keeping the cave-mouth fire going, keeping the animals at bay. Tolkien's Beowulf is a piece of work, speaking of stories. I've always loved Old English, raw and expressive, and I love Seamus Heaney's great translation (year 2000), but this 1926 translation, by JRR (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien, which languished in a drawer for eighty years, is amazing. Guy Davenport recounts taking a course with him, in Anglo-Saxon, at the University of Kentucky. What a trip that must have been. Two of the greatest minds of the twentieth century pondering a specific text. It's just a trip to town, I don't append any particular meaning. Delivering milk before dawn, picking up empties by the door. Assigned tasks, what you do to feed your habit. Still, it makes you think.

You've gone away,
You've gone away,
You and that goddamn pick-up truck.

You took the dog,
the loose change
we kept in a jar.

I guess that means
this is over, fucking
in the hallway.

Maybe the last time, I hear a train, over in Kentucky, this year, and the lament strikes a chord. It's not that far, as the crow flies, but when the trees are fully leafed they muffle the sound. That lonesome whip-o-will. Read more...