Exciting Night

Must have been something I ate. I remember bits of dreams, sometimes, but about once a month I get one intact, a couple of pattern-dreams, perched on really bad scaffolding is one, and another always concerns being lost and walking endlessly. But last night this massive apocalyptic dream, everything, literally, falling apart, and me standing there, watching, flat affect, looking autistic. Woke up in a sweat. Never happened to me before. Get up early and fix a huge breakfast. I'm staff at the museum today, 1 to 5, but when it starts raining I head out, errands to run and then can read in a climate-controlled closed museum, a very good place to read. I sit in the Library for several hours, reading, go out back once an hour, watch the traffic and have a smoke. Beautiful Holly of the new tattoo drives by and flips a Queen Wave out her window, Howard is walking over from Covert's Furniture right then, says -who's that- -a waitress from the pub- I tell him -and the smartest of the lot-. I know that period should be inside the hyphen, but that's really not the way I read it. I do well with convention up to a certain point and then I completely lose it, a Deep South Democrat, Libertarian, Non-Religious but for the rituals I employ to actually write, person. One thing the dream was saying is that I'm don't do enough, I've got to keep after those weeds. I don't do much, but you have to remember, I don't make much money. Filthy lucre: don't make me quote Pound, XLV in The Cantos. One of my favorite poems, on the list of poems that I bookmark, so I don't have to search. It's a particularly good bookmark, I remember where it came from. There are hundreds of these Claymores, set about the house, set to explode memory; whenever I notice anything I mark it, habit, I might need to reference it again, and when I do remember, the floodgates open. What I thought I remembered. A spillway of useless knowledge or a vein of ore, I mine them equally. I'm what you might call an opportunistic miner, I tend toward the obvious, however counter-intuitive it might seem. However incorrect. Lord knows I was that yesterday, when I called D's attention to my side of the railing to watch the bobbing breasts of this bank employee. It's spring, I make no apology. Read more...

Record Growth

The conversation turned to kudzu. In Missip, on abandoned farms, it was rampant. The goats loved it. Introduced as cattle fodder because of very high protein, but it quickly grew up out of their reach. I'd drop trees that were covered with it and the goats would eat themselves silly. On the long driveway in to our place it was trying to cross the road (why did the kudzu cross the road?) and I could monitor growth, well over a foot a day. You could watch it grow, and those damned sweet gum trees, one of which, in front of the printshop, grew 16 feet in a year, poplar here, and sassafras give them a run. Young pines in Missip too, they were thick in some of the gullies. I was fond of bending them, saplings, to a specific angle (young trees, 4 inches) with a rope tied to a stake. Lasso the top (great fun) and pull them down, stand back with my pattern template and get a given batch the same, then use them for a bowed roof on a shed or barn, two years and I had 6 inch rafters. Built the pirogue on Cape Cod so I could scoot in on the tides, in a couple of inches of water, to some hidden and completely inaccessible places, transplanted blue mussels and oysters, did very well, harvesting mussels the next year and oysters the third. The spat are so small, a rock a foot square, couple of inches thick, would carry ten thousand. Which reminds me of that shallow fiord, wrong word, tidal inlet, on the Vineyard, McNamara's summer house, where I found an oyster bed that had not been harvested in 20 years. A bushel of singles in 15 minutes. Most people have never had all the oysters they thought they could eat, we made several people sick, too much of a good thing is possible. Thinking about my daughters and western Colorado, I've now been away longer than I was there. I was so sure I would die there, finish out my time. How things are constellated. Joking over cupcakes, saying good-bye to James, the volunteer, the best ever, the conversation drifts to relationships, and I realize the fact that I live alone sets me apart. Everyone wants to be in a relationship, even as they bitch about the mate, can't imagine not being in one. So I'm carrying that thought around, for the rest of the day, turning it this way and that. The way home, a few groceries, one frozen bag-o-shrimp but no one at the lake so I stop, walk over to the spillway. The beauty of this particular spot, and there's a picnic table there, is that you can't hear anything else unless it's very loud. It's a sound stage. Falling Water. It's a completely artificial construct, a man-made lake and a spillway, but it sounds just right. Like the Army Corp created a really good instrument. God bless them every one. I occasionally blow on a blade of grass and it makes a nice sound, mostly I fail at that too. I don't do reeds. You lick them or something worse, hold them on your tongue, I need another dictionary, I can make room, put the phone over there. When I achieve the ridge my work is done, I'm home, my work is done, I no longer compromise the most wayward thought, I specialize in wayward thoughts. Recursive. Listen to the mocking bird. Fucking Whippoorwill, jesus, man, they're killing me. Who could sleep with that din? I tried to run over three crows eating a squirrel but they flew, they're very good at what they do. Crow breast on toast, with gravy, ain't bad. What they thought they meant.

Tom

Listen, what you think I said
is probably right, concerned
salamanders or some other
reptile but what I really meant
was don't trust me.

I have to warn you, I'll lie. I'll say anything, I make things up. What you thought I meant. I make up mopping patterns. I'm not a threat, merely another crazy, bare that in mind.. I wouldn't trust me.

T. Read more...

Call Letters

Glenn has put me online, 'ridgeposts.blogspot.com' mostly because I can't add anyone to my list because I'm already virtual spam. We'll probably be expanding things. Of course we will, live free or die. You're assigned a thwart when you're born, from which to row, it's a combination of genetic shit and nurturing, maybe you play the piano, maybe it's soccer. There's a kinesthetic thing that happens, that might not be the word, or maybe I've misspelled the correct word, I know I don't mean kinetics. Whole day has been like that, trying to figure out what meant what. Several of you asked, and I feel delinquent in omitting detail: I use a Geer-Press Floor-Prince wringer and an 8 gallon Rubbermaid bucket on wheels for mopping. The main gallery is three bays, with columns, twenty foot bays, are, what, maybe 50 feet wide, I mop a 8 foot swath, and overlap, it goes without saying, overlap vertically too. You can't overlap too much. Smoking a cig on the sidewalk out the back door, waiting for D this morning, and I'm actually visualizing my mopping pattern. I went and got a jelly donut, from the lady that wears way too much makeup, thought I needed sugar. Wrong guess and it was a mess below the floodwall, we have to collect some pedestal stumps, we have things to display. All of you must see this show, Sara is keeping it open for two slots, stay at my house, I'll feed you dinner. I took a bag of really rancid pastries down for the ducks. I swear, there are times I could shoot a 59. I almost don't understand, then there's that ball lightning or whatever, a celestial event, something takes place, and I get it. What I thought I meant.

Tom

I took 'Mopping' under Grayson and he was the best, understood the chemistry of stains, used Club Soda a lot, and white vinegar, remember him sweeping his mop in that hook he used to sweep edges, a fucking grace note, elegant; I bow to his elegance, but he was a horny bastard. Would fuck the knot in a fence post if it was offered. Where's the point in that? Is everyone fucked up?. I think so. Had pause to think about this today, what was meant. But forgot what I was thinking about. Something. Read more...

Interiority

The Law Of Flat Surfaces had me buried. Up at dawn and I started right in. The new dictionaries needed a home on the Dictionary Table. I go through an 18 inch high pile of paper. Restack the other pile (I can live with one pile) as an all manuscript entity. A bag of stuff that needs shredding (one at the museum) and a large pile to recycle. On a roll I clean the table, set out the books that I use often, set the OED in a place where I only have to move one book to get to them. Webster's Second sets closed, the Lopez "Home Ground" on top of it, the two volumes of "Americanisms" on top of each other, the Random House, opened to the last word, spine again rested by opening onto "The Yale Shakespeare". So neat, so tidy. I put away twenty or thirty books. My system has gotten too chaotic. I need another bookcase, has to be in the second bedroom unless I clean out the studio, my store room, B's books are stored in there, but they only take up one wall, 25 boxes, and when he builds a library over at his place, they'll be room for even more expansion. Which will mean cleaning out the shed, which has been home, still is, to many different critters. If you need to clean out a shed, throw in a couple of firecrackers before you go in, critters all gone. Just scouted it out today, a fucking mess, need to do it, I've allowed the studio to become a tool room. Almost needs to be, for the hard-assed life-style where you never know what you're going to need, truthfully, the room is an insult to anyone not living alone in the woods, living on very little money, chainsaws, wrenches, boxes of bolts, cans of nails and screws, tools. Telling just how this room came to contain what it now contains is not my point, though it would be an interesting subject. FOUND, at the bottom of the pile, a piece of manuscript of mine I thought I had lost, when the computer fried and I was robbed. I read myself for hours today. It's pretty good, this rough draft I was working on, 5 or 6 years ago, I think I see what I was trying to do, now I just do it, work hard a different way and it's easier. Speaking of handles. Which Gary made sacred, as it should be.

"Tell Laura,
it was just a
scarlet tanager." Read more...

Bucket-Wringer

The Deputy looking through a catalog of cleaning and packing supplies was attracted to a bright yellow plastic Bucket-Wringer, I pointed out that our old metal one was fine by me and that I did the mopping. These little turf matters are always interesting. Waiting in D's office for him to him up a design project and pick up an old copy of Wooden Boat and there's a very good chart called, I love this, Percent Strength Reduction In A Beam Due To Knots. It was a good chart in terms of information but very elegant, took a while to learn to read it, but came away with the shocking information that a five and a half inch beam with a one to two inch knot near the center and in the center (not an edge knot) can reduce strength as much as 55%, 35% for an edge knot. Another thunder storm, no lightning, but I may have to go. Damn, wanted to write and this is the only way I can work anymore, on the screen, accreting mass. Leaves are inside out, dark early, stuff is growing at a frightening pace. Wrote that one book, "54 Views Of Lone Cone" using a tape recorder and nearly got arrested for rolling a cigaret when I pulled over to look up a word at a wide spot, in the unabridged I carried in the truck. But the transcription part was hell. I'm not even a decent typist and I'm easily distracted, which is fine, working this way. Distraction is my middle name. I get up twenty or thirty times, writing one of these paragraphs, and mumble incessantly. It's not pretty. I do things with my hands between words, flutter the fingers, playing notes on the air. I squirm. The seat of my writing chair is flaking, vinyl, need the orphan chair from the basement at the museum, it's Shit Brown, but not worn, and just like the one I have, vinyl over metal, pads on the arm-rests, uncomfortable seat. Explained to the Deputy today that I needed to be a little bit uncomfortable and maybe a little bit hungry, almost never dirty though, strangely. I often shave before I write, if I haven't that day, take a sponge bath. Go figure. I got up, just then, for another drink, rolled a smoke, then walking back over to my desk, sat down on my heels, asquat, and looked at the damned chair for several minutes, fifties modern, absolutely functional. Raining harder, might get me another day off though I need the hours to pay the bills. Still, I'd take the day off, given a choice. Which I may give, as is my nature. What's the word, benevolent, that might describe my position. I'm me after all, did any of you earn less than $13,300, as a Single Head Of Household, last year? Paying child support? I play this game close to the edge, I learned from a Tunisian, Janitor College, who could mop. He would sling his mop into corners, pulling back at just the right point, so that he kissed the baseboard. He was good, could have made the Big Leagues but he blew out his knee and ended up in Ironton, a back-up shortstop. I can't not invent, give me a clue. Significant information seems exchanged, what we thought we meant. Raining hard, I'd better go. Read more...

Holiday Storms

Weather alert. Storms arriving from the upper Mid-West tonight so I had to write early, hail and big winds, they're saying. Mahler on the radio and they interrupted with a warning. Ruined the symphony. I put the Bach Cello Suites on to erase the auditorial insult. African dominoes (or golf) is a slang term for shooting craps. I'd forgotten about calling 'shooters' (in marbles) agates. This new dictionary is wonderful, I really am just reading straight through which could take a while as it's a couple thousand pages, large pages, small type. Rereading Samuel Beckett's lovely little book on Proust "The artist is active, but negatively, shrinking from the nullity of extracircumferential phenomena, drawn in the the core of the eddy." Struck me strongely from several different directions. I had to take a walk. Watching the river so much this year, the swirl and eddy, the Wrack Show is all about eddies, what gets left behind when flood-waters recede, how the quote seemed to be exactly how I work, where these pieces come from, how my life is ordered. Something else I was reading, a quarterly review, don't remember which one, part of a line I remember, "...unexpected pausings and defeated climaxes...", an essay about Susan Glaspell I think. First thing this morning I rubbed and fried some pork loin chops, boneless and thin, five of them. Eat the first one with fried potatoes and shirred eggs with salsa, sour-dough toast. The second and third ones were really funny scenes. I only had this flattened loaf of sour-dough but I wanted a sandwich, so I cut a center slice in half, standard, but the chops are pretty large because I've flattened them, because I like to, to break the fibers, and I can cook them very fast that way, 4 minutes, so the meat over-hung the bread by an inch all around. They had been rubbed with a red chili mix and browned in butter and were wonderful but very messy. I ate them hunched over the island, reading out of the corner of my eye, trying to keep one hand clean to turn the pages. Life is difficult. The fourth and fifth ones I had with baked beans, the last of the last of the Colorado pintos that I 'doctored' as my dad would say, and a johnny cake, as I would call cornbread in a skillet on top of the stove. A fat tortilla. You got to have bread, or noodles, some green stuff you can learn about, kill a few animals, it happened everywhere. Suddenly you live in a town, buy bread, there's a blacksmith that makes hinges and a place you can buy lumber. The pressure is off, as long as you can make money, buy what's necessary, hire the sub-contractors to do what's necessary. I'd rather do everything myself, suffer the slings and arrows, and not go to town. I can project my needs, they're minimal, a place to sleep, I have a knife, I keep a sheet of plastic close. Read more...

Bath Ritual

Plenty of water from the recent rains so I fill the solar shower (five gallons) and put it on the bottom of the sheep-watering trough overturned in the morning. Mid-afternoon, after brush work, take the shower off, turn over the trough, dump the water and it's too hot. Add bath salts and agitate with a gallon of cool water. First outdoor bath of the season. Pull a kitchen chair close, shampoo, ashtray and a rolled smoke, an early drink, towel, a paperback Dashiell Hammett "Red Harvest" that I've only read a couple of times. Very still, with birds. The Piliated Woodpecker arrives and works the hickory tree. The Green Wall of summer is almost complete, I can't see my truck 150 feet down the driveway. Now, because of the work The Utah Kid did and shamed me into, the Wall starts 30 feet or more away; stage two of the firebreak is to keep all the brush cut so that grass will appear. This is a very cool thing, so fecund here that grass just appears, if you keep the brush cleared, like that in Missip too, but I had spent most of my life on sand or in western Colorado where grass was more problematic, if you wanted it, a lawn, for whatever reason. One of those moments with the sling-blade this morning. Caught a root (probably, not a rock) on a back-swing and knew I was going to hit my foot, managed to turn my foot out, so that I took the blow on the sole. When the neurons are firing time must be extended or something. How could I possibly have time to turn my foot? I did play baseball. As I think about it, I don't swing the blade very hard or fast, I know where it is, I had plenty of time. When I don't, and hurt myself, probably means I've slowed a notch, and shouldn't do that job that way anymore. Indicates. Strange phone conversation, I should never answer the phone, don't usually, but with my parents dying, certain days, I do, so I answered one today and knew I had a newbie in a different country, sounded Asian is all I could admit to, and I questioned him, about the weather, his family, what he ate, how it was cooked. I think he thought I was a spy. I was proud of my ability to bullshit, like an archer might be, or anybody that did anything, this makes no sense at all, but I was there, he saw the fucking woodpecker. Read more...

Different Fox

Came and got the apples. Maybe the male feeding her in the den. Female stays home until weaning. Remember starting to write a book, Cape Cod, winter, called "The Fox, The Girl, And The Honey" (a nice little Levi-Strauss triplet) and gave up the project because I was getting too abstract. Think I have the piece in a retired bookbag, maybe look for it tomorrow. Remember writing about the little white-phase fox on the ice. Wonder what I meant by 'too abstract'. The morning cutting brush, easy work sessions, inside, for equal amounts of time, drinking coffee and reading the wonderful Alphabetical Novel, great historical quotes, great cross references. I use a piece of card stock as a bookmark and note page numbers, a pencil dot on the page in question marks the spot, I'll print pages with key words and page numbers and put in the front of each volume, setting up a treasure hunt for myself. Need to rearrange the dictionary table and I have some problems. It's a six foot long thirty inch deep slab of sandstone on filing cabinets and it is large enough but I keep other things there too, the phones and books, and two piles of manuscripts and important stuff to be saved. Must eliminate the two piles and put in a shelf for the OED, maybe move The Yale Shakespeare, but I need it 10 or 12 times a year, and besides, use it to support the broken spine of The Random House Unabridged, which is the dictionary that is always open to the last word I looked up. The last time I was at B's, looking for the ashtray he keeps for guests, I noticed he had more dictionaries than I did, wow, I thought, what a ridge. Even with the power off, and Google too, we can look up almost anything. I got A Serbo-Croataion dictionary last week, at the Good-Will for 59 cents, I don't understand a word, but I like that I have it, you never know. Planning for the unperdictable is a challenge. But not one I shy from. Brash enough to imagine I might notch a 'save', count coup, put a feather in my cap (the subtext is triplets), or simply thinking ahead, talking about options, viewing the situation.

Country roads,
garbage mama,
take me home.

I have nothing against the memory of John Denver. Don't take that the wrong way. What I mean to say is that talent is never directly linked to success. I'm priviledged to read the best minds of my generation, blessed with a mind that can tell, usually, what is what, I think about things and look closely, it's a gift, ok, I try not to think about it, but it is, fucking gift, the universe, all that dark matter, what you meant. Read more...

Condition Report

Biggest headache on getting this Impressionism Show out, three weeks away, had been filling out the Condition Reports on all the paintings, but now a bigger headache, that we have to store the show for a month before the next place, State Gallery, in Columbus, can take it. They have no storage space and we have precious little. Clean and organize the big vault upstairs tomorrow, needs doing anyway. 63 paintings, might get half of them in the vault, probably close off one of the small galleries in the permanent collection. Logistics. 3.3 million in paintings, we can't just rent a storage shed. Remove hanging hardware, patch the walls, where the school show was. Can't remember the name of the blue paint on the wall we painted for the wine-tasting, need more, semi-gloss for the signage walls downstairs, the color of the day, D comes through, indicating cigaret break out back, I ask him, he doesn't remember either and we make up blue names for a few minutes, Utah Dawn, Whirlpool, Lover's Quarrel, Bad Sunglasses, Bruise, She Left, Dead Dog And Train, Suede Shoes, then D remembers, either Rain or Raindrop, probably Rain, have to ask the Deputy. Truck's in the shop, yes it's the lower ball joints, yes we can fix them, next week, $300, yes it's safe enough to drive, don't hit any big pot-holes and don't drive too fast. Thanks, I guess. Thank god it's trash day and I can clean the bathrooms, get the garbage out (12 stations), and mop. The Mop Master at Janitor College was a compact Hong Kong native, his politics were strange, as were the mantras he muttered as he executed a perfect six-foot herringbone with a 22 ounce cotton mop. His technique was as close to perfect as will ever exist, you wanted it to stay wet, so you could see the individual quills in every feathered stroke. I mop well, as good as I know, actually, but Dr, Tazi, was as far beyond me, as I am your average houseperson, the difference between amateur and professional. I do this for a living. So after the news about the truck, knowing I had dinner prepared, quitting time, I went below the floodwall, we need more stumps to use as pedestals. Interesting. There are people that fish for large catfish late at night, I see them rarely, but they leave a kind of camp, a set-up that I recognize: they find a stump, as seat, and a broken-off crotch to support the rod, they seem to drink and smoke a lot, and their seats are my pedestals. Who'd fucking eat a bottom feeder from this sewer? But I need their stumps. This sand-blasting thing could become important, what happens to the wood. I wish I had some control, but I don't. Read more...

Strange Day

Upset stomach. I'm sick so rarely that I don't recognize the symptoms until I barf in the kitchen sink. Maybe ate something bad, can't imagine what, the fact that I'll eat anything doesn't mean I'm not careful. Quiet time under the reading lamp, still, considering the nearly healed scratch on the right cornea, was probably not a good idea to read for eight hours, not only have a splitting headache but a panic attack about going blind. Headache partly because I forgot to eat because of the upset stomach, a hot moist cloth and a couple of Advil restore my sight, wonderful mid-afternoon meal of several rashers of bacon, fried polenta, three shirred eggs with enchilada sauce and salsa, half-a-loaf of toast. Get right back on that horse. I hold it down, and feel I've strangely lost a day. Didn't do anything that I intended to do, just played host to my body. Drank broth and read in Hakluyt's "English Voyages". Accomplished nothing outside a few cryptic notes that I can't read or don't make sense. I was thinking about what I wrote last night, I print a copy, usually, stack them to my right, as I face the screen, stage right, and often, as part of the routine, I read the last paragraph, posting, and wonder what I was thinking. Lila and I could never been paired. I found her morels suspect. Morals. Not that I was religious, but she crossed over several lines. Some Tantric Stuff you wouldn't believe, what was required. I'll never be that kind of slave again, unless something so bewitching came along, then I would be, sure, creature comforts are never to be diminished, a clean place to shave is a nice, a good, thing. Take every advantage. Soon, they'll be offering me a shower, and use of a washing machine. I'll retreat to a solar shower, wash off the dirt-of-the-day, something I'm secure about, from which I say what I do, whatever it is you think you hear, flip dirt from the cleats of my hiking boots. Read more...

Abutments

They've lost a lot of bridges hereabout, and as a consequence there are any number of old abutments visible from newer bridges. I love them, in their apparent solidity. B and D both share the passion, we point them out and squeal like kids, B is practically a docent, a tour guide of the massively concrete. D was over yesterday and we framed the Wrack Shed, a concise minimalist, or maybe post-minimalist structure, post, beamed and raftered with the absolute smallest number of pieces, just need purlings and the metal lid, maybe some bracing. We bolted the frame together and I need to add hurricane clips to hold the rafters down in high wind, always a consideration on the ridge top. Flying a roof on six posts is actually building a kite you don't want to fly. At Janitor College we used to raft the Upper Sabine to get under the bridge where the Interstate went over, talk about a set of abutments, which, of course, became shorthand for breasts, especially after Lila enrolled. Rich, attractive, petite, undergraduate degree from Sarah Lawrence, rebelling against super right-wing upper Westchester parents. What a trip she was. The first female sexual predator most of us had ever known. She regaled us with stories of large Polish sausages, cold Finns she had managed to thaw, a certain hot-spring in Colorado, where you could fuck in the outflow channel, rolling over and over, then throw yourself in the snow. She would occasionally walk into the common room at Clarence Hall and just point at one of the guys, turn around and walk out, he would follow. There was never laughter, at those times, just jealous glances. She was a good janitor too, wanted a job at MOMA, rise up through the ranks, become Artistic Director, thumb her nose at the parents, who flew out several times to try and lure her away, bless her heart, to no avail. She was also a reader, and my senior year, we got quite close (still in touch, she's at the Hermitage now), talked about books and life, and just often enough, we would make love, in exchange for my fixing her dinner, and collapse in a post-coital pile discussing probable questions on some final. Or the upcoming election, or whatever. We could talk. She was comfortable with me, and I don't know what this is, but most people are, comfortable with me. I think I don't threaten them, is what it is, because I'm generally non-threatening, mostly interested in getting food on the table and recording a few impressions. What I choose to remember, unless it's immediate, that Pileated Woodpecker that just flew into my sight, is subject to misremembering, what I think I remember. Still there is a core, a cord, of truth, in whatever I saw. I try to be specific, you know, genuine, authentic. Driving home today, a single crow buried itself in the tall grass, I guess they don't always appear in triplets, but I prefer them in threes. It's an abstract vector, but one I hold close to my heart. Where we simply go beyond. A golf-ball in the rough. A friend that builds funny hats. Listen, the Whippoorwills have already started, what are you going to pay attention to, the frogs and bats and flying squirrels, or the sound the wind makes in the trees? I get a mounded spoon-full of peanut butter and walk around, nothing makes any sense. Read more...

Jargon

Sections (of land) are numbered in a pattern that is boustrophedonic (turning like oxen pulling a plow, back and forth) but then surveying, generally, is arcane, rods and chains. I mean what kind of measurement is sixteen and a half feet, a rod, or 66 feet, a chain? Reading an essay on Installation Art, ran across the phrase "Post-Minimalist Procedural Candor" which dictates we see attachments and power cords. About which, as it happens, just recently, D and I had an argument. Your usual discussion between the Curator and the Janitor about what means what. Pretty sure I was correct about intent. Big windy day after morning rains, trees swinging through 40 degrees of arc. I hear a tree fall, NE of the house, down-slope, go out to investigate, a standing dead Chestnut Oak that broke off below the first branch and flattened the shinnery, took out the thicket, I'll need another path to harvest the firewood. Notice that I seasonally change the manner of my walk: if I need to be in the woods, late spring, summer, early fall, I walk with a heavy step, snakes are sensitive to vibration, whereas the rest of the year, and in my house, I tread lightly. Interesting, isn't it, that we know our own walk so well, that we can adjust for a new pair of shoes, thickness of sole. I have a habit of watching people walk, and when the light is right, you can clearly see there isn't much clearance between heel and ground. High-Heels are the Western equivalent to bound feet. At Janitor College we were a fairly Libertarian bunch, but one point of agreement was that High-Heels were the work of Satan, the pounds per square inch they brought to bear could destroy marble floors, hardwood was no barrier, they ate ceramic tiles for breakfast. The attraction, for whatever reason, is what happens to the lower leg muscles, it becomes sexy, and all is forgiven, that you can't walk, but the muscle definition is perfect. What constitutes perfect? In this case there are vague guidelines, what you like to see impressed over a general image, a kind of map, overlapping diagrams. It's information, you beat it in, one yolk at a time.

Tom

Listen, I'm not a simple guy, but I can pass,
talk the talk and walk the walk, the final
image for me, as we fade to black, is always
the next thing, where do we go from here? Read more...

Sling Blade

Yard work, equal sessions reading. Way too much coffee. Swales and swells. Sling blade slices through young green growth. Essays about the circus. Guy at Janitor College, from west Texas, called a thicket a shinnery. Whatever you call it I was in one today, getting a few last morels, don't know how I got in, but when I stood up I was surrounded by canes and vines. Down a north slope, beyond the graveyard, a kind of terrace there that might qualify as a hanging bog. I'd call it one, "a water-saturated terrace located partway up a wooded hillside." Not that I feel bad physically, but all day bothered by the notion of something and therefore set off on the day in an abstract vector. When cutting blackberry canes with a sling blade you must provide a good follow-through and hold the pose at the end of same until the canes fall to earth, if you swing back, as is the tendency, you stand the chance of raking the canes across yourself. I only made the mistake once but managed to scar a cornea, thus the morel hunt. I always carry clippers in the woods, so I managed to get out without tearing clothes. First rattlesnake of the season, coiled in the depression above some Blevins child in the graveyard. I stamp my feet going past him, he was slow and didn't move much, cold last night, reptiles up late, drinking around a bonfire, he seems hungover. Like me, but I'm not, so I cut him some slack, don't kill him and eat him and tan his hide. I hate snakes, I have to admit, not because I'm afraid they'll kill me, but because they have often shocked me, scared-me-in-the-moment, that sudden sinuous movement. I have a history with snakes, anyone who has lived in the woods for decades has a history with snakes, they're part of the landscape, like the fox and the chipmunk. Enough morels for an omelet and creamed on toast. Probably the last. I lick the plate. I like this, the way it plays out, the end game:

Three crows,
nothing unusual,
never mind. Read more...

Late

Waxing moon
late spring, cold,
the frogs are quiet.

Late spring,
waxing moon,
the frogs.

The frogs,
late spring,
waxing moon.

Plop. The wind and the water. What you hear. What you think you hear. The moon is just outside my writing window. I can almost see clearly but the trees are in the way, definition is lost in new leaves. What I think I see, an imagined crow on an imagined branch, nothing is what it seems. I wish I could talk about this with Harvey but he offed himself and deprived me of the chance. Life, it seems, is about the living, the dead are a footnote, steps along the way. Basho, at the end, 1694:

deepening autumn:
the man next door,
what does he do?

And a particular favorite, at the very end:

Written during illness

Ill on a journey:
my dreams roam (a)round
over withered fields.
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