Painting by Charles Burchfield

I love the way Argentinian composer Mauricio Kagel sampled a whining, panting dog in his composition, “Szenario.” The whole piece is quite curious, feeling as if I am on the verge of an explosion, but unable to go any further. I imagine that there are portals hiding in certain clouds, like Super Mario suddenly ‘bumping’ into something. Making something out of nothing. My lips are sealed, like frozen waterfalls. Time closes the lids on everthing; how you act within it all is what most matters. If a frozen waterfall is, indeed, frozen, wouldn’t it then be logical to call it “waterstill”? In the ‘60’s and ‘70’s (guesstimations for the ‘60’s, however; going by the words of former player, Joe Simpson), players would place cabbage leaves in their hats to keep them cool during the sweltering summer.

Where is the gentle floor for the hard-nosed drunk? Choices, reflecting a landscape of revolutionary-dishonesty. Mr. Bukowski, if the world had failed you, then your poems failed you, too. You relied on writing your miseries within your misery while your eyes were like a good pair of death. Some people search for vile rumors -- of stench-filled rancidness to plead with them, to show sympathy for them. Ambition, Chaplin-like, severs them, shakes them to the very core like a brain haemorrhage. The sting of a fracture roars like an earthquake. Gestures of landscapes. And to think that you, Buk, were always loved, like the earth gulping down heavenly rain. To this very day, people still relate to you; caricatures of you; as drunk as you, as filthy as you, as hungry as you, as loved as you. The biggest illusion of all is in the world, like how a flower will bloom to die.

A poet’s tongue is curved, words fill, overflow, what to reach for, what to take, the entire mouth like a river dam, flooded, these skinnable whispers. The poet’s tongue, yes, it is folded in multi-patterns, fish-patterns, silvery-sparkles in the sea-light, waves awaken, tropical storms, like a heartbeat, and if you say that you are not, you really are, and with shouts, with imbalance comes a friendly-wisping to come out with.

This, written after meeting Lesley Kerr on a warm summer day:

“We met for the first time / at The Hanging Couch, / and for as many miles apart as / it seemed to have traveled there, / I felt that there had always been a connection somewhere, like / roots hidden, like the up-gulp / of the plants that are jubilantly / erect from the ground. Whatever is / hidden is always followed with / more expectation of what exists; / with what keeps something energized, / mobilized, nothing at a rectangle, or / a wrecked-angle, or the shapelessness of words. Yes, at The Hanging Couch, / I was hanging all over your words. / I had actually thought of that / before we even met, as I sat there / on the sidewalk in front of the / beautiful antique shop, awaiting / for your arrival, as nervous as a / new-born puppy.”

Later, wrote:

“I guess if someone were really into me / I’d hear from ‘em like the wind through trees.”

Wrote this on Facebook once: “Greediness is a form of anti-happiness, and selfishness is a root that makes many things rot away. Sharing is such a great gift, and produces many great fruits along the way, truly. I always give things to people with the expectation of never getting it back, and that goes for borrowing, as well. It is quite amazing how you gain more from giving than you do from the want-want-want, me-me-me bug.”

A Lady With A Squirrel and A Starling,
by Hans Holbein the Younger (1526-28)