"Stop leaving," someone told me.

N, gosh, I miss you. I hope yr Thanksgiving was as lush as ours here in the PDX. I stole a line from you: you sent me a message saying (almost) that you wished that I was doing what you were doing to you. I fucking love that. How reflexive! How beautifully mutilating! (Actually, that's kind of a good line too: beautiful/mutilate) So I stole it. Hope you don't mind!

I went to Arizona, the home of the Sidewalk Slammer, the Big Tempeasy. Seventy-five degrees, palm & cactus, the sun! O the sun! I thrive off of it. To know that a large part of my heart, my formation of my Self, the people I love the most, are there, though I probably will never dwell there again, is a daunting & positively startling reality. My trip shook me up a bit, in that it reinvigorated my desire for It All, for a true romance, knowledge, a thirst that can never be quenched, but the chase to be quenched is the glory, the romance. How reflexive! Just like yr beautiful line. I'll leave you to gargle this jumble of jumbo jargon. I love you, pal. I leave you, also, with a collection of words & lines that are not yet a poem, but I like the combinations of them. Perhaps we can talk more about it, and make a more comprehensive thought

Sweat piddle

Windy'd curtain

Stop leaving

Crumbs scrapes remain

Sing to a no not now

jejune sunrise

Crisp palm sway

Arms up up

above the globe

Stay me

Do the things I do to me

almost done

In the terrible of young life walked with tight fists, we must not look too hard but not, you say, hit too soft. You say our fingers kept tight also need kept ready, because it is angry, we must not look, you say, too far But see this tight flurry, swaying home with a fire in my head. I walk with measure, & talk with a great conviction.

D-

New poem is SC

new poem/hello

SUGAR IN the basement I am always seething I have cooking something sweet over a fire I'm ever stoking looks like sugar, tastes like meat AND in the night I am ever watchful I am the gun-man on your porch the guard of everything that's awful always drunk & out of sorts D-that Berryman reading I first heard with you and M near the 30th&Main house is still one of my favorites. Yr right, the songs have been difficult, re-reading always treats me different, but 14 stays. You like Brendan Behan? Been starting slowly, but rich in Irish history and a good drinker, give it a chance. Keep me updated on events coming up, a week or 2 if you can, so I can take the train down. I had sweet potatoe fries, avocado, & coffee. Love you much, N

New poem, no title yet

I, too, know

that whatever it is we are

supposed to be doing is not

whistling on the tops

of our bottles. I, too, know

there are commands we

have not heard.

I, too, know

that a lineage of fathers

have covered the ears

of ours with their

burly hands. I, too, know

that if we could hear, we

would be startled

almost to death.

It's Dream Song season

N, hope yr day is going well. The wind is blowing little orange scraps of trees called leaves all around the city. It is nearly 4pm & almost dark. Berryman's Dream Songs lie in my lap. I do not understand them today. His lexicon is bizarre, his form flippant. Yet, when I think of what a Poem is in my mind, my only answer is Berryman, to imitate him, to live his life. Song 14 may be my favorite poem of all time:

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.

After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,

we ourselves flash and yearn,

and moreover my mother told me as a boy

(repeatingly) 'Ever to confess you're bored

means you have no

Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no

inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

Peoples bore me,

literature bores, especially great literature,

Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes

as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.

And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag

and somehow a dog

has taken itself & its tail considerably away

into mountains or sea or sky, leaving

behind: me, wag.

Wow! It is one of the most transparent of all the Songs, but it can really be digested if you hear Berryman read it. YouTube has a video of him reading it. Check it out.

So here we have it. John Berryman, Paul Celan, John Ashbery. That's all we need. Me thinks.

I had ham & eggs for breakfast this morning.

xoxo

d

That's Why I Bring it Home

D! Sleep little is back in effect. Got 1/2 sick for a week or so. I'm looking at 4 or 7 hours a night. Thx for the books. Been listening to The Pogues 'Rum, Sodomy, & the Lash'. Goes well with the drinks. In a blind taste test you will find that Evan Williams is far superior to Jack Daniels. Wish you could attend the Catalyst art gallery this Saturday, will miss you. See you soon, N

I want to see yr morning face / I want to see all side of you

N,

I'm back! It's blog time, all the time! How's the Little Sleep coming along? I sleep a bunch one night a week; the rest, well, you know, is Straight Crushing.

I've been reading some interesting stuff which, despite yr school schedule, you should check out sometime. Three books: Dust by Arkadii Dragomushchenko, Literature and Cinematography by Viktor Shklovsky, and Silence by John Cage. They are all quite differing, but revolve around one central theme, that is how sound is organized to create signs, soon becoming plots, conflicts, and possibly clarity or conclusions. We, my friend, cannot take the concept of the organization of sound & its form lightly. All this is done to reveal something in the world in which we live. Some people call this Art.

We must also think of this in terms of music & of poetry (or formal literature or written word). We order words & notes/pitches/stresses for specific ends. I will leave you with that. To what ends are we striving for?

Music: I'm listening to Small Sins right now. Listen to the song "Prove Me Wrong."

K, I love you!

xoxo

d

feels good, looks better

Cha tonight, up late, up early. Taken a few weeks off at 25% sick, flu/cold/etc. Work has got me down, life otherwise is on the up&up. There is no way we are going to sleep between now and tomorrow, there is too much to do, and I can't sleep anymore this week. Paper due on Monday, but I'm not worried. 'In the night I am ever watchful I am the gun man on your porch the guard of everything thats awful always drunk and out of sorts' Loving you, N