ongoing thingie in blog format. id est, something I'm writing currently, present tense. probably will stick it on my site too, but later for that. for those who abhor the friendly pleading popups of my free site.

having met Christina Strong the other night, I can meetly advert her blog. need an influx of new blogs, as I may trim too. since she mentions my name the choice is a natural. I want busy bees on my blog roll. I won't trim David Hess's name from the list of blogs, but I suggest that he get cracking, postwise. I mean sure, a person can be 'too busy' or 'working on something big' or 'bored with blogging' or 'terribly sick' or 'suffering heroin withdrawal', yadda yadda. none of that stops me from posting, no matter how insipid. it's about quantity, not quality, and David for one should be sharp enough to understand that. anyway, adjustments perhaps.

fence 

beach grass 

daffodils doing hard time 

tree 

dawn with rosy fingers 

the morning after the night before, when my sullen abuse of the term sociable played before a largely new crowd, we automobiled ourselves towards NJ and the mother of Beth. such journeying explains the dearth of reports concerning my innermost, which no doubt set you all aback. but here follows the full report of our travels, or if not that, then a healthy selection of photos from oh maybe 600 taken. I'm most particularly fond of the shots in which I can remember or at least vaguely parse out why I took them. those pix go into my special category. but sooth to say, I mayn't be at this long, as 3 hours sleep doesn't seem to've brought Mr Sleepy Head much rest. a largely non-exciting ride down, except that Beth had to stop at Ikea in Connect-I-Cut, which served to throw us into NYC oh about rush hour of a monday pm. that took a while but New York looked pretty in the springtime glow, and nothing else slowed our journey. and really nothing much happened in Jersey by the great Atlantic. visits to the beach several times a day, some running, sketching, writing, eating. the most exciting thing I did was read again Alfred and Guinivere by James Schuyler. I'd liked it before but that was 30 years ago. I'd either forgotten or was too dumb to register how wonderful the book is. thanks to Jonathan Mayhew for mentioning it recently. I think now that it might be better than A Nest of Ninnies. NN is arch in a funny, lovingly pointless way. AG is simply a champion little novel. that it is brief is to its credit. seems like no off tones at all, nothing added for adding's sake. which is rare in novels. and I am a fan of the big bruisers of modern lit: Ulysses, Moby Dick, Remembrance of Things Past (I've only read Moncrief's translations, about which I have questions), etc. AG is succinct without being merely crisp. the humour is charming, especially Guinvere's letters and journals. Schuyler is so delicate and sly, like Twain at his best (points in Huck Finn). I'm too tired to extol properly now, so will only suggest that Bramholics line up behind copies of the book and read it up. I still like NN, but now see AG as mor complete. What's For Dinner? isn't in my library's network, so I haven't read it, but if I see it... Schuyler's diary awaits even now, which I look forward to. all else I read while away was a good deal of Maximus, some Whitman and some Jung. I guess I am ready to speak of yesterday's ride home. Beth, Erin and I decided it would be a good idea if we came home when every major artery in NJ was filled to the gills with traffic. a horrific crash of trucks very early yester morn resulted in the closing of the turnpike, so every alternate route enjoyed the benny of added traffic influx. and the good people, having gathered, followed their usual pursuits of the perfect tie up of traffic. the well timed crash here and there worked its magic. and all the while, we slyly in our ignorance chose to head towards Trenton and the point where Washington crossed the Delaware. that was lovely but we got a little confuzzled after leaving there so that we seemed to keep arriving in Trenton again and again. we also got the impression that Oldham Ave leads everywhere. once free from that loop, we found that all the likely routes our psychotically crummy map book offered were entropic. we reached a point where we stared at the map, knowing that the NJ Parkway, and 287, and 1 were all impossible, and no other lines on the map seemed to follow our intended direction. so we chose the Garden State Parkway which would've been real handy had we not opted to take a history lesson. which, again, was lovely. in Newark, I suppose, things started getting thick. apparently a lot of people live and work in NYC. 95 should've felt better, for that route passes just a few miles from home so it's got that local feel. but that local feel didn't make up for 10 mph progress. and too: in NJ, if you don't know, trained professionals must fill your tank with gas. the one who served us the day we arrived forgot to put the gas cap back on. that put a light on the dashboard into disconcerting warn mode, something about our emissions, it is trying to say. and plus furthermore, 8+ hours of idling kinda heated up the engine. nothing drastic in either case but kept us worrying. oh I didn't mench that while waiting at a light, someone bid us roll down the window to ask why we were in NJ. Beth said to see Washington's Crossing (being cagey about mentioning her mother). the guy said, glad you've come down here, it's nice to see Massachusetts people. I thought he was going to mention something about our gas cap, or maybe say choice words about Erin's Red Sox shirt. anyway, around 7pm we stopped at the Vince Lombardi service area, where you can read pearls of his wisdom if you need them while scarfing a Burger King burger. we ate and let the car cool. after that we inched toward the GW Bridge. at the last possible moment Beth executive decisioned us to rt 9 and/or Palisdes Parkway. we didn't know specifically where this would get us, but it at least let the car roar along at better than 10 mph. the engine felt better and it perked us up to go the speed limit. we zipped along to parts somewhat unknown, backtracked a scosh, noted that 9D runs parallel to the Hudson and must be wonderful in daylight. when we found good ole 84 we abandoned retro rockets and scooted. dog and cat apparently not maltreated by the girl who came in to feed them. so what did you do this past week?

Beth and I went to Christina Strong's to honour Tim Peterson, who goes to New York as part of a Boston/NYC cultural exchange program in which that city gets a bright, talented, generous poet and this one gets zilch. well, we won the World Series last year, the clinching of which Beth and I missed due to sports black out at the digs of this selfsame (there are those who call me...) Tim. no chance he'll turn Yankee fan, at least. we began by meeting Jack Kimball at his place in the vast spreaded confluence of houses and trees called the city of Newton. the place was gearing up for today's Marathon. roadside graves were already being dug for those runners who misjudge how hard running a marathon is. I rode with Jack, apparently to witness his crazy ass driving, but no one got completely killed so it was all good. Christina began the evening with a poem for Tim, funny and loving. Jack read 3 poems, including this one. Jack changed the you of the poem to Tim. it's a lovely poem, as I should've noted earlier. direct and loving, and funny, the poem shimmered around statements but stayed in feeling. Jack's a great reader. James Cook read a number of poems by himself, Jack Spicer (one of his baseball poems, necessitating an explanation for Tim's benefit as to what Baseball is), Allen Ginberg, Robert Creeley. a well wrought poetic excursion. myself read this poem, because it is a picture that I wanted Tim to have. my emotions are very close to the surface right now, and I was feeling this powerfully as I read. Tim asked me to read a little of this thing, a collaboration we did. the intention, Tim's, was to write the world's longest poetry blurb. I read up to the 1st mention of Britney Spear, then Tim read. Tim followed with several poems, narratives you might say, and quite nice. Sean Cole read a poem derived from a Boston police report, then he read the report itself. funny in the way O'Hara is funny, which is to say, light to the point of darkness. oh, I also read this short poem:

I have made a list of
things you can do
that will tell me that
you love me


I call it
a strategy
so you won't
lose hope


again, it was a piece with a feeling that I wanted to share with Tim. Ruth Lepson read a rhymey playful piece she wrote to Tim. Joel I can't recall his name (sorry) read a Herrick poem and a bit from Shakespeare, inserting Tim's name in both (Tim of Athens!!!), which was funny and very effecive. Mark Lamoureux did not read as he too leaves for the Apple and will have less opportunity to miss Tim. by an unusual coincidence (but was it really a coincidence???), everyone in attendence wore the same ball gown. of course at 1st we were all embarassed then we just laughed. Jack stirred up a consideration of our local heritage among those who've drifted to the area. come to the Bawston area and find you have Lowell and Olson and Plath and Creeley and Wiener and so forth to deal with in this weighty but of course way. I am much the localite, as I've lived all my years right here. Thoreau, Emerson and Hawthrone are heartily placed just down the road, a fact that carries something for me. one recalls that Olson was rather possessive of his Gloucester, as Vincent Ferrini found out (and O chid Ted Enslin for writing about kingfishers, a bird that O thought he had made his own). I talked quite a bit with James Cook, because he lives in Gloucester and is into Olson, who I simply love. for all that, I've never done an Olson tour, but it is on my list. I also like the idea of his throwing Olson and Spicer at his high school students. when I was in 10th grade, my English teacher did 2 things. 1) he dispatched with grammar in a matter of weeks, doing so in a way that (finally) made sense to me; and 2) he asked us what a poem was, with the ulteriour motive of freeing us from the plangent suggestions of our cultural heritage. it took me a year to start writing on my own, but this teacher was the only one who offered the hope of freedom, rather than the idea that form is rules. and so it all went, a pleasant evening. goodbye Tim.

the piece below is more experiment, or play. I took part of Nietzsche's Gotzen-Dammerung, German version that is, which must be Twilight of the Gods in regular language, and performed a spellcheck on it. then I fussed with the results. I rather like it, but mainly it's neat just to work outside the usual mode. this is another way to place meaning, that is meaning, secondary to structure. in using formal structures, whether it be regulated metre and rhyme scheme or Silliman's fibonnaci drill, one accepts the consequence that the form imparts. expected word order shifts, for instance, to fit rhyme and metre. applying to such forms, one can avoid some base intentions. the results still have to please. it's just a means of making.