three thoughts before editing a long poem

If the mouth opens, and I – alone, usually in the small, portable container of the car – give myself over to voicing a text, speaking into some tension, speaking not to tie it up but to explore and penetrate it, the work itself – if followed closely, as a prayer, as the extinguishing of flames upon the skin – enters realms – with ease – dependant on close attention and cutting honesty – that the typed and printed page can rarely access. I call this practice soliloquy, in full deference and wonder at the genius Shakespeare turns it to. And I should add that these texts – spoken deliberately into the void, with no intent to record, even mentally their contents – are likewise full of such surprising turns, alternating between wide and narrow fields, focus switchbacking thru the underbrush. As always the vista is elusive, is so desired, is full of promise, is its revelatory letdown. No end. And yet, this saying is a something said, magnetic, urgent, enlivening. I follow it down to its dregs, where it might burst into giggles, howls, or groans.

Who is the brilliant writer I am reading? Emmanuel Hocquard. Emily Dickenson.

A friend was telling me today of her response to the oncoming end times. End times? She tells me its not just the Mayans, but Incans, cultures around the world. 2012? 2012. I tell her I know jack-diddley about the end times, but that, on the plane yesterday, I thought: how many more times will I be on one of these? Not taken for granted. Oil production is past peak, and 70% of Alaskan residents want to drill the Artic NWR. Put off the inevitable collapse. My friend, a shaman-in-training, noted how her philosophic friend dwelt in the inevitable horrors of suffering such cataclysms contain. For her part, she’s ready to bring it on – death and all. What choice? Continue the unsustainable present course? Which calls for correction? For her, it was his imagination which turns morbid at this thought. For her, it is a shedding – her knowledge is that we all die. Why does it matter how? Or so I heard her. Yet I also heard her say – less conscious people will die – yes, but less conscious of what? The Tibetans waved their magic charms at the British troops and Gurkhas, who shot bullets clean thru their skulls.

What did I see on the road last night? Upon its side, no trace of blood, a perfect red fox.

Given that we make this world with our actions, and our actions follow from our desires, and our consciousness discerns – or can – the course and source of our desires, I am going to begin writing these up in Word, and spellchecking. Bring in the editing. Already here, the dancing horses. And not leaving.

Hocquard Rides the Mechanical Bull:

Y finds X riding the bull sexy – X is riding the masculine brawn, and wonderfully.
X finds Y riding the bull sexy – Y is riding the feminine buck, and masterfully.

The mechanical bull is wild. The Joker (Hocquard). X and Y are relative positions. Masculine and feminine entwine. Arbitrary? Already entered, found, pre-existent, social. What holds as term? Sexy. Entwining: always a relation with a desired other. Between and among. A filling in of field – as it enters into charge.

A college scholarship basketball jock has moved in upstairs w/ his girlfriend. Imagine. Now we practice their noise. If the fucker – if they are fucker – just peed in the courtyard, they better be braced for trouble. 11:12PM – goodnight.

Caught the fucker mid-pee. I hope he wet his pants with his hasty exit zip up.