Yikes, more ants!

I too have been RE-READING MARÍA SABINA and am especially intrugued by both the manner in which she was granted authority via a visionary experience whereby the "principal ones" gave her a huge Book of Language from which all her authority originates, and this while functioning freely as a "woman of language"/poet within an ancient postmodern! culture and an oral tradition

and

the manner in which her role as poet functions within the community as a source of empowerment for that community.

Intrinsically, she as poet is needed and valued as a healer, and as such the community derives strength,

we might say,

from its poets, wherein a symbiotic relationship between community and poetry thrives.

This community acceptance of course undermines bureaucratic control factors - Sabina was arrested briefly for hallucinogenic mushroom distribution once she became "famous," though she did not travel to do this; rather, others traveled to her for guidance - as Plato and Laura Bush both feared - but I imagine it isn't unreasonable to assume the the US put pressure on the Federales to somehow do something about this woman who had acquired a reputation they couldn't abide.

And then there's the business about the book, an issue which Gordon Wasson examines in his retrospective essay citing a document "assembled by Hernando Ruiz de Alcarón in 1629" wherein "Nahuatl Wise Ones" also refer to a similar source of authority known as amoxtli, or "the hand painted Códices of the Nahua."

And here there is plenty of room for specualtion, in consideration of whatever or wherever authority might intervene, and that perhaps having both negative and positive characteristics, depending upon motives and the source of that authority, AKA, dreams and visions as opposed to government surveillance or simply, Bill Gates or Wal Mart.

Unfortunately, I am out of time, but it's all quite intriguing and more than simply a game of the intellect,

the example which Marí­a Sabina offers being something huge and which might serve to help us dismantle the current socio/political/economic structures by which today we are being systematically crushed.

Tomorrow we might make it otherwise.

ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo= ooo=

mute

ants

flat
u l
ant

ant

an ant rant

ent
r
ant

s

ants on the plant

ants

p
ant aft

err
ants

w/out

pant

s

ant gonna do it

ants

inst
ant

in
cyst

ant

ass

is

t
ant

ant
a tant
tant

antant

an

tant

anta

nt

a

ntant

ant as

ant
interested

intere

in
st
ant

Ed

the
ant

buoyant

5766

5767

5678

5679

ooo=

ants

ants

ants across the counter

boy

ants

¡buoy!

ant

we might be moving


engage the untrue          response


bodies burned beyond rrrrrp


                                burned




bodies

            bodies burned beyond rrrrrp

beyond r


e


cog recog

be

yond re


                           cognition

yet to be in

identified


from the crowds of the homeless           mostly though not

exculsively            consisting of men              or so it

appears


which might suggest            concealment

secrecy     should       the number

of women homeless


(talk to me of

                      incongruity


how did these bodies come to this

                          cold garage


curious headline         whereas the city moves

whereas the city vows           to crack

                            o crack


                  down         on pan

handling        has       this               anything

has


has this           anything to do with the dead             one

one                       male another female


                                                                     more

more grim statistics        relatives


relatives must be                  notified        what

what

               comes to the brother

                        the sister


the                population of bums

happen happened cold and then

colder            which appears perhaps

erroneously                 mostly male        strange


                     survivors

of some unknown wreckage

through the night

it's over

or maybe the morning -

passage concurrent

to a world

uncommitted – yet -

superimposed – one passage

resting over another –

time under motion – big

wheels crush this highway -

and that – random but

formless in

tent

"If you run a lootocracy, you have no concept of..." Paul Rogat Loeb

my computer keeps going home

in other words

it's not being cooperative

somehow a War Poetry Contest sounds kind of unethical
under the (any) circumstance(s)

things things things

everything you need to get a head in life!

(in case you don't already have one)

What's with Emerson, anyway? In "Self-Reliance" comes out with the admonition,

"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."

Iron? Brass perhaps, yes, or steel, which is more ductile, but iron is brittle; this is one of the main reasons steel was developed, to make hard swords which would hold a wicked edge.

And a side benefit is that steel has a much nicer ring, or vibration, in other words, and makes excellent guitar, fiddle or banjo strings.

Hit iron with a hammer repeatedly and watch it crack, an unlikely substance to resonate with a heart, unless one likes the militaristic overtones

of hardness, tough guys all.

"And now we are men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not for minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almightly effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark."

Can this guy's ideas be trusted? He almost sounds like an articulate GWB, or rather the other way around - but that's giving GWB far too much credit.

Of course I was shocked and saddened when I found out Walt Whitman wanted to annex the Yucatan peninsula for the good of the inhabitants and to bring them freedom and democracy.

Emerson's suspect. It's that perfect man business, or maybe he's simply a product of his time, but I remain suspicious for now.

My sister had her stomach pumped, and though it wasn't intentional on my part, I was at least partly responsible.

I was probably about 4.5 years old, and one morning after a nightly rain I stepped out on our back stoop to witness a yard covered with mushrooms. So I methodically picked them and placed them on the stoop.

While I was thus engaged, my 1.5 year old sister toddled out and ate them. I have no idea how many she ate, but about this time my mom came out to check up on us and went into a frenzied panic. She said something to me, grabbed my sister and ran across the backyard directly toward the hospital.

I guess it was close. I still remember most of this, though I won't vouch for accuracy.

Anyway, they came home after awhile and my mom told me my sister had her stomach pumped.

Other than that, nothing happened to her, though she still can't stand mushrooms of any kind.

I didn't feel very good about any of this, and I imagine that might have something to do with why I remember it all so vividly.

I have good neighbors and no major problems with
any of them. Nevertheless, sometimes minor conflicts
arise. For me, this has always had to do with dogs. This

morning at about 6:30 AM taking my dog up
to the local historical cemetery, I noticed one
of my neighbors had removed a tree next to

her driveway where the concrete had begun to
buckle. Since all of our houses are close enough to
hear stray bits of conversation when our windows

are open, it might arise that where precisely property
lines fall is not always evident. So I guess I shouldn't
have been surprised when I brought my dog again

to the graveyard this afternoon to find a curled piece of
paper tacked to another tree between the houses
where the other tree was removed yesterday. After

casting my dog loose to chase squirrels, I walked back
to read the paper, thinking it said something about a lost
animal. Instead it said, "Don't you dare touch this tree. Tom"

this house is heating up

I'm suffering from the discovery that I am hacking up the names of others. For anybody who might have noticed my ineptitude, I apologize, and please, let me know. I try to get back and fix these personal misspelled embarrassments, but sometimes I'm not quick.

I get the feeling maybe Allegrezza's really gone to Milwaukee.

couldn't manage to get anywhere near a computer yesterday

I picked up from Western Carolina University's library Anselm Hollo's Heavy Jars published by Toothpaste Press in 1977. It appears to be brand new, and I suspect that nobody has ever checked it out. It's in perfect condition with the exception of the library marks on the table of contents page, and ink stamp, "HUNTER LIBRARY WESTERN CAROLINA UNIVERSITY," as well as penciled in Library of Congress numbers. So too, it is rebound in plain brown cardboard though inside still retains the original cover. Anyway, mine is the first due date ever stamped, Sept. 1 '03. This happens a lot to me with books of poetry. I consider my library finds special, but I am often only the first or third person to do so in 20 years.

here follows a poem I especially like in this book:

in a tin can mirror

"she was a love child
he, a premeditated one

"theirs was a splendid house
color & form & sound
munificently swirling
whirling & twining
within & around, above & below
the flora & fauna of their lives"

well said, but not
what i wanted to say

the music is playing
the dog is sleeping
i am thinking
of one gone upstairs
& why i'm not there

because i am a stupid old fuckup, that's why

& there's this herd of cows
keeps mooing fiercely in my head

& that's a lie
& you know it

moo, moo, moo

"the hind end of a cow
not all that attractive to us
is bliss to her boyfriends"

same old jungle

same old machete

certainly, always, talking

Sure enough, that woman who said a couple of weeks ago that the dog days were ending and therefore so too for the rain seems to be right. While we do still get rain occasionally, it's not happening daily anymore; in fact, we haven't had any rain for several days now. I think it last rained on Friday afternoon, a real deluge. It's still moist around here though. It takes all day to dry clothes outside on the line, and some like jeans simply don't dry in one day.

But every day SOUNDS drier than the last.

trowie chill thicket


“he’ll trespass on his own dissolving bones, here”

		-Charles Olson-


this wind this revenant furor of wind

in field cut creek seething brew suctions

doesn’t she brood while smearing ice

flush snow seasonal thaw standing knoll

madam macadam chainsaw circuitous hatchet

blade sling timber hiss nigh fervid

night(s) corner horse quarter moon riven

dusk courser sluice darkness hope over

cast duplicitous crow found leading sleet

sun terminate rage nor that she foundred

mix and snow crackle ponder brake slightly

strike few step all wholly divers or white

she smites then th’head froward stun sinewy

bareback strum tone summit dare darkening pass


night of that strange beast taken and splayed

youth shouldered that steed through the bush

dread slowly of cold who stands anywise

mid sun and moon one woman two shadows

sleep glisten for thusly I spies

astonished come nature foe lowly dub

lyric bone overthrow fulsome mine bluster

mar bitter borne trail laid spindle depth

green church leafy weather ward access

midst eyeball senescent portraits

rode after and into the forest strut

fervor seem ponder cracked mirror drip

blue notes and warble dawn(s) angle whoop

rhapsode blur bounding one thorny crevasse

Ku Klux Klan member and white supremacist, David Duke, ran for president according to very similar notions of dis-integration, though I forget what year it was, 1988, perhaps?

In any case, the entire global social-political structure needs reimagining, and though I do think Heriberto's argument falls considerably short of what is really needed, he is correct to suggest that we who live in the US had best begin at home.

We have reached an obsolesence of nations. Mexico blends with the US, for instance, and the US shows improvements in many respects, but this is simplistic. The political lines between countries and as seen on maps are merely a product of simplistic imaginings, a failure of the enlightenment project. I propose we ignore these lines altogether.

quiting daily coffee intake results in a heavy sensation and I seem to have become narcoleptic

ö¿ø¿õ¿ô

The local minor league professional baseball team here is the Asheville Tourists, and this results in home games where the Tourists play against the Visitors.

dream of clock radio snoring
I heard it in my sleep

me too

some kind of computer time suck going on here

clump strew

Your dog starts barking in three days!

Coat Handler, Galaxy, Hydrosurge

some predictable cities - I've been in or through every one of them with the exception of Colorado Springs CO and Virginia Beach VA - must have to do with the doubling of the names, though that doesn't account for NY.

Oops, I've never been in Boston, though people I know seem to move there,

among others.

We just had a downpour, as usual.

Last week a woman told me, this is the last of the dog days, and since we've had rain every day for about two or more months, this means the rain will end. I've never quite understood the dog days and used to hear about them a lot more in Georgia than I usually do in the Carolina mountains. Nevertheless, I've never heard about them before in conjunction with whether it rains or not.

Still, we had three days in a row without rain, and those days seemed astounding in context. It was a subject of conversation around here, as if unbelieveable.

I suspect she is probably right though, despite today's brief cloudburst.

better than Darwin

We have a bumper sticker phenomena around here, and it says, "We Still Pray." This initiated a bumper sticker dispute of sorts, such as "We Still Play," "We Still Read," "We Still Chant," etc.

As usual, the "We Still Pray" crowd seems much more united and, well, dull than all the others.

Yesterday while driving along in the left lane passing slowpokes I saw a SUV grill in my mirror with one of those fish symbols, though this one was exceedingly large. Apparently, a Christian driver wanted me to go faster or get out of the way. At least that's the way it appeared. When I found a space to the right, I therefore got out of the way, not in need of a speeding ticket. In any case, I was speeding about as fast as I wanted to already and any more seemed excessive. So I let her pass and had the opportunity to read her bumper sticker:

1 cross + 3 nails = 4 GWB

otherwise I might be crushed entirely

I might just say to hell with the soul and be done with it, the future of the soul being so very much least interesting when it might be considered instead in terms of the present.

No longer a Catholic, and never much of one at that (even as a kid the teachings sounded to me like twaddle), I don't invest much effort into burdening my selfsame soul with the cumulative guilt of human trespasses upon one another.

When I was a kid, I did imagine the soul. Growing up Catholic encouraged these imaginings, and I pictured something about the size and the shape of a heart, but this was of course complicated by the mortal sin by which all were gripped. Even then, I thought this a little unfair. Even poor babies had black souls I thought of as something akin to a soggy & meaty charcoal. In my mind, the soul could be a nasty substance, at least according to the standards of the church, which I am unable to ever remember trusting.

Over and out, the kid needs to use the computer for his homework.

the soul remains mysterious, I imagine

This is incredibly interesting, and so too is Jean's response.

As far as I'm concerned, the body is where we are at, though all our intellectualizing has set up a dichotomy whereby the head glorifies itself at the expense of the body. Most of us have this problem, some more than others, and we run into it, for instance, everytime we resort to Western medicine and the vast array of "specialists." One specialist might treat a special problem in one part of the body whereupon another problem someplace else is triggered, and our entire apprehension of the world is tempered by this "me first" tendency (being so impressed by our brains). It's a terrible sort of narcissm we get caught up in while everything else goes to hell.

And thus we get people like GW Bush et al whose response to almost anything is simplistic and self-centered as opposed to complex.

It's enough to make one cry sometimes.

The world of blogs flies by. Now that I made another blog I see they even show characteristics related to age. I suppose this is fairly obvious, if one pokes around frequently in the assorted blogs, and yet now having two of my own has made this especially, or perhaps glaringly, apparent.

And now I feel torn somewhat between the two, which seems kind of stupid. After all, they are only blogs.

I never did get hatstuck to appear as I would have preferred, but I got used to its ragged look, and really decided that the look gave it a kind of character. And here I am, talking about it in the past while still feeling much the same way about it in the present.

And I never know when Monica is going to pop up, which is very cool. I like surprises.

So onward with hatstuck, but what to do with the other?

I'll have to think on it.

I'm over here

Once an old fellow gave me a rutabaga larger than my head. My head seems to be on the small side, but nobody has ever mentioned that they notice this discrepancy. In any case, I'm only reminded of my thin head when I try on hats; otherwise, I never notice. Despite the diminutive dimensions of my noggin, that rutabaga was the largest one I've ever seen, and at the time, I had no idea as to what to do with it. Rutabagas are hard too. I wouldn't want to drop one larger than my head on my foot, and I would never kick one either. You'd have to be nuts to kick a rutabaga, nuts.

I spy some severely stricken words and phrases.

My dog is the fastest foot-shoveler I've ever seen. She goes down a hole and out flies the dirt in a stream.

A kind of funny dog, light reddish brown and Malamute-like in build, heavy fur, head ruff and a tail curled over the hips, came into my yard this morning. My dog went nuts barking, as she usually does when another dog steps into our yard. The funny thing about this sled dog was that it was tiny, about half the size of my homicidal rodent eliminating but otherwise very friendly to people cats and most other dogs 22 pound terrier. I thought it was a puppy but no, my neighbor Moe said, it's eight years old.

I told him I need about 100 of these tiny dogs to pull me on a sled across the snow this upcoming winter.

Mush!

From Don Byrd's A Poetics of the Common Knowledge (I'll have to forge links later; this office computer is having problems making connections):

Irrationality is rife; we need only to recognize it for what it is. If there is knowledge, it is available to all; that is what we mean by knowledge.

tube money, travel or

have tube money will

travel suction pace

place


shut the door


that transition sucked

sucking money, placed

placing shut sucker

sucking tube money mister


tube mister

mister man mister

mister man with an attitude

mister money


mister get up and go

mister money tube

he goes out driving ass

mister ass


mister ass backward

ass backward racing

along kerpunk plunk

somewhat  the hell


hell shot wherefore hit fire

pop spoken moment

turn at the report

face and took turns again


two hand touch

into the wall and gone


gun gone gounne gunne

gowne gune gon(e gonne

goon(ne gown gun


no knot duplicity

no

not


know knot


quay


bullet being particulate more

bang for the buck

riddle riddle

hriddel


hriddeld o coarsen


sieve


redels ridel rædelse

rædan rayd rea d


let’s play name the old man

can’t dance say for mine tube

soul basilica bell chime nine and

bicycle into a bluster ear shot


my first memory is one of corrosion

From Matt Bivens on President Cry-Baby and this, (our shrinking federal govt):

on the megalomania of the Texas GOP noted that the Bush presidential campaign in 2000 was notorious for accepting cheap rides on corporate jets, and suggested candidate Bush "probably will behave just as badly in 2004." As alert reader Norman Scott points out, we can dispense with the "probably": Vice President Dick Cheney, who like the president is in the midst of a month-long (!) vacation, flew this week to a Wyoming fund-raiser accompanied by two military Blackhawk helicopters, two Air Force-operated luxury jets, and also the Air Force's largest transport, a C-17, which was in turn loaded with five Secret Service vehicles. Cheney mobilized all of this hardware solely to attend a reception at the remote ranch of multimillionaire Tom O'Gara, who made his fortune selling armored military and civilian vehicles. The event raised $175,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaign. And it's all profit, because the cost of the massive vice presidential entourage for this campaign stop is billed to you and me, the taxpayers.

This book by John Braine, Room at the Top, a book with a bullet, if one considers the hyperbole all over the cover, both inside and out, shows evidence, in any case, of having perhaps manifested a certain preference for, um, well, consider the following passage...

"I'm all twisted," she said. "This is a horribly moral kind of car."

We'll go outside," I said hoarsely. She kissed my hands. "They're beautiful," she said. "Big and red and brutal... Will you keep me warm?"

I remember those words especially.

which might suggest a certain ruthless pride in a form more primitive, more primeval and bleak.

in time imturnable

        inter

        interm

        interminable


stuck          I wait

in the  interim


shadow beyond a sun struck

floor surrounded

by glass for behind

me are windows as


well as before 

and beyond          the unceasing

traffic


of a city           terra

cotta pots on either

side of an automatic double

door hold indent

          indentical

          identical


identical dwarf


spruce

"G. my friend got beaten up by US Army last night"

cleave          perhaps

     the separatists              angry

about        some        project




that           perhaps

           men disappear

                   don't call danger danger

say strange stretching




prioritize but




                        the swimmers who

want to become

                                machinery

            motorboat

strokes




obviating the limitations            of




           cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo




the cuckoo is the first to breed




      nine unnamed days equal one weakened

In the furrow of arrogance the cages rock,

Whenever I go out to Camp Rockmont, I try to visualize Charles Olson getting punched by a local fisherman over by the dam and as depicted in Tom Clark's bio, Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet’s Life. It's not that I have anything against Olson, but I just wonder where his arrogance in this circumstance originated. Why didn't he get out a fishing pole, for instance, and get to know the locals better in the process, as opposed to condescending to the nabobs?

running red lights and speeding while composing haiku

I like the way my current banner ads encourage drivers to break the law, though I might not want to be on the road while such drivers are up to their shenanegans.

Readings always add a dimension to text otherwise lacking when the author's voice has never been heard, and this even when the text is already transferring a residual power. In my own case, I'm thankful for having had the opportunity to have heard many poets read, but most especially in the last several years here in Asheville, Eileen Myles, Lee Ann Brown, and Lisa Jarnot. Anyway, having heard them brings a greater dimension to their work when I now encounter it as text, as I am now able to recall their voices and presence, and accordingly I even more readily seek out and read what they've written. It's like I just can't get enough.

And so it happened that I was reading Lisa Jarnot where I could find her work online after having heard her for the first and only time, and Lee Ann Brown for the second, last winter out in the former dining room of Black Mountain College (now known as Camp Rockmont), when I came across her "Pigeon Collage" and then proceeded to write several variations or adaptations or whatever they are. This activity on my part, I suppose, might have been triggered by my finding out about Pom² at this same Black Mountain recall event, since this is exactly the kind of appropriation the editors of this publication encourage, and seeing that I know Ethan Fugate as well (used to live around here), and he happened to be at this event as one of the organizers and one of three editors of Pom².

In any case, here's one of those:

Pig College

Savage unlit behest
of the bin-driven swine
enliven fly squeal and hog

spirit swill nigh
haphazard brood sow
raindrops and farmers and sty

walk and don’t waddle
smudge moonlit rib rack
tandem chop clacker and tusk

puddle blunt staple rut
back scratching red maple
echo arc autumn and moan

bog this reminder
big flight bayonet
barrelling into the brain

slack lasso neck porker toast
bacon stake couple three
belly swell bile and thrust

After writing several of these, I wondered what to do with them, wondered what the hell I was doing, and have been sitting on them since, and I suppose this blog is as good a place as any where they might briefly flash into the light before once again fading. They never hold still anyway, as each time I see them they undergo another change.

the square shouldered Geelap roars
walked all the way from Gimlibet
skeels cornfab suff uh gogo
droll frm nt ld nglsh most
ax I dental connection
gun and

se Þe soð and riht fremeð on folce
chalice initiate sleeve eyelest tureen
barrel oblivion veer incident squint

comes asking improbable quotations by
roadside the some cars of wherein get eaten

popped out of bed this morning at 2:30 AM to go to work
got the coffee going and turned on the radio and tried to
achieve a functioning level of awareness, cleaned out the
thermos and filled it, sat down with a hot cup and watched
the cat rub its head on my ankles, the radio played garbage
and then suddenly switched to

a 30 minute radio play collaboration by John Cage and Kenneth Patchen

The City Wears a Slouch Hat from which comes the following:

(lots of rhythmic pot banging and traffic noises interspersed with dialogue)

--But, what use is it?
--What use is it! Did you ever hear a machine laugh before?
--No, I suppose not...

I just returned from the tailgate market. Every Saturday at 7:45 AM I strap a wooden crate with bungee cords onto the rear rack of my bicycle and, barring downpour, I pedal on up the road for fresh vegetables. This begins about May and continues through the end of October, and I always return with a hefty load. This morning I picked up a large fennel bulb and some purple dandelion greens which I intend to use in a white bean soup tonight. The only chore I don’t like about all this is trying to fit everything into the refrigerator. Otherwise, it’s a great opportunity to go say hello to people I don’t see often, to stand around and chat, to taste samples of apples, pick up fresh basil, etc.

Some junk comes in the mail, this time from The Library of America trying to get me to subscribe to receive a series of books "not available from any other publisher,"

and as if Walt Whitman is in need of Harold Bloom as editor to a Selected,
and as opposed perhaps to the other way around.

I guess these are books for those too lazy to go out and find books for themselves,
taking all the fun out of it, and bleeding the life out of poetry in the process of such blatant commodification,

and yet another instance of that mindless shoveling as depicted so well by Creeley's "Supper."

Johnny Winter singing Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm":

I'm loading that cotton in eleven foot sack
I'm aloadin that cotton in a leven foot sack
I'm aloadin that cotton in a leven foot sack
got a twelve guage shotgun at my back

our daily whether forecast: possible
thunderstorms with a flashflood
watch this afternoon and evening

I think he ought to at least color in the irides of those penetrating eyeballs. That would look cool.

guess I'll look at Silliman's big face again
see what he has to say

might be a fun little toy though

it looks like work

and why shouldn't they?

no one I know is near you either or

kind of looks like a rash

I picked up Ronald Johnson's The Shrubberies as well a couple of months ago and have been equally amazed, and this especially by what I think of as light. Cracking the covers of this book is nearly blinding, though the brilliance is tempered here and there by shadows and darkness. Let's see if I can locate an example, ah!

squirrels chase butterflies
in branched perpendiculars
the bird-baths are full
reflecting piled-up cumulus

a slither of scarlet & black
goldfish snap for crumbs
the sound of Mower himself
all afternoons surround

This book contains innumerable such gems, for as each page does contain a jewel-like poem, finely chiseled, apparently simple yet complex, and this poem sets us up for the kill from the very first line, though it isn't so evident on an initial reading. Even when the "piled-up cumulus arrives," it seems a commonplace detail, familiar as opposed to threatening, though as the poem continues into the concluding stanza with the (wickedly) exquisite opening line, "a slither of scarlet & black," chinks in the idyll of light allow beams of darkness to penetrate, and then we hear the grim reaper himself, buzzing down the street with his Big Lawnmower. So too, as the "goldfish snap for crumbs" (greedily!), I shall be food for the worm. The sounds alone in this poem guarantee it.

that's known as eye contact

Whoa! a big face!

wonder if Bill has any new Bunny translations?

here we are again

I was driving the car, my son in the passenger seat, and we pulled up to a red light at a five-way intersection. We were sitting there talking about the traffic and pedestrians, as we always do at that particular intersection, calmly awaiting our turn, when a green triangular beetle flew in the passenger window and landed on my knee. I gently picked it off and tossed it out my driver side window. It torpedoed along for about five feet and then suddenly popped out the wings from under its hatch and began to fly. We watched it circle wide around the front of the car and head once again toward the passenger window only to veer off at the last minute. We even briefly discussed whether it was coming back in or not. When I looked up at the traffic light it was turning red again.

Henry's right about that squawkbox.tv so many seem to be adding to their blogs; it makes the page appear cluttered. Are there any better alternatives out there?

I almost deleted this blog one day driven by impulse, much in the same way as it began on a whim.

and strange seemings as well, I feel as if I've only been attending to this blog for a couple of weeks, yet today marks the 2nd month-

more on strange eating habits (continued)

never mind cancels his check
points, one skewered by I

was just thinking, another
by wonder yet frayed whether

habitat absent, hollow
tomorrows and happenstance

thrashed, jello mold ditty
flip sentiment's wrist, an

appeal punctilious musters ahem
thus deploying god willing one

harlequin aging, an alphabet
suit, mayonnaise helmets on

brash kangaroos, neon if only yet
nosing this plunder for uncertain ums

I think I've discovered the shoe thief.

It seemed a guy was spied lurking around an empty house at the end of our short street, and I went by to talk to him this morning after spotting him just after dawn. He looked paranoid and hungry, so I brought him a bunch of bananas. It turned out he's a woman with some psychological problems who's squatting on the porch of this empty house, concealed as it his by heavy shrubbery.

I squatted down and talked to her for about ten minutes. It's hard to tell how old she is, but I guess she's about 30, and she behaves as if she's used to being pushed around. She was wearing a pair of shoes which look exactly like the ones I had which were stolen, and otherwise about all I learned is that her name is Denise, she is homeless, and she has a bicycle.

After talking to her, anger is impossible. My shoes, after all, are not all that important, and even if she is the thief, she's the one who is in danger, and now I'm worried about her instead. Her shirt is ripped wide open so that her breast and ribcage is exposed, and she seems almost totally defenseless. At least it's warm outside.

Otherwise, we live in a world which keeps people like Denise on the run. Under the circumstances, she seems disturbed to the extent that it would be difficult for her to hold a job, though of course, ten minutes isn't enough to properly judge her capabilities.

I don't know what else to do, but I do intend to go back to offer her a shirt and find out what else she might need such as a blanket. The bananas won't get her very far.

gun fishing

stupid dog link

just what I and my dog need...

Asheville city cops caught in a revealing email exchange...

I'll have to get to the María Sabina book sometime in this upcoming week.

In the meantime, here's the crucial info:

María Sabina: Her Life and Chants written by Álvaro Estrada
translation and commentaries by Henry Munn
with a retrospective essay by R. Gordon Wasson
preface by Jerome Rothenberg

Ross-Erikson Inc., Publishers, Santa Barbara
Translation copyright: 1981 by Henry Munn

ISBN 0-915520-32-8
ISBN 0-915520-32-X (paperback)

Apparently, Álvaro Estrada was from the same village as María Sabina. She spoke very little Spanish, and though Estrada wrote the book in Spanish, it is, in effect, a translation from Sabina's Mazatec dialect. So the book I have is twice removed. Well, maybe it's actually three times removed, since Sabina's words are taken out of the context of her oral tradition and placed into a book.

In any case, our neighborhood thief has struck two weeks in a row, and I feel too distracted by this to want to deal with blogging or making links to all the above mentioned people, or comment on the book etc etc, though I want to.

It's just going to have to wait.

Someone stole my Birkenstocks off the beach last month. The soles were dead and the cork was crappy and I hope that bitch had fat feet. Who wants a rotted pair of 41 narrow sandals???

I haven't been able to figure out why the bold option always comes out grey on this blog.

))))not to mention that they were soaked((((

GRRRRR...someone swiped my running
shoes right off the porch last night, the
idiot left the inserts, and the bottoms
were peeling apart anyway, but damn

I actually tried a pink page early on with this blog, and though I liked the way it appeared, it wasn't easy on the eye. I've even worried about the grey background, especially after reading Kasey's post on dark backgrounds. When was that, a week or two ago?

Anyway, I'm not entirely satisfied with the look of this blog either, but I haven't located a template option which appeals enough to go to the trouble to swap. I haven't been able to figure out where other bloggers found or find their templates, and the free blogger options seem severely limited.

So too, I want to add more links, which I suppose I could be doing right now, and have been tempted to go copy somebody else's links, but feel kind of idealistic about that option not being very "personal." So instead I keep telling myself, "no time for that now," since adding links is less glamorous or fun than simply posting, with the exception of course, of Kasey's links.

Our cat in the hat is so cool snarling, Monica, that I like to go and admire it also.

(Thanks for the color codes, Jean)

maltodextrin

Did this link?

It does now. Can't wait to run out and get some of those chips!

Yeah I like it better. It's very 80's now (except the grey). I think my problem is that bold doesn't show up on grey.

malodextrin seems popular
does this mean "bad sugar"?

the trouble here is I've several color patches of grey which involve lots of trial and error, since I really don't know what I am doing with designing appearances

Monica,
this (I hope) might be considered an easier compromise?
Sieve

Steed,

I really feel this blog isn't pretty enough (serious complaint).

Can it be pink (serious? but doubting the possiblity)?

All the ingredients listed on a 1 oz. bag of TGI Friday's Potato Skin Snack Chips in Cheddar-Bacon: Can anyone explain which chemical signifies bacon (as bacon itself is absent from the list?)

Vegtable Oil (Corn Oil and/or Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cottonseed Oils with TBHQ to Preserve Freshness), Guiseley Sandstone, Dehydrated Potatoes, Potato Starch, Corn, Sugar, Salt, Cheese Powder (Cheddar and Blue Cheese (Cultured Pasteurized Milk, Salt Enzymes), Whey, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Malodextrin, Salt, Disodium Phosphate, Nonfat Milk, Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Lactic Acid)), Malodextrin, Potassium Chloride, Monosodium Glutamate, Buttermilk Solids, Mono and Diglycerides, Dextrose, Butter Solids, Artificial Colors (Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Red 40, Blue 1, Extractives of Tumeric and Annatto), Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Dehydrated Onion, Yeast Extract, Molasses Powder (Molasses Syrup), Dried Sour Cream (Nonfat Milk, Cultures), Natural Flavor, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate, Malic Acid, Artificial Flavor.

I'm calling this thing stuck-hat from here on out.

Haiku 2

In reference to my
proud new haiku, suit / tie said,
"Five, Seven, and Huh?"

Water Cooler Haiku

In reference to the
water cooler, suit / tie said,
"Let a dude do it."

Hayaknu 2

Moldy
basment office
(private): makes poems

Hayaknu

Still
at work,
paid for blogging

I think I did it backwards. A girl has got to try.

take on great weight

and small words

I love how blogs let you post small passages

variations might include whole garlic cloves and rosemary branches instead of thyme, small whole potatoes such as yellow finn, red, fingerling varieties, etc, rutabaga (naturally), burdock root (sometimes known as gobo), oh, I don't know, I eat this a lot during the cooler season, whatever's on hand, especially those underground items, quartered onion, whole shallots!, mmmm... haven't had the fennel in this before, but will be sure to do so next time around

Rat Cortege
(an adaptation after Lisa Jarnot's Pigeon Collage)

Savage covert
planet bin leaden
an activist rat and a
rat a tat tat

spit distant stray
fraudulent rat
mist squabble raunch star
vagrant surge starry splat

big bronco big bigger
yea big bushy brat
barrel broad yokel
wit clamber and flat

tootsie don’t scatter
rats trample mine hat
spit swindle seek orbit
a standoff combat

a laser beam wager
like this but for that
here it’ll take
a couple three cat

publish

it cannot seem to complete a simple task

blogger is giving me grief today

When I went back to dig through my book boxes a couple of days ago in search of Maria Sabina: Her Life and Chants, I found a bunch of other books also, as might be expected from such a lousy arrangement.

One of these happens to be Room at the Top, a book written some guy I've never heard of called John Braine. A google search, however, implies that he's a well-known author from the UK, and he's even published another book entitled, How to Write a Novel, not to mention a whole list of other stuff.

I'm not sure how I got this book, and I haven't read it, though I started it a couple of days ago and have now reached page 10. Apparently (from the blurbs), it's about a ruthless young man, and there are several superimposed ink drawings on the cover which serve to reinforce this impression, a head shot of a man sneering derisively, left eye perhaps blackened, a woman in a low-cut dress in a pose reminiscent of Rodin's The Thinker, yet showing some lower leg (first printing, 1958) and clutching instead her head, fingers tangled in her disheveled hair, obviously distraught. And then on the back, this:

ON
THE
MAKE
This is the story of Joe Lampton, a charming opportunist who schemes and elbows his way to the top. Hot-tempered and coldly calculating, he's out for all he can get--power, money...love.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll finish this book or not, but I thought I'd mention it primarily because of the first paragraph:

I came to Warley on a wet September morning with the sky the grey of Guiseley sandstone. I was alone in the compartment. I remember saying to myself: No more zombies, Joe, no more zombies.

And this caught my attention, because I had been thinking of zombies after peeping at Kasey's zombie blog, and thus too about Wade Davis' book The Serpent and the Rainbow, recounting how he discovered what zombies are and how they are "made," and which I've read twice. I guess Bob Corbett's assertion that Davis kind of presents himself as an Indiana Jones type of guy might be accurate, though Corbett admits that "the book is certainly informative, interesting, and well written..[and] should be read by any students of Haiti." Well, it'd also be highly interesting to those who are discussing zombies. It's all very fascinating, and I'd recommend Davis' book to anybody who is not only interested in zombies, but poetry as well, since voodoo and poetry spring, I suspect, from a similar acuitive font, subject in any case to infinite variation.

I'm really traveling here. If this were a basketball game, the whistle would have blown, but it's not a basketball game, so I'll just push on toward the highlands of southern Mexico...

and Maria Sabina, but for now I've got to push the pause button.