Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

poem factory....like a vision....love the story, thanks for sharing

Thx, Wireman, - memory came up, got written down - being up here on the Plateau does things to ya - at the moment i'm being snowed in - the Ghost of the Susquehanna says if i want something to eat i'm gonna have to fix it myself so here i go

snowed in in the modern world
of continuous electricity and water
and inside bathroom with a flush
ain't like my great great granddaddy

I've got it made, listening to music....granddaddy had to make his, string up the fiddle and let them fingers fly, the food was frozen in a locker under the floor, the lights needed kerosene, and when you were out of fuel you were out of light, save for a candle or two while you had em, or the fireplace when you had enough dry stuff to burn, but it got damn cold in the Shenandoah Valley...up around New Hope....hope was important, and faith and determination and grit, and never feeling sorry for yourself... ha...my suffering is not being able to get the Hyundai out or my Econoline van....not being able to go to the Safeway store....there wasn't any safe way back when...it was all a crap shoot, a little planning and a lot of luck, and you prayed the horse didn't die, 'cuz it was a long ass walk to the next house that might be worse off than you

i try to keep in all in perspective
not believe how bad the news tells me it is for me
I'm a candy ass comparatively speaking
I'm typing a poem on an electronic screen drinking some hot coffee

oh, the suffering

looking down the years
like the barrel of a gun
shoot em for they run

....imaginings imagination, shotgun on a magic carpet ride.....steppenwolf the movie was quite interesting with max von sydow in the role of Harry.....me way past fifty now....years flying by, mas rapido...my oh my this crab soup sure is good....120 years from now will our grandkids think we had a rough time of it.....man this soup is good....back to the grind manana, time to jump in the cold and snow....but i'm ready....enoughs/enough....

hot soup comfort
time for the return
hockey on the tube

citizens are freaking
their street hasn't been plowed
even though they know we have help from many states
and are working around the clock

c'mon people use yer noodle, biggest storm on record, and yer crying cause it's been 3 or 4 days and you haven't seen a plow, damn that's crazy talk, this would be a good time to meditate, this would be a good time to practice patience, enjoy the down time, get to know your family members that are normally buzzing all over town, because they can...not because they necessarily need to be anywhere, the mall is calling...chill baby....it will still be there when the roads get better, take some tranquilizers, put a few quaaludes in your coffee and go back to bed....

wait for the sun
wait for the temps to rise
give the mayor a break
snowmageddon in 2010 took 17 days to clear

get some perspective brothers and sisters

6:30 a.m. - Went outside to take a leak - sky clear - could see the moon and the morning star - walked across the lawn to see the river, to see how much it had risen overnight from yesterday's rain - ( she's way way UP ) was just about to turn away and head back inside - (wearing t-shirt ) when ripples caught my attention across the river in the shadows - hard to make out at first with light just beginning in the east but it was a beaver, good size, heading downstream, going with the flow - 1st time seeing one in the river -

moon
stars
spirits in the water

the deep freeze is on
the kids are contra dancing
in upstate new york
a flurry of all ages to be exact
the touching of warm hands
the music that takes off the chill
of just sitting around, the caller
gives the instructions, the twirling
bodies follow the lead
the smiles raise the temperature

all will rest well
later into the night
the sleep that comes
from tribal participation

nothing like a sunday
without expectation
nothing like being tossed about

in a gentle wind free to soar on gusts of opportunities that arise out of nowhere, and there is nothing better than following a whim, for whims are the truth from our souls, and when we suppress our heartbeats , we rearrange the biorhythms that need our personal tempo to speak with honesty, and it's always ok to give in. follow the trade wind to its logical conclusion...

surrender brothers and sisters
turn on tune in drop out of the race
to nowhere

Stupid talk @ bar
American pie forever plays
Opinions abound here

....big mouths talking fast....male and female, yet I still go out for brunch. Ok, don't pound on the bar dude! American pie plays on and on.....golf green on the tube. There used to be better verbal fodder back in the nineties. Those evenings with my notebooks at coffee houses and bookstores were sublime.

Nostalgia in a time
Trumped, I hope not
He's so red, I wonder?

The river flooded last week as high as I have yet to see it - two feet of clearance between the underside of the bridge arch & the surface of the water - usually that clearance is a full 15 feet - dropped back down this week with drier air & colder temps -

long thin flagpole
long thin shadow
stretching across snow

... talk of snow is rapidly moving to past tense, even up here where spring snowstorms can get intense - I'm told it is going to be warm this coming week - got me thinking bikes - already been out to the garage, wiped some of the dust off the Ghost, checked chain and tires - checked the Coyote too, things seem good but there's always small adjustments to make once you get on the road - we'll see -

eggs over easy
hobobun on the side
black coffee

words are the feast of the poet that agonizes with necessary regurgitation, poems are the beautiful vomit made palatable by twists of wrists, tweaks of the mind, the eye, the sleight of handsome old men with decades of experiences to throw out...for we mustn't try to contain the unobtainable, the status quo that looks like a bad sitcom....and they're all bad , have no relationship to the real lives of the working man...they laugh in cans, when tears would be more appropriate, they attempt to distract, dissuade , disembowel, the truth that lies in the guts of the blue shirted slaves....we are heading backwards while a few pad their silk pockets, but oh I forgot, we have big HD screens, and gameboys, and junk food

my steak is bloody
my gums are too
has anyone seen the remote

I knew it was going to rain - early spring up here is like this but ...
I had set myself for a ride - a 'ku hunt in mind - sometimes you just know and i knew there was one out there waiting for me, assigned to me matter of fact - so i dressed, opened the garage door, mounted the Ghost, rode to the end of the driveway, yeah, it was sure to rain, i could smell it heavy on the wind - hung a right at the road, heading east, reached the crossroads hung another right - came around on the old road to enter the village from the south.

I was three miles from home when the rain began, then it turned to snow. i entered the village headed for the overpass at the interstate - it was there i found my 'ku - haiku depends upon the juxtaposition of images but when you're on a 'ku hunt it depends on your juxtaposition in the surround - right place right time type of thing - when this lines up you're made in the shade even if you are miles from home on a bicycle and it's snowing -

Made it home covered in snow - garaged the bike after wiping it down - dashed inside, made coffee, now sitting here at the keyboard - my bagged 'ku? ... right here -

rain at dawn
big truck, driven by the rain god,
goes roaring by

Thinking about Lew Welch on my bike ride earlier this afternoon - I had stopped at a rural (everything's rural up here) railroad crossing
to make myself aware of the sounds to be had in such a place -
and that's what happened - the sounds - the dry paper rustle of last year's beech leaves still on the tree where they have been all winter, not to be pushed off until the buds of the coming season break their death grip - the wind in the nearby pines - peepers calling off in the ditches and wetlands - birds newly arrived, mostly redwing blackbirds - busy with the mate and the nesting ...

all those sounds site specific there on either side of the crossing - an aural installation that will change in tone & pitch & intensity as the days lengthen & warm -

thought about a long gone woman as i stood there turning over the stones between the ties with my feet, drinking my coffee, feeling the breeze press against the outside of my jacket -

i remount my bike, push off down the road thinking about Lew Welch who one day walked off into the California woods carrying a .22 caliber pistol and was never heard from again -

nor a body never found ...

- looking up at sky
jets leaving trails up there
footprints -
and fireflies at least two months off -

I get home, make coffee, build a fire, listen to Kerouac on youtube reciting his poems to jazz background - still thinking of Lew Welch,
gonna make soup, mix in some meat to give kick, it's just a simple Saturday evening, tomorrow Easter -

Apple fritter
Really big hobobun
Cool spring night

Easter evening stroll. The Suns set, a hint of rain in the air. Wash is almost done, I let the dryer go a bit longer. Silence on the street tonight. It's because it's s holiday I expect. Everyone home watching t.v. with the family. Homeless men with long lonely faces hangin in the back of Starbucks wearing their melancholy like some kind of wayward badge. Me the observer, the artist taking everything in, a hobobun writer wandering the streets like Jack or Basho searching for a bit of inspiration......

WIREMAN wrote:a hobobun writer wandering the streets like Jack or Basho searching for a bit of inspiration......

... and ain't that just the way it is? Have a good one, Mark