The Daily (W)Rite March 2o15 WKo3

The Daily (W)Rite

wk o3

11:oo pm
Days almost done. About 45 min. until we jump into another day. It's quiet tonight. I turned off the TV. My writing seems to turn out better if I make it a little quieter. There is the soft sound of he air conditioner, a bit of music (Abby Road is just gearing up) and the occasional sound of a car passing by but nothing else. It's nice, to allow myself and the small world of my small apartment be semi-quiet once in a while.  I think I embrace loudness all day long because . . . well, it makes me feel less alone. But I am alone now and wish to be so for maybe an hour. No big thing, but being alone is not my favorite type of existence, and since I'm not around people that much I fill the emptiness with TV, talking to myself, and sometimes
music . . .

Did I mention it's spring now? Not officially, but, yes, spring is definitely here. You can feel it in the air, see it in the trees, the road construction going on around town . . . and in the students who have shed their thick coats, wool caps, gloves, heavy boots and now run around town, some of them jogging, wearing cut offs and t-shirts. There's a poem I wrote a few years ago about winter. Think I'll post it here right now just to say goodbye to winter and hello to the warmer days to come:

I Autumn

 Quietly waits the old elm tree. Her branches black stretching

out so desperately, searching  for a bit of summer breeze .
Yes, she dreams of warmer days when her leaves thrived,
those spring days when her leaves alive muttered rain, and
thunderstorms lit up the sky. So long ago that time before.
Now the autumn crows arrive and peck the bark from her thighs.
Stark naked and alone. She's to face the gloom to come.

 

II Fall

 What? Across the footbridge? This time a year? Quite hazardous

a walk, you know? It’s become nothing more than a cold grave for
autumn leaves, broken tree branches and patches of treacherous
black ice, which forces heroic fools like you and  me (who pay very
little attention to the weatherman’s predictions) to step cautiously
across its splintered face. When the seasons change, we become
suspicious, superstitious, wary of the very ground beneath our feet;
as the landscape shifts so must we. A heavy coat tugged tight around
me, wool cap, thick gloves… makes it difficult to touch, to feel
your face. But no worries. Soon we’ll be at that small café near Bridge St.
It smells of used books, freshly baked bread, the harsh aroma of hickory
chips blazing in a wood burning  stove…and that other smell which neither
one of us has of yet identified. At least we can shed our bulky, outer skins,
leave them toasting on that rickety coat rack and sooth ourselves with
coffee (for me) and tea (for you) and balmy conversations about spring
flowers and summer moons, and that short but happy trip we took last
year to the Gulf of Mexico. We can pretend (if only for a little while)
that Christmas isn’t just around the corner, that soon that old bridge
won’t all together disappear beneath the frozen snow.

 

III Winter

My old  truck is far more excited about sliding down

the icy road that leads to town than I am. And why not?
Its fossil-fueled engine—yes, yes, I know, you always say,
“An electric car would work better!”— keeps it warm while I
shiver in the cab ‘cause the heater never works... except
for summers. “But,” you always joke, “our love is such a
passionate thing!” Perhaps that’s true… or at least, a cheap
thrill that’s just obsessive enough to keep the icicles from
forming on my hands as I swerve, and skid, and slide my way
toward the closest grocery store just to buy a fucking quart of milk
for your morning tea. And yes, there’s something romantic about
the thought of you wrapping me up in that huge quilt you made,
serving me sips of hot cocoa from my favorite clay cup,
allowing me to sneak a few cigarettes and a warm kiss or two
while I wait for my frozen feet to thaw. Yes, that would be nice
if by chance I make it home… alive.

Woodie o1-28-13

Wednesday, March 18, 2o15

It's raining! Not sure why each morning when I wake up, get my coffee and look out the window and see that it's raining that I'm so amazed! Maybe amazed at or surprised by the fact that is raining isn't exactly what I feel. Maybe the emotion the word I'm looking for is . . . joy. Yeah, joy sounds about right, I mean, as I stand here looking out the window and seeing the steady but gentle rain fall, as I see the trees starting to bloom, see the yellow grass of winter starting to turn green, as I hear the sparrows gossiping with each other in loud, supersonic voices . . . I smile. Yeah, I'm joyful that winter is in the rearview mirror and we are  traveling towards the city limits of spring, 2o15. I'm so glad that it's warmer outside so I don't have to put on three layers of clothes just to walk onto the front porch to get the mail. Yes, I'm happy to turn the heater off and the air-conditioner on and put away my winter battle armor
and slap on a pair of cutoffs and a t-shirt and my hiking sandals. I'm giddy when I think about getting on the bicycle and riding around, just riding around the neighborhood for no reason other than I want to ride around. Yeah, I love spring time in Norman Town.

Spent the last few days studying other poets and prose writers, mostly the famous writers and a few not so famous, but good writers all the same. And I've learned a lot that I hope will help me become the poet I wish to become. Poets, writers in general see the same world we see but understand what they perceive in  more specific and personal ways. Look at this bit of Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

I wish, or rather, I hope to be able to write with such clarity of thought, such simplicity of structure some day. This is, for me, a beautiful piece that says everything I wish I could say about any topic.

Thursday, March 19, 2o15

2:26am
What the hell?! Norman Town doesn't have a Popeye's Chicken! KFC, Church's, Sooner Chicken but not a POPEYE'S?! Heathens! But no worries. There's one in Midwest City, a twenty minute drive, but David is up for a Popeye's chicken run and I'm sure as hell Jonesing for some spicy wings!

The ride down Sooner Rd. is nice. Pleasantly cool, rain in the air. We pass a lot of ranches on the way. Horse ranches are big in Oklahoma. They sell a lot of polo ponies here, and they also have the race track in OKC. But there are also cows in pastures behind the main houses and, believe it or not, we pass a little ranch with a Shetland pony in the front yard. No llamas though or alpacas.

It's a nice ride through suburban countryside just outside Norman Town. Used to ride my bike down Sooner Rd. back when I could really ride. It's hilly a bit and you do have to watch the traffic (the car people drive like idiots on Sooner Rd.) but the ride was always wonderful. Wish I could ride like I did when I was in my thirties. Maybe I can again. . . some day.

Friday, March 20, 2o15

A rough night last night. Couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep until 4am, and even then I was up 45 minutes later! Damn. I finally "passed out" around 6:30am or so and got up for reals around 11am.  I really need to stop this sleep pattern.

There's a lot going on in Oklahoma politics these days. But today was focused on racism in Oklahoma. Well, is that a surprise? I mean, racism is running around all over America. However, it feels like Oklahoma's ahead of the pack when I comes to bigotry and racism. Some of these old boys are so racist and bigoted  they don't seem to even know it!

Take this guy, Kirk Humphreys. This old boy was once governor of our state, is now on the board of education somewhere in the state and he cohosts a Sunday political show, and yeah, he's Oklahoma Conservative all the way. Let me repeat what he said a week ago or so on Flashpoint a week or so ago:

“When I went on the school board 30… 25 years ago… a little over… we were, probably the best school district in the state. We just happened to have the best gene pool. But that gene pool keeps moving out. It’s moved to Edmond, it’s now moved to Deer Creek, and ya know, they’ll keep runnin’ as long as they can buy green fields and gasoline for their car.”—Kirk Humphreys

 

Of course, he apologized for what he said. But the problem isn't so much what he said but what he thinks. You can say you're sorry when someone calls you on your nonsense, but so what? You still think the thoughts, you still have the racist attitude. That doesn't change just because you say you're sorry. 

Saturday, March 21, 2o15

It's the last day in wk o3 of my blog and . . . I don't have anything to say . . . not really. I mean, could talk about our trip to David's dentist, how I couldn't make up my mind whether I really wanted to walk across Flood St. to the convenience store for a cup of coffee, and by the time I had decided, "Yeah, I really want some caffeine!" David was just about finished with his appointment  . . . of course I didn't know that . . . but as I walked out of the store with a Styrofoam cup of Joe (Okay, I'm not sure who came up with the term Joe, but I like it), I saw David walking to the car.

Even to me that doesn't sound very interesting. But nothing is very interesting today. I'm just tired and all I want to do is look out the window and watch the rest of this day (it ends in less than a half hour) slip into a comfortable darkness. Yes, darkness does have an odd effect on me. It fills me and  empties me . . .  both at the same time . . . it feels like I'm staring into a pool of water . . . I imagine my other self is there in the ripples, in the bottom of the pool glaring back at me. Water and darkness have a consciousness they share with each other . . . We human things are unaware of it. However, We do look to both water and darkness for guidance, and all the while knowing that they have no answers, no words of wisdom . . .  or if they do, if they really know something . . .? they won't share their secrets with us.

Hee! I think that's enough for this week. Hope there's something on this page that was worth the time it takes for you, the water and the darkness to read all the way to the end. And this surely is the end . . . {smile}