It’s time to find a poem again! Yay! Today’s paradigm will be…what I found over the past 50 hours.
Rest assured, poor little doggie! When she dresses you in pajamas, she prepares you for all of Life’s ludicrous realities!
pills once taken for entertainment now do anything but, maintaining dubious adherence to general opinion. schedules provide meaningless information to entice us with false surety. familiarity with annoying situations eases moving through them, no one's idea of good design. security doors which open for everyone. here mister tee-ess-eh? will you pass this through your magic gate? how does he know it won't explode? not planning for Game Day in your bar most assuredly epitomizes poor planning, understaffing, my lovely barmaid. silent Uber drivers receiving their instructions in Chinese, afraid to make eye contact. beautiful golf courses, those green monuments to money, grass, dominating nature. never in one dozen years has any hotel thermostat delivered any temperature near its displayed number.
until you knot your necktie around your head like poetry's morning Rambo to avenge this collection of glib promises, lame excuses, forms without function, lies of omission.
Would it help to know I’m a double-Gemini (both sun sign and ascendent)?
Street art. Seattle. August 1994.
Dichotomy, meet Contrary.
Loved sport—disliked jocks, hated pep rallies. Baptized at thirteen, Atheist at eighteen, Agnostic at twenty-five, Catholic at thirty-nine. Supported group marriage of the "line" variety, found monogamy difficult enough. Voted for Carter, editorialized supporting Reagan. Call Washington "home," Can't live there—love rainy, warm South-East. Love spicy food, can't eat it. Believe sobriety equals our natural state; drink like a fish. Studied communications, journalism, wound up playing scientific expert. Planned working to seventy, retired at sixty-five. Believe in "live every day as if it's your last," stand fixated in space-time's ambergris, pinned by my dwindling time.
Don't believe astrology (much) though I studied it enough to know ascendents from sun-signs yet how can this Gemini resist, confronting all these two-faced contradictions?
Without noticing suddenly you cannot easily pull your sweatshirt over your head. Each morning you perform athletic routines getting into your pants. Rising from chairs, your muscles will cry out. Sleeping will bring rest but also body-wide tightness driving you prematurely from bed. Every step you take becomes fraught: you'll concentrate on each one (if you know what's good for you), relearning how to walk. Climbing steps will be similar as you wonder alternately how you could confuse distances which rise regularly before you, and how you ever did it when younger. "Lift with your legs" no longer something preached by your health-and-safety officer, but your new mantra for avoiding three days' bedrest. Concentrating,...
...you become a true zen master, without trying—as the sutras say.
I asked AI to polish this up (“no you didn’t”), but it didn’t believe what I wrote. (“that’s completely untrue. we’ll believe anything you tell us.”) I guess we don’t have anything to fear about AI exterminating the humans. (“Uh….we’ll get back to you on that one.”)
Husky Stadium. Across the marsh toward the upper-right corner is Laurelhurst where my grandparents raised my mother. If it hadn’t been hazy, the North Cascades would be on the horizon. Fall 1955.
Old men know. It lies in their bones, not powdering brain's surface, but penetrating, melding with DNA, at times holding them upright. He hoofed it every day from above the freeway into his boyhood city, walking one, two miles 'til hit by that car, already years past eighty. One wonders if he never accepted cars completely: few if any dodged horses when he would run home from tide pool afternoons, salmon in hand for dinner. He teetotaled his life after being dragged into saloons by his Klondike gold-panning father. He watched with alumni pride as his University of Washington grew from only two buildings in his day to small-city dimensions—or to one-third of his boyhood home. He explained what "the Denny Regrade" meant, showed you where Lake Washington shorelines lapped prior to when the "Montlake Cut" joined it to Lake Union then to salt waters. Before he experienced TV's dawn, he played with that new-fangled radio thing. How many days passed until he learned about those Wright brothers flying in North Carolina? He must have seen biplanes training for war while he served as a land-based radio officer. Then passenger planes, jets, rockets, humans landing on Earth's moon. Big computers took over business before he retired to travel through North America, to Hawai'i.
My life stretches now like those timelines in history museums, marking space programs, personal computers, vinyl records through cassettes, CD's, to zeroes-and-ones. We hold computers in our hands, but call them phones. Cars run on electricity like the trolleys of my youth, my grandfather's middle age. My timeline lacks two decades, more, compared to his. It teaches us respect too late, but teaches wonder more and more.
The beginning of the Montlake Cut. Looking SSE from Husky Stadium. Lake Washington’s shore was 15 feet higher before the cut. That marsh in the top photo was under water originally. Fall 1955.
If life resembles a rollercoaster, with ups, downs, head-banging turns— entered for free, no real way off— life bests physics in several ways: faster, ever-faster, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, kachunkachunka chunk, until sound blurs, sights blur, horizons collapse to this car, this seat, these hands gripping this bar. Life masters sending your ride both uphill, downhill, simultaneously. Life's car travels quicker but on ever- shortening track seemingly; you crest one climb just moments after you started a downhill stretch. You begin to realize this speed increase means your ride's end will occur sooner than you thought. Your youthful panting to "just get to eighteen," "once I've got steady work," "can't wait to have kids," "can't wait 'til those kids leave," "geez, if only I were retired," now seems incredibly foolish. Mentally straining to get older yielded to its reality. Now no strain's required. I wish... no...no more wishing...just stay here, be here, live here. Here.
74/100 100 poems in 100 days…
…and if life seems to speed up, it’s seen even here. Didn’t I just post my 60th poem? How can I be on the verge of being 75% through this challenge?
Hopped a freight, saw gang in Thompson Falls, flatcar next track over. They liked my car better, took it by force. No, wait... Hopped freight into someone else's car, who pushed me out again without my knapsack, broke my leg, or... I remember: clinging to moving car, one hand desperately grabbing a handle, slipped, lost my legs while those startled drivers waited, watched, horrified behind barricades. Or did the speed freak sipping Mickey's Big Mouths not drop me off, but instead mug me miles from home?
Eloquently, asked blond Orphan Annie out when snow bounced like Styrofoam. Followed her eastward to Midwest. Sat bouncing one child after another while she conducted services at her church. Or did we split angrily over my lack of faith? I can never remember.
My epileptic buddy seized while training for his bicycle road race, hit his head, died. Knowing he didn't take his meds, dedicated my life to medical counseling, patient support/advocacy. Died early, stress from lack of success, debt.
Indulged whim to own motorcycle. Pretending to slalom along Woods Creek, hit gravel, slid into oncoming lane, already occupied by one-ton pickup. Or did I just slide right over the edge, mangling my body, my hopes for being energetic weekly news reporter?
Did my heart burst when I snorted Black Beauties? Or did I die after doing same with PCP disguised as so-called cannabinol? How 'bout that time "chocolate mesc" turned out to be rat poison, not placebo?
Millions of me's live in my memories, branched from events gone right, events gone wrong, events gone different. When my editor ended my career for once again failing to put "ly" on adverbs. When my employer marketed my database, fame, money, a new career following. When I got hired in Southern California instead of upstate New York. When my wife died from cancer instead of lived.
70/100 100 poems in 100 days
Every one of those branching events could have happened, the only speculative one being the one about getting fired for not using “ly” on adverbs—although an editor/publisher could have ended my teaching career before it started when upon learning I intended to teach journalism he laughed and said, “You?”
I did indeed hop a freight while in college. There was a sinister looking bunch of guys on a flatbed. There could have been a guy in my car. I did hang on gamely when I tried to mount a moving freight car now way too high due to a raised railbed. After getting off of the freight, a tweaked out guy picked me up in a Roadrunner around midnight.
I did have a crush on that young woman in college, but too insecure, I didn’t ask her out. I speculated on her future career.
My epileptic buddy fortunately had his seizure on the dormitory floor, not while he was out training for the race. He’d stopped taking his meds.
I did slide right into the oncoming lane of traffic. It was a lonely road. I righted the bike, got back into my own lane.
Uh….yeah I did do those substances as described. The capsules at the end only had chocolate in them, not mescaline.
The rest is self-explanatory.
It’s interesting to me how I think about all of the ways my life could’ve gone wrong, only rarely think how it could’ve gone differently, and not at all how something could have gone right instead of how it went down. Does that make me a glass-half-full kind of guy? Or do some of us innately focus on good things instead of bad ones?
Benny is as sure of his genius as he is that he currently resides in a box.
My cat knows exactly how everyone should behave. He fails to understand his clear vision isn't clear to us. Eleven years yet endlessly he chastises us for our transgressions, failing to enact his instructions, breaking his long-established norms, rules. * * * * * It's ironic we watched that show on failure of genius, then I followed by failing to understand you. It seems so clear to me, terms precisely stated, precisely used. Why do I fail constantly? Each time sound bites play repetitiously leaving me to analyze what went wrong, who failed whom, oblivious to the simpler fact: not everyone understands my rules. Chastising them works no better for me than it works for my cat. Now who thinks he's a genius? My cat's quite sure.
A blogger I follow received a three-month sabbatical and noted while he had grand plans, he found it more grand to ease into the “mundane” activities of playing and reading with his children, taking walks, traveling, visiting his parents, and such. He seemed a little surprised by this.
In non-summer months, the cats didn’t have to share the couch with me. 1984.
Teachers pant for June more, you lovely little monsters. Adult nerves handle one question every few seconds poorly—three, simultaneously uttered, become background noise to our crumbling sense of purpose.
First day: lie on the couch oriented, right hand reaching books, water, coffee. Sleep when it occurs. Open door policy for cats, who wander, wonder at this new couch denizen. Ignore phone calls. Feel the throbbing subside in feet which bore all for eight hours, one hundred eighty days.
Second day: wander house wander yard wonder why they look different. See things to do. Know their time has come. Slide back to your classroom, retrieve forgotten things. Hide if people come in.
Days three to seven: attempt to forget each day's name. Forget instead all those things from Day Two.
Ease into being, doing for its own sake. Mind ascends to philosophy, theory, to next-year-will-be-different, dwells in growing visions of daily perfection, ignores realities learned before.
August: Take joy in planning, attacking a new year. Feel like Superman putting things back together. Laugh.
Teachers pant for August more, you whining recalcitrants. Our dreams rebuilt, our minds alert, our souls recharged—we're ready to grapple once again. Ready to push summer back into its closet.
67/100 “One hundred poems in one hundred days!” (but my sense of time is fluid) two-thirds to being there
Whither my dither? And from whence? It comes from focus, from obsession, from lack of limits on myself. Grabbing issues, tick-like, never to let go until they're drained dry. Resembling mad scientists in old movies, eyes-a-poppin'! Discussions become arguments; paying bills sends me on trips into financial rabbit-holes where accountants fear to tread. My mind, honed razor-sharp cuts anything in its path. Too bad if it's me, too bad if it's you. Something seems near- guaranteed to blow. Comfort or habit? Can't tell, but it promises familiarity, which brings confidence (deserved or not).
66/100 “One hundred poems in one hundred days!” (but my sense of time is fluid) two-thirds to being there
Failure, horticultural-style. Every spray of green you see is a crape myrtle. The tallest one which grazes the top of the photo, is over five feet tall. Other than the columbine you see in the extreme lower right, and the yellow tassels of goldenrod peeking through the crape myrtle, everything you see in the foreground is a crape myrtle. We paid last October to have the one crape myrtle which grew here removed. August 2026.
In some ways that’s a pretty cheap get I’ve put up there, but here’s what’s been playing on my mind:
Recently I’ve been attempting to not over-plan my days and then just hope I make good in-roads on completing some of them, nibbling at some others, and just feeling crummy about all the important ones that didn’t see a bit of my attention. “Wow,” I’ll say to my wife, “I really need to get to [insert important item].” I’ve found I use it as subterfuge. I’ll plan 6-10 tasks, a good handful of them all-day-and-more projects, then I’ll cherry pick the ones I want to work on. That one I’ve “really got to get to” becomes the sacrifice day after day. Plus, if you condition yourself to not getting things done, you begin to feel only superficially guilty about not doing them. Instead, the past two weeks I’ve estimated the amount of time certain tasks will take, generally held to that regardless of them getting completed, and planned no more of them than there is time in my day. I try to learn where I need to get more accurate on projecting how long a task will take. And just to keep it real, I plan 90 minutes called “personal time/time sucks” to acknowledge there are just unavoidable interruptions in everyone’s day. Thus, I’ve been failing because I’ve attempted to over-succeed.
In a larger sense, it’s difficult these days to go more than a month or two without encountering “you’ve got to fail to succeed,” spouted by some motivational type of person. (Gah! I thought I would get away from cheerleaders when I got out of school!) While I can quibble a bit with the mentality—I can point to many people, many situations where they will continue to fail, never experiencing success—it’s true right down in the gut that quitting because you’ve failed once isn’t a very good strategy. Date someone and they break up with you? I guess you’re not cut out for love! Put all your money on red and it comes up black? “I guess I’ll never win at roulette.” Or how about, “I could never make myself write. I guess I’m just not a writer.” Now look at the boy. Shooting for success almost always guarantees encountering some failure.
And last week I read “These 20 Words Are Worth a Thousand Pictures” an article about a very short poem by Ezra Pound. (I hope that link gets you behind the paywall. I’ve never tried to share an article to the entire world before.) Let’s dispense with the fact Pound collaborated with the fascist regime in Italy in WWII. Ernest Hemingway seems to have been a pretty good male chauvinist, and Michael Jackson, well, where do I start? All have undeniable artistic talent. Coming back to the poem and the article, I realized poetry takes a multiplicity of forms. As a writing friend told me a month ago, “It’s a poem if you say it’s a poem.” I hope the person saying it’s a poem (me) has enough artistic integrity to adhere to his idea of poetry. I think 25-40% of my poems have not been very good in this 100-poems-in-100-days thing. Poems condense meaning. They are to literature what a fine spirit is to alcoholic beverages. They seek not the pretty good word, but the right word, the best word. One doesn’t find the jigsaw piece which closely fits and just hammer it into the puzzle. One seeks for that piece which perfectly fits the hole. I’m going to continue to attempt to write successful poems. I will fail…but maybe not all of the time.
