On the Way

Boys, I send my love. At the moment I'm too awash for wrapping life in fictive lies. So let's lay the state. A fair friend of the Senate, named Alex, once assured me... that we must make things. No matter what, no matter how quickly they pass or how not. Be in the business of making. Make things that didn't exist and that's enough.

Hail to that. Let me share a tale of misunderstanding. An old home boy has proved me wrong. He married a good woman in a rapid shuffle and then sailed out to the orient. All in a breeze far quicker than I could absorb. The boy slaved under the singularly consuming Japanese work ethic. In order to salvage the working soul that beat within, he wrote a novel for children. I read much of it and judged him like the armchair aesthete I'd become.

As time passed me by, I languished in my private hell parallel to this author. We met again, by chance, on a snowy weekday in the town library. We discussed his book, and maybe it was his appeal to me-- he readily admitted he'd never read an English "adult"novel. Under this auspice,we traded book recommendations. I gave old bismark battleships and he graced me contemporary young adult transgender literature. Now we revel in our meetings and trade stories like old hens. Hell, I'm going to his hole tomorrow.

Yet I am the thin reed and he the stout oak. He's presented his novel to a triple dozen literary agents and only rejections return-- his tome is 190,000 words long and the profitable ideal lies at 100,000-120,000 words. Literature is like an actuary service, where every profitability margin is percentage based. Hedging risk against word counts and verb/noun ratios. This old fellow has commenced the planning of his second novel. Hail to he. It's a discipline and he's crafting himself. We expect a fully formed human end product, and baulk at the sausage making process. The old boy will needs be an author or death to him. I love him for that-- Sweat and bleed baby.

Recently, I just built songs. I drink and cobble songs. Shitty affairs tied to immediacy and pretensions. I play them around a dark industrial-failed city. Tomorrow I hold a whole court alone, one that I am not ready to preside. Peddle away shoe-man. I tentatively sent my first song effort to our Nero. And I love him for his response-- "hey, did you have a break up recently?" Hehehe. Street corner saint. When I find something worth pride I'll send it here. Sweat until then. Beer soaked rail workers love anything new, especially.

When I told one weathered man that I wrote the song I played him, he nearly threw a stroke. He slapped the table, stood up and hollered. As though the fact that anybody could make anything in this shithole was reason worth waking another day. I thought he might cry. Truly, he stammered.

Tonight I sang jazz standards at a club full of weekday alcoholics. The band leader woman may have gone to elementary school with me-- we traded whiskey shots for a liver's time. I was a step off tune tonight, but instead of noticing, people just cheered. The woman looked like she's shrugging a meth addiction, her 55 year old night-daddy sat in the corner and nodded to approve me taking his girl. We danced and her green dyed hair spun. Her words dripped of sputtering-mental disease, but I loved her. For a few free hours we'd be each others' heaven. But sauced on whiskey, I slipped out the kitchen door to swerve-drive my brother-friend back to his old-lady.

Love's a flash-pan, but friends an investment. So it goes.

On Small

Off memory, as I remember it. Sources are mud.

Lyndon Johnson's father was a being. Texas isn't so clear a past as the present would dictate. Paraphrases of another's lifework, be damned-- liquor takes me. Texas as the histories play, was a place to flee when opportunity ran dry. Endless northern plains, of thick grass and cattle speculation. Where mortal money could raise herds that, when driven north to Chicago or rail-line way stations, purchased fortunes from the market.

But grass and cattle are seasonal breeds, mens' ambitions have slight more longevity. One year's profit became the next year's beginning, most bet the past onto the promise of an equally prosperous future. Unluckily, inches of Texas topsoil lay atop bare limestone. Overgrazing cut the vegetable grass and the plain winds blew the rich loam dirt into air. Through mere years, grazing became bedrock and desperate-fortunes of cow starved over it.

More of Texas and Johnsons. History's tendency is to make the present seem inevitable. But Texas as today was not the same yesterday. A strong arm of its yesterday was made of the unfortunate poor hands left owning only limestone farms. Years of grazed profit evaporated and these gambling souls turned unto one another for support and formed-- as I liquoredly remember it-- the Farmer's Alliance.

In this mutual, though often contentious, bond they shared machinery and profit and hardship, for survival's sake. A liberality of the most necessary circumstances, but a liberality as deeply pure as granite hard. It was at this time juncture that Lyndon Johnson's father, then a younger man, entered into Texas state politic. He, a freshly made cattle rancher as his brothers, represented poor stone towns left impoverished by their bets against tomorrow.

This man, young father of a growing family, entered at that crucial early 20th century juncture. After World War 1 petered out, this man represented veteran farmers of the meagerest sort-- denied their war benefits, and starved through nature by their land. This Older Johnson, for all his faults, believed in prayers higher than interested-profit. He stood strong before two critical cross-battles-- defending the doomed Farmer's Alliance against the wheel mechanics of bare starvation capitalist, and then defending and winning the Texas World War veterans' their promised dollar.

It is only one America, we cynically promise ourselves. And elsewhere is no different than here, one time is only a variation upon today. We promise ourselves. Lyndon Johnson had an estranged relationship with his Older Johnson (especially as he turned more heavily drunkard), but kissed the old man on the lips when leaving for his junior year as beginning statesman. Kissed his father's lips, for the last time, whilst boarding his power-bound train.

Older Johnson's health failed. But he presented one wish--

 To live where his neighbors knew his name, and to die where his neighbors gave a damn.

And that he did. Decades after his long stint as statesman were passed, Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr's funeral procession was lined by the veterans whose survival he battled for, lined by those farmers whose banner he waved in loyal and principled defeat. Coarse and hoary people, independent and disinclined to show affection-- these citizens gathered in their only honest tribute to a man.

No one is sinless, but Senate, sometimes men are dutifully remembered for a few good deeds by a few good people.

Rendezvous

Meeting in the street
when Our chances collide and
We gaze- But are unconcerned
with the holy-moment.

We nod and even smile as we fake knowing each other.
We parade around the sun children filled with wonder that only gets lost with age.
and so we are only left to howl at the moon.

This big brother state.
I am silently laying in the grass,
hearing laughter of lunatics.
Gaze fixed on a star filled dome that screams;
Our cosmos couldn't exist, if the world wasn't designed.

Many with more and more with far less,
unfathomable violence;
Messy Bloody Human Waste.

Human beings; migrating the isles
fail to recognize they're black eyed angels--sharing one existence.
Black eyed angels drifting around the sun,
while
an old mother dies.

The Road To Be Followed Together

Man strays, but the companionship of fellows sets him aright. He is reminded of what he is not, and what he may be. Purposeful isolation might facilitate fruitful thought, but without communion what good comes of man?

I sinned deeply fellows, in manners against my nature. Only the shelter

Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite

Space. . . Outer-space.
Void beyond comprehension - Absolute nothingness.
Existential vacuum, if you will indulge me.

Controls set for core of the Sun.

Binary Pulsars. Rapidly rotating and collapsed stars.

Obit in vicious relentless unimaginable vortex.

Random and without order; they refuse to hold a pattern - encircling each other.

The orbit of binary stars is eccentric.
unexpected for such close Stars have tidal forces-
they ought to have circularized their orbit.
-forever ago. 

Possibly the presence of a massive planet or brown dwarf
effects and maintains the eccentricity of the binary.

Ancient Wise Profound Mystery

Stellar Remnant

The gravitational collapse of a Binary Massive stars system is not a small matter.

It makes physicists test general relativity. (b/c of their strong gravity)

Binary Star Systems are usually white dwarf and neutron stars, respectively.

White dwarfs (Thing 1) 
 - true stellar artifacts - 
are very dense with electron-degenerate matter
Thought to be the final evolution of a star, lacking mass for its partner 
(The material within a white dwarf no longer undergoes fusion reactions)
The star has no source of energy; 
while it's Mass is comparable to the SUN and its volume is comparable to the EARTH
The true Stellar Remnant.

Neutron stars (Thing 2) - and I tip my hat to Theo Geisel.

Interstellar leftovers- result from the collapse of a massive star during a Supernova.

Now made up of nothing but neutrons (i.e no electrical charge) but more mass than a proton.

They live on from the supernova; 

as is with of all things.

The (HMXB) 

High-Mass X-Ray Binary Stars- 

(JARGON WORDS AN ABYSS!) 

are still massive after collapse.

as is with all things.

And what follows is a gobbledygook of pseudo science that might smell earnest to some while putrid to others.

  (HMXB) - 'WHAT HIGH AND MIGHTY ACRONYMS WE SCIENTISTS HAVE RISEN TOO' 

-High-mass X-ray binary stars- are thought about in lengthy scientifically encumbered language text

within corridors within dusty books and multiple volumes, and are considered something of an - anomaly.
HMXB are orders of magnitude in their luminosity in comparison to our sun. While holding this amazing attribute, High Gravity X-Rays are also produced by that the binary system (an effect that tests quantum physics).

-In more plain speech (my preferred form of discourse) They obit mind-bending-ly fast and expel X-rays at such a staggering rate, we are able to measure their radius not by sight but by the amount of X-ray they give off as (HMXB). High-Massed X-Ray Binary Stars.

They are so filled with mystery in modern science that,

They are considered the most basic unit in the universe -since the inception of astronomy.

The Standard Candle - 

an astronomical object that has a known luminosity.

Sound beyond hearing.

Light beyond sight.

Space beyond touch.

Human life

distant from the violent dead ancient pair. 

far away--- physically measured in light years and generations.

far away--- emotionally measured in our vanity.

           Narcissistic space endeavors without honest enthusiasms of great understanding e.g. Carl Sagan.

However, humankind is not without hope.

These simple human observations of mere images, pictures that can't even begin to communicate their very subject matter, is enough. These tiny glimpses of the distant outward reaches of the cosmos are

beyond profound. 

by touching the industrious human soul that 

that alone, ensures the very first step out of Solar neighborhood..

Sweeping blankets of the mother helium nebula,

Deep, Lost and Without Anything, she holds -

~  purpose with silence and timeless stillness.

.Beautiful chaos in perpetual flux.

The change of the universe can be compared to that of a AC vent in any central air unit.

Over time, clusters of dust form, God knows from where.

and their collection over time turns into a mixture of matter.

The deepest corners of our infinite space function the same way;

Timeless flux - Universal central air keeps the elements from being stagnant.

While also creating space (and time and gravity) for new clusters of matter.

Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams,

Words!

Lost in trying to lay groundwork (words as masters)

I shall now employ them as servants!

Our human observations,

However infantile, naive and without purpose their nature is perceived,

no matter how ignored in country, culture, and family.

Earthlings-Unite. 

Bring Humans Under one Sky.

Not Blue 

but 

Black. 

The Black that stares back.

We are not allowed to observe daylight relics of a glowing past ancient wisdom

(so lost in the world today)

Garden replaced by 'Media Dome'

with infinite imagination and wonder.

We must remain Human.

Inertia and gravity of our most basic and honest self. 

It keeps us on our way slowly, but not without tedium;

with the petrified eyes of infinite patients.

We, however, are able to bear witness to ancient and scholarly stars dancing not alone,

 but in dead pairs.

Found easily with the right images and basic scientific understanding, these artifacts can be understood

and help to make one see 

true.

Planetary-Angels (dead and ancient) waltzing at the twilight of their years,

listen to the song made of memories in their prime.

Man (lost and young) meander in medicated silence down halls in the sanitarium.

Echoing poems, broken and shattered to no-one but a lost soul.

Madmen singing in tortured silence compose an atlas of life.

that make the ennui of daily life

Honorable. And the truth of truths speak-able.

Make Flesh and Bone Real.

Howl into the blackest night sky.

What can be said at all can be said clearly;

and what we cannot speak of

we must make communicable.

On Poetry

Hail and farewell, as forever, my dear brothers.

The night rolls on thick and after a singular dilemma-- off to the strip club or back to solemn keys(?)-- my answer grew self evident. Word are my mistress tonight.

It is long overdue, it is long wet and ripe from the peach vine, but late and loud triumph above every instance of early silence. Truly-- I admit-- dollar wine and my nightly allowance of one(two)-tobacco coarse these veins mine. But onto matters.

Brother Nero has commenced a bold endeavor into poetry. And I wish to speak on that subject with full honesty. Forward, as best this corpse may attempt.

I categorically despised poetry.
A few choice verses occasionally permeated my dutiful walls-- things of Donne, Catullus, yes lines of Frost dripped in, Shakespeare sonnets and lines of Blake snuck past my checkpoint fully armed. Spencer and Dante, every example safely dead, would be deigned canonically prudent for room within my brain space. Secure heritage in a museum mind, extinct examples of rare horticulture in their properly proportioned thoughtscape. Painfully duty-free.


I am on the porch now, sipping a hard lemonade, and nursing a 79c cigar-- heavy winds are toppling winter trees. The foot of a  kill-sized branch is caught against my steps. I am tight bound by product addictions/dependencies and yet under siege by fantastic winds. Elements which remain outside of my control or choice. (I'm throwing out words half-thoughtlessly, but edited surfaces are not the thing of Senate.) These are significant somehow.


It's an inherited cultural distaste. Poetry is a vanity made lyrical, pawned off quick-cheaply and overly-earnest. A thing immediately suspect. It's motivations assuredly puerile. It is the written apparition of everything we hold suspect and superfluous of our mind. A poet yearns for significance, at the cheapest price and mildest exertion. I assure myself. We do.

But nearly every strong emotion, particularly those unexamined, should be held suspect. Casual hatred is the most difficultly shrugged, and most embarrassing. Full honesty and disclosure. Poetry was a club I felt always unprepared to attempt-- how do you learn the tools of an "honesty" criticism? How does one judge the essentially subjective?

I remember being very fortunate. As a much younger man, my high school hosted a yearly writers conference-- the only serious offering in the region. I was fortunately cursed to have regional semi-non-celebrities encourage me there toward fiction at a young age-- encouragement is gasoline to young formative vanity. But these authorities would talk of an alcoholically tragic poet who wrote of hawks in a numbing beauty. A poet whose name I could never resurrect and unduly forgot. Somewhere lurking behind a page was the good, true poet.

Sincere moments are swiftly forgotten through the course of sex, addictions and narcissism of adulthood's birth. But poet, as a formal definition, was out there.

Liquor drives me to waste words. And I crave my product withdrawn nic-fix.

Roberto Bolano phrased it first and hardest, "Poetry is the one thing that isn’t contaminated . . . . Only poetry isn’t shit." To paraphrase a life-- Bolano was an expatriated Chilean poet who aspired to an exulted European height that living's price prevented-- children need food and poems don't pay. He compromised out his ass a few good novels and secured himself a legacy, but he internalized a guttural lesson: prose are for profit.

To talk at any length about "commercial" encroachment is tragically banal. Sad and obnoxiously late. What rebel argument remains-- do we re-fight each battle of Antietam? Dollar dictates what you see and what we may choose. It's results are generationalized and form the arteries of every cultural/pragmatic product we encounter. Every J.K. Rowling adds to a Rushmore of billion dollar proportion-- and who can assume to care otherwise, the product always sell. It is unnecessary to examine the corruption of each sacred aspect/expression in our experience-- only to emphasize the want for purity.

But despite the marketing campaigns,  the re-branding attempts and empty book signing-- poetry does not sell. It is something wrong in this present. What it is, does not transfer efficiently into profit. There may be unimpressive exceptions-- as few undergraduate bookshelves lack a census copy of e.e.cummings work, Robert Frost or Allen Ginsberg.  But Poetry isn't profit-- only the hyphenated biography of the poet can cram their work down even the most receptive throat. We buy the poet at their cultural personality price, but hesitate long before any one poem.

Poetry is a dinosaur construct that can't find a modern home. It is an eloquence birthed foremost from the dark. Is it just a mirror of it's creator.

Consider this wide attempt a buckshot worth-- I am lost to my liquor weave, once more of the wheat-- one last blessed bud can, one old remaining sacred cigar to see me through the cravings. O' lord the wind she blows.

Only Poetry isn't shit. Brothers. And it is a rotten racket we inherit. Allow me to present my definition: Poetry is the attempt to utter something true in the most direct and enlightening manner possible. Language is a tide pool whore, driven and inconsistent by a moon of another gravity. Truth is sand through a familiar man's fingertips. It's a peculiarly distilled swill, there is no constant or exclusive truth-- but without the belief, it cannot be good. And there is much bad and dishonest/ignorant in Poetry. Their dynamics flatly monotone, they become cursed with ironic webs tangled so thick that only a paid lifestyle coach could pretend to care. 

I believe we thirst for good poetry, yet the the cost of the bad cuts too dear. The nerve lies too close to things important. All my words are spent generally toward one specific-- but poetry is nothing absolute, the particular facet I am praising is merely one aspect of many.

Poetry is something unjustly neglected and discharged. Dangerous, but any attempt toward purity is a celebration. And so I praise the beginning of something new. Let it be done and met with self-possession, with a dutiful wit and a flexible spirit. May verse flow.

New things are coming fast.

of benevolent yearning: a post modern northeastern liberal elitist point of view

the ceaseless commute covers distances both outwardly and within as we move to and fro from inner space to outer, physically, yet stay within ourselves mentally.

day in and day out we board trains surrounded by thousands and yet completely isolated. "with bandstands in the mind" blasting symphonies (and worse) through white cords constricting our bodies from our pockets. we hide in nooks and stare blankly around, avoiding eye contact like the destitute homeless man who reeks of urine sleeping in the corner of the last train car.

then we embark up the steps to the wide open world, heads down and fingers busy, attempting to use our peripheral vision to narrowly avoid bumping into each other but failing most of the time.

make phone calls. write emails. inauthentic communication for the most part. hardly but a few strains of subjective truth squeaking through as we all yell for community while climbing and raking over each other to reach the top.

to what ends do these streets lead? which road do we choose to walk down and why?  if understanding requires quiet, don't expect to find it here - at least out in the open.

but there may be something to learn from the noise of it all.

is a single object made up of many moving parts, put together unknowingly, and connected by subjective indifference still something that moves forward with confidence and determination?

that is the understanding we all secretly hope to achieve.

Benevolent Yearning

Understanding requires quiet,
within.
Closed eyes
and movement
Within and Between us.

Can this movement sustain us,
While the world falls apart?

Strangers passing
glances meet.
we don't speak.
we don't even try.

With bandstands in the mind,
We have put an end to the quiet,
an end to our understanding.

Souls lovesick for it all.
Close your eyes
and travel
within.
to the quiet
in the back
of my mind.

untouchable.
infinite
profound
peace.