Category Archives: self

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Demons into Allies—

money -> beauty -> clothes
home
  -> sharing -> Blair, Kiva?
  -> saving -> 401K, pay off debts
impatience
resentment		 -> my koan.
My obvious
opportunity
to yearn
for liberation		  

Buddhism really figures in here.

my passivity
at work		 -> don’t get involved in tempests, gossip. Step up to motivation. Spend time with the winners.
two days a week
at home		 -> Discipline. Housework? Chores calling me? Exercise? Errands? I don’t think I can work 8 hours at home. Maybe that’s not the point.
Creative time -> most rewarding projects have been in fragments.

Sam deserts me often in the evening, sleeping. I can do a lot with a short period of time every day. The daily effort is my ally. I fritter away time on Tues and Thurs, flounder.

I know I’m going to do this.

I am afraid.

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december 13

Discs—Physical Earth energy

Grounded. Material needs. My body. Not being able to take care of myself. Not being able to defend myself from the demands of a project.

Priestess of discs—She’s doing Yoga! Can I still take my Tuesday morning yoga class? I would dearly love to be able to do that. Physical—trainer setup? What about a zafu/zabuton in this room?

Working can be bad for my health, bad for my mood. I don’t want to reach out, make connections. I don’t want to feel over my head again in an extroverted analytical culture.

Six of discs—reversed. Is about this. I don’t want to participate in the madness. I try experimental remarks with Linda, jumping outside the box of her behavior. When I think about healing/leadership, I think—BIG. I want to modify the whole extended team so that we can work well together. My intuition screams at me to modify other’s behavior in situations. I can’t. I avoid participation to a great degree because of this trap.

Son of discs—Goals. One of my fondest dreams is to improve the house. I would love to gradually transform this space into something that would feel good and livable. I don’t dare to wish for what. Seems materialistic. There are poor out there. I am no good at home decorating. Etc. First step—money. Could I feel good about this? I don’t know. I might feel like Michelle or Richie. I might be susceptible to Sam’s criticisms, bound/engaged with his actions or lack of action. I don’t want that.

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Next day at work, Linda, who likes to try to be my guardian angel, asks innocently—how was my drive home last night—I stare at her for moments, at an utter loss for inspiration as far as what to say—I don’t even know if my own mind how to say how my drive home has been or if I’ve even reached home yet or ever will and can’t begin to explain why I’m driven to do things like tour New York City in a car one-handed delivering warm clothing and unwanted poetry on thankless nights where no one’s looking almost not listening no stars no shining and no stop for meals. Lisa offers to go get some negra modelo, me and Josh say yes. He has a new job, he’s a kid, he’s going to work for Wiley in Hoboken, just starting out, I say Good night Good luck we walk off in opposite directions.

Next semester—Finnegan’s Wake, Gertrude Stein, and the Cantos, oh my god, I want to take that, I can’t help it, I can’t justify it, there is no explanation, but I’ve been broken down sufficiently okay it’s insane okay I’ll cooperate I don’t believe in vengeful angels but I’ve sustained enough damage from the New York School and San Francisco Renaissance that I dare not tread toward giants of literature like that. No I won’t be jounced by Joyce, stunned by Stein, or pounded on by Ezra anymore it’s over I’ll stay here in bed contented with my diary and my jottings, what intact bones are left, sipping supplemental vitamins and breath, applying gratitude medicinally and daring any New York angel poet student policeman to come find me here in this suburban garden of post post post avant avant fragmentariantude.

So there.

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So then last week was our last session—postponed until after Thanksgiving because so many in class were going out of own or otherwise couldn’t make it and it was my first day back at work in Jersey after the long weekend and the previous week’s hiatus because of surgery on my aching wrist I had to work from home. Huh—I was cutting everything pretty close, had some goods to drop off with Blair, not urgent, just his vest, his coat, his soap—well, what if he gets COLD, he’ll need this stuff, my drive to deliver it to him got the best of me and almost hyperventilating after leaving work at 4 pm under gloomy skies I drove with one hand down into Manhattan, 87 South from Westchester over the Third Ave Bridge, onto the FDR, 23rd Street exit just like usual and then I think I’ll turn on 7th Avenue and work my way back to Union Square along 16th Street—well I turned at 5:30 pm onto a street I shouldn’t have turned onto until 7—goddammit, do I really need such pointed reminders that somehow my timing in this life is really OFF?—red lights in my rearview mirror and I get two fucking summons, one for unsafe turn and one for not seeing a sign or something like that and my heart is pounding and I’m trying to hide my broken left arm because God knows the fines for driving with a broken wrist are probably more than Astronomical, but the policeman doesn’t really seem that interested in me anyway and this too hurts my feelings, thinking a different sort of poet would have engaged him, spurred an action, wriggled out of it, into some grace at the last minute, a reprieve, but no I limped away, now afraid to drive, delivered Blair his package, followed on to class and found a place to park in Queens and participated in the small group, just Josh and Lisa (and the cats) and shared some feeble poetry from the past and made it home and paid my fines plus surcharge within 15 days—$180.

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Here are my projects—

I write a series about rivers, it feels really forced, much less interior than I’m used to.

I’m doing book design, an anthology. I feel like curling up in shame for the uneven obstreperous (bluntly) badness of this poetry and get defensive at the awes of horror over awkward typographic dumbnesses in Duncan’s Selected oh yes it is a bad book and—well, mine probably is too.

I’m writing a gigantic Hallmark card to 365 of my closest friends, a project which I never once get brave enough to mention because it’s absolutely a faux pas in circles like this to write about real people in a dumb form like “50 words,” not to mention being 50 which is also a mistake too grave to mention, so I shut up even though I secretly admire myself, if only for the year-long discipline (its roots in stubbornness).

I have a blog. Lisa acknowledges my blog on hers, kind words; we mention it once in person, then this contact sinks again into the pool of anonymity, mutual lurking. I decide I want to put more energy into my blog, I have sort of a grip on it as an aesthetic project so I post something almost every day in November, although this is quite strenuous, and sometimes, it’s only photos/fragments.

Lisa’s interest in plants helps me acknowledge that I have a yard, a garden, even a sort of love for certain specimens. I bring two plants indoors for the winter—parsley, rosemary—and plant cilantro seeds. The sage survives outside. I think of bringing Lisa some sage bundled as a gift, maybe wrapped in some embroidery floss. No thyme at the moment.

Umm…can’t get there from here. Can’t go to Naropa, can’t spend lots of money on classes when I’m 50 and Blair’s in college, can’t generate a poetic community like the Beats or the New York School springing up from the wasted garden void around me, can’t make contact, can’t begin to get excited again about an online journal project, any opportunity to publish or be published, any sights set higher than retirement sooner hopefully rather than later after I finish paying for the college education of my favorite anarchist who would never rub elbows with an institution unless the term was paid for by a foolish parent (yup that’s me).

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Well, dammit, I signed up for this, I want to say I rubbed elbows with the New York School, yes I did, and yes it was rewarding, yes I elevated my discourse and my craft.

Beating my head against the wall
And Sam at home alone on Tuesday nights
And disrupting placid waters of routine
my Al-Anon, my district meetings, and
the Yoga Book Club.

Poetry is the biggest irritant in my life right now.

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I never gather Duncan. I try to read the poems assigned, I never get them. I buy some of his books, don’t think I’ll crack them. I pay $300 for this class, I’m not sure why. I pay it in installments once a month, and I get shy about my childish checks with purple swirlies on them and a Comic front. I think I should have soberer checks like a real poet.

Trying to contribute. I translate a poem of mine into Olde English. Enjoy this exercise. I’m asked to read it aloud, a fairly strugglish effort. Seems okay. Better in Olde English than it was in New. Lisa picks out phrases in our poems. Well, should I toss the rest away, enshrine that phrase? Who knows.

I learn some techniques, puzzle over leading vowels. I want craft but I don’t want it. I am interested in the other students. I’m interested in shaping the interactions. The environment is so subdued, inhibiting. I ask a lot of questions. One dominates. She seems suitably irritable for a teacher of poetry. Poetry teachers swimming daily in bad words. THere are no highlights. I observe the women’s clothes. I’m familiar with an odd fact or two, like Ian Hamilton Finlay’s death this year or fallout on the Hanford Reservation.

Somewhere I don’t bloom. People very sparing with email, commentary, keeping their vast opinions to themselves. Closetsfull of opinions, jamming in on the shelves.

One of my thematic exercises highlights the word Intimacy.

I go to Bernadette Mayer’s reading at St. Mark’s. Appreciate it. I read Winter’s Day from cover to cover on my 2nd try.

I drop Ashbery’s name a couple of times, get a small sound of acknowledgement from Lisa, but no more.

Incomprehensible.

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december 5 1:45 pm

Uneasy, writing in bed on Tuesday.

First, take some conscious breaths. Expel on the exhalation. Expel the instructions. Intentions.

A monument of agendas inside.

Try to arrive. Get here.

Wanted to write my Godamifesto.

Discovering Anne Waldman, turning pages of her Vow with my long haggy-fingered hands and damaged wrist.

Not much can I do. Limited.

Au revoir.

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This is a woman who has to come up with her goals. This is a woman who has to update her will. This is a woman who has to complete her insurance elections for the coming year. This is a woman with a secret life.

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Stay away stay away the one that totally withdrew, the one that wouldn’t take no for an answer, this is not an unusual situation, this is not a catch-up, this is not catching up, this is not a spirit, this is not a des-spirit.

Desk.

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If I could find my way to a simpler conception. If I could find my way to the egg on the pedestal, if I could find my way to the walking rock. No table salt. No laughing pepper. No funny farm. No moldy vegetables. Rot in a garden. Where do we see that rot, the heavy mosses, the packed earth of the path? The beaten borders, crumbling boundaries? The edge trees fallen into the river, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, in a death flirtation with the current. Where do we see that? Where do we see the planes? How far away are they? The red light blinks far away at night and there you are, another person. We forget that all of these poets are also persons, one after the other, exhibiting bodily functions. Yes you are a wizard of language. Yes you may set a bonfire. Yes you can turn and turn and turn. No you are not a clergy person. No none of this should be bandied about. No you are not for sale. No you have no memory of the mountain of marzipan you saw in Italy.

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I wrote so much no one would want to pick up one of my notebooks and wade into that.

Writing—sort of below par—under the surface. Aimless.
Writing without the mountains.

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The surface is uneven. The cutting board is warped. The gentleman was proud to show me the use of passive voice in my writing sample. Fucking shit. Well live and learn. I am still expecting to show them, every one of them, show them—what?

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I can’t scratch my left eye. I can’t applaud. There’s no use applauding now is there. I’ve been in two rooms where applause has been called for, and yet—unable to applaud. No applause necessary. Applaud with aplomb. The plaudits, the maldits, the well-dits. How-do-you-do-dits. This is what we have to say.

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Investing. She is investing time. She struggles to define the terms and conditions. The terms of daylight and nightlight. The conditions of breakfast, tea, noise, and satisfaction. She is not sufficiently passionate. Her passion is weak (again). I can learn from the past. I can make a move out of passion. I can dedicate.
I will dedicate my room to the poetries, my living museum of cloth and pixels. The pixels are little squares in the fabric. Her technique is appalling. Going back through the catch—fishes, shells, seaweed, and garbage. Fishes fish, dishes or dish. Hollywood Hollywood Hollywood (dactylic) Perilous Perilous (dactylic) In my room (anapestic). I could go through some poems, mark them. I could observe them in their carriages.

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My shoulders have regressed since the injury. They are back up around my ears. I am waiting for a beating, another blow to fall.
I am waiting for the pain. I like to devalue, much more than most. I do not like children. I am an ana-pest.

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november 9

Still sad. Sadder than ever today. I want to throw myself on your mercy. To wander into your crowd full of people I don’t know. I set up a conflict with people around me. I don’t stake my claim.
I don’t taste my own sauce. I guess I’ll leave here now.

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Yes this was me. I am suspicious of me, what is it. Today spent time in completely anonymous pursuits that will never offer any recognition. I’m suspicious of my name. It doesn’t feel appropriate for fame. I wrestle expectations down and down and down again. Meanwhile, why not call it home? No this is not me. Me so what. I like the universal flux instead, brightened and tightened in a node that is my skin, my wrist. My stinging teeth, my statically electric hair. My shapeless brows.

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I sense there are too many people in the world with too many attachments. There isn’t room. There is no more room. I am squatting here.

Everyone is on a trajectory of some kind though. Achievement-life: I can smell it coming a mile away.

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Food is very important to me. I miss being able to cook, having a broken wrist makes it an ordeal. I like really tasty food. I like fruit smoothies. I love wine. I like vegetarian food—all the variety, none of the danger. I don’t think I could be vegan though. I like eggs and dairy too much.

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One of the things that I love about Natalie is her ability to make judgments about people and say them out loud. It’s thrilling to hear her sum up a person, their behavior, their motivations, their unconscious fire, all rolled into one or two quick incisive statements. Initially, I just bought into everything she said. I had never experienced such a wise window opening onto other people. I was hungry for the guidance. Somehow, I had been misled, led to believe that everyone was a Child of God. Christian psychology is very flat and its behavioral modification systems are very dumb. I had no ability to read people, to differentiate between them. I was like a person, a woman, in an arranged marriage with everyone. As far as Natalie’s stories go, later I learned there might also be other points of view.

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Some envy. I enjoyed a short story that included a line about envy.

I enjoyed John Ashbery’s line “I write in the afternoon.” It hit
me with a great impact. Why? Because I don’t like afternoons. They are a negligible, hateful time, a chunk of time to get through. I am optimistic in the morning (usually) and pessimistic in the afternoon. There’s a wish that I could heal this. What would a good afternoon look like? Sunshine? Satisfaction? Rest?

I don’t like any hour of the day.

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I heard about Immaculée praying the rosary to survive while shut up in a bathroom for weeks, hiding from murderers.

Something I want to know? Don’t know.

I said the rosary everyday for a year. Maybe it was a school year. My sophomore year. The cheesy pearlized paint flaked off my little white first communion beads. Once I lost the rosary—it fell from my pocket. That immediate pang of irrational loss— desperation. I retraced my steps and found it, on top of a desk in a classroom. I was ashamed that someone had found it on the floor, maybe even identified it as possibly mine, and decided to place it on the desk for the owner to more easily find. It meant another person was thinking about my things.

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I have nothing else to do but put some effort into this. I am one-handed in the house. I can’t sleep. I have trouble with the network. My mind races regarding home repairs. I start to target my relationship and I want to tear things to pieces.

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Lisa wrote me. I am hanging onto emails from Lisa and Olivia like lifesavers. I’m wondering if I should transfer my efforts to my own writing. Signs point me in this direction, but I don’t want to go. Maybe I should give it a try. Might make me happier in the household.