3333. I HUNG MY HAT

I HUNG MY HAT

(Part One)

Penny-whistle anteater ceramic form:

'Call it what you want', the strange sculptor

said. Hi-hat with a tribe, a nail-gun throbbing

loudly - 'Why do you operate this way?', said

I, 'almost annoying, don't you know? So much

force and noise.' He was throwing things down 

now, from a scaffold. Everything stayed still.

-

'Watch, watch, the new light on the hedges out

there' - we were looking at morning coming over

the hill  -  'then try duplicating that in your mind;

perfectly defined light, living its own place, shading

green hedges doubtlessly.' I looked and saw  -  a

nice light, with well-defined angles dripping down

over the white-metal lamp-post and hitting the hedge.

He was right; it was beautifully bright.

-

He'd written me once before  -  'No barfy teen-age'd

snot writing snarky lyrics to his mother. Why then did

Rimbaud stop writing? He damn-well better have,

that useless piece of crap, teen-age angst and all

of that.' I'd guessed he didn't like Rimbaud, though

I never asked and he never told. A few lines later,

he wrote 'youth is wasted on the callow, fucking

young.' I wrote him back, 'So, you only seek

maturity? And now you work in wood and stone?'

'Yes', he'd replied, 'it changes less.'

-

 Now I was drinking coffee at his table, while he was

downing scotch and probably drunk as well. He slammed

his glass down hard  -  'To tell, to tell, I'm tired of all this

shit now. I just want to get along. I'm too fucking old and

nasty to care. Hell, if I could make thunder now instead, 

I would.' I had to stay strong, trying to tell this backwards

nicely  -  a tale as rugged as rock but spacey as stars. I can't

really define the moments, but in these ways this is pretty

much how they occurred. He was wearing a hat he called

'Pomona Ray'. He was throwing things down, where they stayed.