13,521. RIMBAUD HAD

RIMBAUD HAD

Artur Rimbaud had a

charley-horse leaving

Charleville. Oh, that's

where he lived, in case

you didn't know. Running

guns across Africa, he died

of some  leg-rot disease.

It goes like that, the long,

horrid story  -  some sort

of emergency surgery too.

I think he had it cut off.

-

All of this is a meager gruel,

and not something anyone

normal would even care

about  -  or should even care 

about. Like some weird and

mathematical feud, how many

equations with these numbers

fit? Certainly, the normal

man would not care.

-

My opinion, OK. I will say...

I find all these sorts of romantic

crazies to be of overblown

reputation and, also, hung

up, very much, on their

mothers. You can't really

get around that. They all are.

13,520. JUST BECAUSE

JUST BECAUSE

Just because you say things

doesn't make them true; that

goes for Heaven, Hell, and

things in-between too. it's a 

myriad of hallways we get 

lost in, each, along the way. 

Even when we stumble there's 

usually someone there to say...

'See, I told you.'

-

No one reads the newspaper 

any more, even though maybe

some kids still deliver: to the 

doorsteps and post boxes so

assigned, where they flick 

their bicycle wrists and the

arc of some rainbow curves

its unnoticed line through the

yellowed suburban sky.  Just

because they throw them does

not mean that anything lands.

-

They air is fraught with premonitions:

Flying newspaper buttresses, claims

of fame and power, coups and plots,

murders and deaths. Trying to report

all this is useless; just because you

say something, doesn't make it true.

13,519. RUSSINA

RUSSINA

Just the cow that was glowing

red was the only one he could 

sell me, he said. 'What kind of 

Chernobyl deal was that?' I said. 

He laughed, but in Russian instead, 

and though I understood not a word, 

I got the gist. 'Which cow is this?' 

I asked. He said he called her Russina. 

'Good milk, but of a flaming red. Too.' 

I remember making the deal, but walking 

away somehow unsatisfied in my loss of

those rubles for this cow from  Chernobyl. 

It's funny the things you never regret.

13,518. MY MOST ENIGMATIC APPROACH

MY MOST ENIGMATIC APPROACH

On these roads the guys don't wear

helmets when they pounce those

motor-sickles. All the guys from

Baer's like the tickles on their

scalp and all those hairs go flying.

I've not yet seen a female head

unfettered. Must be Maybelline.

Like any old time I used to know,

they ride, but no no one gets drunk.

Or drunk enough to show? Or go?

I don't know  -  we used to, what we

called, 'recreational  dunk drive' -

like an adder slinking somewhere

off across a road.

-

Never you mind. This bears no

recognition factor to life as it should

be lived. Out behind the dealership,

and down the hill, across the river,

the rest of the real town just waits.

It's not much, anymore : Just lawyers

and a courthouse, houses and gates,

a library and some swooning local

businesses that each wish for better

days. There's an old stained-glass

I've seen  -  up above some doorway  -

that names a car-shop or a dealer,

when they used to be downtown. 

I guess. CVS, Walgreens, fast-food

places, and some coffee shops too.

-

Here come those motorcycle boys,

ripping on through. It's so hard

to sit outside.

13,517. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,160

 RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,160

(sunshine? superman? foretold?)

As far as it went, I never

much like the Village Fugs,

nor Cat Mother and the All

Night Newsboys either. They

were two local east-village

rock bands, of their own

sort. Loose, oily, garage-band

sounds. In the case of the

Fugs, more scatological 

than anything. Silly things

like 'After we ball, I hope

that won't be all.' Their 

record label, whatever it 

was, wouldn't produce them

with their original name, The

Fucks,' so the slipshod other

name had them as The Fugs.

They were actually marginally

successful for a while. On the

other hand, along 2nd Ave and

such, Cat Mother was more a

'let's get laid' band. Miserable

college smirks and all. (That

would have been a good band

name, back then: Miserable

College Smirks). I've always

hated irony too.

-

Ed Sanders, and Tuli Kupferberg. 

They, or Ed anyway, had the

Peace Eye Bookstore, on 10th

street alongside Tompkins Square

Park. Pretty cool; mysterious, back

then. Esoteric, let's call it. And, at

the corner, near to Peace Eye, was

the famed 'Psychedelicatessant'  -  

you can check my spelling because 

I could be wrong. That was a 'space

out space,' as I called it. You could

zone out there, high on whatever,

and sit in one place for three days

and it would all be excused because

you were 'grooving'  -  on where or

what no one ever much said. My

place at 509 e11th was right around

the next corner, so I'd pass it all the 

time. I went in some too. It was just 

a cool space, oddly painted, maybe

in spacey purples and stuff, sort of

dark and not much lit by normal

lighting, music usually pumping. I

used to like to watch the girls, and the

weirded out guys too  -  all together

they seemed a crappy sum-total

of the famed 'Summer Of Love.'

There were one or another other

rooms too, but I little knew what

went on there. This is all funny now,

60 years later, with drugs and pot

and all the rest of that crap now

made proper and accepted, even 

legal. Now that's ironic! With the

the 'Government' no less now so

involved in the trade and changing

what was once 'lawlessness into

now a new version of ironic

and accepted fun  - dispensing

centers and trade-inventory. No

accountability for all the lives ruined

and imprisoned over the last

50 years because of their stupid

attitudes coming (then) first. If you

once thought that handing out 

(my mind wants to say 'Novocain'

but it's not that, even though that

funny), methadone was dumb, this

now is the latest version of dumb.

-

That entire area was pretty crazy,

and one could walk the range and

see it all  -  from Gracie Mansion

Gallery  -  which came later, when

for a brief time the East Village 

actually made a stab at being a

new 'arts and galleries' area (BIG

flop), to the bicycle repair guy at

10thm who'd set up his outdoor

bicycle-repair curb most every

day, and stay busy at it too: axles,

chains, bearings, adjustments and

re-fittings too. Bars and pop-up

storefronts for whatever seasonal

moment was underway. In ways of

making money, it always seemed that

the inveterate New Yorkers had a

million tricks up their sleeves. The

small and obscure eating places, and

the weird forms of delivery too. Yes,

something was always underway.

-

Maybe even the places I've mentioned

were part of that : rule-free zones that,

eventually  -  it was hoped  -  would

draw the miserable 1967 dollars or

change out of someone's pocket, for

whatever crap could be peddled. It was

like that with the music too  -  the Fugs,

and Cat Mother, to use just two, then

local, examples. The music sucked, it

was actually horrid, but  -  in the

broader ethos of those days, like

today  -  you were supposed to check 

your judgment at the door, just go for

cool, get it, and laugh along. It was

loud, fast, rude, and foul and ironic

too. Back then, a regular prole would

not have a sense of the 'ironic' factor,

of course. It had not become so vainly

established as it did later. All those pop

songs, and Beatles and Dylan and the

rest, suddenly self-consciously and

wryly about themselves, singing! With

a wink. You try to listen to 'Leopard

Skin Pillbox Hat' now, or 'Rainy Day

Woman, #12 & 35' and it's really all

you can do to keep from barfing over

what you hear, The irony and self

conscious wink-factors were so broad as

to be patently offensive. Like 'Tomorrow

Never Knows,' 'I Am the Walrus' and

all the rest. Different fish, same school.

-

I remember the titters and sneers, in

school, when learning about things

like 'Lake Titicaca' in Peru, or  -

another time  -  when some woman

friend of mine began snickering, and

said  -  about a baseball player named

Albert Pujols  -  'I can't believe they're

cheering for a guy named 'poo-hole.'

I meant to say back, 'Yes, and ha ha,

this whole twisted world is a funny

place.' But more to my matter was

the idea of the huge waste that had,

by now, and then too, gone into

belittling the world, for what it is,

maybe too for what it can be, or is 

headed to be. In 1967, the hordes 

of young kids swarming into the

east village were meant to be no

harm, do nothing negative but seek

and have their own sensated fun. Of

course, it never turned out that way.

Nor did I ever see it that way. I found

that I just could not get into the fabric

of that ill-fitting suit; oh though I

tried. And then, one day, just like

that, after the deaths and the riots, 

the protests and the hiding outs, and

all the rest, I realized that, truly, all

was lost. Those miserable trends had

actually taken root and spread and

had been assimilated into the society

at large. And no one blinked. No one

cared. The Vietnam Death Choir raged

on, the irony there being the anarchy

of soldiers. Killing, but with a new

and redefined definition of what that

killing was. On the NY city streets,

that same redefinition broke down 

everything else  -  the dry-rot of

the 1970's, and then the rococo

sick glamor of the '80's tried so

valiantly to give meaning to pathos,

shape and form to a blob of misery

that, by then, and perhaps ironically

too, had spread everywhere : Schools,

cafeterias, encounter groups, therapy

session, marriage counseling, drug 

clinics, art-therapy session, rap sessions,

polyester and double-knit clothing.

The entire mid-afternoon martinis

crowd, flambe'd and sickened of

itself, turned to irony, killed their

own nation, and merrily tumbled

along their way. 'Sunshine came

softly to my window today. Could

have tripped out easy, but I changed

my ways.' Sunshine? Superman?

It was all foretold....

13,516. TRENCHANT PROHIBITIONS

TRENCHANT PROHIBITIONS

The dog walks softly on its own

cloud of being, while I, in effect,

jet ski across my presumptions.

There is no tarnish to this silver,

nor any twist within this lace.

-

We both rove, yet remain alone,

together. Not too much in common,

even the words and the shoulders

are all different between us. I step

through the mud, while the dog

tries lapping the waters I avoid.

13,515. I STRING FOR FELLOWS

I STRING FOR FELLOWS

Hold the hand that held the hand

that held the hand of Mickey Rivers.

If that's some sort of big deal to you,

good; he played baseball for the

Yankees, but always looked like 

a cripple, with a sort of hobbled

walk and pigeon-like stance. But,

that man could dance  -  once he 

got rolling along the bases. 

-

A punch-hitter; singles were good

enough for doubles, stretching that

lead into a stolen base in 3-second

spurts. Kind of was a legend in his

little, own, time, that Rivers was.

I think he's dead now, but I forget.

-

Another time, I saw Ron Darling, as

a retired ex-Met, and broadcaster

too, at the White Horse. He was

sitting alone, and facing the TV 

screen up over the bar  -  it was

an October World Series day,

sometime about 2006. We said

hi, and then I got to wondering if

he was there for the betting and

spreads than the actual game 

itself.

13,514. THIS THING IS A PROBLEM

 THIS THING IS A PROBLEM

When Atlas came down from the

Atlas mountains, I'd bet he was 

in a real snit. One thing after 

another, it must have seemed. 

The sunlight drew the water for

the bath, but it turned into a

mountain stream; the pond

where he used to linger, into

a raging sea?

-

Those Gods, or whatever they

were, crawling along Mt. Olympus,

now that was more than even he 

could bear. 'Were we not Gods?', 

he thought unto himself, 'or just

more exalted humans full of snuff

and fire?'

-

Balancing preoccupations takes

up lot of time. Some other God,

or fire, or time, Chronus or

Hephaestus, help us with this

burden please.

13,513. NOW THE LATTICE-WORK SHOWS

NOW THE 

LATTICE-WORK 

SHOWS

And though there is something missing,

the flowers still cling to the wooden slats.

Nothing tentative, I mean, they cling. That

curlicue of tendril they grew can really

grab. I guess that's what 'I remember you'

tries to get it. By saying something so

pointed, I will not forget a thing.

13, 512. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,159

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,159

(...in just going on...)

One time I went to a birthday party,

in Chinatown. Kids were around the

table, singing. 'Happy Birthday, To Yu.'

Yes, that was pretty funny. So were

those dumplings and black bean

pastries the adults were eating. I

did always like Chinatown, even 

as much as it was a sort of no-man's

land even then. If one wasn't Chinese

it took an extra thought or two to go 

there. There was period of time, in 

the Studio School, when getting an

apartment in Chinatown was taken

up as a great way to find cheap rent.

I knew one or two people who did it,

and the forthcoming stories were

then legion  -  of strange scenes and

smells, groups of people, and the

obscure, behind the scenes, streetlife

they'd see. Barber-shop schools that

doubled as Tong hideouts, small

doorways leading to deep alleys 

and opium dens, and  -  in fact  - 

there were a few lurid tales of

underground passages leading right

to the east River, from which people

sued to be taken away (and never

seen again). Chinatown was strange.

I got to know, purely by repeated

seeings, the really odd beggar-types

as the stood or sat at their same

places all the time, endlessly chain

smoking, or playing one-string lutes

or whatever they were, with a metal

cup for handouts, and what appeared

to me as, (whether they purported to

be blind or not) eerie lookout-scans

along the streets and passers-by, as

if on alert for gang infractions or

murderers or thieves. I always

wondered about whatever sort of

network those street gangs and 

Chinese Benevelent Societies

were running. One other time, as

friends with a Taiwan Exchange

Student  -  who called herself

Mary Tsei (pronounced like  'Shay'),

I went to a second-story Buddhist

Temple on the east side of  what's

called Confucius Plaza  -  a sort of

crummy-now location where Bowery

begins, and Police Plaza starts too,

in the other direction down, southward.

It was all once called Five Points; at

Street, Orange Street, etc., and was,

early on, the most notorious and

dangerous death den of old NYC.

Many of the streets are gone now, 

and, as with Police Plaza and the

civic and municipal buildings 

that were constructed in their

places, Government has solved

the problems by simply taking the

places over  -  jails, pavement,

huge buildings, family courts, etc.

One way of solving the old, human,

problems, I suppose. (But just then

replacing them with another, just

as bad). Anyway, she took me to

that Buddhist Temple (an uncle or

some connection of hers was a monk

there). It overlooked prime Chinatown,

Doyer Street and the rest, but was a

very  - seeming  -  calm large room,

with incense, pillows, some sort of

music, etc. Large, swing-out windows

(no AC, in 1974 anyway) let in street

sounds and some voices too, but nothing

really disconcerting. Halfway or so up

the walls were shelves with candles,

bowls filled with oranges, incense

sticks, and dollar bills too. I was 

told they were all offerings, and 

ongoing. People would come in, sit 

and meditate or rest, while dwelling 

on their problems of the moment, and 

leave behind offerings. We managed

to stay there, meditatively, for about

five minutes, and then Mary in to

the side rooms, in search of her

relative. Curtains parted, heads

poked out, Mary was gone a bit.

Then she came back out and said

simply, 'We must leave. They are

not happy that I brought outsiders

in, and wish us to go now.'

-

That was the end of that. Not much 

else was mentioned about it, and I 

certainly wasn't going to be the one 

to dwell on the subject. I guessed 

some odd line had been crossed, one 

by which I was the outsider. It was 

a strange feeling. OK, so of course

it got me to thinking about what

being an outsider actually is (was).

I had always been one, and that was

always apparent to me, although this

form of outsider was different. That

was all physical and material form.

My own 'outsider' claim, I realized,

stemmed from internal, psychic

causes of my very own. Yet, they

were agreeable to me, accepted 

and, in fact, welcomed by being 

most prevalent.

-

As I sit here, writing these things,

I am reminded of much else, and

of others who have said things 

about what manners of memory 

and  recollection we keep our 

inner lives alive. Even these now

most basic remembrances of

Chinatown  - Mott, Doyers,

Mulberry Streets and the rest  -

swirl in with their own new

concretes acting as foundations

for my 'memory.' To an individual

involved, it's all out of their own

control  -  life makes what it will

of its own manners and memories.

John Updike had it thusly: 

"Composition, in crystallizing

memory, displaces it." I think that

means to say that the memory

aspect of it takes over the event(s)

themselves and allow us them to

weave our new selves over and

into whichever memory we are

working. Strange, that is. (I

write this today, after just

receiving news of another

childhood friend's sudden death

and I, in my turn, realize, 'There

has never been anything in my

life quite as compressed, 

simultaneously as communicative

to me of my own power and worth

and of the irremedial grief in just

living, in just going on.')....

13,511. DELIVERY

DELIVERY

It seems the mailman was

pulling strings, or trailing them

anyway. Driving along the dirt

covered road with the yellow

light on : stopping place to place

to reach and stretch, the mail to

the right-handed box, the box to

the right-handed mail. He should

be carrying helium balloons to

help with gas mileage. I'm over

in the heather, watching, from

behind the budding trees.

13,510. SURREPTITOUS TRAINING BUSINESSMAN

SURREPTITIOUS TRAING: BUSINESSMAN

When the wind dies down

my surreptitious training can

cease. Listening to all your

new instructions is like getting

training from a dog. Not that I

mind, understand, but simply

that this far along in deep stages

of life, I'd rather be ranging in

Dreamland. Business and, now,

commerce,  -  your sought-for 

intentions of  trading for coin  -

are seen pulling me back to the

Devil external. That' s a nice

house up on the hill, for sure;

but let's let it stay there for now.

13,509. NOBLESS OBLIGE

NOBLESS OBLIGE

Nobody today knows how to

leave anything alone. The curse

of a modern day. The fixture on

the charnel-house landing.

-

We sometimes stand alone, or

think we do, or stand back - to

watch things occur, the mix with

the ladle, the churn of the mortar

being mixed.

-

But when we are done, how so

many love the bricks, and with 

them erect their kingdoms of high 

railing and stately heights. No one

leaves anything alone.

13,508. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,158

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,158

(new york city was sure a weird place)

Maybe I walked too many

miles in all those walking

days I had. In a certain way

of seeing things, there wasn't

too much else I ever had to

do. I'd landed, feet-first and

fortunate, on the long slide of

Manhattan : knowing little

about it, really. There seemed

to be a torch at every corner,

yet only now I realize they

were the old-style, short-stalk

2-color traffic lamps that New

York City used to have. Amber,

I guess, had not yet been

invented. If they tried that

today, the dead would be

lining the streets. Except, as

it is, I can't recall what actually

happened, back then, between

red and green. Maybe it was

red for all for a few seconds?

I don't know. Havoc, in any 

case, was always my bedfellow,

so it wouldn't have mattered.

Now, like anywhere else, the

traffic lights are all overhead

and seen by all. It used to be

you had to really ferret them 

out; hard to find in a crowd.

-

It was pretty maddening anyway,

along east 11th street, and I hardly

knew what I was doing there.

Spanish murders. Drug cases.

Crumbling buildings, yet somehow

filled with people  -  families of

8 or 9. I guess the parents, in

all that misery, just never stopped

pounding each other and thus

kept producing kids. Juicy ones,

dripping over everything. August

ice-creams. Custodians of custard

and sweets. 

-

I don't know, and I probably never

was meant to. A few things I did

find out, haphazardly, while I was

settling in : newcomer kids, the

hippies, all rolling in, the girls 

among them, novices, once they 

started smoking pot, they always 

had their clothes off not long after. 

I guess it was a sort of rite-of-passage 

for Summer, 1967. I never found out.

Not everyone knew that; only the

wise-guys, like my 'roommate' Andy,

who wasn't really. He was a localized

drug vendor; how long before me

he'd been doing it, I never knew, nor

where he stayed before he moved in

with me. He was - he said - from

California, where he'd lived a deep

life, though in deep-freeze, in L.A.,

growing up as a scoundrel. He blew

in with the hippie tide, but in reverse,

as it went. The end-goal for most

of the others was to get to California,

starting out from NYC. For him, it all

apparently went the other way. In

the very beginning of my time, he

did sort of save my butt by giving

me a space to sleep  -  after I'd met

him accidentally, at some crummy

job we had at the food joint next

to the Fillmore East. It was a small,

narrow dive, next to what once had

been some large cafeteria-style eaterie.

Now it was was a sludge-pot pushing

hamburgers and ice cream and soda

to the freaked out music-heads at the

'concerts' next door. Moby Grape, '8:05,

I guess I'm leaving soon....' That was

the big tune around, when I landed.

-

Looking back now, New York as

Paradise sucked. New York as a

dream also sucked. I never paid a

day's rent, except that first month,

after Andy came in and somehow

fund a way to pay the monthly rent

to the skeeter-headed pot-freak

Superintendent on the premises

in drugs. Cash was so passe.

-

It all made me bored and nervous,

but I never said much; just went on

my way, coming and going, not

frequenting much of the ways and

means that were flooding all around

me. Andy kept cowboy boots, filled

with change  -  one for quarters, one

for dimes, another for nickels, etc.

I never knew about paper money or

bills; where any of that went; the

entire world of such high finance 

(there's a pun for you!). Whenever

my girlfriend came to visit, Andy

was always happy to load her with

change for the subway. He kept me

flush too  -  except that quarters got

heavy. It was all a joke. There'd be

people dozing about, enough that

I'd have to step over them, heads,

arms, even naked torsos  -  those

stupid girls again I mentioned. It

was just a big grin to Andy. He

was about 6 or 8 years older than

me, I guessed, at my runt age of 18;

a wizened old man, he was, wiser

in the ways of filth and the world

than I'd ever be; so I just rolled off

and sort of let him run the show 

even though it was my apartment.

It was my name on the lease, not 

his. All that was OK, and I didn't

care because I'd moved out anyway

- living in the basement of the

Studio School instead. It was OK

until bad-shit started happening.

It just got worse. Real worse. I

leave it there, for now.

-

Other and better things took my

time and energy away. I managed

a sort of happiness. Whenever I

went back there, in the midst of

all else we'd been doing  -  running

draft-dodgers to Canada, formulating

strange protests and marches for the

anti-Vietnam factions, evading police

and vice-squad snoopers  -  the vibes

I felt were really bad. No one even

knew me anymore; as I'd go back to

MY apartment, to be questioned and

let in by new people I'd not know 

and who didn't know me. The kettle

was about to blow, and it had been

boiling bad shit too. When it all

went down  -  fortunately for me  -  I

wasn't there. Bodies and fumigation.

Police tape and a news story too!

Nobody knew me then, and I was

determined to keep it that way.

-

Years later I met the guy whose

father had been detective to the

investigation. He was dead by then,

and his son reflected  -  without

knowing who I was  -  how that

case and that era had irked his father,

never being able to get to the real

bottom of anything. It was OK with

me, and we left it at that. New York

City was sure a weird place.

13,507. THE OLD ALUMINUM SHED

THE OLD ALUMINUM SHED

The only note that ever came

to me said I was missing in

action and my remains were

being sent home. Yes, you're

right  -  it all made no sense, 

to me either. I put the rifle's

barrel in your mouth, but all

that happened when I pulled

the trigger was that your dog

then clamped my leg. No big

deal, and it only hurt a little.

We marched across the lawn

to say some prayers for Father

Baxter, who too had not returned

from where he'd been. I wondered

if he also had received a letter.

-

A few days passed, and it seemed

the march was still on : we pranced

across a greensward outside Beckly.

Nice small towns like that ought

never be invaded, let alone see any

trace of war or cinders : Garages

and swing-sets, in a sort of perfect

order. I tried imagining an equal

life, but nothing like that ever

came to be. I already knew my

endings before they'd even

happened. Now the only sound

we hear is the deadened thud of

rain on the old, aluminum shed.

13,506. ELSEWISE

ELSEWISE

Edelweiss, and now this.

Small men, hunters with

outsize carbines shooting at 

rocks and declensions, or

reading Rimbaud at the edge

of the water. Drunken Boats,

indeed. Crocodiles will stop

at nothing to do honor to the

breed. Am I dreaming, or can

any of this be for real?

-

Maybe I should take a hammer 

to the Ferris Wheel? Maybe we

together should better down the

walls. Between this aching and

this waking : matter holds such

small adhesion to this world.

-

We can watch the President,

together, as he garbles his words

and utters snipe-talk for the now

ever-present camera-eye. How

does it go, now that every day

seems like Sunday to me?

13,505. CLIMBER'S INTENT

CLIMBER'S INTENT

I think the Sherpa guides still ask

at Everest what is the climber's

intent for the climb; as if all that

is paramount is that one has a

good reason. Not danger. Not 

clime. It was Edmund Hillary, 

I'm told, who said 'Because it's 

there'  -  something  to that effect. 

-

The joke goes that they fetched him

a bucket and said 'wretch in here.'

He asked them why, and they said,

'Because it's there...'

13,504. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,157

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,157 

(a humble dis-astonishment)

Making my way through

this increasingly obstructed

world has become more and

more torturous and/or difficult

for me  -  it now having reached

the point, I'll admit, where I

do avoid any social interactions

whenever I can. I do not usually

enter stores, and even attending

to a post-office visit causes me

consternation and anxiety. My

goodly wife, for her part, tends

to those sorts of usual chores 

for me. What a strange end-point

for me to have reached. This

form of reclusiveness, however,

has numerous good points. I

never need to dine out, restaurants

now being acceptably passe and

most other 'social' duties, except

perhaps answering to a routine

police pullover, can be successfully

shirked. I have fund that most of

the things people seem to think

MUST be done are, in actuality

done by choice and need NOT

actually ne needed at all. Yes!

The way it should be.

-

Malcolm Muggeridge, a British

writer from some time just past

the 1970's, as I recall, wrote

once of his life-long love of and

quest for nothing but 'the word.'

Writing : "Words were my metier.

There was nothing else I ever

wanted to do except use them:

no other accomplishment or

achievement I ever had the

slightest regard for, or desire

to, emulate. I have always

loved words, and still love 

them, for their own sake. For 

the power and beauty of them: 

for the wonderful things that 

can be done with them." Well, 

that sure summed up for me 

some part of the attributes of 

living that I'd begun adopting,

even in my seminary days. As

I've noted here before, it was

early on, once I'd gotten set

and established there, that I

realized little of that was really

for me at all and that the 

looming  threat over my head 

was of staying and thus being

forced to accede to something

that was not about me at all.

Ill-suited religiosity, of the sort

there peddled, would be ruinous

to my future life and days. It's

said that a wise person realizes

these things, and limitations,

intuitively, as he or she learns

to sense and read what's coming

in  -  the intuitive soul messages 

of self. I recognized mine right

off, and they were calling from

some far, other place; and they

were telling me 'Get off, get

off this boat now, and don't

look back.' The funny thing

was  -  in the manner of life

replicating itself and causing

its own realities  -  that I didn't

have to do a thing. All around

me whatever I needed fell into

place itself, bringing to me the

needed result. And I gauge the

remainder of my life from that

point.

-

It is also said that a wise person

commits suicide numerous times,

albeit in a symbolic sense. In that

vein as well, I ended, as dead and

buried, a few lives and a few versions

of myself that no longer fit me. This

sometimes caused, or causes, among

others, a consternation; a reaction

to me as being too changeable or

too fitfully inconsistent. I never

viewed it as that at all, and rather,

instead, prided myself on the

honesty of having and heeding 

a guiding self which (again)

intuitively led me on and towards

the paths and pastures where I

should be headed. It worked,

though never by worldly standards.

My own viewpoint of 'worldly'

standards anyway has never been

a good one, nor an accepted one.

To those, perhaps, who did

understand something of me  - 

like my friend Mary Kay of

long-ago previous mention, I

was always seen as a 'burn down

the mission' kind of character;

in equal parts talented and bizarre,

though often, as well, beyond

comprehension and unpredictable

too. Many wakes, attended by

many, varied people seeing me

out. I suppose somewhere out

there there will be a real one

awaiting me as well.

-

In Shakespeare's 'King Lear,' the

blind Gloucester says to Edgar, who

has just commiserated with him

on his blindness, 'I stumbled when

I saw.' There has always been a

fraught meaning there for me. Those

who have single sight, (my term),

are condemned to but see things 

one way, one time, over and over.

By such means is life itself turned

into a boring wreck. 'I stumbled

when I saw,' on the other hand, has

always denoted for me the idea

that  those considered otherwise

'blind' by the world  -  because of

a refusal to go along, conform,

assume  -  are actually the fner

characters, who can sense and

intuit, with higher means, the very

clarity of that which they are after,

or seek. This it has always been

for me, and by those ways I found

always my refuge in (what are

ignominiously called) 'words.'

-

Such a dumb word as 'words' 

does little justice to the otherwise 

transformative power of (perhaps

what should instead be called)

'grasp' : of Reality and of the

world. It was when I had sight

that I stumbled most often. Once

I became blind to all else, and 

stayed on my course of 'words'

that I could see most clearly

and no longer had obstacles to

avoid, nor steer around. I was

able to live the rest of my life

in a humble dis-astonishment

about the other foolish things that

drove those all around me onward.