12,044. CAN YOU CATALOGUE MY KEYSTONE MAGNET?

CAN YOU CATALOGUE 

MY KEYSTONE MAGNET?

Nothing ever makes me happier

than writing words and poetry;

maybe a padding refuge at a

comedy class, or some coach

in  drama-school training the

kids to love-scene kiss. Those

are both pretty funny.

-

Funny; but they don't make me

happy  -  they're only routine.

Just up from the town of 

Woodstock, is the magic elixir

of the mountain there named

Overlook. It's supposed to have

cast spells on early settlers, and

broken the moon's back, coming

fat over the horizon.

-

But that's not true at all  -  to 

the original inhabitants, the natives

of the fields and woods and waters,

it was an unlucky place, one vexed

and cursed and covered in bad spells.

-

You can only find that out now if

you ask the right people; shamanistic

overlords, there now, who oversee

dark places. There's still plenty of

joy; yes. But look around sometime  -

see how twigs and limbs and branches

grow twisted and bent. The strange,

underground, iron-water running

over everything along its way.

12,043. RUDMENTS, pt 791

RUDIMENTS, pt. 791

(not so bad, really)

I had a half-Italian friend

once, Alex, who used to

go around saying mezzo

mezzo. Whenever anyone

would ask, 'How are you?'

he'd say, 'Ah, mezzo mezzo.'

It was pronounced as 'metza,

metza,' sort of, or, then, close

to that. I never really knew

what was up with that. He was

haughty enough about himself

that I always somehow thought

he was saying, 'Mensa, Mensa.'

Which is a society for high

IQ people  -  which , of course,

he would have just loved. What

it does mean is like 'half and

half,' -  the good and the bad.

Not so bad, not so good.

Kind of a 'so so.' 

-

It never bothered me, but I

always found it to be a bit

like striving. My opinion was,

just say how you are and shut

up with the other language

posturing. I never told him

that, so he went on with it.

-

There's only so much you 

can do about other people, 

I found. They're going to be 

what they're going to be, no 

matter what you'll try to do 

about it. Everyone is already 

patterned for themselves.

It's a done deal  -  which 

is probably a better answer 

anyway, to the question of 

'How are you?' a good response, 

yes, 'It's a done deal.' Now, 

how is that said in ancient 

Greek? Imagine going to 

someone's wake, and in the

post-life review they give

everyone now, in the funeral 

parlors, to have, instead of

photos, all information about

the person, achievements,

accolades, etc., posted around,

but everything in another

language.

-

It's funny, but that once 

was what the 'vernacular' 

was  - getting rid of all 

that gibberish, secret 

language, and other 

tongues that no one 

understood. People then

began with their own stuff, 

reading and then writing too.

As if, until that point, life had 

been unclear, and they were 

on the threshold of all sorts 

of vast and new knowledge, 

uncoverings, and experiences. 

Which they were, yes, BUT 

had they not, for the previous

500 years, been at work in

slaughtering, massacring, and

killing en masse millions of

others who saw things in a 

different way from their own.

'They' being so sure of and

filled with certainty about

all the old crud they'd believed

and killed for. Missions?

Discoveries? Crusades? You

know, any and all of that can

happen again, at any time.

So watch out.

-

Back in Elmira  -  this reminds

me  - I used to have some free

time on Sunday mornings, as

my wife and young son had gotten

involved with some Presbyterian

Church Sunday Services thing.

So, I'd be around, at home, with

the dog; it was about 3 blocks 

off, that church, or we'd walk 

over to the college quad where 

I knew that the NYC artist guy, 

Gandy Brodie, in residence at the 

college at that time, would be,

also with his dog. We'd become

friends, and often spent these

idle dog hours together. But, 

anyway, this was all the period

of time (recently written about

a few chapters back) of my

German Lit. report, etc. on

Gutenberg and movable type

and the first glimmerings of

print-reproduction. I was most

intrigued, captivated in fact,

by the idea, once I learned it,

that of all that early and new

work of type and printing, that 

when mechanized type first

became a handicraft, printing

was first used, not to make

new books, but as to read the 

ancient and the medieval. That

astounded me, to think of the

currents of thought which 

would have gone into  that  

-  and then it hit me, and I 

further learned, that it was 

not yet really engrained

in people's minds the idea 

we have of 'creative writing'  -  

of character and situation, plot.

The minds of those folk, instead,

held rigorously to the old 

schemas of thought, dogma, 

and even religiosity. Not seen 

through the eyes of modernity  

-   the 'invention' of literature

was, then, not seen yet with

what we'd now call 'modern'

mind. I don't think they'd yet

realized that THEY too were

now free to create and to

develop their own worlds.

-

So I therefore was living a

quite primitive existence, as 

far as 'things' went, yet roiling

through my mind were all these

notions of intellectual pursuit

not much able to be shared, or

even developed. It was a very

singular means of going at it :

growth was relegated to the

notebooks and papers I carried.

Had this been the computer age,

back then and there, it may all

have been different  -  storage

and links and postings, etc.,

but as it was there was none

of that. I think of it now and

wonder how  -  when it all

first came, about 1997, I'd

guess  -  any of this framework

of Internet and computers came

to be instituted up there. Perhaps

it wasn't at all. For years. I'd have

to figure the school systems, and 

of course the college itself, and

its students, would all have had

to be entered into the 'computer

lottery' early on. But it must

have been interesting. How much

of any of this was grasped by the

1950's and 1960's people-versions

of farm-folk and families that I

saw up there, I could only

speculate.

-

The fellow that eventually did

buy my old farm place, a few 

years after we'd moved (I held

both places for a long time) was,

interestingly enough, a Pakistani

guy, the owner of Elmira Business

Machines  -  which small store

and operation I'd known about 

for years. High-tech for that era

was a Texas Instrument calculator

and some adding and payroll

electronic gizmos, along with

the usual bevy of IBM Selectrics

for typewriters, etc. He himself

was fairly Americanized, yes,

probably about 45 years old,

well-kept, but he had the accent

and the distinguishing characteristics

that would show you his nationality

well and easily. I often wondered

what those folk, after my exit,

must have thought of him. (Life

is so wickedly peculiar now, I

can't for the life of me recall his,

very simple, name). Anyway,

he and his wife may be dead, or

not, but they've invested much

money into the old place, plus

they've expanded and added

another, rear, level  -  plus a long

wheel-chair ramp all along the

front. So, the money must have

been good, and the surrounding 

pleasant. I applaud him for all

that, but I don't favor what he

did, by any means. It has no

longer anything to do with

what I had there.

-

I remember, some time about

1976, he stopped by one day,

there, to talk; just chat about the

deal, look the place over,etc. I

was on the porch, reading, and

he asked what I was reading.

'Present At the Creation,' by

Dean Acheson  -  a sort of world-

political history of the Truman,

1947, post WWII rebuilding of

Europe era, book; he blanched

when I showed him the title.

'Awful heavy as a read, isn't

it?' I smiled, almost calmly,

and said, 'No, not so bad.'

12,042. GARMENTS OF THE PAST

GARMENTS OF THE PAST

One day I had an idea. And

the the next day it was gone.

What lingers? It can't really

be a memory, can it, of 

something that never existed 

in the first place? My eyes

tried to focus on an answer.

Is that something eyes do?

-

I wallow in the past like

porkers do in mud. Never

wanting to leave. Heck, I

want to live forever, but in

the things that used to be.

Not this at all. 

-

The railroad magnate still

thinks he's a king. That 

Vanderbilt guy; I'll show 

him a thing. Or two. How

fast time flies when every

town's on a different clock.

How there's nowhere for 

people to freshen or pee

at that whistle-stop.

-

What is all this? And my God

how things have to change.

12,041.RUDIMENTS, pt. 790

RUDIMENTS, pt. 790

(hey, don't tell them I said that)

This  world sure is a funny one. 

On balance, as I look back

on that I was doing, I see 

now it was part mad-escape 

and another part almost a 

biblical sort of casting out 

from my personal equivalent 

of a bondage in Egypt, to a 

sad, nutso, chase following 

something into a hoped-for 

Promised Land of only a

personal reckoning. The fact

that it all ended in failure,

although disconcerting, does

not invalidate what I did, or

the doing of it. It all was

like a self-doctoring, without

prescription, to a progressive

wound that just kept growing 

instead of healing. (I want here

to imitate a parent, and say, 

'Don't pick at the scab! It will

never heal!').

-

I view life, I think, as a 

descending pallor  -  nothing 

ever gets better, rather 

viewpoints change to the

accommodate the descending

order and the degenerating 

format and context. It can 

never but be that way. 

Consider the local folk

here  -  including me, I 

suppose  -  always going 

on about taxes, expenses, 

congestion, home prices,

and all the rest. Ending up,

most often, moving away 

to somewhere distant. 

What then happens? To 

the person from Staten 

Island or NY, this all

looks, by comparison, 

to be a paradise. Rentable, 

affordable, green and roomy. 

So they move here, filling 

the void. That's where we 

get the slow transference,

downward, I'd say, while 

complacency and passivity 

set in and the new people

plop down here right into

the manipulative soirees 

of those hosting this 

authoritarian toastfest.

-

I saw right through that game,

long back ago. When I left

town, I'd figured I'd left for

good; doing all that Thomas

Wolfe stuff  -  you can't go

home again. That's really all

backwards anyway. It should

be 'You can't really ever leave

home.' In the same way those

are both true statements, so 

what's then the difference?

-

All those farmers, and their

wives and kids too, I got on

surprisingly well with. I've 

already written about the

compromises I agreed to  - 

those barber-shop porch nights,

the guys endlessly jabbering

about crap, men standing

around drinking hard cider

like it was their own personal 

gold, (which it was). Everyone

was sort of accepting, after

maybe a first-blush of cold

hard anathema. It went away,

usually, as soon as I began

talking; I'd find the simplest

subject, and go from there:

Nails used in the old barns, say.

Then some fool would start

going on about 'Daddy Hardwick,

and how he'd forged his own

nails, and had a count on how

many it all took, and if it was

7,000, well, he'd made them all.

They weren't nails anyway, so

much as endless spikes, to grab

the wood....' Blah, blah. The

prevalent eccentricity here was

that these guys could go on

about most anything. Cow teats,

the mailman's daughter, Alton

Ford's new gravestone, their own

wives' grunts and groans. Nothing

ever stopped them; they talked

while they milked, or shoveled,

or hammered. Now, I could be

belittling all that, but I'm not,

because to me that was all free

schooling about old stuff I'd

otherwise never know anything 

about. Suburban living cuts

you out of Americana, for sure.

All the stories of the great, old

country that ever were, they

all came out of places like this

here one, in Pennsylvania  -  as

I'm writing of it. This was 1740,

western frontier stuff; all those

restless 1st and 2nd generated

Americans pushing off into Ohio

and the hinterlands, the 'Northwest

Territories.' Injuns on the run too.

These old lands were still forming

societies; everything in flux, no

fast rules or laws about anything.

Mostly the rudest or nastiest guy

hiding out, he's the one who

eventually got into town, as

it came to be, and took over.

Post-facto lawman, enforcer,

even executioner. Start fires with

his spit, he would, if he had to.

Everyone else  -  those who stopped

their moving on anyway  -  they

stayed into place until it all

congealed. Like Jello, it might 

have been wiggly and jiggly, but 

it had  form and shape, and 

had 'congealed!'

-

Seems like whenever something or

some group leaves, there's always

something coming in from behind

to fill the gap, like the Staten Island

escapees I mentioned, to here. They

arrive here when something costs

2,000 dollars. They've been paying

3,800. It sure looks like a bargain

to them. Alas, we still recall when

it was 900; so we're the stuck

ones  -  grunting and groaning

like one of those farm-wives

the guys talk about. Hey. Don't

tell them I said that.
-
Conflict was always just a stone's
throw away  -  if I had sought it.
But I certainly did not feel it to be
my place. There was something
tangible, to be felt, about being an
outsider there, and I felt it. It was
a boat I didn't wish to be rocking.
Family and bloodlines ran back
through generations there, and it
wasn't often that totally new blood
was entered into that stream. When
that old blowhard started talking
about barns, names, and 'Daddy
Hardwick,' more people than not,
within earshot, knew exactly of
whom he spoke. I had no clue.
Something in the air there kept
people together : There's an old
story, one of those zen-type
things, about an old monk who
long had lived alone, going about
his tasks...having dug an irrigation
ditch, he would go fetch water,
and pour that water bucket by
bucket into the new ditch, to
water and reach his vegetable
garden below. His efforts were
tremendous, though the results
appeared as meager. A passing
traveler, seeing this, stopped and
told him another method for all
this, to lessen greatly the load and
improve the sequence. 'Take a wooden
lever, weighted at the back, light in
the front; it dips, brings up water,
and dispenses it. It's called a
'draw-well' and will almost gush,
saving you all this tedium.' Anger
rose up in the old monk's face, and
he said, 'I have heard my teacher
say that whoever uses machines
does all his work like a machine. 
He who does work like a machine
grows a heart like a machine; and
he who carries the heart of a
machine in his breast loses his
simplicity. He who has lost
his simplicity becomes unsure
in the strivings of his soul.
Uncertainty in the strivings of
the soul is something that does
not agree with honest sense.
It is not that I do not know of
such things; I am ashamed
to use them.'
-
For me, it was all
something like that.

12,040. THE GRAND DELINQUENT NO MORE

THE GRAND DELINQUENT 

NO MORE

My list grows small, my list grows long,

and I know nothing at all. This Bible

fell on my head this morning, from an

upper shelf; it landed, open to the story

about the upper room I had to think,

'Is it Easter again, so soon?' Then my

thoughts turned away. Does a rising

tide really lift all boats? I wanted to

say something grandiloquent and

bold, and realized I could not. Those

days are gone. And I am old.

12,039. MIRACLE TREES GROW EASY

MIRACLE TREES GROW EASY

It was Rilke who said 'You must

change your life.' I nodded off and

went to sleep. Moments of such

rectitude can doom the bearer.

-

Her name was Elsa-Beth but wanted

to be Mary. Everyone knew that, but

went along with the show. I walked

the waterfront at the old Philadelphia

Navy Yard, for the 15th time at least.

-

Some places always seem like Winter,

while others always seem like early

Spring. This was somehow both.

I chose to call her Jane.

12,038. TENDERLOIN JUKEJOINT LADY

TENDERLOIN 

JUKEJOINT LADY

Once I dreamed I had you;

yes, you came to me like 

some forgotten Grace Slick 

wanna-be. To shout the words to

White Rabbit, over white chocolate

caramel cream at White Castle.

Boy, were we daring? The next

thing I knew, it was snowing.

12,037. RUDIMENTS, pt 789

RUDIMENTS, pt. 789

(sidebar, bad weather, off track, detour)

As far as anything real

went, I was up to my

knees in it all. As far as

the rest  -  the imaginary

and the intellectual pursuits

and all that. I was overwhelmed.

There was a good period of

years there when I never

touched an art brush. I had

numerous typewriters going,

but not artwork. Living in

a new situation such as this

was, took a lot out of me.

I can't remember much about

sleep, but I guess I had no

trouble sleeping. I can't even

remember much about eating,

but  -  though I seemed to have

lost pounds  -  I guess I managed

all that OK. I was in a real

strange no-man's land, of my

own making. A corollary to

this happened to me just today;

which is about the funniest thing

of late. Here where I live now,

it's a regular street  -  houses,

curbs, and all the rest. I live

at the corner of two fairly often

used streets  -  people cutting

between the the other avenues

and streets, or the various people

living in this jumble here of about

6 or 8 blocks. I see lots of people

while out with my dog; they

wave, beep, stop to talk, etc. (I

also get my share of people

just coming by, to talk  -  I hear

all sorts of local issues and

ramifications, nothing good,

believe me, there are a hundred

gripes, everyone claims they are

not represented, and they have

ideas of what should be done,

which often seem to involve me

doing it. It's pretty strange,

because lately my hatred runs

deep, and it's the last thing I'd

ever wish to do, just before,

maybe, pissing in the sink.

More on all this in a minute).

My friend stops by today in

his truck  -  an acquaintance who

I see most every day, 15 or 20

houses off. We've talked before,

I know all about his life, as he

knows some of mine. Speaking

of 'no-man's land,' today he blurts

out, while idling in his truck, as

we talked. 'You know, I can't

figure you out. Are you a hillbilly

or a old hippie? I tell my friends

about you. I say, 'I can't figure

this guy near me out, he's either

a hillbilly or a hippie. I tell them

about you. So, which is it?' I

said,'Tell them, just call me

Popeye. I ams what I am.' He

got a big kick from that, and

said, 'That's it, then, Popeye

it'll be!' Then he said, 'I have

a 1940's lamp in my garage

somewhere, a Popeye lamp.

I'll dig it out and give it to you.'

-

That's a true tale, above, just
today. So, to you I present this:
Funny all around; how people 
claim they've been 'given' 
Democracy, and a voice, and 
yet, having it, they do nothing
with it. Rather, just allowing 
powers that be to run all
over them and treat them as
children or farm animals
pulled by rings in their noses.
Additionally, you can never get any
answer to anything  -  a real, and  
substantial, public and on-the-record
answer, so you simply, thereby,
can not know what's true or not.
'Hearing' things is one thing;
getting to the bottom of it, for the
record, and not for some kiddie
show, is another (people have
somehow gotten the idea now that 
that some part of Government's 
money-laundering operations for
them is to provide 'entertainment').

The other day, there had been a

movie or something shown in the

park down the street, (again, for
some reason, our faux-benevolent,
childish governances feel it is
incumbent upon them to provide
entertainment for the asses, oops,
I mean masses, but is there a
difference in this instance?), and

this other guy I know, whose house

backs to the park  -  he sees it all  -

came by bitching. It had been too

loud, they opened the large fence

and the only people who came

in numbers were the bums from

the new apartments; free movies

on us. Other than them, before

they slid open the large fence,

it had only been maybe 30 people.

He wasn't happy. Mostly because,

he says, 'because things go on in

that park you never hear about.'

The happy assholes cover it all

up, say nothing about it, including

the chucklehead councilman down

the street. He said the night of

the movie, 6 cop cars and an

ambulance showed up, another 2

heroin overdoses in the park, up

at the fence, but the Avenel Street

gate lawn.  He said there were 
two people, down for the count. 
It's all got him way  pissed off. He 
also said it's not the first.Might be

true, might not? No mention of such
anywhere. How's anyone to know?

Another time I was told, 'The

Mayor's a red-faced drunk.

You should find out where

he drinks, and take pictures

of that! He was handing

out awards once at School

4&5, was all off balance,

drunk, couldn't even handle

the papers.' Then, from still

others, I hear about his

blond sidekick who's getting

it all; etc., etc. See, I don't

care about any of this, he's a

schmuck. Even I know that.

At the end of May, at the Barron

Arts Center, he was presenting

awards. I got my awards, he

called my name correctly but

never focused. I could have been

Harry Potter for all his assness

knew. I handed him an envelope,

with a letter in it  -  asking for

public air-time, debate and

discussion time. Never even

answered, applies himself to

nothing. Now, if he ever steps

out to air things, or talk, without

calling opponents liars (which

he did that very night), speaking

to the assembled Arts Center

people  -  'It's election season soon,

you'll start hearing things, from

others. It'll all be lies.' And then

he said  -  to them, 'This is like a

town meeting! Thanks for having

me here!'  -  Town meeting?

Calling unseen opponents liars

before they even begin? Maybe

it was a town meeting for the

likes of the mutant hemoglobins

he deals with, but not real life.

Sorry. I feel this is all about clarity.
If a person can not speak with a
clear focus and a specificized
clarity, responding to and adding
real information, that person's 
probably not worth much anyway.
-

The point is, if any of this stuff

is a lie, how is anyone to know,

if all he and his arch-cronies do

is hide what's going on? And

hide themselves too? It's NOT
then any form pf participatory
democracy if everything's hidden.
Joe Blow wants to know. If you

don't talk about anything, how's

anyone ever supposed to ever

know what's actually true? You

consistently treat people like

children, they're eventually

going to revolt like adolescents.

-

Sooo, the hell with neckties.

Know what I mean? Back in

my hilltop roundabout province,

the house was pretty good, by

the time Spring arrived. That

first Winter was long and

strange. And cold. I've already

written of the frosty air that

just kept dropping light-ice

crystals. I wanted to tell people

it all looked like a hoar-frost

each morning but I was too

afraid they'd misunderstand.

The hills and all else did thaw

eventually, and we got to

begin seeing the real contours

of the land and everything

which had been hidden under

the snow  -  what the real

course of the stream and

rivulets running through and

around really were. Sometimes

there were big surprises; we'd

see rocks and gullies; that old

1930's local dump, way about

back about 1/2 mile off; what

the real world looked like. I

liked it all, it seemed.

-

I was after truth-telling; always

have been. Truth hurts; most

people avoid it all because it

usually causes scenes, like that

previously reported Mayor thing.

Even the Popeye scene. What am

I? How could I even begin to tell

anything about myself with these 

50 years of events  - from my

side all truth. Pass me the 

Spinach? I'll show ya!

-

In a previous chapter I talked

about my nut-case acquaintance,

Jim Watkins, who'd started that

one day punching me around 

and throwing chairs. In my own

house; thankfully my wife was

not around for that. Anyway,

I'd said he was just released

from, I think I reported it as, 

the nut-house in Montrose. 

I was incorrect. The nuthouse

for that region was in Clark's

Summit. OK. Truth : Does that

make a difference? I passed

through Clark's Summit (not

so sure about that apostrophe 

though) and it looked like a

normal enough place to me.

In the way that hospitals look

normal  -  basic and boring, then,

in that apartment-block kind of

way. Right angles, square panes

of glass, etc. A real line-scribe

guy's dream. I could never

imagine that crazy, jagged,

out-of-kilter mess of a guy,

Watkins being in there, or, if

in there, being released. It's all

a manageable circumstance,

I suppose?

-

I think that hardest thing I

ever went through out there

was when a farmer friend 

of mine hung himself in 

his barn. In his early 80's!

Can you imagine any of that?

He couldn't take the enforced

updates and modernity an

expense and clerical aspects

of what he had to do, as 1973 

approached, to meet the new

standards so that his milk

would be accepted, through

the new creamery and all their

new systems. It scared him

right off. No one ever figured 

he'd do that to himself, but

damn if he didn't, from the

rafter, right in his old barn.

With all his cows watching.

Really sad day, that was.

Sometimes, yeah, truth hurts.