The Blackwood Press DUB 'log

the last of my grass, once again down at the bottom of the bag
someday I shall live like I want to, and the world be damned
I’ll grow my own grass, sit in my own rooms
without interruption
sipping coffee and alcohol, smoking my pipe, writing these
letters to the air

I have come to realize that no matter what you do
they will always throw you back on trial
even if they have to put you through double-jeopardy
for any old already-argued experience

your coworkers, your boss, your friends and enemies
the institutions, the governments, the society tea clubs
your parents, your wife, your children, even grandma

and always, too,
yourself

so many court battles and conversations
echoing through the head
a man is always a defendant and first-hand witness
to his own innocent life
on the stand and specified in all directions and districts,
dynamic levels and
juries in alternate dimensions, lobbied-over, wobbling and
tumbling, cascading and crumbling into himself as he
stands living now, flesh and breath and
undeniable, undying, even when the flesh and breath have
gone and even the cold
grave has been forgotten, the trial goes on, and the man is not
decided

so the smoking pipe, the coffee, the phone calls, recess,
athletics in the yard
every proceeding receives its breaks, and still every open door
is another world

and so, your Honor, in the charge of pleading innocent first, I
find myself guilty
hereby sentencing myself to a long life and a carnivalous
multitude of hearings
and appeals;

may I suggest I find myself a good team of
lawyers and attorneys, take
comfort in the right places, and try to keep a friendly
demeanor with those I meet

now let us put down the drinking cups, smother the ashes and
get back;
another court marshall has arrived, the newsman says the
queen’s been beheaded,
natural disaster has struck the coasts of Sri Lanka, tonight a
singing organist is on
the late show

and this one’s in
the books

I waited all day to get here, through children, neighbors, lunch
with my wife, a short nap
The older I grow the less time I have, and the more
distractions to take me away

I wonder, before all the kids, and the wife, the ever-visiting
friends, what did I do with all of my
time?

well, here I am, finally
with nothing to say
nothing to do

I scrape the tar out of my pipe and smoke it
tastes like hell but it eases my mind

across the room lay two new cigar-box guitars
made by my father
I plan on writing and recording an album with those two and
an old toy Telleno, along with one of
my babies’ toy pianos, just as soon as I finish the
currently ongoing album project

yeah, music, recording, writing: I’m a professional amateur
living in low-fidelity chaos
here I am, looking at a lampshade I once painted, inside is a
glowing blue lightbulb; I painted
a lampshade at some point in my life, and installed a blue

lightbulb

looking into those paintstrokes, thinking back, I remember my
wife helped me with that lamp
there’s another lamp over there across the room, with no shade
or bulb, just bare, a socket on a stem
casting a shadow on the white-plaster wall

I guess I would need to focus on the poem structure, and the
form; I hardly know now what is a poem,
and the same with the novels, whatever they are, and the
songs, the guitar albums

all around me are stacks of printed and folded paper, printers
and computer parts, cables, from the
last time I believed I could forever mass-produce my written
works for all the people of the world
it’s amazing how much I’ve sat here, daydreaming, typing out
the occasional uniquely-worded thought

my whole world is so scattered
the basement and the attic
the air has changed, my office is
a war zone, and more than ever
I’ve been picking my nose

I still drink cold coffee,
though I’ve decided to give up smoking
at least until the new year
that starts next week

I stare in out to nothing
at the floor, ’round the room,
out the window for three hours
waiting for someone, something
to come and start me flowing
once again

I’ve wanted to get back to reading, I’ve
known that I’ve stopped reading, my life
has sunken and dedynamicized to a solemn
sleeping stagnation, and it’s overly bored
and boring, writhing illishly before the tv

well I suppose I am growing older, late twenties
my name is Joe, balding, wife and three kids, working
in George Orwell’s ‘1984′

at home I rub dry dirty glue off my fingers, bookbinding
glue, I book ‘em and bind ‘em, these
and I think of my children, and I give the
books away to friends and family by the
quarter-dozen

sing-song albums, too, sing-song albums

I write ‘em, play ‘em, make ‘em up, record ‘em
burn ‘em glue ‘em forge ‘em and give ‘em away by the
quarter-dozen

lookin’ to make the books and music a full-time line
of work, I take slow, meditated baby-steps across
the perilous kitchen floor, to approach and stare at the
ladder leaning against the chair in front of my
microphone

well some things some times gotta be left behind
and I guess this old bag and book of bent matches is one
I hope I get a lot of good things done in the new and upcoming
ways of living the revolution of Humanity

yeah, like playin’ triplet songs
on my cigar-box guitar
and toy piano

well it’s so easy to do nothing
when you’ve got too much to do

I guess I waited so long finally
for this December snow

and the girls they wear me out,
and man it’s so far out
that there’ll be another one
Springin’ on the way
’round May

and well the hairline’s been receding since
the acne was in its prime

this long hair’s looking
pretty funny now

there just isn’t time
to get it all done
as I sit here, smoking
soot from the pipe
with a mug of too-strong
coffee, making
music

the band is off-key
my notes are off the beat
my mouth was too close to the
microphone, and nobody
took our picture

some other band sold
650,000 copies of
their first album
off their own
label

it would take me a lifetime to produce
that many of my own books, let alone
just that many of the first one

but what do I care? I’m doing it
and I’m working my ass off
and failing

it can’t get any better

it just can’t get any better
there just isn’t enough time
to call this one a practice and then
do it better again
I can’t do that, this is all I’ve got
I have a wife and a growing family
I’ve got to scrub the mold outta the bathroom, and
replace some tile in the kitchen, and shit first the dishes
feed the kids and take out the garbage, man
I’ve got other things, and not enough time, not enough
time to sing on Wild Horses; we are the wild horses
and there’s not enough time for perfection with us,
all I can do is show you my way
and keep moving

and that’s what I’m gonna do now,
I can see the coffee’s cold, and
I sense the coming of the late afternoon train,
I better finish this pipe and shake on with this
hunger, it doesn’t get any better than this, there’s
not time, no time, not enough time to get any
better

so carry on, work on my friends, and love it
because this is the life, and there’s such
little time to
live it

there’s nothing happening here, feeling so uninspired
even after watching old movies, there’s nothing
stirring in this heart

she called me out of the blue this morning, after living
another life for seven years
said she had a dream and the feeling’s been growing stronger
for three days
she’s been reading my poetry, she read a letter I wrote to her
when I was just a kid
she asked me how I was feeling, I told her it doesn’t matter
anyway

I woke up with that same feeling about a month ago, lost loves
and lives of different times
I wrote a couple songs about it, trying to find consolation
in words and rhymes
baby I just learned to disconnect my heart, long ago I
lost the connection
to my heart

I’ve been listening to old songs, I used to believe in them,
they were more real than my face
but I no longer feel the vibrations, enough distance
put me in another place

scraped together
enough soot
from all of my old
empty pipes
to pretend that
I’ve got something
to smoke

let this not be the song of the downtrodden
but rather the song of the worn and strong;
the leather sack beat into its prime

last night she
spoke about
kinuk inuk,
pulling apart,
crushing,
rolling

it feels good to be working, creating
something that can perhaps outlast its own physicality
though I don’t know that I am, life is so large

you want your bloody chapped hands to stand for something
you want your locked knees and knotting body to bring
some sort of return, you want everybody to know
you made your claim

that’s all a self-fulfilling thing there, the fight
the pain the loss the struggle the claims the victories, defeats,
all the same, there, in one big life, its trajectored path,
curling, and twisting and turning, whurling and burning
on its heels, and again knotting;

the losses are the victories, defeat is the victor, always the
champion, joy is always only found in defeat, the fight is the
life, to live is to fight, and death, the final, true celebration

nobody lives who is not fighting
and a claim is a win, and a loss;
sense your defeats and find joy

I could use another cup of coffee
and I’ll finish smoking this soot ash
lay down my knot of twine, rise, and return
to finish off this song, to turn through
to the other side of the door

we worked our asses off, that was how it had to be
we barely reached half our original ideas, time
just isn’t enough
and there was not, there never was, and there never will be
the magical million-dollar dream immediate payout;
but there was a small payout, there will always be the small
payouts, just about in proportion to the pain and skin of
your soul and ass that has been worked away

and that’s the way
it has to be

the fight is the life
all the fight is just the life
fight strong, fight proud, even in the dirt, with
blood on your brow, fight on for your beautiful life,
fight on, fight on