Bliss Alive

Reading Gary Zarr postcards from Samos powerful mourning beloved Gail gone music flowers people water senses sun life love joy affirming pain bliss alive Reading New York Review of Books New Yorker Sunday New York Times I must be a New Yorker in spite of not being able to afford to live there no place to be poor even middleish doorman essential still I would miss natural surroundings light fresh air wide sky distance from machines ground zero here I miss live people conversation food minds free not consumed by family dumbed down low expectations realistic limits tolerable sustenance so I read dream write letters blog direct play rehearsals will start next weekend Downstairs from Dan's new public studio dancing floor pub library homeless kids become top chefs

Higher Striving

Goodbye Karl Haas music lovers luxuriated lugubrious accent Europe culture deep appreciating deathless joy Bill McGloghlin able heir no irony music is salvation consolation vital all who hear are harmonized in sync reading Holleran wanted Hollinghurst mediocrity is inevitable but I believe in higher striving however quixotic filing at last not fret about Smetana connect your dream with other people's needs Dan's mantra open love success

Natural Obedience

todus tuus says Pope so say I intimate with natural obedience holy weather changing as thou wilt says Bach God's dear friend extraordinary rendition what horror my nation shamed abducting innocents facilitating torture part of the larger dread spending wealth on war while children starve diseases flourish the planet is changed beyond recovery

Nothing Normal

Flying new possibility am I too old choose road that passes tiny airport private hangars hobbyists sail down low over road choose land on grass I like to stop watch taxiing takeoffs last week spotted ultralights turned around on gravel lot beside school lurked smiled got out looked talked guy brought card car wait warmer crazy February weather here cold nights days sunny warm regrettably no rain complain enjoy anomaly nothing normal by spring it will be summer dreams forgotten pieces of life lost more interesting than found four boundless states notably equanimity St. John's wort missed I was grumpy anyway not now glazed with weaving website my life in art exposed I will tell you when to look

Just in Time

'70s roundish plastic glasses irreplaceable red for reading blue for computer piano both broken substitutes lame too similar closest clear Peoples $250 frames alone friendly helpful young guy at Reynolds said they can be repaired gave me name numbers how I appreciate good-hearted youth ate salad reading Gardner Botsford's "Life of Privilege, Mostly" took glasses in en route impulsive stopped in Classic Pianos serious wide-ranging beautiful stock discussed our too-powerful Steinway 'D' 1930s Debbie led me to exquisite 1890s Blüthner 1906 Bechstein I will go back bought "Children's Corner" headed home bark hog fuel key motors auto wrecking fresh berries ahead grooming barn big meadow apartments cat for rent

Friends All Over

Deer walk slowly browsing our gardens stiff-legged wary rumps jerky graceful leaping electric fence futile beavers eat trees too two resident geese fly honking as I promenade creek toward setting sun moles dispersed by mothballs into field night still moon astigmatically multiplied rainbow aura benign expression stars bright pursue our different interests harmonically noncompetitive children friends all over most routine disappears my Monday Wednesday Friday pool routine her horse chores every day lessons shows yoga breakfast lunch nap dinner bedtime I shower every morning wash my hair floss brush teeth tidy up clean house practice the piano sometimes play duets today I swept and mopped my studio put up a hammock new bright light wrote dreams e-mailed edited a movie such is the texture of my quiet life

Perfected Writing

Entertaining after Hinrich's free concert Willamette woodwinds Salem library sat with Laurel unfamiliar composers pleased his oboe pesky happy crowd we scooted off to cook chicken ready Lorin brought a 1967 Bordeaux having aced her Chinese medicine exam today praised my eggplant Provençale her healing gestures generous unstoppable Jerry held forth building obstacles new bureaucrat Oregon law loves that stuff they will build new acupuncture clinic in spite of everything talk exhausting Three weekends wanted "Butter Boy" sell more tickets I rejiggered rehearsal plan imagining scenes it should work despite ragged start four actors doing another play first weeks work around End of "Middlesex" delicious tears feeling welling up on window seat in morning sun Roger Angell evoking stepfather E. B. White perfected writing lovingly missed recalled it used to seem worthwhile precious gift love labor ideal writing life Maine farm I can't take anything seriously anymore practice Brahms for private tactile mind

Festive Roses

Dan thrown off his bicycle in Hanoi "wonderful new gift involving pain" better opening to bliss Ile St. Louis artist advice you must be careful Pulling together a scene for a party everybody in Alfred flight booked March 5 a week to rehearse costume then do it jump-start rehearsals Love outing roses tapas in McMinnville ferry across river home collapse sleep another whole day goes poetry meeting keyboard press release stew trash out relax read "Middlesex" sunny warm then dark cold imagine vine-covered trellises protect from sun blast heat imagine gazebo dancing on the lawn festive roses roving deer failed to eat sit me down turn me on boot me up letters merge words flow like painter no need for thought form for my poem

'Not a Poet'

Arthur Miller admirable words man always trying to be honest useful improving pain real handsome old a letter to New York friends who understand even if they don't 195,000 years of being human time enough to learn how we did better in the 1700s through say Beethoven downhill since Proust chronicler of decadence David Way said I was "not a poet" did that stop me no

Home

how to explain that this lighting doesn't work too white too green on purpose the women's makeup too pale the costumes on purpose but it doesn't I can fix may I add some pink no the concept great but it can I make you see I see let me change not weaken the umbrella handle broken lines tangled in wires overhead strut bed broken hostile careless grip home is a trap I am trapped here in cloudland going to bed hours early too many covers nothing to think it's my life What one is doing now does not legibly describe what one is doing "this year," say, or "this seven years." The selfless self lives only in the moment, and still the years add up to something, decisions and moves are made, the situation changes.

Air a Fluid

Thank you Julian and Nina for being this week these years each moment kind loving me each other real world realized in action space transformed city country harmonized unfoldment we share this air pure in the breathing movies dreams informed engagement renews our infinite understanding equally absolutely living redeemed For comfort flying remember air is a fluid its properties reliable no stormier than sea cold comfort private wings trembling quivering from eight-hour drive Oakland Ashland Modoc men walked across mountains learned new ways hats jackets Yreka knew them wagon trains crossed river their ford coveted land their enemies mocking stubborn fated lava beds remain Siskiyou stone circles origin a mystery nap time gone Cicero "On Old Age" (on Bartleby.com) makes more sense than anyone today

Birthday Report

to nap lie still watch thoughts at first familiar ordinary dull do not move pillow on head prevents address shields eyes lids closed translucent when images are unreal you are asleep five to twenty minutes return slowly waves reset presents Netflix subscription from me clay from Nina Oakland Museum Chez Panisse 30th birthday breakfast Julian poached eggs green onions chevre tasted like hollandaise their snake Felix reemerged after six months we fixed its habitat watched it eat a mouse took Nefi to the beach scouted apartment in the city ate Salvadoran Mission Street reading relaxing loving enjoying precious time ready willing to go home school work

Phony Accounting

teaching Omar to whiz in the toilet they make a kit for everything New Mexico cat volunteered accepted somehow stuff actually gets done bit by bit adds up like practicing like supereffort bursts attention where are the normals working "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and "Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum" tangle with the privatization of Social Security. I mainly mind the phony accounting that lets them spend the Social Security Trust Fund on militaristic adventuring. What would be truly amazing would be to make the other choice: peace and social justice. Regrettably most of the men in power have sold themselves to institutions structured for competition, not cooperation, and lost the ability to think as feeling human animals. The bravest (Havel) barely hold their own.

Tiny Lips

intensely felt nonsense serially wakes me jarred guest in sumptuous house can't find my loafers others closets searched draw bath fabulous tub except I'm stuck atop roof spire ancient breaking pretty girls find old me disgusting realize Jonathan's my son nephew one of them kisses me tiny lips I'm ranging around London Paris no shoes one sock dropping stuff lose Jonathan call his name loudly there he is down carpeted cliff on bus with Moroccan gypsies smoking kif on another bus he hugs kisses me I like it people looking strangely and I can't remember my hotel

No Thoughts

No thoughts as I drive I-5 what is thought I function smoothly intelligible focused wound up repel impressions inner whir blurs attention change routine people place I go/move/drive VW myself visit Julian my son requested week together just home from Mexico would have come to me already too long apart Nina busy San Francisco State for me joy of transgeneration love fix welcome break before play push Does anybody read my blog? I doubt it but I hope so: I am enjoying writing it. I hope for comment (click click) or other communication, crave response. It is just my life: what is there to say? The writer is not content until everything is crystallized, analyzed, concentrated, suggested, hinted at, implied, in words. Words possess him; he can transcend them only after doggedly serving them.

Moments

Remember Ossie Davis present accountable give in open a week later two weekends seven shows instead of nine over three enough rehearsals barely (which I prefer anyway) ready start when open dental moment self-contained swimming moment love snuggle touching moment mingling electrons breath electromagnetic fields hold interruption blessedly brief

Fog

sleep computer no good I still dream lines chaos breaking glass sofa perfect chair too big cast complete schedule awry trip looming compressing one more day night zoom fog fluffy wisps muddy fields visibility varies continuous off white glow no distances car lights emerge far near penetrates Oregon minds responsibilities accumulate unclear diffuse impenetrable folkways clash my rightness abandoned crescendo Mozart! Beethoven! Schubert! Brahms! everything weather as it is

Remembering Myself

dream wording seizes brain thought control helpless night Village Voice moved Santa Fe swam out to lunch creeping derangement haunts me turn on light sit up scribble reluctant write while sleeping bedside laptop antidote From the hidden bottom corner shelf as if by magnetism, looking for something to read, I plucked "On a Spaceship With Beelzebub" by David Kherdian, the story of his pursuing the teachings of Gurdjieff through "the work," and read half the book in a rush. Remembering, remembering myself, I did my deep-water workout in the pool more calmly this morning and swam six lengths: I could barely do two a month ago. A generous friend directed me to Gurdjieff's ideas in 1973 in Nova Scotia, which led to major life changes and much creativity: marriage, babies, plays, harpsichords. I had almost forgotten. Preparing another script of my unproduced play "Heavy Pockets" to send out into the world again I laugh out loud it's a wonderful play I wish someone would do it better still give me a theatre and let me do it

No Change, Change

Jim Capaldi dead saw Traffic with Johnny London '67 Winwood wow Lucien Carr dead start with the second paragraph good advice another month no change John brought me a box of Silverton Poetry Association records: I am the new Treasurer. John has experience as an accountant and everything is in good order. I am orderly but not as diligent and focused. As Secretary of the Brush Creek Players, one of my duties is to deposit the show receipts. As a child I sometimes made change in my father's stores, in Kansas, which had a cable transport system to the cashier in the balcony. I am surprised to again find myself counting money with its familiar somewhat unpleasant smell.