TBD

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, commonly known as Prufrock, is a poem by the American poet, T. S. Eliot, begun in February 1910 and published in Chicago in June 1915. Described as a "drama of literary anguish," it presents a stream of consciousness in the form of a dramatic monologue, and marked the beginning of Eliot's career as an influential poet. With its weariness, regret, embarrassment, longing, and awareness of mortality, Prufrock has become one of the most recognized voices in 20th-century literature. This is my take on the same idea with a twist at the end.

TBD

feel, the page
a place to outline
insecurities
cruelties
the subversive elements that
drive the nail
into the hand

into the coffin

see yourself
flying out
side the city limits
while in here
imagine
how the page lays
out in someone else’s book

how it pokes

while
wanting a sip
of what the other person
drinks

things never imagined

a faint sound
false rivers running through it
a place to start
though this seems edgey
its not a good story

wander the streets
of course leads to a contradiction
by the sharp turn to the on ramp

thoughts stay asleep
under the pass,

a California winter approaches
city order
another level of jail

sound is heavy
the weather isn’t yours.

Breathe, its your last,
and you're under

remember

When on the other side,

write it down too

[American Journal]

by Robert Hayden
(edited and rearrangned for the page by jake sanders)

here among them the americans
this baffling
multi people extremes
and variegations their
noise restlessness their almost frightening
energy how best describe these aliens

in my reports to The Counselors

disguise myself in order to study them unobserved adapting their varied pigmentations white black red brown yellow the imprecise and strangering distinctions by which they live by which they
justify their cruelties to one another

charming savages enlightened primitives brash new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy how describe them do they indeed know what or who they are do not seem to yet no other beings

in the universe make more extravagant claims
for their importance and identity

like us they have created a veritable populace
of machines that serve and soothe and pamper
and entertain we have seen their flags and
foot prints on the moon also the intricate
rubbish left behind a wastefully ingenious
people many it appears worship the Unknowable
Essence


the same for them as for us but are
more faithful to their machine made gods
technologists their shamans

oceans deserts mountains grain fields canyons forests variousness of landscapes weathers sun light moon light as at home much here is beautiful dream like vistas reminding me of home item have seen the rock place known as garden of the gods and sacred to the first indigenes red monoliths of home despite the tensions i breath in i am attracted to the vigorous americans disturbing sensuous appeal of so many never to be admitted

something they call the american dream sure
we still believe in it i guess an earth man
in the tavern said irregardless of the some
times night mare facts we always try to double
talk our way around and its okay the dreams
okay and means whats good could be a damn sight
better means every body in the good old u s a
should have the chance to get ahead or at least
should have three squares a day as for myself
i do okay not crying hunger with a loaf of
bread tucked under my arm you understand i
fear one does not clearly follow i replied
notice you got a funny accent pal like where
you from he asked far from here i mumbled
he stared hard i left



must be more careful item learn to use okay
their pass word okay

crowds gathering in the streets today for some
reason obscure to me noise and violent motion
repulsive physical contact sentinels pigs
i heard them called with flailing clubs rage
and bleeding and frenzy and screaming machines
wailing unbearable decibels i fled lest
vibrations of the brutal scene do further harm
to my metabolism already over taxed

 The Counselors would never permit such barbarous confusion they know what is best for our serenity we are an ancient race and have outgrown
illusions cherished here item their vaunted
liberty no body pushes me around i have heard them say land of the free they sing what dothey fear mistrust betray more than the freedom they boast of in their ignorant pride have seen the squalid ghettoes in their violent cities


paradox on paradox how have the americans
managed to survive

parades fireworks displays video spectacles
much grandiloquence much buying and selling
they are celebrating their history earth men
in antique uniforms play at the carnage whereby
the americans achieved identity we too recall
that struggle as enterprise of suffering and
faith uniquely theirs blonde miss teen age
america waving from a red white and blue flower
float as the goddess of liberty a divided


people seeking reassurance from a past few under
stand and many scorn why should we sanction
old hypocrisies thus dissenters
The Counselors would silence them

a decadent people The Counselors believe i
do not find them decadent a refutation not
permitted me but for all their knowledge
power and inventiveness not yet more than raw
crude neophytes like earthlings everywhere

though i have easily passed for an american in
bankers grey afro and dashiki long hair and jeans
hard hat yarmulka mini skirt describe in some
detail for the amusement of The Counselors and
though my skill in mimicry is impeccable as
indeed The Counselors are aware some thing
eludes me some constant amid the variables
defies analysis and imitation will i be judged
incompetent

america as much a problem in metaphysics as it is a nation earthly entity an iota in our
galaxy an organism that changes even as i
examine it fact and fantasy never twice the
same so many variables

exert greater caution twice have aroused
suspicion returned to the ship until rumors
of humanoids from outer space so their scoff
ing media voices termed us had been laughed

away my crew and i laughed too of course

confess i am curiously drawn unmentionable to
the americans doubt i could exist among them for
long however psychic demands far too severe
much violence much that repels i am attracted
none the less their variousness their ingenuity
their elan vital and that some thing essence
quiddity i cannot penetrate or name

Southern Pop Theory

You can pull all the right buttons
And push all the right strings
But No thing can bring
It home like a bucket of deep fried poems
And mash potata-prose.
Food’s a good topic
Excuse me?
Do you got a bic
Lighter shade of gray
Hound bus boys
Town auction
Near my soul
Don’t fear the words
Fall like a spiral stair down
Town on a one way wagon
Trail ain’t got no name
While we are out here
Good will hunting game
Bet Midler’s finger
She’s a dead ringer
For a dead singer
I wrote 5 lines
for Swingers
to abuse
the Accused
at least I made it rhyme
didn’t eye-
of-the-Storm
and Starship Trooper
Enterprises
this is how I devise it
please summarize it how
the summer arises
in Buenos Aires
and how the rice is
for All Mighty Isis
crispy cake
walks down Sonny Rhodes
with little House on the Prairie
Dogs go down to the Reservoir
Falls for a drink of water
And never come back
Stoking up the main-Stream
The mean streak in U S All
Called verbs and Capital-iSMS
Just another ism for the ranks
Of bankrupt banks
As Hands and Arms that crank
The stank ‘round and ‘round
Incomes the Guitar
solo
I can almost grab it

A Postcard Torn

The house is claustro-

Phobic. The living body

Passes into use, be

Comes tool and demon-

Stration.

I write it myself-

A promise transparent

These blanks are annoying

One pulls the other

back to café

The heart of the city

With whom am I talking

I kissed her eye– cunning

Surprised by penetration

Verbs spring open

English subtitles

Counting the waves

We were beginning to forget the tide

Get it straight!

And last night I took Giant Steps

Cold Trane-style

And it told me what to do

Like you crazy mother           !
Live!
                                       and organize your shit as rightly burning!

Out of the Corner of My Eye

An Excerpt from Chlorine

I caught glimpses of you sabotaging Bukowski’s metonymy. Things you wouldn’t even do to your own body of work. You jerk. Why don’t you just give back Van Gogh’s Ear and we’ll call it even.

A Conversation between a Poem & her Reader

Oh excuse me
I didn’t realize how close
you were to me
crouching here
in the tall grass
Beneath
all this scaffolding.

So you dropped
something.
Maybe you should check
over there.
In the middle.

Get another perspective.

Can’t be to sure these days.

I like your
dress
It looks rather
soft.

Yes I know
life is a panoply of questions
I reveal to much here
though
you need
answers badly
I can tell

ok

no more truisms

There are some lines you can never get out of

So you agree

Still esoteric though

Watch out for those
pro
nouns
In light of the fear

and

distance from me to you
I can tell you suffer
from almost every anecdote
taught to you in school
You could o.d.
on the possibilities
I seem to offer you
Speaking in terms
of how these words
fit together
right now

Now you think I'm dangerous
And you normally don’t talk to strangers
Even if you were forced to sit
in a room full of them

Well rituals are supposed to be a little dangerous

That’s the conspiracy

Let’s get away from all this scaffolding
and talk more about this
Besides this particular piece of architecture
Is not such a good place to carry on
like this

Here hold my hand

Watch your head

Let’s go follow the sun
It is setting on us
again

Do you like to read?

Everything but poetry, huh.
You know its just a game.

What do I mean
Well I don’t mean
I do
That’s my job
I am, a means of you

Why am I so out there
Because there’s nothing in here

I am written because arms
are only so long to reach out with

You think I need to reach myself
Can’t you see I am trying to do this
But it seems so impossible
Everything is ephemeral and yet
Everything is renewed
Even this room that passes the weeks is constantly renewed

So this type of information worries you

I can’t help you here

I too am critically blind
I myself like a catechism
The printed page is a motif
Substance is subtle predication

Your thoughts are animals

What did I do in college
I was poetically general
I hung ten on contradictions

That’s even too cryptic

Reading sometimes is tedious labor
Can be from time to time
arduously unsatisfying
So keep walking
we’re not there yet

I should know
I live with myself everyday
This is my destiny

But this activity does not determine my process

More theory than you needed right now, huh?

Remember, you were the one asking questions

Remember those days back in school
when you learned if anything was left over
you had to carry it over

to the next line

You can’t breathe so well
Maybe you should undo that top button
Cut your hair
Color your hair
Get something pierced
Get a tattoo
Dance on a table naked
For free
Hug and kiss the same sex
Kiss me, whatever

Kind of like cubism
isn’t it

like Shakespeare’s Achilles
standing over the living body of Hector

something trying to resurface
even here inside me
the conflict existing on all levels of content

where do I sleep at night
well I’ve recently been exiled
so I am staying over night
with the pact that
binds my maker to society
basically narrative avenue
fragmentation blvd

think of me
you further
away than this
I say something
The thought barely heard

Gone
Your response is now no response

Gone also

Hands are now half-raised
By fortune

Poetic whim

Lost

That is me

So you think I am a poem
only by my intention to be a poem

All I can say
who was here first

You were over there crouching
beneath all that scaffolding
Afraid to enter
Still needing to read

Reading me
Celebrates you
I am
Because of you
becoming potential
Your enemy is always your finest subject

We are now poetentials
Now give me a kiss
thanks

you want to keep walking through this dialogue

hey don’t squeeze so hard

if anyone walks by
say hello
the journey is possible
because this is where we
got to

Iambic Knots

I am not these people, these attractive carnivorous caricatures dancing

operational fill her up all you can eat sitting back sipping each other at the getty

these walks down the promenade, these glasses of pink lemonade, these claustrophobic paragraphs, these naked pieces of furniture nobody is lounging, these numbers open 24-7 for

delivery, for discussion, for breeding purposes, for shock, for a change

for starters

I am not these indecipherable lines, these kinko lions, these two humped camels smoking

their stock, these complicated metaphors, these attractive contracts and entertainment magazines and chemical banks merging with euro-dollar-mark, these long rides in swaying shaky steel at 2 am, these double cheese burgers, these windows framing stores, these verbal boxing matches, these towering records or penny lanes, these circuit cities, these peppy boys, these good guys selling radio shacks

I am not these small room mantras, these half-eaten ear lobes, these armagaddon deep impact out of sight pulp loathing fears trying to save private ryan in rayon super size does matter painted buses and buildings now billboards like the rest of us

I am not these hands sprouting cigarettes, these marlboro men riding giant horses down

santa monica, these happy hour drink prices, these reoccurring long lines and dreamy sequences lasting as long as there is someone reading them

I am not these best seller novels these echoes of attention childhood neglect nearly

published, these guns and blanks and up stares trysts and matrices, these seductions, these high school reunions with those make-up artists and a well fabricated narrative with solo drives and suicides,

I am not these eaves drop conversations, these holiday sweaters on sale, these unlit

candles and mottoes with cheerleaders and ginsberg reflections and shadows

these talking shows with heads, these harnesses and plows with monopoly stasis

pictures of beer, these incomplete similes, these smiles around the world of war

I am not these parked alarms waiting to go off in a matter of time, long sleeved hugs

good buys, these smart two part episodes, these prequals and sequels, these recaps

and highlights, these pick-up lines or rainy next day bus rides home, these worn down black boots, these mud puddles of mystery water, these sports bars opened at 10 am, these eye contact situations from across the vague room, these rusted

anchors and dry spring wells, these gymnastics without bounce, these buy one get one free payment programs and expensive ass soldiers and neo-country music

I am not these 1-900 numbers, these artifacts these additives or preservatives, these

warning signs on the sides of boxes and street corners, these cd’s or matching

videos and tee-shirts, these saturday night dead comedian, these drive-bys and

drive-thrus, these red blood stains or these glasses of red wine, these leashes cages

lyrics limericks with bars and beautiful girls, these hands that want to hold each other in cold weather, these nostalgic contradictions blind ships at sea with cargo

wishing for import and atm, these expensive genes and tanked tops, these lemon

trees or these eager hands that pick them, these tinted glasses or silver pinky rings,

these back seat naps, these jogs along the borders of boredom, but

I am a live.

Flightpath

“The very truth, and the nature of things, though repudiated and ordered into exile, sneaked in again through the back door, to be received by me under an unwonted guise.”
       - Johannes Kepler December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630

When a plane courses overhead
I think of loss
a time gone by
a rush of wind’s seduction
of propeller’s lust,
all vectors abandoned

This mention gets me wondering . . .
Of who is in that plane
up there
Moving about all over the place
Stirring up the atmosphere
Her broken, cross-hatched
contrails
Of interruption.

Not a day goes by that I don’t look up
And see a plane and think of her

They come in off the ocean, banking
Turning north-by-northwest
Towards that strip of concrete
The locals call an airport

Remembering now,
how that made her laugh
Imaging the possibility
Such an invention

"Why just 93 years ago . . ."

If I don’t see a plane right away
I hear it coming
A sound arriving in soaring pitch

The averaging math estimates
310 miles per hour
2 minutes 30 secs, 12 miles
wheels touching down in 10-15 seconds
from here
over there
out of sight

In the passing, a
Displacement, a dis-
Course of
turbines aftermath
a backwash of calm
calculated,

some more math,
the speed of sound through air
1083 feet per second
a quarter mile every second

In warmer air, the speed of sound increases

seconds leave behind

a delay
, Doppler. *

A phantom rush of wake

the sky tells me, to husssssssssssssh

My neighbor complains
Its a nuisance, lowers property values . . .

To me it is reassuring the metaphor

Another plane lands
And people come and go
All
on stand-by

Different planes fly over
Some small, some big
Some low, some real low
So low I can see the writing on their bellies

If I were a terroristic sniper
I could pluck one or two from the sky
Before a government agency could
Trajectorize the bullet’s point of origin

“I did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out with a rifle shot in high wind.
Maybe 8 or even ten guys in the world could’ve made that shot.” **

But that’s not where I am right now
I am in that happy zone she used to kid me about

- wait, here comes another plane

It’s not so much the actual plane, all those physics
Or even the people inside intrepid and traveling
And maybe its not her in the plane
But me in the plane

Conquering that fear of heights
and confinement
The fear of exposure
To knowledge
That we are just glowing blips
On a radar
And how we can, just like that
Meet up for a cocktail
Is beyond me.

I am over that now
But when I see a plane
I write like this,

I could write a plane poem
Like the next plain guy
And it would never do any good

It is all so confusing

Instead I want to dwell
On our histories before the planes
All launched and landed
The couples hurrying off
To the hotel
To christen the safe flight

I’ve lived up there before
With all the metaphors for vice
pillow, extra blanket
A free drink
A pill
In flight film
With dreams attached

I still prefer the window view
Even at night
I’d look down
And see the lights, all the lights

The math and
Buzzing quartz

And think of you down there
All of you
Keeping the ground

Grounded.
____________________________________________

* In 1725 James Bradley discovered the aberration of stars, that is the stellar aberration. He found that the displacement, measured as an angle between the real and seeming direction of light rays from a star, is small and in the direction of the observer's motion. In addition he discovered that the aberration is the consequence of the finite speed of light and the transverse motion of the observer.


Johann Christian Andreas Doppler (November 29, 1803 – March 17, 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist, most famous for the hypothesis of what is now known as the Doppler effect which is the apparent change in frequency and wavelength of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves.


"Über das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einige andere Gestirne des Himmels - Versuch einer das Bradleysche Theorem als integrirenden Theil in sich schliessenden allgemeineren Theorie"


(English translation: On the coloured light of the binary refracted stars and other celestial bodies - Attempt of a more general theory including Bradley's theorem as an integral part)


The Doppler Effect: A change in the observed frequency of a wave, as of sound or light, occurring when the source and observer are in motion relative to each other, with the frequency increasing when the source and observer approach each other and decreasing when they move apart. The motion of the source causes a real shift in frequency of the wave, while the motion of the observer produces only an apparent shift in frequency.

** Quote from Lethal Weapon

Cut to: (those I've never met)

“It has been a long December
and I need something to believe in
maybe this year will be better than the last.”

Think of light and how far it falls to us. To fall, some say, is naming a fundamental way of going through the world – falling.

We rarely ever remember our past. Certain images are forgotten. Blurry. The most discernible images come to use later, in our dreams, like eccentric fiction. It doesn’t matter how we try putting them together everything neatly into shape; the context wanders until finally the past isn’t visible anymore. What we are left with is a pile of kittens lolling all over one another; warm with life, yet hopelessly unstable.

I woke up this morning with last night’s dream dangling at the back of psyche. The world in my dream was beginning to accumulate an irresistible momentum:

Cut to:

“I was in a hospital room with stone, white walls. I was recovering from some dis-ease. Black men in white gowns said I had almost died; I wanted to know why it was better to be alive. They said nothing. Then I cried.”

Cut to:

We grasp at human existence in terms of some absurd activities, resting on relatively straightforward motives, and soon questions about right and wrong pretty much drop out of the picture. Me, I just go back to gathering those kittens and piling them up again. Exhausted kittens, all limp and played out. I’ll explain.

Philosophers argue that we cannot be aware of ourselves without language. They say we are created by our language, that we live immersed in language and cannot escape; they say language stands as a scrim between us and what we think of as real and that we have to name things before we can know them. As a result we can never know what is actual. All we can know is names and stories. What I am looking for, at least I tell myself this, is a set of stories to inhabit, all I can know, and a place to care to about.

Cut to:

“I’ll never be lonely. I want to be a lion. Everybody wants to pass as kats. We all want to be big, big stars, yeah but we got reasons for that. Believe in me, because I don’t believe in anything, and I want to be someone to believe, to believe, to believe in. Mr. Jones and me stumbling through the barrio. Yeah we stare at the beautiful women, “She’s perfect for you, Man, there’s got to be somebody for me.” I want to be Bob Dylan. Mr. Jones wishes he was just a little more funky. When everybody loves you, son that’s just about as funky as you can be. Mr. Jones and me staring at the video. When I look at the television, I want to me staring right back at me. We all want to be big stars, but don’t know why and we don’t know how. But when everybody loves me, I’m going to be just about as happy as can be Mr. Jones and me, we’re gonna be big stars . . .
(words by Adam Duritz)

Cut to:

The one thing I absorbed while growing up where and how I did, was the intimacy of writing. I found in writing what some might call ‘self,’ some even call it destiny. So I proceeded from an early age to write myself out Charlotte, NC. To where I would write myself I didn’t know and didn’t really care. To where I have written myself now remains to be seen; remains to written. Maybe these next few paragraphs will lead me that much closer to where I need to be. Maybe in some small way I am trying to write myself back into NC. One question remains. Can I?

A letter of this nature allows me to truly express with sincerity what I am feeling. Taking the time to sit down and write this I find Zen. Sometimes there is solace in writing, reading for that matter contains a morsel of peace. Have you found it here? For sure spoken words heard – the sender/receiver theory – like if a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it crash down – does it make a sound? – Does it even fall for that matter? Truth be known – maybe; sure there is a feeling found in listening. I know this. I’ve been listening my whole life. So hear you go, read these words at a distance from me, but don’t forget to listen – the big tree that comes crashing down may be the old oak in your backyard. I don’t know. I guess that’s why writing as always intrigued me. Being able to conjure an emotion absent of a conversation, even if there isn’t a tree falling, or for that matter, a forest anywhere is sight. There’s power, hear.



My life has always been about movement. Constant movement. Dynamic. Anti-stasis. Like “Papa was a rolling stone . . . wherever he laid his hat, that was his home.” That kind of idealism. My memories have been comprised of fragments – some I’ve chosen to forget – some I’ve chosen to keep, reconstruct to better suit me – others I can’t seem to shake. Haunted I feel. Something in the ephemeral – floating. Not grounded. My life has never seemed linear in any way shape or form. What you represent is order to that chaos, however disconcerted I say I am about you now in my life. You surfaced in my life at a time when I felt those fragmented memories become frail. They were beginning to drift further out to sea – as I try hard to create new ones to take their place. And believe me I have, and will.


Cut to:

“I got bones beneath my skin. Mister. There is a skeleton in every man’s house.”

It’s like I am driving and you are now that rear-a-view mirror. I don’t think I have ever had one before. I think I have been accustomed, lately, just glancing over my shoulder whenever I needed to change lanes. Lately it has been more like that Jackson Brown song:

“Running on empty – running on - running on high – running on – running into the sun, but I am running behind.

Cut to:

I took a drive to day
Trying to emancipate . . .
I guess it was the beatings
Made me wise . . .
I’m not about to give
Thanks or apologize.

I couldn’t breathe
Holding me down
Hands on my face
Kissing the ground

I seemed to look away
Wounds in the mirror waved . . .
It wasn’t my surfaced
Most defiled . . . . .
Head @ your feet
Fool to your crown
Fist on my plate
Swallowed it down
Enmity gauged
Divided by fear
Tried to endure
What I could not forgive

Saw things … saw things
Saw things saw things
Clearer clearer
Once you were in my rear-a-view mirror
I gathered speed from you
Fucking with me . . .
Once and for all
I’m far away . . . I can hardly believe
Finally the shades are ( razed ).
Cut to:

I seem to recognize your face
Haunting familiar, yet I can’t seem to place it
I cannot find a candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me . . .

All these changes taking place
Wished I’d seen the place
But no ones ever taken me
Hearts and thoughts they fade . . . fade away
Hearts and thoughts they fade . . . fade away

I swear I recognize your breath
Memories like fingerprints
Are slowly raising
But you wouldn’t recall
for I’m not my former
It’s hard when you’re stuck upon the shelf
I’ve changed by not changing at all
Small town predicts my fate
Perhaps that’s what no one wants to see
I just want to scream . . . Hello!
My God it has been so long
Never dreamed you return
But now here you are
And here I am
Hearts and thoughts they fade . . . away
(repeat three times). Lyrics by Eddie Vedder –

“I wanted to serve my country. My father was in the Navy, and so was his father. I needed money for college. I didn’t want to go to college. It was a joke. I was just drunk.”

Cut to:

“Round here we always stand up straight
Round her something radiates.
Round here we are carving out our name
Round here we all look the same
Round here we always talk lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here she’s slipping through my hands

But the girl parking lot
Say’s man you should try to take a shot
Can’t you my walls are crumbing
Then she looks up at the building
Says she’s thinking of jumping
She says she is tried of life
She must be tried of something

Round here she’s always on my mind
Round here I got lots of time
Round here we are never sent to bed early
Nobody makes us wait
Round here we stay up very, very, very, very late.

Cut to:

I remember someone mentioned to me of passing, travel, trouble, and talk. He said we as humans do this. He said it is a ritual. Ten years ago I might have looked past such a statement. Now I wrestle with the idea. I remember a poet once said,

“All things move toward the light / except those that freely work down / to oceans’ black depth / In us an impulse tests the unknown.”
(words by unknown poet. Really.)

I know that impulse to test the unknown. I know to make it new. I think that human existence and the sense perceptions that accompany it, is at its deepest level a profoundly spiritual experiment. As I write this it occurs to me that it seems to be a paradox we as humans simply keep doing.

I guess I write all this to you, to deliver what you could never have known about me, what you still don’t know, to deliver my story to you, so pass it on. In turn I move a little closer towards feeling at home in this unrelenting world, in this Los Angeles, but I still can’t imagine where I would want my ashes scattered. If we want to be happy at all here on this planet, in this city of angels; whether they are fallen or still flying, I think we have to acknowledge that the circumstances which encourage us in our love and hate of this human existence are essential. We are part of what scared in Los Angeles, part of what is still sacred in the world for that matter. This is our main defense against craziness, our solace, the source of our best personal politics, and our only chance at regaining that lost paradise, if it is indeed worth regaining.

And let’s say this letter is premature and we soon find out that we have nothing in common and those memories of the past are as fragile and translucent as we are. Let’s say I am still not that kind of person you want or will let into your life – that I am something less than to be expected or that I’ve become something more, that my sum total doesn’t match your sum total, that we don’t fill each other’s fissures; that if it weren’t for NC – Charlotte – the south – Dogwoods – humid dog day afternoons; we might never have anything to do with one another. If that’s the case, well then I’ll always cherish that periodic glance in the rear-a-view mirror – and be ready for a little more movement down that road. We’ll always have Chaya Ven.

But let’s say this letter isn’t premature. Let’s say it is right on time – X marks the spot – destiny – fate – karma – or just a lucky co-winky dinky that we both capitalized on; then let this be an informal greeting, a red-carpeted precursor, preface, and prelude to . . .

This is how the Wor(l)d Begins, with a Bang!

Sometimes you got to put your foot down. You have to make a stand in your life. You say to yourself I am going to just sit down and do this. Get it all out – everything on whatever and its going to change the world. You say to yourself that your ideas and perceptions on anything and everything in this world are going to be different and new. Innovated. The shit. Heads will tilt slightly at first in confusion and in surprise like a dawning. If they don’t (and they probably won’t), then it still doesn’t matter. You are going to do it anyway. No more excuses. This has to happen. It must be recorded. You come to a conclusion that you talked to yourself much for this not to be the next step in your evolution, if not the final step. Like I said sometimes you have to put your foot down. This is one of those times. And so what if you digress into sub-plots and C-story lines, maybe that’s progress. Go as far as you can and if you forget where you started or where you are going, just know you did have a point to make and keep going. It will come around. I could give you an example right now, like an anecdotal analogy of something that happened in my life and digress in meaningful points and personal agendas, but I will spare you this at present because I have many, many miles to go before I sleep. You remember you had a point to make and that point was that this time it will all make sense. You know everything and your definitely not boring. Make sure you do your research. Use big words but know their meaning. That can take some time so get to learning. Everybody has at least one good story in them to tell about something that either happened to them or something they saw while they were out running errands. That’s how it happened to me. I have always thought I had an imagination. When I was kid I would make up the best stories. Not because I had to but because I could. Maybe I had too. I got into reading my parent’s books when I young so I knew books and some of the stories in them were not true. Like in one of them this crazy dog attacked a woman and her son. I remember in the book I think the boy died but in the movie he didn’t. I used to write the wild stories in school and my teachers would call my mom and ask why I was writing about people under the stairs and about a haunted hill. Just to show you my point about 10 years later two movies come out – yes you guessed it, one about people under the stairs and a house on a haunted hill. Don’t worry about being reviewed as the fallible narrator. This really has happened and is going to continue to happen until I make a stand and put my foot down on something. Your voice will happen, remember when you were first born all you could do was cry? Well the same thing is happening here. As soon as you cross that line and decide that this has to happen then there’s no going back and at that point when you start to progress and to digress into and to explore to think in the written now just like all those great writers did remember the ones we were force to tread water in all through college? This is the time to start and write the present so a reliable and useful history can be read. But where do you start? That’s what I can’t tell you. For me it started it with bookstores. I used to frequent bookstores. I would buy the new book of the month, this genre, that genre, this author, that author, it all got very boring. Nothing seemed to peek my interest. Films even got to be like the same as the other one I just saw or the book I just read. Stories became closer in relationship. Nothing seemed new. I started thinking I could write a better that. That’s when I decided I was going to create my own Story. The story to tell of all stories. I knew I needed to hurry because from the looks of things – experiences seemed to be in short supply.