Memory and the Muse

I crashed hard today catching up on my sleep. Remembering feels like rigorous physical exercise, too rough for my dispirited core-self, draining. I do not have a solid enough grasp of anything I write here to consider myself an authority, so I enslave myself to the spirit of reverie. Ideas ebb and flow in my consciousness, and then it is as if I have no mind at all, as if I am floating through the experience, not actively living it. To describe this feels like the most difficult task I've ever confronted. Words crumble as I type. Who am I amidst this fragmentation? I can't write a sentence now. I lack cohesion. This may be an aspect of my particular order of depression. I have a drug. I took it this morning as usual, yet I feel broken.


What is remembering? It feels like an abstraction, at times unreal. One is disturbed by the gaps inherent in one's own history. Days, weeks, months obliterated. I kept a journal for a time when I was a young man working as an organizer. It fell apart as I realized I could not make it make sense. I never tried journal writing again. But, since starting this blog in April, I've seldom missed posting something every day, even if it was not up to the standards I'd prefer to regularly exhibit. But what are those? I've tried to find its essence, the meaning of my past. Today felt out of sync all day and I felt drained, so I slept.



When a man grows old


When a man grows old and his energy ebbs he turns to writing poetry

When a man grows old women look beautiful, but what can he do about it

When a man grows old he resents the machinations of politicians and kids

When a man grows old and his teeth turn yellow he scorns his friends

When a man grows old his poetry leaves him empty until he drinks a beer

When a man grows old night becomes stranger than the days of his past

When a man grows old time flows backward to a sense of what lasts



History is a miserable joke


History is a miserable joke told by a man with a monocle and an impaired ear who believes history

But even the autodidact knows history doesn’t happen--it is invented to make you feel as miserable as possible

Remember this the next time you shop in produce for lettuce that is fresh and free of dogma

You’ll be elated to find something good to eat

You’ll be saddened by the assassination of broccoli




If your muse is dead


If your muse is dead you must quit believing in her

Try drinking in the morning and shattering your illusions

Eat a steak, breathe in

Take a break from the deadly intoxication of words--roam at will

Stand in a clear field, listen to the maniacal bird that saved your life

Try dreaming

It is best left unsaid-- leave everything to the imagination

But hold on!

Another muse will come along and make you feel like a fool when she grins

Poetry can be such a drag



In the helpless morning


In the helpless morning when your liver assures you of your poetic cause

And you know greatness by its first name

And you fumble for a bite to eat while standing stooped at the kitchen sink

Readying to fall into a trap like Hem and Hunter

And you don’t have a weapon

You’d better put on some Mississippi blues

And pray

Even if you don’t believe in Jesus

Even if you are as naked as an old man turning to poetry



When after a few drinks


When after a few drinks poetry becomes an obsession, the story is about to end

When the dawn holds promise, the day unravels like a sure narrative biography

“This happened, but the other is a lie”

When the poet gets down to business he sees all of this in a glowing seed

When he is mesmerized by the details of his blood

When the neighborhood shimmers in a blazing light

When friends pass on

End of the story



to a painter


your silence is conspicuous

de kooning has crashed down on your head

turner has set your hair on fire

color has consumed you in flames

you are better off now

you are finally free


TS