Then:Now
I loaned out my voice to a crumbling city and prepared kielbasa for the magic road to childhood. Along the way I found pecans in the irrigation ditch. I sold goldfish to teddybears. It isn’t easy to outlift the dust or outshift the universe. The nightbridge carries one-half the city and my soul is lipped into existence. My face was painted in puddles and an archaic ship floated on my ceiling.
Ice Age Debris
yawning into eldervisions the priests honeyed their veins and hung their passions behind the cough on the snowed-out television. they nailed opposable thumbs on their wall to indicate their degree of passion and spray painted roses on the table. one day their folds of Jesusflesh sprung a leak.
On the first day, their orphaned memories reconfabulated. it was at a time when radio towers splotched the nightscape. red armies outnumbered white armies and there was a balloon floating above the head of god.
On the second day, another logic crawled between their walls and tapped a new line for the dead. it was at a time when a knife in the snow meant a denouncement in the hypnotic modulations of the void.
On the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days these priests found their usual place at a Polish restaurant and waited for wodka. this was at a time when Poland was schooled in the techniques of stamping and everyone carried an ice-age debris in their mind-chunk. yokels know best.
on the seventh day, boredom became their bed of undoing. this was at a time when night rabbits scoured the land in search of rats. or it might have been when murmurs changed into spiders and crawled through drainpipes. it is simply true that a rich man doesn’t know where to look. the infant was in the abyss.
In Another Post-Communist Hotel
the moon is a grenade in the Polish landscape
setting against the coal-smudged windows
one toilet and one shower for twenty miners
the truth is something that is re-cast
an orphic revolution in the grayed-out buildings and boot-smeared shit
to become human is a continual inter-subjective project
art is non-instrumental communication in the darkness
sarcasm may be a condition of truth
Barbied culture: bitten into tin
beauty outpulls the numbness
I am ready for a break. Very ready. Walking through one of the world’s ugliest train stations four times a day is taking a toll. Worn out for sure. I am going to Portadown a week from Sunday for Christmas. Ah to hear English. Clean air. Green. Irish sausages. Butter. Bread. Counting down the days.
I prefer a green small town to an industrial coal smudged city. In the near future, I gotta find the green again in my life.
Expansions
in the effects of grief
memory was worth
doing over
to arrive again
in scattered kingdoms
in the nameless
book of
entwinement
pronouns outnumber us
&
the heart
is helixed
can you trouble
yourself enough
to feel
your self
expanding?
Did a lot of reading and re-connecting and writing. Read some of Tost’s Complex Sleep, Theodore Enslin’s Then, And Now, and Susan Steward’s Poetry and the Fate of the Senses. God I miss reading and thinking. Only teaching for four hours on a Friday is helping me recover. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is also a life saver. I listen to the BBC radio recording at night and drift off.
Three hours teaching Saturday and I am free again. Tomorrow: a printer and a light bulb.
Lust
In the sun the body bakes
in extreme heat
leftover
bones
are wrapped
in tinfoil
and disposed
in the proper
receptacle
Water Circles The Eyes
in the
myopic arrival
of endtime
thought
began
in the soulless desert
looking
for light
beneath
rocks
new direction for my manuscript. cleaning it up. finding my feet. forced language in previous versions felt forced. yes. the other versions were false starts. All new now.
Here is the rough draft of the beginning:
Because It Was Corporeal They Did It With Marvelous Sublimity
our minds were not so much closed
as unready
to change our whole view
of how life is constructed (nostalgiac strictures of feeling)
Our memories are kitsched and must be refabulated
(St. Sebastian fucked against a tree with flimsy loincloth)
memories are the absolute denial of the accident
of birth (she tore her lips—this is the sound of the tearing—spread legs—liturgical—popped eyes—light on slanted windows— the midwife carried a glass for measuring blood loss)
what held and what
fell in that
bloodstate
what slapsong gibbers
us into existence
born
through
bloodfolds
life does not begin auspicious
memories fluffed-up
like dandelions
like a dead
tree floating
on a mountain
of water
like stray hairs
on the bedsheets
the new manuscript in process is now called Prodigal Drift rather than Memory Swerve. I am tightening it before moving on. Or actually I tighten it as I move. Clear out the space. Shed some light. Re-shuffle and re-organise and then get lost in the sweet chaos of language. I need both tendencies while writing almost at the same time. I find a lot of pleasure in seeing where a poetic project is moving. Organizing through language.
Here is the latest re-working:
creative
abandon-
ment
orbiting
over
anti-bodies
sworn letter-
less water
mimed
into memories
inwardness
meant
sisphoned
into
awareness
where
mouths
dwell under
light
so as yet—convergence—insisted
on the move
extent
of duress
meant
inwardness
meant hanging
around
in lost &
found
a ghost
in every sound
run-
away
feet
across
the apocryphal
page
incineration
of hope
and lightnotes
burst
in the
memoryskull
sickness slides through
language
in the nous
of unknowing
a runaway
sickness
water transpired
in every
sound
a convergence
washed
up
in memorytide
check out the poemfilms Rabbit light movies
I am enjoying Alice Blue Review
I woke up this morning at 6 am feeling the rut. A lot of teaching and little time or energy for reflection. I drank my white tea with honey. I spread some yellow paste on my Polish bread but the bread had hardened and it stuck to the roof my mouth. I walked out my door feeling like it was just another day in the industrial city of Katowice. I walked through the hectic and dirty train station. I walked through the snow and tried to ignore the beggars and all the people trying to shove some reklama (advert) into my hand. After 40 min, I reached my usual Friday morning destination. A large business building and small shopping mall called Altus. I checked in with security and showed them my EU health card as ID and took the lift to the fifth floor to teach a conversation class at Deloitte (a tax company). The students are advanced and quite talkative. I don’t have to do a lot of preparation like my other classes so as a whole it is an enjoyable class. Class ended and I walked out the door, handed in my id, and walked back into the snowstorm. I felt frustrated, angry, and resentful. I wondered what I was doing with my life.
Unlike other Fridays, I only had to teach one class today. I have to teach Saturdays and Sundays still, but now I have most of Friday free. I wasn’t sure what to do with my time. I felt a bit lost. So I wandered into a tattoo shop. No one spoke English but a young guy named Robert, who was bald and dressed in camouflage clothing, spoke to my good friend Magda on the phone and she translated everything for me.
I had been planning to fix my tattoo for a long time. I got a tattoo when I was 21 and it was a symbolic event in my life. In 1995, I returned home early from a Mormon mission because I didn’t believe anymore. I had a huge identity crisis as well. It was a hard time for both my family and me. An extremely stressful time. My family felt like I was leaving them. I didn’t want to leave them, but I couldn’t make myself believe in Mormon ideology anymore. I also felt like it was an American religion and I was starting to feel resentful about being torn away from Northern Ireland without my consent. I understand why my parents wanted to chase the American dream, and they have done well for themselves in general, but I had no choice.
So during this volatile time, my mum suggested I visit Ireland and see all my family. I had not seen Ireland since I was 12 years old. I had lost my Northern Irish accent and I wasn’t sure where I belonged. So in 1995, during Christmas, I went to Portadown where I was born and it changed everything. For the first time in my life I felt like I was making choices. I think it was the first time I made a conscious decision to change something rather than someone changing my life for me. I was fascinated by everything. I began to seriously write poetry and read Joseph Campbell and Jung and Freud and Shakespeare. I also began to really study world religion and a bit of anthropology. Everything opened up.
Shortly after that trip to Ireland, I re-entered university in Southern Utah and took honours classes and studied everything I could possibly study. I worked at a telemarketing company called Matrixx and sold life insurance over the phone. During a coffee break I met Tiffany and she took me to the petrol station and showed me how to mix coffee and hot chocolate. Coffee was still new to me then since the Mormon Church prohibited it. After a short engagement, we were married despite the wishes of her family. It was a tumultuous affair. Since I no longer believed in the Mormon Church, we didn’t get married in the Mormon temple. This was a very serious problem for both of our families, but especially Tiffany’s family. Our respective families never really spoke at the wedding and continued not to speak after ten years of marriage. I still remember the day of the marriage. I was wearing a kilt. I felt proud and calm. Again, I was making a conscious strong decision on my own despite what others thought. It felt exhilarating. Tiffany also made a strong decision. She had to go against the wishes of her immediate family and her extended family. All of her family got married in the Mormon temple. I was 21 and Tiffany was only 19. I learned a lot from Tiffany during those ten years of marriage. I think we both did. I don’t regret a single day with her.
Today as I watched Robert trace over my old tattoo with new ink, I realised how important it is to remember my past. For over two hours he worked on my tattoo and added shadows and small black flames. It became an almost completely different tattoo, but there were still traces of the old blue tattoo from when I was 21 years old.
Now I feel like I am floating around. I am not sure where I am heading. More importantly, I am not sure what I really want for my life. Drifting with the wind can be a romantic ideal. I want to be flexible and allow for changes, but I really want to make conscious strong decisions in my life again. I need reflection time. To slow down. Take stock. And yes, sort out what is really important.
New beginnings. I need them :-)
memory is tricky. geting wrapped up in the moment can be both good and dangerous. I have been re-reading my poetry manuscripts Hermit Kingdom and Godzeenie. I feel quite good about Godzeenie now that I have about five months distance from the manuscript. I need to send it out to publishers.
I think part of my frustrations over the last two years has to do with being cut off from thte publishing community. The internet has the potential to lessen that isolation.
I have also been re-reading some blog entries from the past two years. It is strange to go back to those times. It helps. I forget some easily. Comparisons between then/now help. The U.S. offered me a lot in terms of education and especially the amazing Lucipo Group. I have also gained a lot from the hardships of living abroad with some difficult situations with my job and literally surviving. This summer after losing my job because of postings on this blog I would literally have been on the street if a good friend hadn’t helped me. I am eating and I have a roof over my head. Many people are not so fortunate. I also worked hard for my education. So what next? Not sure. But I do need to remember my past. My difficult complex past creates/created who I am. Northern Ireland, England, America, South Korea, Poland, divorce, isolation, poverty, protestantism, Mormonism. It is a rich complex blend that MUST feed into my art and my life. I am most satisfied when I can find a way to deal with my memories through my art. I must rescue my vocabulary. I need new ways to live constantly. Writing poetry gives me new ways to both understand and create my cultures, my memories, my language, my thinking, my body, my life, my choices.
memory— —pulled up
—like dandelions—
fluffed and blown—
memory —dead tree floating
on a mountain
of water—
life does not begin
auspicious
a german football song on the train from regensberg :-)
25 hours on trains this weekend but it was fab. Went to Prague and had a good night on the town hanging with Zofia and Andrew. Then we went to Regensberg in Bavaria on Saturday. It was my first time in Germany and it was quite a contrast to Poland and Czech Republic. Everything was very orderly and clean. No dog shit everywhere etc. A beautiful city!!! Great cathedral (St. Peters) and some seriously side splitting good food. The beer was also excellent. Yeah Germany is cool.
On the train back to Prague from Regensberg Frank (a German friend) taught us all a nice German song from Munich. We drank a ton of beers on the train and sang a nice German song. We also sung the popcorn song. Great train party!!!
Yeah. I need more times like this weekend. Getting caught in the workday world. And the workday world of teaching ESL in Poland doesn’t have many advantages (money etc.) So need more benefits from travel around Europe. Just need time and money (like most people).
YEAH!!!! Keep on keeping on!!!
Things are different this time in the industrial city of Katowice. Slowly I am making some social contacts. But still no face to face contact with artists and writers. The internet has been a life saver. I went to a Halloween party last night at a local pub and it wasn’t too bad. It was good to get out of the house after a month of nothing but teaching. And tonight, a little after midnight, I am taking the train to Prague. Going to see my good friend Andrew.
I am not sure how much longer I can do this type of teaching, but I think I can hang with it for another year if I can create a small social life for myself. Some nice girls named Beata and Joanna invited me to hang with their friends for Halloween and it helped.
Today is All Saint’s Day in Poland and everyone is with families. Holidays are very hard in Poland because everything shuts down and I feel my isolation quite a bit more.
So trying to look on the bright side. I don’t have a home, but I also don’t have a mortgage. I don’t feel completely free, but I am working on that.
I miss London quite a bit. I felt really comfortable and alive there. But I am hoping to land a university gig in Poland at some point. If not, then I gotta make some new plans.
it is interesting because I didn’t realise just how important it is to have a social network. I have never been one to take things lying down though. So head up. Keep on keeping on!!!
“pain and patience in the annealed life/ preceding harvest” (Theodore Enslin)
by what
cracked chimney
does the would-be mercy
escape in the Polish nightscape?
pouring or poured
endlessly away,
it was as yet caught
between
the lit and unlit,
ball of sandpaper, hewn
at the edge of it
throated soul wanting verge
as yet
to go elsewhere
or no-
where
“. . . thought is a violent, cataclysmic operation, of which sweat is the most benign symptom” (Roland Barthes)
shaven priest are supposed
to be more temporal like clouds- as the say– or said
feed
on mountains,
god-turned
endless
hover who dwells– or dwelled
elsewhere
mountain fish– fresh–
strangers in the headlights, eyes
low’ed better as yet
not to be seen
from Memory Swerve
grave
wrangled
in the night’s
rites
embalmed
head
dreamt
immunity
held-on
catch
whatever
was caught
had been singing
not enough
on punative
wings
local football team
scribbled on Polish
rocks
thin lines
nodding
out
returned
lagg’d
humm’d
and
drawn
made it a road
made it
a windflag
had it nowhere
bound
loose
unanswered shout
of ships
blue
back – – blue
loose
occupied in the descent
orbiting it
seem’d
what was read
at sky’s end
had been arrived
at again
sworn letter-
less water
mimed
into memories
loose
descent
inwardness
meant
sisphoned
into
awareness
where
mouths
dwell under
rocks
so as yet—convergence—insisted
on the move
extent
of duress
meant
inwardness
meant hanging
around
in lost &
found
a ghost
in every sound
regretting it seem’d
a run-
away
apocryphal feet
across
the fiery
page
incineration
of hope
and lightnotes
burst
soundings
in the
memoryskull
sickness slides through
language
how far
even
so
in the nous
of unknowing
regretting it seem’d
a runaway
sickness
water transpired
in every
sound
a convergence
meant
descent
sons of darkness
wash’d
up
in memorytide
infinity of everyone
smiling
at stairway’s
end
ah ha
got a hold
on us
to see
what
comes
soon-come
memory
only an instant
got
a hold
on us
lost
in the swell
it was done &
undone
keyless
repetitions
arrived
at
in the descent
often splint’d
throat’d
or
nett’d
nostrilmouth
in the orchestral
roll call
languished
in language
Verb patterns
help to convince
make pay
encourage finishing
The word passion derives from the Greek for “suffering.”
a new project with gnostic undertones. And sound is a priority again.
Right now it’s called Memory Swerve.
Here’s a small sample:
The question is: is there life
before death
always
a tightrope
between
innocence &
rapture
knowing through
negation it was
or could be
seen
with
the departing
train
or suspended
with the blow-away
whistle
nighttracks washed
in breathmic
yonder
tumbled out
tumbling
as from
lightnotes
hostage
strings
strung
us
along
there is, was, and iswas a scout for the abstract
in the effects of grief memory was worth
doing over to arrive again
in the fleet kingdom
with an aroused eye
in-scattered
living
in-scribed
in the nameless
book of
entwinement
seem’d reason
parted
not so much everywhere
having
arrived
at ruins
rather plucked
spoken out
of
envisaged
in the gnostic
projector
projecting
remakes
on a white screen
crazed
into
scattered
kingdoms
grief
grinds
memories
ANI MALE
UP-
RISINGS
In the sun the body bakes
in extreme heat
leftover
bones
are wrapped
in tinfoil
and disposed
in the proper
receptacle
———————————————-
there is, was, and iswas a scout
for the
abstract
in the effects
of grief
memory
was worth
doing over
to arrive again
in the fleet
kingdom
with an aroused
eye
what to be nameless
in the book
of
entwinement
in-scattered living
many shelves
and it seemed
memory
parted
not so much having
anywhere
arrived
at
ruins
spoken out
of
envisaged on the gnostic
highroad
reeled out onto
the white
screen
split
by split
A MACHINE FOR GRINDING
OUT
ANIMAL
UPRISINGS
crazed
into scattered
king-
doms
in the lightnotes
grief
grinds
memories
suspended memories in the word
gravy
cropped out
nerve centre
hardly begun
breathless
looking
up
so as to return
endlessly
on the primal
verge
wet shorts with erection- waded
halfway
in the lake
prodigal drift
with gnostic
undertow
in the classroom teaching ESL 34 hours a week. Which means a lot more hours with grading and prep etc. Also 7 days a week. Can’t think or do anything else for a while.
but I should find a groove soon
I am in my new flat in Katowice. It is nice and clean. I also got internet yesterday. I am working for a friendly and professional school. Fingers crossed for a good ride this year.
New issue of word for / word with some interesting visual poems and some poems from my manuscript Godzeenie. Check it out:
British accents looped me back to childhood
————————————————————————-
effulgent push of the wheel
————————————————————————
entrance and exit cannot be differentiated
————————————————————————
i read as if I’ve read
nothing
————————————————————————
what you’ve stollen from me
there’s no point in taking
————————————————————————-
the beginning of wisdom
is love
of
wisdom
————————————————————————-
bow
to
yr
post-
poned
corpse
—————————————————————————
we are children
who play
on high balconies
——————————————————————————–
sunshoes
&
moonpants
—————————————————————————–
the center
is everyone
and no one
——————————————————————————–
false unity
cripples
the imagination
——————————————————————————–
truth shows the truth
interdependent
with
madness
——————————————————————————–
the tone of
me-not-me
requires
constant
attention
———————————————————————————
we want what we can’t
have
and then
we want
some more
how to know
what is
inside
and
outside
the cave?
authentic
and sincere
in the dingy
rubbish-filled
streets and splattered
toilets or the wonderfully satisfactory
voodo uproars drooling
bones with a groan yes
even the earth
has orgasms
lying in the metro slumped against egg
cartoons
what is the point of living
except to have
no fixed point
the only way to come
to grips
with meaning
is to live more
“ultimately the greatest source of emotional power in art lies not in any particular subject matter, however passionate, however universal. It lies in form.” (Susan Sontag)
both religious vocation and crime lead to the cell. the cell is singular. but without the cell there is no body . . .
what is inner style? style is substance.
recovering the senses after sensory overload is hard work . . . it is spiritual work
“The truth is balance, but the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie” (Susan Sontag)
————————-
rain came
and the temp-
erature
dropped
————————-
protect
silence
—————————-
the dead
are dying
—————————-
failed
earlier
forms
of
human beings
—————————-
pre-utterance
—————————–
to weight
out
words
as they come
in.
——————————
to have done
not enough beautifully
—————————–
a wasp attacks
my hairgel
—————————–
a crying Spanish girl at the next table.
pale legs flexing and unflexing on Maryleborne High Street.
—————————–
we revise
our lives
before
living
them
—————————-
“to dream is not to dream/ if waking up is never finished.” (Ed Roberson)
To replace waking with realisation?
had mild panics today. loud morning rush in my hotel. two toilets and one shower
for over twenty people. crowds of faceless nameless people in the centre. stale golabki at the Milky Bar.
So many bad memories of Katowice. Can I crowd out the bad memories with better ones?
It’s a new school year. I still don’t have a job. Staying in another cheap hotel. It’s ok for a while.
Keep moving in circles. Are circles bad? hm . . .
I am back in Rybnik where my Polish journey began. I might be going back to Katowice in October for a job.
It’s a circle:
——————————–
August/Sep 2006: Rybnik, Poland
Oct-Dec 2006: Katowice
Sep 2007: Rybnik
Oct 2007: Katowice?
———————————
But this time it’s gonna be different. No doubt. for better or worse I don’t know.
the poet Nate Mackey talks about “ground gone under”
1) I need ground
2) I need the ground to go under
Still searching for ground . . .
I’ve tried integrating myself
into the blond barbie culture
and it’s sucking me dry
to become human is a continual
inter-
subjective
project
the truth is something that is told not
something that is known
what the public wants
is the image of
passion not passion
itself
art is
non-instrumental
communication
in the darkness
sarcasm may be
a condition of truth
I am leaning toward living and teaching in Krakow. I have another interview tomorrow morning. It seems like a very good school. Good feedback from a former teacher that worked there for a few years. And very friendly director.
Yeah . . . things could come together . . . fingers crossed
so I finished two teaching contracts in Poland. The second contract was only for three months in Bielsko to see if we both wanted to continue.
So here is the big news.
My contract for the next school year was made “null and void” not because I am a bad teacher or misbehaved but
BECAUSE OF THIS BLOG
YES. YOU HEARD IT RIGHT.
I received a short email while I was in London saying my blog was “gross misbehavior” and my contract would not be honoured.
I have never said anything bad about the school on this blog or to anyone. I really believed it was a good school. Actually, I still believe it is a good school. Great teachers.
Of course I am reasonable. If I said anything damaging to the school I would have no problem deleting posts.
But because of my musings about teaching and Poland on this blog, my most recent school decided to void my contract for the next school year.
Seems a bit crazy in some ways.
It is a pain to find a new job and a decent place to live etc. But I need a good professional, stable, reasonable, friendly school. I have a lot of experience and I have no doubt I am a good teacher. It is just as well I didn’t continue with the contract. It is obvious the job was not quite stable etc. I want a solid contract year at a school. I don’t want to move around. I am tired of moving around.
I had a sucessful interview in Krakow. But still looking.
So many fly-by-night ESL schools in Poland and all over the world. I want to get paid. I am sure teaching is for me. If I can just make a future out of it. It can be difficult in Poland with no savings etc.
But yeah teaching and writing is the best for me.
Just gotta keep riding . . .
head up . . .
stay positive etc.
two good shows. Monday we saw Kevin Devine
and last night we saw And You Will Know Them by the Trail of Dead. My ears are still ringing from that show.
I liked kevin Devine a lot more than Trail of Dead, but both shows were good. It feels so good to see live music again after two years!!!
I am enjoying Susan Stewart’s Poetry and the Fate of the Senses. It is such a relief to read and really think again. PHEW!!!
Just chillin in the living room of the hostel. They have wireless so I am using my laptop. Feels great. YEAH. Internet.
Went to British Library yesterday. Amazing. Love the old books. Also picked up an old copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost (printed in 1801). Inside the old book there are newspaper clippings from some literary critic about the greatness of Milton.
Other books:
Mackey’s Splay Anthem
Susan Steward’s Poetry and the Fate of the Senses
A Susan Sontag Reader
Everything is very expensive in London. Especially compared to Poland. So can’t go nuts with books. Plus can’t find a good used bookshop for good poetry like in Chapel Hill or St. Marks in New York.
Tonight we might go to an indie club. Tomorrow we are going to the club Ministry of Sound. Next Tuesday we might see And You Will Know Us by the trail of Dead. Or something like that. I think they are like Sonic Youth or something.
It feels great to be an English speaking country again. Eating Prawn Cocktail crisps.
Ate some great Indian, Lebanese, Chinese, and especially Spanish. I love the Spanish food. A few little plates at a time of great seafood.
I am not looking forward to returning to Poland. But ah well. I really needed this. I feel refreshed again. I can do Poland.
Hell YEAH!!!
Tate Modern tomorrow for the Dali and surrealism exhibition.
a lot of walking. typing on an indian keyboard. hard to type. heading to oxford street and charing cross for the used bookshops. dali exhibition on friday at the tate with some surrealism and film as well . . .
London is crazy cool . . . my nose is a bit rough though . . .
need gum and a good nose blow this morning . . .
how not to lose my capacity to be surprised????
It’s work
damn hard work
Some very interesting essays in the new Octopus magazine. I am looking forward to reading:
1)Gabriel Gudding’s: “On Kindness and Hipness as They Relate to Cultural Production”
2) Dean Gorman’s “You Were Like Skyscrapers Veering Away: My First Time with Ted Berrigan’s Sonnets”
3) Noah Eli Gordon’s “Written and Rewritten to Order: The Gift of Generative Possibility in the Work of David Shapiro”
check it out:
OCTOPUS MAGAZINE
End of my teaching day and I feel a little better than usual. I see a bit of light. It’s almost the end of July and then a nice holiday in London.
Tomorrow is the hump. Wednesday. Intensive teaching of ceo/directors at a local company and intesive three hour English class in the evening and a few other classes as well. But at least the week is almost half-way over.
Some nice scary shit. LOVE IT!!! download or stream the remix at:
Just click the “Katowice” link on the right.
THANK YOU BRIAN HOWE!!!!
I used to live in Zory with a 50 something year old Polish lady named Aniella Vogel. Not a good experience. Here is a view from my window:
New issue of Past Simple is now online. Some poems from my manuscript Godzeenie (god of hours). The manuscript considers time/moments/hours and place. Each poem is titled according to the hour of composition. Place is also important. The manuscript is almost complete. I wrote it during the last nine months in Poland. Communist hotels, a room with a 60 year Polish lady named Aniella Vogel, Katowice train station and many other locations in industrial southern Poland.
The issue also some paintings by my former Polish student Grzegorz Mioduszewski.
check it out:
It is a dirty day. Spumes and fumes. dust and grit mixed with sweat.
it is!
I am at the burn out stage for living in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language. Some of you who have worked abroad may be familiar with this stage.
In both Korea and Poland it went something like this:
stage one: 1-3 months. Fascination. An intense interest in the food and culture. An attempt to learn a few words. Everything is full throttle. Staying out late. Trying everything and anything related to the culture
Stage two: 4-7 months. Wondering what I am doing. Worrying about my future. Feeling frustrated. Looking for something exciting. The sound of the foreign language is frustrating. Everything is very loud. Especially old ladies.
Stage three: 7-12 months. A decision whether or not to stay in the country. If staying, then a more serious attempt to learn the language. Either assimilation or leaving the foreign country.
Stage three in Poland is much different than Korea. I knew I was going to leave but in Poland it is much different. I have an opportunity to settle for a little while in Poland with decent living conditions.
So I am going to start a Polish class next week. It is a difficult language but if I can get to a pre-intermediate level in a five or six months I will be happy. It will certainly make me feel more comfortable.
I will also try the DOS thing.
Earlier this week I felt horrible. Fever.
I know the best job for me is teaching. If somehow i can find my way back to teaching university it might also be nice.
I need a constant stimulus of mind. New ideas. Passion. Obssession. But the DOS position should help no matter what I end up doing. It will help for teaching EFL/ESL and it will help for other careers.
Maybe I will get a membership at the local gym and lower my stress.
So . . . I will keep going. In September I will have my own flat and internet. And if I can save enough money, I should be able to get a big 17′ LCD screen and external keyboard. I saw one for 600zl ($200). So it is possible.
I did make a new Polish friend named Sylvester. And also a friend from Canada named Todd. So that helps a lot.
I just need to find/make a sanctuary again.
Yeah. It’s going to be ok.
I have done quite a lot of writing despite the psychological hardships (divorce, foreign countries, isolation in communist hotel etc.)
So . . . yeah. Literature and the arts are my passion. I will keep the fire burning!!!
I am feeling optimistic today. 33 is not too old. It’s not the end. I am still young. Still rebuilding.
reconstruction is healthy.
Gotta make it through July. Summer camp with 6-8 year old kids, teaching CEO’s and managers at companies at 7:00 AM in the morning, 3 hours everyday of an intensive English course for adults and there is no textbook, medical English with a dentist etc. etc. etc.
It nice’s to have some variety of course.
But gotta Find my own projects to keep my mind on fire.
The good news is I have a new flat. Clean. Modern. No internet still. But someday. Maybe September.
Nachtbrot
(July 10th, 2006)
Nachtbrot for the illusory agreement
the lengthy agreement
the fragrant agreement
exiled under the active
heel of the imagination
awake under invisible signs and impossible solutions riding that train from noon to night
typhoon on the way and sour thunder in the subway
herky-jerky apathy from one station to the next no imaginings but something personal in that sickly hued laugh
I await word from my friends in this desecrated house in this seventh month of my self-exile in Korea reading The Silent Scream &
dreaming of ants traveling through nostrils
to clean out the body
the last 20 pages of Hermit Kingdom is a sequence. Here is part of the sequence:
HERMIT KINGDOM
leaving, you leave, leaving
the bags
shoved into compartments
restless legs on concrete
geese warping
time along the river
sijang sijang sijang
green cloud erodes the slug
the slug slimes the branches
branches I can’t keep track
of the branches
thoughts pinch and poke
pinch and poke
in the listless light
sijang sijang sijang
weatherchild be told
gravel occasionally in drains
&
sewers opening in monsoons
sijang sijang sijang
haul off the inheritance
in amenonia and dung
in ageless revolutions
of dirty little secrets
proposing
a burial with open eyes
proposing
at the ridge
of thumb and forefinger
to restore all the vitals
in the likely company
of life in the deathcell
tick tock tick tock
the microscopic brilliance
of passing into Jesus
frankly in folded notes
lights crisscross the sky
body in water
horizon that graces mercy
how can I reach this moment
after the sensory
it’s pleasant and understandable
short on prestige nibbling
on dried squid and yogourt
in the evening in
the littering leaves
with a red nose
on a windless night
with bicycles
and high pitched
brakes and turning
spokes
sijang sijang sijang
INTRODUCTIONS
I was introduced to poetry when I needed something to believe in. I was introduced to sound through geographical seperation. In sepia cat claw still scratching at curtains. Ich muss mein Mund screiben. On the cracked trains of nations and where, and why, my lips have kissed. A kid on a float. I can’t resolve the proposals. Populations flock. In my head itself a picture of a head. Far-off murmur of surf and salt sifting through slatted blinds. I was introduced to the tyranny of sunlight at age 22 and wrote under the sanctimonious blink. Still searching for permission to live. . .
HERMIT KINGDOM
bagged
too
heavy
the weight
shifts
I told
the
truth or
tried
to: small hammer
that
humps
the
bell
tacit
I told
because
the self, as we
have it, bumps
and swells
with the
brine
of the heart, caustic
ribbon, cut
in the ice
through which
to fish, all
wet, in flight, drift
of plastic
bag against
the washing line
**
Not me, but me, in fire, stillness persists, pathos snows, under the scalp: hippocrite, hippocrasy, sick fight for rights
**
bbq on sultry Sunday with professors and soju-croon of nationalist ethos: Japan and China and America
**
snail’s breath within an inch in a man’s life the greatest events occur in blindsight
**
to Korea with dog’s underlip
on high from Lucifer
Poetics divorced from the tribe
burned form vanishing in light
PORTADOWN TO LAS VEGAS
making-out in the dug-out, stirrings underground, rumbling the groins, pushed
against the fence, how to swing a bat, tight grip come round the belly, frozen burrito at Steve’s, time cleaves, catategorical masturbated, reflections of a self-righteous decade, New Order, guns and ammo, lost accent, Madonna, chlorinated brain, Now-and-Laters.
Battle of the Boyne: Battle of the bulge
Thy kingdom blown: Thy kingdom drawn
making-out
in the dug-out
reflections
of
guns
&
ammo
lost
accent
&
how
to
swing
a bat
history and the end of history, it happened on a Friday, from grass to desert, fear in a basket rushed down the river, Billy Lundy and Billy Budd, orange sash and red slippers, squeel of the monkeys and squeel of money, Union Street and Arville Apartments, lowland Scot and E.T., little red ridding hood in a sea of lights, it takes a shape, Ian Rush and the Lone Rangers, 7-Eleven and 7-Eleven
Billy
Billy
Billy
gruff in the underbrush, unforgotten victory, u don’t drink our wine, they have blown up the herd
salty sausage and chips: a burger fit for a king
blue lights at K-Mart: red lights in the town square
HERMIT KINGDOM
bags – breached – a new movement
what’s left and what remains
ground in the mad and let grow – forever
feverish – dancing down
the years – imposter –
self posture – of the ghost
in the music
What lay “behind” the Korean madness? Itaewon as border. Konglish. The presence of troops heightened my exposure. A moving
back – below – a wandering – kingdom –
no name – but war
Korea hustles into the future. I purchased designer suits. My western entitlement is naked
Confuscian harmony between – get rich – and quick
what borders – the self – bores
through
desire – for dic-
tation
un-
leashed on
dead
weights
OUTER DARKNESS
and behold he did tilt his head and stretch the space between skull and brain
and behold he did study diverse mysticisms and feel the everlasting omen
descending the sharp angles of a descending staircase
the message breaks smashes the curse
the sign of the nail
lightening enchanted white cloud
in the desert
drilled knees
a volunteer force &
a republic
HERMIT KINGDOM
Bulging and heavy
the day was mad mad
was the house was
the leaving of shirts
and undergarmets
and books stacked
by the airport toilet
scribbled on a small piece of paper
in English and taped to the stall door:
do not flush paper
thought was the silence of power
re-entry visa just in case
to the revolution yet to come
to the duality of tongues
to the lost soul
to the masculine-feminine interior of heaven
to the seafoam of another dirty hotel
Shiva Shiva
(July 18th 2006)
trying to get around the generals of lyricism got my blinker on
but don’t know where to turn behind my tired immortal head is a deranged sentence fecund 14 songs and one unsolvable riddle a fat-cheeked policemen all choked-up cause the communists removed themselves and it’s
been raining monkeys
ever since drinkin and trying ain’t enough
& I sing Shiva Shiva
July dark skies Korea floods eight straight days and nights
alas my lost youth intervenes full tilt with a nightstick searching for a barn else someplace to get the rustic back in my bones
the ancient cabbage in the field
& the dark contemplative on the cliff
& the soggy newspapers full of squiggles
& dimes of commerce through my eyes
what testicles
vigor uterus
a great deal of thinking goes out
the other side bloody cotton
on my tepid tongue
(July 17th 2006)
Heavily pitted and dragged by the varied failures of the father. Pounding with hammers and chisels at small iron implements. Working an alien camp with unnatural movements and mysterious chants. Face furnished with rugged simplicity.
& how to trans-
figure
the hard
kernel
of despair?
I cannot
stand
it but go on
fumbling
for the light
switch
ok ok ok. It’s all ok. I finally wrote yesterday. Before yesterday I hadn’t written for over a month and it was fucking me up. Yesterday was a 12 hour work day. But I wrote. And listened to punk music really loud. and realised what matters. my writing. and love. love matters. love/zest/curiousity.
I am aiming for Dublin at the beginning of next year. I gotta find a home/base in an English speaking country. I also need to find a community of English speaking poets and artists. Damn. how many times have i wrote that on this blog!!!
Today is a light teaching day. I am going back to my flat to shit and write.
I will have a new flat next month with a teacher from Canada named Todd.
I am almost finished with Godzeenie. My writing yesterday should wrap up my Polish manuscript.
Now I just need to work on getting a home for a while and sending out work. I should have internet in September again for a few months.
Yes. Writing is not a fucking hobby. It’s a fucking addiction. I need the high.
Is it healthy? I dunno. But too late to turn back now. Can’t live without it!
those too. feel like someone is following me. sometimes. from 2pm-7pm. they leave me alone in the morning.
I hope it goes away. frustrating.
I am writing on my flatmates laptop. He has a big screen. He is hooked up to the internet wirelessly at school. His laptop is not directly connected to the school. So I can write without someone over my shoulder. There is one computer at the school and everyone wants to use it.
I must reserve my spot at the table in the teacher’s room in July. I want my flatmates spot. I want to connect wirelessly to the school’s computer. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if my new job allowed me a bit of time to write and send out work and read poetry?
It would be fucking great.
I think my notebooks are not working well because it feels more permanent than writing in blog space. But in a pinch some quick scribbles are ok.
I like the sound of tapping keys more than the sound of the scratching pen.
I am composing more and more first drafts on the computer and less and less in the notebook.
But for the last month I haven’t wrote much at all.
It felt like I was shriveling.
No. That’s not quite right.
It felt like I was a zombie.
A shriveling zombie.
A hunchback zombie.
Shit, that’s stupid.
But I don’t care.
Space is becoming more and more vital
Three more months without a sanctuary.
I negotiated my own flat for September
In September I hope to find a physical space.
Head space is also vital.
What is headspace?
Well, too much headspace=headcase.
Need to make myself social to avoid becoming a headcase.
But too much social=headcase.
I don’t want to be a headcase.
Lack of writing makes me a headcase.
Lack of space makes me a headcase.
I am sensitive. over-sensitive to my surroundings.
I am not good at blocking out.
I notice too much.
Sticky eyes in a sweety shop.
I am still in a mass transition from my married life.
I need a big whirl
to get drunk on words again.
Andrew gave me a whirl.
I need another one soon.
Notebooks and pens are not working well.
indeed I need a big screen.
12 inches is too small.
I have accepted the DOS position and i am supposed to sign the contract on Monday. I am a bit worried though. I was just offered a job at a college in Elblag as well (north part of Poland not far from the Baltic Sea). The college would also pay 4000 zl and a free flat but the job would not start until October so I would have two months of no work.
I am certainly more interested in teaching at a college or university than a management position. Much more interested. But the college position is not teaching literature so it is not that ideal. I just want to meet some writers and thinkers and artists at some point.
I hope I made the right decision.
This new school in Bielsko has offered me a promotion for next school year as a director of studies. Management position. It would almost double my salary to 4000 zl per month with a free flat. But it would be quite stressful. A lot of work. I am not sure. It would be something different, but I want the mental and physical/time to write think read etc. hm . . .
wish I could talk to a DOS and get some feedback. Maybe I will try Dave’s ESL.
Summer is coming to Poland. Sticky. My stitches are out and I am itchy. Gotta write soon. I don’t have a desk or anywhere to really write in my new flat. But maybe next month they will move me into a new flat and I can find a table for my laptop or something.
Roll with it . . .
Sticky. Tried to shower with plastic bag. Didn’t work too well since I have to sit in the bathtub. I need a bit more flexibility. But off to the doctors tomorrow and then maybe I can have a proper shower.
Bielsko is much better than other places I lived in Poland in terms of . . . well shops and scenery. Other than that it is still Poland. Not much different than anywhere else I have seen. Krakow is unique though.
I keep thinking if I have:
1) a nice clean flat with a somewhat clean roommate
2) internet connection
3) a small library of books
4) a steady schedule with time to think and write
I can do this for another year. I would love to have a permanent address for a year. And have enough money to get some poetry books shipped from the U.S. and the U.K.
God I am starving for some new books of poetry. I can only read Alien Tatters so many times.
check out the new Origin some cool work with connections between Kyoto Japan and the U.S.
returned home from the clinic on Saturday. Feeling very sore. hot little knives near my groin. But I hope by the end of the week the pain will go away. I also hope the hernia is gone for good. It is all a bit of a haze. Morphine. Numbing the lower part of my body. Arms stretched out and watching them open and tug near the groin area from the mirror on the ceiling. The main surgeon spoke a little English but none of the nurses. When I was in a bit of pain throughout the night we communicated via hand signals. I felt like a bit of an alien. I kind of like morphine. It’s a nice feeling.
But all in all it was small surgery and I should recover quite quickly. I am not looking forward to teaching tomorrow. Long long teaching days. sometimes they stretch out from 6AM-9PM with small breaks in between.
I am hoping to find some space soon. Don’t like living with a dirty flatmate. But hopefully in July i will be in a new clean place. I really would love a desk or something so I can write on my laptop. It is really nice to have Internet at the school though. A great thing on the weekends.
If i can just get a permanent address for one year. Order some books. Teach. Do some writing. Send shit to publishers. I can’t really get into a groove for very long.
But I am almost finished with my ms from Korea now called Hermit Kingdom. And almost finished with ms from Poland called Godzeenie (god of time). But I haven’t submitted much due to sporadic Internet access and constant moving around.
I try to keep to my room in the new flat. I guess the sticky grease stained floors and dirty dishes and bits of old food on the counters really get to me sometimes. I just use a dish, wash it, and put it away. So simple. But it’s getting hard to ignore. My flatmate is a nice guy though. Just the dirtiest and messiest fella I have ever met. I cleaned up after him for one week, but it is a never ending battle. swimming upstream. Now I am just trying to count the weeks. 6 more weeks. Yeah six more weeks. Then a new flat, a new flatmate, a month of summer teaching (Polish army, children’s camp, companies).
It could always always always be a hella lot worse.
ok. Now I got to stand up. Little daggers jabbin my groin again . . .
minor surgery tomorrow (Friday) at 8am for my hernia. Don’t like hospitals. Not really looking forward to a foreign hospital. But it is very small surgery. Just one night in the hospital. Gonna spend the last of my savings for the surgery. But hernia keeps getting bigger and interferes with beer drinking and sex. Plus could explode with backed-up shit. And in extreme cases just plain die. So I will do it.
Not looking to spending 24 hours in a Polish clinic/hospital, but I will bring a book. Lots of time to think I guess.
Saturday will be a relief.
thirteen days without writing and finally something is slowly coming. Wrapped myself in professionalism only to realise, again, a job is good only if it allows me to live. By live, I mean write and think and dream. In other words lose my mind. A good stream of books words thoughts. Teaching EFL can deaden my awareness. Or strip it. I am not sure how to proceed. Still feeling cut-off from an artistic and intellectual community. But A good Internet connection and a small library could solve a lot. Or alleviate a bit. Or bring back.
I am fighting for fire. For wildness. For wilderness.
A first generation American with a sense of rootlessness. Ulster Scot. Unsettled. Wandering. Not a citizen of America. But broke my teeth on poetry in America.
I am at least 72.5% American now!
splitting
and sparing
an inch
for death, there is
fever
in the surgeon’s coat, you’ve
mistaken science
for the eyeball
lopped rhythmns
scar
the sunset
I have internet at the school and I can use it now and again. It will be especially nice to use the internet on the weekends. I am still getting use to the new teaching gig. I teach all ages and groups, but 15 hours a week teaching the army is quite a different experience. A lot of the soldiers I taught this morning have done a tour in Iraq. Nice guys. The textbook is military English (writing military reports etc.). It is quite techical and a bit boring. But I can supplement the class with some additional discussion.
A whole new experience again.
I will see how it goes. . .
the world is a big place indeed
new city has more people and is nicer than last one. But still not too good yet. In typical Polish style (other than Krakow) it is dirty and disorganized. So I am back to the old slow smelly internet cafe. I start the new job next Monday. I will know more at that point about future plans. But I still ache for a nice orderly western European country or maybe even a nice Asian country (Japan for example) even for a little while.
I will see what happens . . .
Panic. survival mode yesterday. School could no longer afford to pay me so I was let go. Living in Communist hotel with little money.
So I went nuts at the internet cafe and called and emailed schools in Poland and Spain.
I got lucky.
A solid school in a much nicer city had also had an emergency. One of their teachers left and they needed someone right away.
So they drove to my hotel. I interviewed with them. Got the gig. Moving in two days to Bielsko Biala. A nice medium sized city near the Beskidy mountains. I will teach English in the army barracks and at a few companies plus some children’s classes. I got a free flat. Living with the head teacher named John from Dublin. Short contract until July 27th 2007 to see if it works out for both parties.
It should be a new and interesting challenge.
is scheduled for June 5th in Poland
then Dublin and green grass and green parks and lollipops and
mind is an accordion, an old squeezebox
travel in perpendicular motion of the bellows
sounding an entire
chord by
depressing
one key
so I am off to Krakow tomorrow. Maybe see an art gallery. Maybe update my book of kells tattoo.
I keep wondering about tefl as a career. How long can I go? how low can i go? Maybe it is possible if i just stop reading all the complaints about low pay on Dave’s ESL.
So some corporate job for the summer in Dublin. Or more than likely some call center. i’ve done the call center thing for quite a few years as an undergraduate in university. Matrix Marketing, All-State Life Insurance, America On-line etc. etc.
The whole time I kept thinking I was working for something more interesting. Getting advanced degrees in English and writing.
Life circles.
These TEFL jobs have some good things. Like time to write. One trade off for another.
Yes.
Ride it. Bag it. Bog it.
I went to a really bad internet cafe two days in a row. Now I finally found a nice one. Fast internet. I can read the screen. And at least today it is not full of screaming teenage boys playing fighting games. Just gotta hit the cafe at the right time. The other internet cafe is the library but not always open.
Makes me want a big screen and more than a place to just rest my head every few months.
The old dilemma strikes again. To feel a bit of stability but also some freedom.
Sometimes a 9 to 5 job with access to a cultural and intellectual life sounds fab. Cultural. Hm. Well, arts and culture are alive somewhere in Poland, but I don’t have access to that world. I am not a traveling professor and I don’t speak Polish.
The hotel is not so bad. Just got to get a bit more settled.
Someday I want a big screen again like in Korea. It makes a huge difference to type and read on a big screen. And internet again. Ah yes. Internet again.
It’s quite interesting how I keep getting myself into isolating situations. Both in Korea and Poland. Weekends are especially bad. No real human contact. And then a few scattered hours of speaking English to Polish folks during the week. Still, if i could just get comfortable with that situation. Maybe if I used my money for big screen instead of a stupid hernia operation I can settle into my hotel room. And just write like crazy. Hm . . . But again it would only be for three months and then I would lose the big screen (like in Korea. Damn I like nice clean big screens.
Ah well. At least it is possible to use this internet cafe now and again.
so, I am off to find food. That is my latest adventure in Poland. Finding places to eat lunch and dinner. Maybe bigos and one beer tonight. And then some public high school teaching tomorrow morning. Gotta keep my mind active and regain the complexities of my native language.
I attended a high school as a white minority
I am not a white minority
I am a middle class American
I am not a middle class American
I am not a protestant from Northern Ireland
I am a protestant from Northern Ireland
my parents were poor immigrants
my parents are not poor immigrants
I am not good with my hands
I am good with my hands
I am white collar
I am not white collar
I am now in the Diamond hotel. Hotel Diament. It is quite interesting. Got just a bit of history last night from a private student. It is used to be a 5 star hotel 30 years ago during communism. Up until the early 90’s it was used almost exclusively by miners working in the local mines. It has a certain Eastern European communist style feel to it. Or in the case of Poland “Central European.”
I can’t put my finger on the feel of these communist style buildings.
There is a huge communist style building in the center of Katowice. No windows.
Hotel Diament:
Three small bunk beds in a square room. White laced curtains blackened by coal dust. A red faux velvet curtain to cover the dirty white ones. Smudges of coal dust on the brown carpet. Black masking tape around the windows and pencil marks above the mirror: JB 23.2
But I am painting the wrong picture.
That was the first room.
For unknown reasons the cleaning ladies moved me into a different room yesterday afternoon.
The second room has three small bunk type beds in a square room and nice clean wallpaper. Only some black stains on the carpet.
The toilet is quite interesting. Your poo doesn’t drop into the water. So no splash on your bum. This is especially nice when you pee before shitting because then you don’t get pee on your bum.
So after evacuation, the poo sits on an elevated shelf. Then you pull up a round plastic knob and the water pushes the poo into a small pool of water. Then it goes away somewhere.
Another advantage of this system is that you can see you poo after evacuation. Just in case you are worried about intestinal problems etc. Color, consistency and all the rest.
Nice wallpaper can do a lot for a room.
There are no phones, no Internet, no televisions. There is an interesting restaurant downstairs. The food isn’t terrible but a bit pricey for Poland.
Hotel Diament’s restaurant
Monday 26th March 2007
12PM
A big square. Lots of tables. A retired miner staring into his beer at the bar. A waitress in white.
Two scrambled eggs on a plate with six small pieces of ham, water without gas, two pieces of bread. 18 zl.
Hotel Diament Restaurant
Tuesday 27th March 2007
1PM
A big empty square. Lots of tables. Two retired miners staring into their beer at the bar. A waitress in white.
Salmon, potatoes, beetroot. Herb tea. 24 zl.
I keep thinking David Lynch. Don’t know why. Maybe it is the red curtain in my room.
Left my passport at the front desk just in case.
I did find a really nice park in the old part of Jaestrzembie. And the library has free Internet access in the park. Really nice. Clean. Serene. So possible weekends at the park. I haven’t seen a nice park in ages!!!
I think the next section of Godzeenie will be called Diament Hotel. The section I just finished was called Block 7A. I lived among large blocks of flats in Zory. My block was called 7A.
So onward! Hotel Diament!
My curiosity is back
at least
for a while
Another move tomorrow. Still in Poland. Same job. A hotel tomorrow with no internet. No fridge. So I gotta figure out how to eat since Poland does not serve breakfast. Can I hold out on eating until 12PM? Maybe. And where to eat. Hm . . . will see.
Mainly it sucks I will lose my internet. I paid for one year so it’s good until November.
But the old lady ain’t worth it . . .
Only three more months of this shite . . .
hm . . .
Dublin
then???
Damn this part of Poland is boring.
Nothing interesting at all . . .
Maybe it’s time for a return to Asia???
Lech is not a bad beer though . . .
Gotta just drink Lech for three months in my hotel room and then maybe I can survive.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I had some chums. No chums. Just me and my room. My room in the old lady’s flat.
But maybe the hotel will spice up my life. There is a disco in the hotel. Maybe I can dance on the weekends. Get some light exercise with the ‘ole hernia.
I just know I can’t handle a summer in this part of Poland. Gotta look forward to something better . . .
I could do a Celta (a certificate programme for teaching English as a foreign language) in Krakow. Might help a bit. With my two masters could make me a bit better. Career? career? What career?????
Just keep drinking the Lech . . . yeah . . . the lech . . . the lech is poland . . . tastes good today with Prodigy.
The long poem continues:
11. Hermit Kingdom
bags were
emptied
and reified and
left
be-
hind
in my Sunday
suit
in bed
with Jeom-
Sook
animal
planet on the telly
mainly excited during
slide-down
animal tilt
side-
ways &
ver-
tical
blow-
job
with
swallow
bite
my little
tit
in-
spire
trans-
pire
em-
pire
can’t
get
out
of bed
except
to eat
Korean
pizza
with
hot sauce
12. In the Beginning
first birth has no grace
but a whelping
at the edge
of abyss
supreme clean
gums
all things re-
turn
in labor whereby
our only
mother
feeds
silence
in the manicured
garden
and first
and only
mother won’t
it be
fine
shaded
moans
roots
breaking
through rooms
the ghost-
ly
appendage
re-affixes
itself
and dear
mother dear
mother
crushes
Descarte’s
golden
flower
under
her heels
I waited so so long for internet. It’s paid up till November but gotta get out of this room and this flat.
A hotel soon.
Sanity overrides money again.
awk·ward
1 obsolete : PERVERSE
the old Polish lady
has crossed the line
one too many times
she swung open
my door
without
a knock
just as I was
in the thick
of it
and about
to . . .
she said “no no no”
she heard
sex and came
to stop it!
last straw: new
rules, no
girls
in room
home
by ten o’clock
and
this is not a hotel
on the brink of . . . curfew . . . no girls allowed . . .
repeat:
I am not 16
repeat:
I am not
a sinner
getting out
of here
yes indeed
a month
at the local
hotel next week
:-)
The main issue is life and how to live it. I think one of my biggest enemies is boredom. I need mental stimulation. I need a good bookshop. There is one in Krakow. So either I move to an English speaking country or find a good bookshop in Poland with a strong contemporary poetry selection and a community of artists.
It looks very likely I will spend the summer in Dublin. So that should be good. It would be especially good if I can find some poets in the Dublin area. I need to make contact with other artists. I don’t expect immortality through my art. I want to live with my art. And living with art for me requires communities.
I am not the lonely genius type. if such a thing even exists.
Got some broken memories of someone’s lost legs on the concrete. I guess I was six. So it is partial. A bomb. Somewhere. A blue van and a man screaming. Working with Wonderland and out came the lost legs:
10. Agitprop
for a split
second
in-
sensed
&
smoke-
choked
you are
legs
on gravel
blood-stumped and cherry
red ploy
to sell
the soul
and you
don’t know what is leased, leashed, and lashed
don’t know what is la blade for murals advertising divides
for God
and Ulster
for a
united
Ireland
legs blown
asunder
scissors
open
and shut
ex-
posed
&
sun
shine
never been
the same
since
I have been revising like crazy for the past two weeks. Finally today I also have additions. I have to subtract before I can add. But the danger is substracting too much. But it isn’t really a danger. What’s dangerous is not writing and thinking at all.
I wish I could get blogger to format all the spacial concerns. Ah well. Here it is all left justified.
6. DANCING ON EGGSHELLS
Rancho High School
looking in mirror
for the first time
and seeing
a white face
suit of iron
head down
just keep
keep on
surviving
walking
to school
and a rock out
the window
from a passing
car grazes
my head
Running the track—
wanting to go
all the way
and get a letter-
man jacket
spasms &
new designs
mantras scribbed
on bedroom walls
future text by in-
direct
design
climb inside
with monkey apathy
and look for the moon key
small fists beat
out a rhythm
on the glass table
diaphanous memories
monstrous memories
first kiss and the brush
of skin
mother rocking
against the bed
and popping
out
another child
father
crawling
around on the
roofs of casinos
repeat
1,2,3,4
left
right
pre-
sumptious
distress
of the future
the pattern has not yet emerged
in a key repetition of phases
7. HERMIT KINGDOM
Two names on a bag and the weight
was too great, and, unloading
was needed to fly
leaving out
& leaving
in
&
living out of two bags
motion
sickness
gripped
me
boat-sore, throat-sore, whip-sore, heat-sore, dread-sore,
crowd-sore, uppidity-sore
what was the
score
on
the sidestreets
&
back
alleys
of Itaewon with
desperation
looking
for Russians &
foreign
food: nan
bread, all-u-
can-eat
nan
bread
and in Hong-
dae a little
night music
and puddles
of puke
in cracked
cement
bonfire in the park
with Korean punks
and mosh pits
and meat-on-a-stick
to absorb the heat
you do not eat our bread or salt
our veggies and paste sticks
to ribs and air hangs
with weariness
in the indigo mouth
gone pre-historic and what young
shoot grows behind closed
doors with friends knocking
over the furniture and what
light dispersed
in the bosom
of a frozen future
8. In the Shell
blogged
it, bogged it, blotted
it, bonged it
let a small proportion of the lords
become members of the house
enter into the Christ-stare
in my 9th year
of bottled
passion
house of common
lords and common
madness and sexual
suicide
walking tingle-toed through
the streets of Greensboro with Will
and Ezra and mushrooms in
a post-avant haze
what I’d like to do said Will is flesh
out quality and extract the protein
without causing regulatory hurdles
the yolk in the egg whipped
out in the mixing bowl
of memory
and, yeah, full page apologies
for the, for the, for the
lost buttons and creamy yellow
discharge of duties
shelled-out waddled
walk toward the future
9. Hermit Kingdom
The load was too great and so I unpacked and unpacked
and still it was too heavy
near Seoul, 3 am, a teenager and his bodyguard with dragon tatoo on back invite me
for san gyup sal broken English Gangsta Rap speech and a big knife in the bag
hello, hello, what’s your name?
cross-legged with wobbly chopsticks picking at crunchy kimchee and knocking
back the soju
drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .
Goshiwon
packed bus full of giggling schoolgirls to Gyeongin National University stomach twisted and rotting . . .
returning at night to the smell of damp rice in the communal kitchen and a boy wants
to learn English and helps me work the washer clothes hang above my bed on a metal bar can’t escape the confusion the lofty side turns into stale buildings cracks in the ceiling moving towards me don’t know what’s waiting in the wings when to switch off the light and what new dreams will pull my strings . . .
Christine from Liverpool and coffee at the end of the street in small cups and snow fal-ling on our shoulders for a romantic kiss and fucking it up cause I can’t choose
between two girls one from Liverpool and one from Dublin the old England and Ireland divide made flesh and whether to go native or sink into the comforts of familiar
accents and whether the right to know precludes the knower and just keep cutting
the worm of time wanting to lose it all and pack it up and start all over again
on my bed
with music
from laptop
& every song
shuffles
a pack
of
memories
flipside: other-
side: five
minutes
to midnight
and always working on crisis mode, can’t shake
the heartdrop, the beeping car
backing up, loading up, unloading
and stretching my neck to the unreadable
signs searching for a bite
can’t get full: always
too full: it’s trying
to light a log
damp with
menstrual blood
abstractions
in the curry
at the Korean Indian
restaurant
peeling off
your empty dress
at your empty
doorstep
in a worn-out
suit jacket
walking
back
to my goshiwon
dreaming
of Liverpool
locating
by traces
mouth
sounds spilling
from foreign
faces
to the
humble
traffic
beating
out a new
name
(August 1st 2006)
1. HERMIT KINGDON
two bags to my name
a twitchy eye
and sour stomach
narrowing down
my life
getting
the skinny
no room
for the gaunt
and unladen
and extremely
sick
fog rolling
over stanzas
and false cities
leaving behind Korea for Poland
for no earthly reason
not dispossessed
of judgement
but starting out
for another kingdom
2. HOPE
here on this earth
with a bucket under
my arm by the wobly splendor
of some distant sea
I count the opposites
of “is” and “was”
and come out astonished
between the element
of flesh
and the element
of hope
moving out of
moving out of help
ironing out my irony
draw close and close
the curtains
and knuckle down
here inside this other
monstrance
torments of robes and sculptured rays
useless to the busy hands of the living
high bridge of la dolce vita
and the shadow planets
of Rahu and Ketu
tug at my heels
metamorphosis is the heart
of my life and freedom
is a war without a victory
hope is the thorny tale
of the dragon
3. HERMIT KINGDOM
my name
on two bags
my name on
the apples
at the close of day
when straigtening up
and girlded with
lightening
in the book of diminishing
my existence was not
exasperated
by such a sudden clash
of foreign tongues
nor was the forbidden
shortened or shot-through
in the dimunitive or sensitive
language of the Post-Romantic
chased from the temple
of the Avant-Garde
traveling hermit
seeks refuge
in the Post-Modern
world and finds
a heart in magic cellulite
4. SCRAPS
pieces
here and there
forked
out on the road
behind me and I
kept my nose to
the ridiculous
in the low husky
voice of the morning
the shadow planets
PULL
&
it is not enough
to keep watch
Southern Utah
fire breathing
camels lost
among the sanddunes
of Zion
lift up the receiver to
the rasp
to the youth camps
to the Mormon temples
full of greed &
light
Portadown
stumbling home hysterical
with half bottles of Buckfast
elaborate murals grace
the divided walls
Belfast
At the church
across
from The Coach
kind women
hand out
kit-kats &
coffee
Circus Circus
acrobats over the heads
of old women fiddling
with coins in their bucket
glitch &
glamour
red carpet &
stale smoke
Rancho High School:
cross-country
practice
trans-
figuration of water
into salt
stiff erect
nipples in
a yellow
tank
top
&
a rock
in my cheek
to keep
the thirst
at bay
5. HERMIT KINGDOM
At the airport my two
bags were over-weight
and I stumbled around
trying to unload
the hardcover books
the anthologies and
what couldn’t fit
in my backpack
stayed at the airport
stuck again
&
leaving, &
lost, & always
too heavy for this tumbling
world
liberation from gravity occurs
at the odd interval
between waking
and sleeping
shed light &
shed the balmy
re-
sidue of
in-
security
entering, again, the resurrection, so durable
in its worn edges and stiff realities
weight weight
don’t tell me
about the warmth of memory
lost tongues retrace
themselves on necks
and lips and so little
faithful except
the mush of liberation
wonder wonder
wheresomehowever
shall I wander
crowds and crowds
of businessmen walk
the streets of Gangnam
mumbling the language
of drowning
gravel roads
forever winding
out behind me
and before me
nightstalls and sticky
hands in the nightheat
kimchee
burning
my temples
All-U-Can-Eat Sushi
little boats circled
and circled above
me at the all-u-can-eat
sushi and wanderlust
bit my lip and again, it
was time, it is always time,
to begin again.
6. DANCING ON EGGSHELLS
Suit of iron and strong salute
for the Jr. ROTC &
a life above
the clouds, spiked hair
and slick sunglasses
etc. and so on
spasms spasms &
design
mantras scribbed
on walls
future text by in-
direct
design
climb inside
with monkey apathy
and look for the moon key
small fists beat
out a rhythm
on the glass table
diaphanous memories
monstrous memories
first kiss and the brush
of skin in Hurricane,
Utah, mother rocking
against the bed
and popping
out
another child
father crawling
around in hot attics
repeat
1,2,3,4
left
right
pre-
sumptious
desires
of the future
the pattern has not yet emerged
in a key repetition of phases
7. HERMIT KINGDOM
Two names on a bag and the weight
was too great, and, unloading
was needed to fly
leaving out
& leaving
in
&
living out of two bags
motion
sickness
gripped
me
but punishment
became a bridge
& wanderlust reached
out for me with the promise
of a lidless
life
it is now over with Ela. It is hard to let go of a good friend. Depressed. But I will rise again.
I am feeling good about Poland overall. I might stay in Europe. I must make a big decision quite soon. My alien card for America will expire in two years. Then if I don’t return to America the door shuts. I can still visit with my UK passport though.
Also, heading into new territory. Breaking up with Ela.
Might go to London in the summer for two weeks.
Might stay in Poland next year and keep teaching and writing.
I am not ready to return to America quite yet. But I want to keep connected to the literary world and my artist friends in North Carolina and other places in the U.S. I don’t want to be completely isolated.
Love, I tell you.
Finished Bohumil Hrabal’s Too Loud a Solitude. Fucking brilliant! Best novel I have read in a long long time. Woke me up. Made me realise life is full of potential. It’s not over baby!!
Now I am reading Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown. Love it so far. Although I just started it.
Chaos and order. Stability and pity. hm . . .
LIFE AND ART TO THE BITTER END BABY!
The most ambitous cross cultural poetics project on the face of the planet. Issue 3 of Fascicle is now up and running.
Check it out:
Just finished reading the poets from Taiwan section. Fascinating interviews, poems, and multimedia work from contemporary innnovative poets from Taiwan:
I also have a collaboration with fellow Lucifer Poetics member Brian Howe. It’s called This is The Motherfucking Remix. Check it out:
Plus plenty, and I mean plenty, of other delights!! Such as a chapbook by Allyssa Wolf called Sex.
I could go on and on.
It really doesn’t get any better. CHECK IT!!!
I am writing a sequence to finish Wonderland.
Here are a few sections (still rough). The formating is all left justified on blogger so the spatial concerns are all off. Some of this last section of Wonderland was written in Korea but most is happening right now looking back at the manuscript and its concerns.
It may change a lot over the next while. A lot more will be added. This is just day two.
Something is pulling me. Which feels good. Very good.
(August 1st 2006)
1. HERMIT KINGDON
two bags to my name
a twitchy eye
and sour stomach
couldn’t take the silence, couldn’t take the red paste, couldn’t take the crowds, couldn’t take couldn’t take the
block buildings &
ants and ants and ants
moving over
verve and sense
left all my books
left my false
love and my
false smile
left left
always leaving
narrowing down
my life
getting
the skinny
no room
for the gaunt
and unladen
and extremely
sick
fog rolling
over stanzas
and false cities
leaving behind Korea for Poland
for no earthly reason
not dispossessed
of judgement
but starting out
for another kingdom
2. HOPE
here on this earth
with a bucket under
my arm by the wobly splendor
of some distant sea
I count the opposites
of “is” and “was”
and come out astonished
between the element
of flesh
and the element
of hope
moving out of
moving out of help
ironing out my irony
draw close and close
the curtains
and knuckle down
here inside this other
monstrance
torments of robes and sculptured rays
useless to the busy hands of the living
high bridge of la dolce vita
and the shadow planets
of Rahu and Ketu
tug at my tired heels
metamorphosis is the heart
of my life and freedom
is a war without a victory
hope is the thorny tale
of the dragon
3. HERMIT KINGDOM
my name
on two bags
my name on
the apples
at the close of day
when straigtening up
and girlded with
lightening
in the book of diminishing
my existence was not
exasperated
by such a sudden clash
of foreign tongues
nor was the forbidden
shortened or shot-through
in the dimunitive or sensitive
language of the Post-Romantic
chased from the temple
of the Avant-Garde
traveling hermit
seeks muse
in the Post-Modern
world and finds
a heart in magic cellulite
4. SCRAPS
pieces
here and there
forked
out on the road
behind me and I
kept my nose to
the ridiculous
in the low husky
voice of the morning
the shadow planets
PULL
&
it is not enough
to keep watch
fire breathing camels
in the rolling
dusty hills
of Southern Utah
and Ulster Union
streets with elaborate
murals and stumbling
Buckfast friends
Circus Circus with Steve and Gary Batson:
all u can eat
and then slip out the back door
Rancho High School:
running through
North Las Vegas
for cross-country
practice
the pattern has not yet emerged
in a key repetition of phases
a lost accent is still an accent
a lost place is always a lost place
goddamn it. I am tired of living in a 50 year old lady’s flat and getting by on $400 a month. It could be much much much worse though.
An interview with a school in Oklahoma city tomorrow. Hm . . .
I’m always leaving and can’t remember what I left. I sometimes wish I took a different road. But this is the road I am currently on. So be it.
I am finishing the manuscript I wrote in Korea called Wonderland. I re-looked at it today and found a way back into a manuscript. I can’t get back into my Dada phase anymore. Which is fine. I just feel like all this writing is building and building. I have to release some of it. Get rid of it. Get it published. The unpublished manuscripts are piling up and sometimes they are just too damn heavy.
I think I am at heart a minimalist. But I have to work for the minimalism. I mean have to unload a lot to get to the minimalism. Godzeenie moves between very short poems (a few lines) and long enjambed breathless lines. The same is true of Wonderland. I think they are companions. Godzeenie and Wonderland are companions. So are my manuscripts from Resident Alien (Chain and Buckshot).
The Resident Alien manuscripts are concerned with “found language” and flarfish techniques and the guiding principle is sound. Wonderland and Godzeenie are concerned with occassional poetics. Wonderland records time and place and Godzeenie the hour of composition. In these manuscripts I am moving away from heavy irony. Of course there is irony. But they are not as dependent on irony and sound. Maybe image is more prominent.
I need a lot of writing to sustain me (reading and writing). But I also need to organize it all.
Why write? Sometimes I just can’t help it goddamn it.
And I have to re-create the world. The world is always created by something or a collection of someones and art is a way for me to choose. To mindfully choose and thus live fully. Canons and politics can’t be avoided because whether we admit it or not we all want recognition of some sort. Even a recognition that we don’t care about the canon of English poetry.
I do hate almost all anthologies though. I hate the textbooks of poetry. I prefer whole books. Whole projects. Multiple authors can be interesting of course. But not usually in anthologies.
I have been out of the loop. Without a community of artists for over a year now and it’s driving me nuts. It’s going to a long hard road to come back to America. No car. No money. An uphill climb for sure.
I have been divorced for a year now.
I am tired of trying to make things happen. I will send out possabilites and see what comes back. Maybe I am in permenant exile from English speaking countries. Regardless of where I live I need to see living breathing artists on occassion. I need to have discussions etc.
I keep wanting to get a printer but then I worry I won’t stay in Poland and I will have to leave it behind. But damn it. A printer would be helpful. I would eventually like to submit a manuscript. But it is a little difficult since most publishers require U.S. money etc. And then there’s the whole world of contests again.
Anything is possible I am sure.
So yes the world is interconnected blah blah blah
But it is much easier to be an English poet in an English speaking country. Both in terms of community, networking and publishing. Unless you already have a name for yourself. Then it doesn’t really matter where you live (at least in terms of publishing).
Perhaps I mistaken. Maybe I need to reconenct with a community of poets via the internet. That’s something worth investigating. Mipo is certainly a great online community of poets.
The Lucifer Poetics Group spoiled me. I want it again. I want to live it all over again.
13:59
Katowice Train Station
Rivers of piss collect at cafes. Watch where you walk. I eat what locals eat but refuse to tie my shoelaces. Tired smile with auburn beard. Pre-Gothic Post-Celtic wanderlust. Fur coated ladies strut past frozen men in sleeping bags reaching out for a light. A kiss for some short love. There’s doubt and then there’s doubt. The night train is coming. I move and meaning follows. Ten more years with the humble hands of the devil.
Never Mind the Beasts 