I don't know why I was pulled back there again after all thsi time.
I guess I know it's a stretch of time that in this life I will always feel attached to. The Dalai Lama has given me a lot to think about in the last couple days and in just 38 pages so it gives me cause to reflect. About attachment, about detachment and their various relationship with love and compassion. At any rate, this one is comes to me especially strong:
Waking up it was about 9 or 10 in the morning, we had been up late, making love,
cuddling, crying, comforting one another, swearing what we could and would do for one another... I felt like the Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...everything in disarray and suddenly face-to-face with destiny. Seeing that open window to leave and the other metaphorical window to stay. She looked it me with her big hazel eyes, and smiled wanly. She knew that time was up. All those letters up until that point reminding me that our time together was short. I'd fight back tears, that primal urge to rip my clothes and beat me breast as they did in old times. Going to God and begging, begging, saying if it be your will, whatever you would have me do. But I'm not Christ and this was not me dying for everyone else's sins. This was just me, human and all too earthly, deciding where my heart really wanted to be. Where my heart decides to be. Today, now, yeaterday, in a month, in a year... This was about making a decision. And my friends told me, the ones who I consider true friends saying, Even though you make a decision, there is always a decision after that. Nothing is final. Nothing has to be forever. If you decide you have made a mistake, try to correct it at once.
I stood in her living room and I was dumbstruck. I knew I loved her, she told me she loved me often times too. And I was leaving. It seemed like it would be forever that I would be gone. The tears started falling from my cheeks, I hugged her harder than I ever hugged anyone. My heart began tearing up, the burning. I looked her in the eyes and I couldn't help but say this: I'll come back, I'll be back... how could I say that? Why would I say something like that? I was preparing for only the second longest drive I had ever taken in my life...
Friday, February 29, 2008
Dalai Lama's
I N S T R U C T I O N S F O R L I F E -
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
Respect for self
Respect for others and
Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
I N S T R U C T I O N S F O R L I F E -
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
Respect for self
Respect for others and
Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
Monday, February 25, 2008
I found myself wondering what it was that I liked about Omar throughout the series but by the end it was undeniable for me... he was not necessarily a good person... just a vigilante in my mind... the guy who took the law into his own hands and there is some valour in that. Obviously, this was his last stand at getting to Marlo Chris & Snoop and he over extended himself... every time I saw him limping around the streets like he was, I kept thinking he's out in broad daylight for anyone to see. He wasn't being none to smart but that was part of his character, the sort of raw pride of a gunslinger who thinks and knows he's above the law... The best was when he robbed the card game that Marlo was at, and he put his gun into Marlo's face and said "You musta mistook me for someone who listens"
I like how they built his character off his relationships with Jimmy and Bunk, how a guy like Omar sort of took care of some business they couldn't do themselves by being on the streets all the time.
Fact is, I think most people wanted Omar to get Marlo and Chris before the cops did. But that's likely not real life... Omar's legacy is that he's a fictitious Robin Hood of the streets and he did his part to buck the status quo from within ... and believe me, I let out a pretty loud "Ohh no way!!" when that kid--- I kept thinking maybe he won't die from it... but in a show shooting for a slice of reality, only Superman can dodge bullets... In a lot of ways, he does epitomize what is left of the American Dream, fighting to stay alive amid the wastelands of moral vagrancy.
I like how they built his character off his relationships with Jimmy and Bunk, how a guy like Omar sort of took care of some business they couldn't do themselves by being on the streets all the time.
Fact is, I think most people wanted Omar to get Marlo and Chris before the cops did. But that's likely not real life... Omar's legacy is that he's a fictitious Robin Hood of the streets and he did his part to buck the status quo from within ... and believe me, I let out a pretty loud "Ohh no way!!" when that kid--- I kept thinking maybe he won't die from it... but in a show shooting for a slice of reality, only Superman can dodge bullets... In a lot of ways, he does epitomize what is left of the American Dream, fighting to stay alive amid the wastelands of moral vagrancy.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
First Day of Spring?
Not very likely, since it is still a month away but it was the first sign of spring... Brooke and I took Jake to the park and walked through on the path. At first, we walked through a slushier area, still walking on thoroughly snowy stretches of the path. Brooke laughed at how the ice sort of bubbled upward when you applied pressure to it. And that was how it was, the water seeming to flood certain areas since this winter's precipitation seems to be trapped in the frozen areas of ground. Most plant life is still in the winter mode, dead and dormant, and probably will be still for at least the next four to five weeks. But it's hopeful to see some of the snow melting around the grassy areas and the grass underneath is beginning to show color. No doubt the moisture will be crucial in providing ground upon which a healthy foliage will grow. I couldn't help but want to slow down if even just a little bit, to simply examine the ground and long enough to take in the scents of the ground, the freshness of the reeds that grow along the Chalco pond. You learn to enjoy days like that to the best of your ability, to try to shed off the troubles that you might be having, real or fancied within your own mind, and just live in the moment, that ultimately it must be a spirited moment, and if you can't bring the spirit to the moment, then search for the spirituality that might have been intended by it.
I went out a little later on, knowing that later in the week we be once again enshrouded in cold. I walked up into the Tiburon neighborhood with the half-million dollar houses, lining around the golf course , but mostly I was looking for the same sorts of signs from nature that spring might be on its way. Hard to truly see when snow still lies in the hedgerows of the cornfields. One thing about living out here in southwest Omaha is that you are really surrounded by miles and miles of earth.
I remember living on Turner Blvd closer into the city and longing just to out where I was raised where you could take a walk in more desolate areas where there was a LOT less concrete. In that sense, I love it out here. It makes me wish I could buy a slat of land, and till it, work long hours in the fields with nothing but my tractor and my back. Only if I had the strong back to live with that kind of work. I guess even Wendell Berry would shame me for saying that, I suppose it would never be too late to sell everything and buy some farmland. At any rate, no matter whether its my land or someone else's, it is always good for me to be close to the earth, to let it have its natural effect on me.
Not very likely, since it is still a month away but it was the first sign of spring... Brooke and I took Jake to the park and walked through on the path. At first, we walked through a slushier area, still walking on thoroughly snowy stretches of the path. Brooke laughed at how the ice sort of bubbled upward when you applied pressure to it. And that was how it was, the water seeming to flood certain areas since this winter's precipitation seems to be trapped in the frozen areas of ground. Most plant life is still in the winter mode, dead and dormant, and probably will be still for at least the next four to five weeks. But it's hopeful to see some of the snow melting around the grassy areas and the grass underneath is beginning to show color. No doubt the moisture will be crucial in providing ground upon which a healthy foliage will grow. I couldn't help but want to slow down if even just a little bit, to simply examine the ground and long enough to take in the scents of the ground, the freshness of the reeds that grow along the Chalco pond. You learn to enjoy days like that to the best of your ability, to try to shed off the troubles that you might be having, real or fancied within your own mind, and just live in the moment, that ultimately it must be a spirited moment, and if you can't bring the spirit to the moment, then search for the spirituality that might have been intended by it.
I went out a little later on, knowing that later in the week we be once again enshrouded in cold. I walked up into the Tiburon neighborhood with the half-million dollar houses, lining around the golf course , but mostly I was looking for the same sorts of signs from nature that spring might be on its way. Hard to truly see when snow still lies in the hedgerows of the cornfields. One thing about living out here in southwest Omaha is that you are really surrounded by miles and miles of earth.
I remember living on Turner Blvd closer into the city and longing just to out where I was raised where you could take a walk in more desolate areas where there was a LOT less concrete. In that sense, I love it out here. It makes me wish I could buy a slat of land, and till it, work long hours in the fields with nothing but my tractor and my back. Only if I had the strong back to live with that kind of work. I guess even Wendell Berry would shame me for saying that, I suppose it would never be too late to sell everything and buy some farmland. At any rate, no matter whether its my land or someone else's, it is always good for me to be close to the earth, to let it have its natural effect on me.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Every so often it's good to get out the wheelbarrow and shovel and dig up the old questions we may often have about poetry. I can thak Brooke for this and do so whole-heartedly, especially since she got me to go back to the Healing Arts Center again to go see the poets, dramatists and accolade collectors. More than anything, it re-raises the question about what constitutes a poetical piece and what is just ...a horse of a different color. (What a great name for a racehorse by the way, Horse of a Different Color, sure beats ShortLongShort or Half a Furlong) I don't walk around thinking about the answers to that question. In fact, I don't know if it really crosses my mind. My usual stance on the issue where my OWN writing is concerned is, am I expressing myself how I want to express myself... which is not to say clearly. You don't get that guarantee. Not with poetry, I don't think. Not if you're reading John Ashbery, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, EE Cummings, Old Man Frost, hell, Sylvia Plath, and the list goes on and on... Shakespeare was not crystal clear, even to his contemporaries, who one would assume spoke the same language that he did... quite the contrary, it would seem. Wouldn't they too, struggle with meanings, or as we discover, double meanings of many of his verses and phrases... Readers, to an extent, have to begin to ask themselves, would the delight in the craft of the language if we didn't have to work at it in any way? If we knew exactly what was being said, if we knew what the writer was conveying at once, wouldn't that simply be an article or a treatise. And if it didn't contain some conceits of language, wouldn't it fall under the category of essay or a philosophical tract? Even worse, imagine a poet setting out to find his own form of expression, only to find himself instead writing line after line of literary criticism, something likened to legal writing and philosophical drudgery. Yet for so many, it seems to pay the bills as they rest in the ivory towers of scholarship, never to breathe another honest thought or even let down their golden hair. You could wind up writing blogs for the remainder of your days too, ever since their advent about five years ago or so, anybody can get their poems publish. (Or so I am told by a friend recently, "You, too, can publish your poetry if you decide to spend $50 on poetry.com in order to have your old gold-leaf copy of your own writing.)
My point I think is simple. That it's not the artifice that matters, poetry generally looks the same throughout. If you open a book or a leaflet and you see the words arranged in the conventional fashion, you will not mistake it for anything else. Poets like Robert Hass, Yusef Komunyakaa, even Donald Hayden and Allen Ginsberg liked to test the boundaries of poetic form. Shake it up a little, make it look like something else. Otherwise, you, the reader are going to be able to determine when verse is verse and when narrative (fictional or non-) is just narrative... but the content is what will distinguish it's greatness. There is no true formula and everyone, including the most rakish of hacks know that. But the fact of the matter, I have discovered undoubtedly, is that the reader will be drawn to what they are drawn to.
If I consider myself fairly appreciative of poetry, then I have to recognize that other other appreciative readers do not share the same taste that I do. They may look at someone like Michael Palmer and think ...what is this guy doing? this is absolute rubbish hieroglyphics to me, and I may thoroughly enjoy his pendantry as something both comical and innovative. Likewise, I may like AR Ammons (and do!) while other readers might find him boorish and awkward. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But if you want to get closer to the work, and see if it is appreciation-worthy, you should start by trying to get at the mechanisms by which the artists keeps his artifice. How is he laying down the tracks of his tears?
And yet there seems the other dimension of the reader's experience of poetry where the artifice matters very little. This experience that you have where you read the words, the reader-reponse approach to criticism, where you are not paying attention to mechanics at all, but are winding around and through the picture, situation, experience created by the words.
My point I think is simple. That it's not the artifice that matters, poetry generally looks the same throughout. If you open a book or a leaflet and you see the words arranged in the conventional fashion, you will not mistake it for anything else. Poets like Robert Hass, Yusef Komunyakaa, even Donald Hayden and Allen Ginsberg liked to test the boundaries of poetic form. Shake it up a little, make it look like something else. Otherwise, you, the reader are going to be able to determine when verse is verse and when narrative (fictional or non-) is just narrative... but the content is what will distinguish it's greatness. There is no true formula and everyone, including the most rakish of hacks know that. But the fact of the matter, I have discovered undoubtedly, is that the reader will be drawn to what they are drawn to.
If I consider myself fairly appreciative of poetry, then I have to recognize that other other appreciative readers do not share the same taste that I do. They may look at someone like Michael Palmer and think ...what is this guy doing? this is absolute rubbish hieroglyphics to me, and I may thoroughly enjoy his pendantry as something both comical and innovative. Likewise, I may like AR Ammons (and do!) while other readers might find him boorish and awkward. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But if you want to get closer to the work, and see if it is appreciation-worthy, you should start by trying to get at the mechanisms by which the artists keeps his artifice. How is he laying down the tracks of his tears?
And yet there seems the other dimension of the reader's experience of poetry where the artifice matters very little. This experience that you have where you read the words, the reader-reponse approach to criticism, where you are not paying attention to mechanics at all, but are winding around and through the picture, situation, experience created by the words.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Today I am grateful for:
Tears as a reducing of stress
Having parents that listen /hear me out
Having a girlfriend that will listen to me when I am choosing to be unreasonable
fresh fruit
indoor heating & air /wool socks
Does it say enough? Or is enough said? A quick quote to quench your querulous quest. Poetry and what is, what it does? What is it constituted of? I don't know that I have the answer but I have had cause to speculate on occasion. Just know that you can grapple all your life with the forms and whether something flows for you, as far as you are concerned, but are you saying something? Why I always preferred the essay. More thoughts about How to Get Back To Teaching... which is a projec, an ongoing process it seems of just thinking about the various skills, ideas which students are faced with and your own personal crusade to just be a mentor, a guide, the beacon upon the hill. If anyone needs it, you are there. If anyone looks beyond the obviousness of it , and sees that you are set in that role of being beacon, a light-bearer... Maybe we're still just a little idealistic. Maybe it's just you love it when you know what you are talking about and suddenly have someone there trying to figure it out and you will help them if you can because you know you must.
Tears as a reducing of stress
Having parents that listen /hear me out
Having a girlfriend that will listen to me when I am choosing to be unreasonable
fresh fruit
indoor heating & air /wool socks
Does it say enough? Or is enough said? A quick quote to quench your querulous quest. Poetry and what is, what it does? What is it constituted of? I don't know that I have the answer but I have had cause to speculate on occasion. Just know that you can grapple all your life with the forms and whether something flows for you, as far as you are concerned, but are you saying something? Why I always preferred the essay. More thoughts about How to Get Back To Teaching... which is a projec, an ongoing process it seems of just thinking about the various skills, ideas which students are faced with and your own personal crusade to just be a mentor, a guide, the beacon upon the hill. If anyone needs it, you are there. If anyone looks beyond the obviousness of it , and sees that you are set in that role of being beacon, a light-bearer... Maybe we're still just a little idealistic. Maybe it's just you love it when you know what you are talking about and suddenly have someone there trying to figure it out and you will help them if you can because you know you must.
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