More Dark Sonnets

I don't feel very verbal but these sonnets leak out of me. I can't judge their worth for two reasons; I'm depressed and I'm the author. Think of them as therapy. No one could do a dark sonnet better than Gerard Manley Hopkins. I'm just toddling in his wake.


V

Put down the knife, Lady, the candle’s done.
You could not see to strike. Where is the blood?
It’s in your mind. Violence is outdone
By guilt’s black bile trickling where you stood.
Queen Melancholy with your steel-blue blade,
Whom did you try to murder but myself?
You’d add another trophy to your shelf.
But I resist. I will not be unmade.
“Depression” sounds as common as a cold.
Its remedies are legion as the dirt.
The soul-killer is worse than we were told;
Its black advance outflanks the deepest hurt.
Still I’d rather swallow pills in hope
Than to change my necktie for a rope.

VI

Hopkins said it best, “No worst there is none.”
But isn’t it hubristic to declare
That one has reached the limit of despair
As in a total eclipse of the sun?
In that event a wild corona glows
Around the edges of the blackened moon,
A fiery nimbus that as yet allows
More than pure darkness in the afternoon.
What if there is a worst? How will you deal
If what despair you’ve reached is christened hell
Before the devil gets in his appeal
To drag you down to regions still more fell?
It’s premature to label something worst
Unless the Lord himself pronounce you cursed.

VII

Ah suicide, your beauty exceeds all,
A blinding gown, a face so lightly veiled
That I can see your black glass eyes enthrall
An unsuspecting mark until inhaled.
Your hands, so fine, as if made for the harp
Cannot be clasped without making an end.
You strum a dirge irreverently sharp
Designed to cut deeper than we can mend,
Sharp as addiction or the death of love,
Hard as affliction, colder than hate’s hold.
The sickest kneel to you as if to move
Your soul to pity and die as they grow bold.
I hold back; beauty is as beauty does.
Why not give in? I only know “because.”

5 Kilorats,

CE

Garden Tours; Osprey Poem

Today I led two tours at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, the first with Kindergartners and the second with seniors. It became obvious to me that the kids needed to stay in motion; to stop and lecture about heritage roses only frustrated them, but to watch them smell and touch the roses was a trip.

Seniors tend to wander away on their own to whatever interested them, a natural outcome of the freedom and economy shortened time imparts. By the end of the tour I had only three seniors left; all the others had detoured.

Quite a contrast, the energy of the very young and the wanderings of the old. To know what you want in your remaining time is a good trait, it saves wastage, but to be a five-year-old is to want everything, to experience everything. In a healthy kid with a good family the world can be Disneyland. Because of that impression, when I went grocery shopping afterwards, I tried to enjoy each choice of goods and interaction with others in the same way, and it worked well. I was in no hurry, simply open to new experiences with no timetable or agenda. Of course, one of the stops was at the pharmacy where I picked up my antipsychotic medicine, Abilify, which allows me to experience "normality." Gotta love the name of that drug. Makes me think of others:

Blowitoffazol

Idontcarazine.

Antimelancholycodone.

Rejoicatol.

Getoffmycaserpine.

Wouldn't it be fun to work in the name department for new drugs? Whoever invented the palindrome Xanax was a genius.

Words and diseases should sound like themselves, why I don't like the word, "pulchritude," meaning beautifully voluptuous. Sounds more like a mortal sin. "The hubris of his pulchritude betrayed him."

Tuberculosis sounds like a slimy disease; syphilis sounds nasty; pancreatitis is as painful as it sounds. Pustules, boils, fractures, hematomas, you gotta love it. But there are exceptions--like "fifth disease," a common and harmless virus in children.
As a poet I like words that sound like what they are.

*********************************************************************************

I may be teaching a health course at the local community college this fall. Gotta be sure to invite some local healers--Mendocino is full of them--to be in tune with the culture around me: herbalists, naturopaths, yoga teachers, and all sorts of specialized services for the spiritually aware--not to imply that these are better methods to health--only that 90% of illnesses are "self-limiting," so it doesn't matter whom you go to to feel better in most cases. But as I always say, if you're in real pain you'll go to a real doctor. Crystals won't make a bad appendix ascend out of the abdomen. (Unless you have double-blind studies to prove it.)

I tried to write a poem yesterday about two ospreys but according to my wife and editor it didn't turn out so well. BTW, the new Blue Fifth Review is out, edited by Sam Rasnake. I recommend it even though I have no work in there!

Here's the poem my editor didn't like (it's no great shakes, just what I saw yesterday):


At Frolic Cove

In the osprey's spiculed talons
a green fish wriggled headfirst,
righted like a torpedo
so that its tail resembled
a flapping rudder
beneath the tail fan.

The waterfall was low.
I cupped my hand and drank.
The creek disappeared in sand.

Circling back, with crooked wings
she signaled to her mate
a return to the massive nest.
Four times she flew around
until the fish grew limp
and merely hung.
North he flew reluctantly,
a fisherman embarrassed.


Frolic Cove is the site where a ship foundered and broke back in 1857, full of silk and china. Pieces of the cargo were discovered in Pomo Indian settlements up to 20 miles away. All the seamen escaped as the captain managed to beach the boat after breaking on the reef. Sometimes Kathleen thinks she has found there remnants of broken china bits polished by the sea. I'm sure the poem would be better if I included the crash. But "It is what it is." I'm fond of that newspeak tautology, I admit. And the experience was what it was, though likely not enough for a poem--yet.


All for today,

At 1 Kilobunny,

CE

The Battle for Poetic Recognition

I recently bought a new "Poet's Market," an intimidating book printed on cheap paper of 572 pp. In it is an interview with a "successful" poet, who does 75 seminars and readings a year, up to 150 if he has a new book or album out. He edits a literary magazine and is also a songwriter.

He estimates that 1400 Americans may make some living through poetry, which sounds like a lot to me. Obviously this man works hard. Yet in researching him on the net he had only 5% of the references I do on Google. Apparently he has not published extensively online. Then I checked his latest book from 2007. It ranks below 1,600,000 titles on Amazon. My new book ranks just above 900,000, for comparison, rendering them likely equally obscure. I also did not recognize his name from the article.

T. S. Eliot wrote "There is no competition." Unfortunately, in this day and age of proliferating poets, Eliot is wrong. There is competition. Each poem published in a journal that rejects me is a potential place where I might have had success. Each reading booked up in advance in a major city is one reading I can't get.

Although K.F. admits that the poetry world has proliferated beyond his imaginings, from open mikes to slams, the Internet, etc., he has this to say about the art:

"What has not changed is the nepotism of the Biz and the preconceived notions of the academic sector. Most poets still teach to support themselves. There is still no one who rushes home to tell his parents that he is a poet and then is subsequently swamped with congratulations and financial support."

We all know this. Poets are not pariahs, just largely irrelevant to the larger culture. I have compared poetry to lawn bowling in this regard in past essays, "a cultural vestigial organ." Yet if one is truly infected by poetry there is no cure. I will go on writing and publishing until they take this computer from my cold dead hands. Yes, I want to be read. Yes, I would like more recognition. Yes, I have a new book to promote and eight interviews and eight reviews already. But I assure you my book is not jumping off the shelves. The most I've sold at once is five at a local reading. (I also importuned my bank manager, dentist and my shrink and family doctor to buy copies; after all, the monetary exchange for their services dwarfs a small purchase of my book.)

I did recently receive encouragement from Ireland, where a J. Patterson wrote me for my revised version of the essay on T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets." No one to my knowledge ever finished that essay before; I even had a standing reward of $25 for the first person who did. Afterwards this good soul ordered a signed copy of "Unexpected Light" and gave me a good report. I enjoyed the correspondence. I enjoyed the fact that he felt my treatment of Eliot was substantial and witty and fun to read. I also know, from my research, that certain Christian aspects of the poems were better elucidated in my essay than any others I could find.

In fact, everyone has given me a good report; the reviews have been uniformly positive. So where do I go from here? More reviews, more interviews, more publications? If this fellow is relatively famous and interviewed for "Poet's Market" and his book ranks far below mine (though at these numbers one or two purchases can shoot you back up the ignominious ladder of obscurity), and he has 5% of my references on Google, what should I say? That I'm better known on the Net? I suspect he makes most of his dough leading seminars, that's where the real money is for mid-level poets, while the truly famous can command $10,000 or more for a single performance--you know, Collins, Angelou and the rest.

The scale of celebrity among poets is more variable than the winners of "American Idol." Luck has much to do with it, but so does nepotism. An MFA with a close connection to a well-known poet/professor has a much better chance at ascending the ladder than a disabled doctor with few connections. That goes without saying, especially since this doctor only became serious about publishing in 1997. Yet since then I've published two books of poetry and edited one anthology while being included in many others. I even recently had "Boundaries" recognized as the best poem currently online for a week: http://bestnewpoemsonline.wordpress.com/ (see May 18).

I have some obstacles to furthering my ambition, of course. First, I live far away from metropolitan centers where venues abound. Second, I'm manic-depressive and travel can really screw with my mood. Third, I loathe to be away from my true love, Kathleen. But paramount, above all these, is the program in my head forbidding self-promotion. My mother instilled in me very early not to blow my own horn, not to brag, to rather wait for my excellence to be recognized. That's the Emily Dickinson way that many poets cling to: "I'll be noticed when I'm dead." Fat chance if you weren't noticed while alive.

To be noticed while alive can be arranged, however. For the well-heeled poet of unlimited means, an expensive New York publicist can be hired and she will get readings and reviews in that great hive considered the center of literature in these United States. Still, if the quality lacks, such a poet would be rejected by the academic community, and rightly so, but that will not stop them from out-googling, out-selling and out-maneuvering others of greater talent. I see many poets self-publishing, even in their own magazines, and acting as if they have received recognition when they have essentially granted it to themselves.

I hate cold calling people I've never met to ask for open reading dates on the Pacific Coast. I'm not looking forward to the travel in my four dates coming up (SF, Sacramento, LA, SD) require, and only two of them look like first class venues. But I will keep my word and show up, I hope, unless my energy fails.

But look at the downside again. K.F. does up to a 150 readings a year when a new book comes out and his Amazon ranking is below mine. And there's also a strange feather in my hat; my first book, "Elementary," is apparently rare enough now (only 300 copies were printed) that it sells for $189 on Amazon, and only one copy is available. So someone thinks my first book is valuable. What does that mean? I don't know. Probably something to do with book collectors who hoard obscure poets.

This all boils down to one question for me: Is it worth the work? If I knock my head against the world of poetry venues, will it result in anything of note--sales, publicity, what? Some result, yes, a few books sold here and there, not enough to cover my gas, but in the main, it's doubtful. It is probably wiser to concentrate on breaking into the august publications like Southern Review and Poetry. So far I haven't broken that glass ceiling, though to be fair, at my best, I do not think myself the inferior to those I see in there, though I often admire the work. And one wonders (despite the "blind reading" claims of so many of these journals) what would happen if my name were John Ashbery or W. S. Merwin or Mark Strand. Wouldn't these instantly be kicked upstairs by the powers that be? I do not believe the editors are fair in this regard, whatever they claim. Nepotism by reputation and previous publication within a magazine still obtain.

If I were a purist it would be all about the work, the next poem, the next song, trying to achieve that artistic perfection or Logos that all artists aspire to.

But I'm human, ah there's the rub. Like any artist I crave recognition, yet my Lutheran background tells me that ambition may be wrong, just as self-promotion is wrong. But that can't be right. Even Jesus promoted himself by miracles and street preaching. So perhaps it's the Protestant inheritance that drives me; I can't have work without result! I can't just write poetry for nothing for magazines that don't pay and come with little recognition. Or can I?

Further, Jesus promoted himself for the benefit of mankind; to what degree can I say my art does something of the same? I know my manic-depressive and love poems have helped some, but on a scale of good works--which the New Testament rejects wholesale--I can't compare to a missionary distributing food and medicines--or is my calling just different and just as important in its way? So my wife would have me think.

I have been undiscriminating about my best work, sending it to whatever e-zine suited my fancy at the time, or because of a submission call. I could have parceled my work out slowly, attacking only the best magazines. But initially I didn't have the self-confidence to do so, and the thrill of being published anywhere superseded the thrill of submitting to Poetry for ten years in hope against hope. (BTW, I do send them regular submissions, they may even recognize my name from the amount of rejections I endure.)

So what am I saying? Craig is confused. Plain confused. He loves poetry, he likes to publish, he loves giving readings, but he wonders 1) Does he have the necessary drive to promote himself like K.F.? And 2), Is it worth it?

In discussing this with my wife and editor this morning, she suggested that the best scenario is to be taken under a well-known poet's wing and mentored along. At 54 I feel I am in the mentor stage; I teach poetry online (see my website for the course offering) and every unpublished poet who has taken my course has been afterwards published, save one who didn't want to submit and likely wasn't ready.

I'm a little old for applying for fellowships at major universities for poets, and the stipend wouldn't cover expenses anyway. I don't want to uproot myself from my beloved Mendocino and go traipsing to the Iowa Writer's Workshop for instruction and connections. In truth I've only really been at this for twelve years, so perhaps, since I first published at roughly 17, I should think of myself as only 29 in the "serious poetry competition." So I would still likely benefit from a mentor. How do you get one? I suppose the way you do everything else: by endless queries.

"Cast your bread upon the waters and it shall return to you after many days."

But sometimes you only feed the ducks.


In a mixed state, between 2 Kilorats and 1 Kilobunny,

CE

NBA Predictions, Poem, New Review

The last NBA playoff team to advance has been determined: The Atlanta Hawks. Cleveland should beat them four games to one.

The second round begins today with Dallas vs. Denver. This is a hard one to call, but based on superior inside strength I think Denver should be favored to move on and meet the Lakers, who should beat Houston in six.

In the East, contrary to most expectations, I think Boston will handle Orlando in six or seven and go on to be beaten by Cleveland in a tough series. Despite the loss of Kevin Garnett, they are still the champions, and under pressure they play like it.

It's a gray day here on the Mendocino coast, post-rain. It's great that we got our garden in during a sunny spell and that now it is getting a thorough watering from nature. I can't wait for our flowers to mature; many have started blooming. It gives me joy to stare out to the oceean over the colors of our garden.

I actually beat my wife and editor tonight at Scrabble. That was a feat I can get fat on. Oh, and she called me "fat" today. Like I didn't know it. I immediately comforted myself with extreme nachos. Actually I ate a salad.

Salads aren't bad if you put enough croutons and nuts on them to get some real calories up the pipe.

Yes, I need a diet.

No, I'm not smoking.

But do I have a poem?

Poems divide my readership to a certain extent; the literary folks read them while the mood-disordered folks sort of gloss over them, with the natural exception of mood-disordered literary types.

Oh, there's a new review out on my book at The Pedestal, a fine venue with an insightful reviewer who really gets the dark side of "Unexpected Light."

Here's a recent poem;


The Stranger

This morning I wept for no reason.
I've been pushing back the terror
like a stage curtain, one arm
holding back the darkness,
all that muffled noise of sets being moved,
sets for my future
when I don't want the present changed.
I wonder if my understudy
will look like me, act like me, suffer like me.
Of course not, he has his own life.
But isn't it my life, too?

Computers have a trash bin
for every stump of a poem we tried to save
although our grafts would never take.
But just to keep on writing, holding
the curtain at arm's length, is this not a life
terrorized? Shouldn't I welcome the stranger,
who comes robed in the future,
equally prepared for sadness or joy?

Perhaps at every moment of awakening
we generate a ghost, a dark companion
to drag the hero down to where
the dragon sits, whom we must overcome
by being still; to fight
would only seed another monster.
The one in the mirror is quite enough.


All for tonight.


At 1 Kilobunny,

CE

New Blog, New Poem

I was going to blog tonight but fear I expended my energy on this poem:


With My Dog in the Rain

Deer paths, thin passages
of hoof-flattened grass

sometimes widen into creeks
dividing the high brush

by which we follow, the dog
running circles around my

plodding subsidy to his energy,
down the slope to the stream,

riparian gully of sword ferns
and stunted birches with puffs

of pale lime moss. Follow to cliff
where water threads over,

carving through sand to surf.
Swells lift the ocean

in a parade of salt explosions
liquid tons thundering

against the jagged implacable
wall of sea-resisting rock

though wilting in time, soon gravel.
One cold rain drop splits my forehead

like chilled mercury, slips
between my eyebrows, sobers.


Meanwhile I continue to labor in the promotion of my book (see panels above) like a voice crying in the wilderness, subsisting on locusts and honey, like Atlas shouldering the world, like Sisyphus dueling the boulder up and down the hill. It is, btw, for your convenience, now available in paperback at Amazon.com.

How they are able to offer it so cheaply and so soon I have no idea. But the hardback is a better deal, which you can find at Diminuendo Press.

Just because I've had a complete work published does not mean that I'm over poetry and have quit writing it. Quite the contrary, the closure of the book has released me to write more freely than ever, as this rough draft above may demonstrate. I suppose I will always be at heart a Nature poet, and I make no apologies about it. My relationship to the urban has always been to seek the triumph of the natural within it, as in polished beach glass born of littering or dandelions blooming in asphalt cracks, hawks nesting in glass towers. Here's a short example:


Found Park

Downtown in a paved lot
ringed by sagging chain-link
I found a dandelion forest
where purple stalks
over six feet tall
sprouted from asphalt ridges
roots buckled for the sun.
There wasn't a trace of dirt.

Their white seed filaments
looked tightly bunched
inside green trumpets
unlike the silver
hundred-legged spiders
that hover over lawns.
Their flowers were deeper yellow,
smaller and thicker,
plentiful as stars.


(published in Terrain)


In any case, the carved wooden Indonesian frog doctor on my desk advises me, with his hooded eye, that it is past my bedtime. So be it.


1 Kilobunny,

CE

New Poem: Why I Never Bring a Camera on Vacation

I am busy querying editors for book reviews and waiting for my copies to arrive so I can negotiate with local bookstores and start some readings. The long arc of promotion begins with exposure, then interaction, finally (one hopes) purchase. The longest journey begins with a single step; we do not know what fruit our actions will bear. What is important is to stay in the process, detached from results. The only way to travel.

Below, the last two posts of '07, first on the morality of feeling good, then a few New Year's sayings.

But first, in this extra-long triple post, a new poem:



Why I Never Bring a Camera on Vacation

Beached jellyfish:
saucers on gravel, translucent
as silicon gel, see through to shingle.
In the tuft of globules on top
I imagine a man-in-the-moon
with a gaping mouth.

The pathetic fallacy:
corpuscular indignation of blistering kelp.

Bull kelp bobbing on the pink-blue sea--
sometimes you think a seal.

Wind-quilted hollows of wavelets
exhaling susurrations of hissing foam.

The rich wood floors of my brother's house,
a blond fire warming your feet.

On his deck the burnished aluminum chairs
are patterned with holes, holes that won't make
a cross at right angles in my mind,
only a broken kite, a parallelogram's skeleton.
Were we and God saved both?

I'm playing the game, 'Go'
with my abacus of empty nightmares,
trying to put it all in code
like XHTML, like this--
why I never bring a camera on vacation.

Jasmine climbs the wooden trellis,
crosses of slats at angles.

The neighbor's live oak:
trunks bigger than the biggest
python swallowing a pig.

A raven on a far fir's top
caws me awake.
Hand-rolled and coffee.
Take your pills.

My land is likewise crossed
by northwest winds cutting latitudes
in parallelograms.
Who knows how well
the Roman carpenters did?
A good carpenter
would get the joint right.

Slightly irregular or not,
a cross can only meet in its center.
Its tips are alone,
sterile branches, stubs of nothingness.
Only the vital center matters.

My brother said he once
abandoned himself to God,
or rather “surrendered.”
“It was a good feeling,” he said,
“I felt like a child without responsibilities.
When I finally gave it up my friends said,
'Good to have you back.'”
But was he really gone?


Thine,

CE


**************************************************


From 12/30, The Morality of Feeling Good:


Yesterday's post (12/29/07) was, I admit, discouraging to say the least. To compound my sins I described to my daughter the method I would use if I were to commit suicide while of course promising not to do it. Such a sick mixed message. If my children weren't legally adults I shouldn't be allowed to be around them.

Happiness is contagious to a degree and so is gloom. Why they should matter to us so much is what I don't understand. Why do we all want to "feel good?" Isn't this the most basic of hedonisms? And why does an organism even harbor the expectation of feeling good? And if feelings are amoral, why do we judge our morality so much on the feeling outcome?

And yet bad feelings are the most painful of experiences, one reason why cutting is popular. The distraction of the physical pain is more pleasurable, or less uncomfortable, than an awareness of painful feelings. When badly depressed I rejoice in my back pain because it distracts from the holocaust of my heart.

I have had a couple of thoughts: First, if you're as sick as I am, and I mean really sick, it's very important to accept yourself as such instead of walloping your pride with the bludgeon of failure. My brain is sick; it is therefore unreliable and I ought not to listen to it.

And here: Why not pursue whatever beauty and truth has traditionally given you joy, even if you are at present incapable of experiencing joy? Surely it must prime the pump to some extent. I should try reading Eliot and Shakespeare and listening to Jimi Hendrix.

As for Christmas, I had a thought as well. What if I was not put here for myself, to pursue my art and interests, but for the sake of others? Christ was not sent here for himself. A healthy tenet of a Christian faith is the belief that this is true: we are gifts to others, not ourselves. The less we concern ourselves with our own gifts and the more we concentrate on being gifts to others the sooner we forget our misery.

In my philosophy, happiness and "feeling good" are not the purpose of life. They can be by-products of living a good life. Still, my actions don't confirm my beliefs--unless you admit I am only trying to feel "normal," not "happy," which is how I understand it.

The first mark of goodness is honesty, inseparable from humility. To have "a sober assessment of oneself" is the prerequisite reality check for consciously doing good. But how black our hearts are! As soon as we see ourselves in our place we begin, Walter Mitty-like, to imagine ourselves in a more exalted position. As a manic-depressive blogging for my own sanity I should have no illusions that what I do is noble; I do it to distract myself, to keep my brain from feeding on itself.
Madness can be made into art and art into madness. To think we are all driven by a desire for good feelings, how very simple! Too bad that for some, good feelings only come at the expense of others.

*******************************************

12/31/07 A Few New Year's Sayings


If your beliefs conflict with the truth, open your eyes and tame your heart.

I felt sorry for a man without feet until I saw a man with no knees, but when I met a man with no hips my compassion tanked.

If science can duplicate nature, why is "natural" still used as a promotional quality?

To train the young mind: music, math and essays.

Aging is not for cowards.

The more critical a person, the more sensitive.

We labor under the illusion that life makes sense. All our fantasies, religious and otherwise, are directed toward supporting that illusion. If we have such a need to make sense, does it make sense that it really does make sense?

The traits you least like in others are your own.

The key to happiness is to be born with a sunny temperament.

God is not on your side. His is the only side.

The Internet is the virtual end of privacy. Either live by subsistence in the woods or drop your pants.

Does anyone today really want privacy? Only after celebrity has been achieved.


CE

Another Poem from "Unexpected Light"

In continuing anticipation of my book's release, here's another poem from the volume:


Christ's Lighthouse

There is a pillar of light
stuck in the rocks like Excalibur
above a harbor of heavy water,
hushed and heavy with suffering,
where waves swallow their foam—
but much can obstruct your view.

I used to lose sight of it, thinking
the ocean's furious slam dance the thing,
me roped to the mast between
the cold salt walls of death—
Or ships would block it,
horns and radios distract me
until only a slip of light
in the marbled sky
recalled its jeweled foghorn,
a dog whistle for the deaf.

Do I dare now? Do I dare say
I see it always, through iron bars
and self-revulsion as if the great stone
of the world were rolled away? 
What terrible temptations do I then tempt,
What unexpected holy thing
may morph into evil,
baiting my inner eye
with self-congratulation—
me a blind man beating
his dog with a white stick? 


(earlier version published in Mindfire)

Yesterday I was jonesing for a cheeseburger and satisfied myself, Oh how I satisfied myself, at Jenny's Giant Burger in Fort Bragg. As I was wadding up my napkins and paper to throw into the trash, I lifted my cup for a sip of Coke and managed to jam the straw up my nose rather deeply. In 54 years I can't remember this happening before, but I had another fast-food epiphany once, where I was sucking on a drink in the bathroom while peeing. I felt like an in-and-out factory. Strange.

I'm really a sushi and potatoes kind of guy.

If any have trouble with today's poem, please query or comment below. It's not one of my easier poems, though I constantly strive to be clear--yet there are some things that can only be said in a more complicated way, and sometimes I am not a good enough poet to simplify adequately.

The neurologist said of my neck injury and nerve impingement that I can get by without surgery. Hooray! I hate surgery and the stress it puts upon the body's recovery systems. To be avoided if at all possible.

I'm furiously writing editors who have published me, trying to obtain as many reviews as I can. As they are published I'll post them here. Writing the book took a long time, but promoting it is a new endeavor, and I ask your help with it. In other words, tell your friends!

I've also started a Facebook group around the book, which anyone can join. Here's the link: Unexpected Light

Thanks for stopping by!

At 1 Kilobunny (might be two if I didn't have this cold; hope the jammed straw helped with the congestion),

CE

Book Jacket, Turkeys, Green Technology and a Birthday

First, here's the book jacket for my selected poems and love poems, due out February 15.



Here's the jacket more complete, thout it lacks the blurbs for the back cover. I've received several good ones already though I'm still waiting for some heavyweights to weigh in.



Exciting stuff for a 54-yr.-old poet who thinks of himself as a journeyman but longs to break the glass ceiling.

Yesterday was my late daughter's 31st birthday. I was sad but kept busy; I never broke down in tears though I would have welcomed it. Her presence continues with me and is especially strong when her sisters are present--almost palpable.

I will see my daughters on Thanksgiving, along with my stepson and siblings and extended family. Great holiday, Thanksgiving, uniquely American if not lost in gluttony and commercialism. Every day should be a day of thanks but it's nice to have a nationally recognized holiday for it.

Why do Pilgrim's pants fall down?

Because they wear their buckles on their hats.

Ben Franklin thought the national bird should have been a turkey, instead of the warlike eagle. That's well and fine until you start making military uniforms with the insignia of a bird easily shot and eaten. We have a large flock of wild turkeys nearby, and some of them must weigh--prior to plucking--40 lbs. or more. They say the oldest Toms have the tenderest meat, unlike veal. But I don't know anyone who eats veal in California anymore. We just passed a measure where our chickens have to be able to move around in their cages, very humane. This will likely hurt business and bring Tyson Chicken to a bigger market share in our humane but economically challenged state. We may bankrupt ourselves even more (we're 11 million dollars in debt on the current budget) by legislating impossible green technology requirements in the short term that can cripple the transition as much as aid it. I mean, everyone talks about "clean coal," where 50% of America's energy comes from, but burning coal cleanly is prohibitively expensive at present, requiring CO2 to be buried deep in the ground and multiple burners and exhaust modifications.

Where Obama's $15 billion/yr. for green technology should go is straight into basic research, and only later, development. We lack an affordable technology to clean up our act and ethanol is a joke, hurting poor countries like Mexico by stealing cheap corn, with the government's help and subsidy, for our thirsty automobiles.

And how about the big three automakers? Per usual mired in their lack of foresight in the face of diminishing resources, trying to multilaterally pull their gashog SUVs and luxury trucks out of their respective assholes. And who foots the bill for our lack of imagination in not imitating the rest of the world and its more fuel-efficient cars? Yes, you guessed it, our children and grandchildren. These bailouts illustrate the modern socioeconomic dilemma: how far should government be involved in the economy? Too late to ask. The government has become a corporate welfare state to shield the consequences of greed from the top players to the bottom consumers. Fascinating. I wonder what Jefferson would have thought of our present dilemma--except that in his time, near 98% of Americans had farms and there were no steam trains yet.

Now farming is composed mainly of conglomerates who thirst for pesticide and fuels as much as any industry, and the small farmer has been eclipsed. I encourage everyone to grow vegetables at home; it's cheaper, healthier, and they taste better. Even in this weather I have a healthy lettuce crop but I could do much better.

A good friend of mine, Beau Blue of Cruzio's Cafe' (J. J. Webb) is facing an angioplasty and needs your prayers. He's a good man and I would like him to stay around a while. Go check out his site for some unique entertainment.

Do I have any poems to post? Let me see...ah, I've been revising some rough formal attempts from 2007:


To Seed

I don't believe “Don't let them see you bleed.”
My heart is open. I have no regrets
Worthy of contemplation. I am whole
And wounded. I have not hedged my bets,
I put it all in play. My given role
Of doctor, teacher, father, I accept.
My former dreams of prominence amuse me.
No glowing seraphim could disabuse me.
I have no reputation to protect
At least none I would defend to the teeth.
I'm not looking for a laurel wreath.
A publication here or there's enough,
The knowledge that some people like my stuff,
Stuff better than this sonnet gone to seed.

So I end on a whimper, not a bang. But here's one more picture of my late daughter, Rachel:



How I miss her!


2 Kilobunnies,

CE

On Medication Compliance, Poetry, and Cat Portraits

It surprises me, but since I've been feeling better I have developed a slight resentment against all the medication I must take in the morning. It takes three swallows. Here's my menu:

Morning:

Lamictal: two 100 mg. tablets
Adderall: two 20 mg. tablets
Abilify: one 5 mg. tablet
MS contin: two 30 mg. tablets
Effexor: three 75 mg. capsules
Celebrex: one 200 mg. capsule
ASA: one 81 mg. tablet

Afternoon:

Adderall: one 20 mg.

Bedtime:

Klonopinone: one 1 mg. tablet
MS contin: three 30mg. tablets

So, that's five medications for mental health, two for pain, and one for preventing vascular problems (aspirin).

At my last visit to my shrink I wondered if we could cut anything. He responded by saying, "You haven't been stable very long, Craig. Just keep taking them and enjoy yourself."

Great shrink! Like all mental patients, as soon as I start feeling better I want to take credit for it, thinking my naturally defective chemistry overcome by my newfound health. This is a fatal misapprehension; fatal.

How many times have I had a patient in practice who felt better, unilaterally stopped their medicines and relapsed?

My worst case was my father. He wouldn't see a shrink so I slipped him some antidepressants and an anti-anxiety agent. After a couple of weeks he felt better and stopped the medicine. After two partial responses to the medicine in the midst of a serious depression, he quit both times. Then he suicided.

Was I a bad son and a good doctor? A good doctor and a bad son? I lacked the authority of a real doctor for my dad, thus the treatment was partially undermined by that, the lack of the empowering mysterium tremendum of the white coat. As a son I had to plead with and cajole my father to take his meds. Perhaps it forestalled his suicide for a time, as we discovered after his death that he had been writing suicide notes since March when he finally committed the deed in November. But it was all for naught. He was from the John Wayne generation and his last note said something like, "It's either the hospital or the end. I can't bear to go to the hospital." His mother had been hospitalized twice for shock therapy and I don't think he could stand the shame. Tragic but predictable, although his death wasn't; we all thought him a survivor.

Thus I adjure you, all mood-impaired citizenry, to keep taking your meds as the price of sanity. It's been shown that if you have one clinical depression, your odds of a second one are great, and your chance of responding to your first successful medicine are reduced in the second go-round. Many psychiatrists advocate a lifetime of medication for one serious depression. I favor giving people one chance with their first depression, maintaining them for a year and then gradually withdrawing the medicine. But in cases of manic-depression, medication is surely needed lifetime, and many first time depressives are later diagnosed with manic-depression.

If the pancreas and liver can become diseased and need insulin replacement and interferon, respectively, we have no qualms. But if the brain is diseased we confuse it with our "personality" in what Ernest Becker calls "the causa sui project," where we attribute the success to ourselves and think that it's actually our own power that has delivered us, when in fact it is simply the treatment of a diseased organ.

You are not your depression; clinical depression means a diseased organ, save in this case it is the organ of consciousness and easy to mistake for your self, a fatal mistake. To all of you who don't know better, and to all you who do, remember to take your meds faithfully until your doctor lessens your dosage. To do otherwise is stupid, and as in my father's case, may result in tragedy. He never got to meet his great-grandson.

Lately I've been happy about poetry again, its possibilities, how the pleasure of a good reading can exceed the joy of a movie or a book of prose. That I labor in this antiquated and unpopular field does not minimize its impact for a few. And the purpose of poetry? No one has said it better than Sir Phillip Sydney of the Elizabethan age, though he stole from Aristotle: "To teach and to delight." In other words, a sugar-coated reality pill (to speak somewhat derisively), or better, an adventure in words that lifts you up out of your reality and gives you the perspective of another, which can be salutary. As for contemporary poetry, there is too much striving for "delight" and not enough teaching, but given the state of culture, any morality is usually rejected out of hand as a violation of boundaries, unless the morality is insinuated so carefully that the reader doesn't know it until it is too late.

I have a little essay in Melic entitled "Poetry and Morality," and another on "Prophetic Poetry," (begin with the tenth paragraph), if any should be interested in further speculation along these lines.

I'm busy proofing the proofs of my "Selected Poems" from my publisher now. It's tedious to proofread. You can't really "read" the poems while doing it; it's more of a housekeeping exercise, and in that frame of mind many of the poems seem limp to a glancing eye. But I know better; I believe in my poetry; my poetry often has the power to get through the modern multi-tasking brain and sometimes stop it cold. This has always been my ambition, a poetry of power, or as I have defined it, "Language distilled into its most powerful form." More thoughts on this in my essay in Tryst.

Here I will break continuity and post a picture of each of our cats for LKD, though I'm sorry to report that I don't know how to transfer new photos from our digital camera directly into my computer through Kodak Easy Share; it seems only the pictures held in the card memory, and not the current pictures, can be uploaded.

Here's Topaz:



And here's Jojo:



The pictures don't do them justice, especially Topaz, who is a beauty and whom we sometimes call "Remedios" after a beauty in "One Hundred Years of Solitude." As you know, our dog's name is J. Alfred Prufrock and I hope to have a picture of him soon.

Meanwhile the weather is brisk and sunny, the pineapple sage is blooming, in fact I have a haiku about that:

pineapple sage blooms
hummingbirds flitter and sup
from the long, red tubes

If you have never smelled pineapple sage, you're in for a treat when you encounter it. Great for iced tea!

And how about a short example of a poem of power?


Keep the Faith

You say two friends were murdered
but it's a nice day
and there must be middle ground
between the abandoned mineshaft
and the Holstein sky.

Ants kill ants as easily as popping sodas.
Some father fish swallow their fry,
others rock them gently inside their jaws.
Sometimes an ox is gored
by another ox and dies.

Sometimes a country sends its young
to float like dynamited carp
in distant rice paddies.
If mercy were based on evidence
I'd shoot you.


So, with medicines and poetic morality, cat portraits and poems of power I leave you.


2 Kilobunnies,

CE

New Publication, Old Poem, Holding at 2 Kilorats

Here's a new publication on the theme of parents, where I am lucky to be the featured poet: Quill and Parchment

To enter, the passwords are "september" and then "school."

My mood remains fragile, I am navigating melancholy with appropriate fearfulness, hoping the disease of depression will remain at bay, but just last night at a meeting of men where I know I am loved and accepted I felt like the complete outsider, and the long view of my life being worthless wants to creep into my mind and declare me an utter failure, but these depressive symptoms are recognizable and I intend to view them as a tourist views a city, not owning them for my self. I still have a sense of self, though tenuous, as in deep depression my self becomes an abstraction and I become depression incarnate: hopeless, helpless, worthless, angry, sad, fearful, incapable of love, pleasure, or human connection. I will see my shrink tomorrow and see if I should increase my adjunctive anti-depressant, Abilify, even more.

Some spider bit my ass repeatedly and Kathleen says the bumps make a smiley face. LOL!

Pray for me, or if that is too much, think of me with favor--as I so dread dropping into a drop-dead depression again. I was recovering steadily before the motorcycle accident; now I'm on shaky ground again.

Here's a revision of a villanelle I sketched during my depression, where the fog proves a prescient metaphor, I think, for the black dog:


Through Fog

Encapsuled in the intimacy of mist
Our visibility’s but fifty feet.
World within world we exist.

My markers vanish, the road dips and twists
As if its narrowing shoulders have to meet
And marry in an intimacy of mist.

I want to scream, I want to raise my fist
And curse the small circumference of our light.
World within world we exist.

This driving makes me itch. I should desist.
We follow dim tail lights like idiot sheep
Pastured in an intimacy of mist.

Back home we make a fire, share a kiss.
The fog’s outside, a monster in a sheet.
World within world we exist.

Head on your lap, relieved, I feel blessed.
Your belly's breathing makes my being complete.
Conjoined, one droplet in the intimate mist,
World within world we exist.


2 Kilorats and holding,

CE

Gardening, Pets and a Summer Poem

It is a sweet and golden day here on the Mendocino coast, nearly windless with the occasional sound of a wind chime, the tinkling of my glass mobile of a lighthouse, and the sandpapery slidings of a windsock decorated with tropical drinks.

Our favorite aestival drink has become the "pink monkey," a mixture of vodka, Italian pomegranate soda, Fresca, ice, and a slice of lime. Refreshingly sweet but with the almost bitter clarity of pomegranate, a juice now in vogue for its anti-oxidant properties, but long a favorite flavor of mine. I remember harvesting pomegranates from my neighbors' bushes growing up in SoCal, not that we ever asked permission.

Even in the suburbs I dreamed of living off the land. There are still few thrills for me as great as drinking fresh creek water. The first time I drank from a stream, backpacking in Big Sur at the age of 14, I was taken aback that water could simply be sipped from an open source instead of arriving, chlorinated and fluoridated, through a stainless steel pipe. The best things in life are free, indeed, as were the blackberries I harvested today twenty feet from my front door, which I mixed with vanilla yogurt for a wonderful brunch.

It's been a dry spring and summer here and the deer, now searching everywhere for green tidbits, have effectively decimated my garden. Last night they topped the broccoli and brussel sprouts which leaves me with no crop except for the few flowers they won't eat, zinnias and marigolds among them. I may convert my garden to flowers only, though there is still time to plant some winter crops, but before I plant anything new I must deer-proof the garden. At present I have but one "scarecrow," a motion-activated sprayer that discourages mammalian pests, but I need at least two to protect the garden, plus some deer netting to throw over select plants. Do I have the gumption to start over again? I think so.

I think of my first garden on the coast as an experiment. Curiously its greatest enemies have been our cats, who love to dig up new plantings, and the damned deer. Gophers have been absenet and insects not much of a problem. Since we rent I have no ambition to put up a fence, not to mention that it would disturb our ocean view. But I am no longer unapprised of the hazards of gardening here. Deer will eat almost anything in my experience, though they do have a preference for roses and edible greens. They sampled my apple mint last night, about to bloom, but did not devastate it, evidence that perhaps mint is not on their preferred menu.

Kathleen, after a year since Kenyon's demise, is ready to adopt a new dog. We looked at an Australian heeler mix the other day, a lovely, athletic, freckled beast of medium size, but she was so energetic that I did not look forward to minding her during the day while Kathleen is at work. I don't think I have the energy to keep that dog entertained; it would likely be in constant motion and in no small danger of escaping and exploring the adjacent State Park unless tied up. I've always wanted an Irish Wolfhound, as my size makes such a dog look normal-sized, but Kathleen points out how much room it would take up and how much food it would eat.

It is a worldwide scandal, America's fixation with pets, as many are better fed than the world at large, not to mention the excellent veterinary care in a world where most veterinarians earn their keep by treating cattle and other more valuable animals in the economy. In Mexico dogs were no more or less than furry burglar alarms, and their relative neglect was shocking in view of American prejudices. Other nations employ animals; we anthropomorphize them. Is it all Disney's fault? At least in 4-H students learn to groom their animals for slaughter, while the housepet remains an end in itself. I do think the Paris Hilton chihuahua fad has gone too far, however, since we heard of a wedding our friends gave in Mexico with Chihuahua bride and groom (appropriately dressed) a reception for 100. I'm told it was a "black nose only" affair, with exceptions made for bipeds.

Through the accident I've lost a month of my life and am just catching up with correspondence and other duties, though I might have saved my garden if I'd been feeling better. As it is I don't mind feeding the deer if only they had better manners and could wait in line to have their hooves stamped.

I recently joined a blogging network on Facebook and discovered that poet Ann Marie Eldon had over 200 regular subscribers to her blog, which I found astounding. Props to her. It is mind-boggling that a platform like Facebook automatically fills in the statistics for blogs when you sign up for their network, if a little embarrassing for my dearth of regular subscribers. Then I have not always been the most regular of bloggers, nor do I promote myself much beyond writing.

Wednesday our magic bed arrives with its mattress of extra-firm latex foam, the best sleeping surface I have discovered. Our old joints scrape and grate with anticipation of a partial reprieve from the assault of nightly gravity.

For today's poem I want something summery, so I'll paste in one from my years in medical school in Galveston in the late 70s. Galveston has a climate of 80/80 six months of the year--80% humidity and 80 degrees. I have never been more uncomfortable physically in a climate than when I lived there, but since summer took up half the year, I did write a number of summer poems.


Mid-Summer Invitation

The humid night sits on a rocking chair.
Cicadas, crickets melodize the air.
The summer's fullness pushes through the screen
like a ripe pear.

Faraway, radios sing and blare.
A dog insists a cat was nearly there.
An automobile's signature of wind
tingles my hair.

I dream the dreams of summer, I loaf and loll.
I will not wrestle with a thorny soul.
I'm sinking in a dish of mint ice cream, with chocolate
running around the bowl.

Join me then. Here is a mild cigar,
a glass of beer, one shy small summer star
and this my porch. We'll rock and sip and smoke and talk
and talk some more.

(published in Arkenstone, 1978)


Aestivally,

CE

To My Left Pinkie, Revised

Here is a second draft of my pinkie poem:


To My Left Pinkie (three weeks after the motorcycle accident)

You were not sprained as I twirled,
suspended as if on a rotisserie,
slamming each shoulder in turn
before my helmet broke
and I lay supine on Highway 1.
How dare you play the fool
and insist it's you that hurts!
Alien digit on my keyboard
punished by each 'a' and 'z,'
you would make my neck a liar.

Faintly I feel your origins
descend my inner arm and elbow
down to the ulna's tip until
pain absolutely concentrates
in your three-jointed misery,
as if you were freshly broken
or come too near to frostbite--
but there's no bruise or swelling
just your wrinkled cylinder
with two tufts of blond hair.

In pain's intensity
your pink and yellow flesh tones
seem strangely psychedelic.
Are you showing off?
How odd to be upstaged
by such an undistinguished part!
The indignity! I can no longer play
a 7th chord on my guitar, a demonstration
of how the body boils down pain
to elementary deception.
Should I accept this, rail at you
and indemnify my spine?
Who switched a deuce for a queen?
And if I can't trust your trumped-up signal
how can I trust anything?

You have hoarded the free currency of pain
inside your little bank, out-shouting
all my separations, dislocations,
compressions and abrasions.
Perhaps the Empiricists were right.
Perhaps a headache comes
from undetected hemorrhoids,
bursitis from a hangnail,
my fluttering eye's tick
from an abraded knee.
So much for the perceiver.
If you were a middle finger
I could make the right response.

Your insult is one of disproportion,
encapsulating suffering
into one mean appendage,
oppressed and oppressing,
without splint or dressing,
a nothing turned celebrity
in the mistaken pagination of the brain.
Traitor, puppet, fall guy, shill,
least valuable of digits!
Worm not worthy of a ring,
usurper of my first-born pain,
poseur, impostor, not even
my first choice to pick my nose
when it should be my neck on the marquee!
Still “ouch!” means “ouch!” I yield
the floor to a deceptive field;
perception's not all it's cracked up to be.



CE

Poem: To My Left Pinkie

Here's a fresh draft regarding my recovery and referred pain. I owe the idea of this piece to Scott Murphy and his wonderful poem, "A Conversation, a Praise." No doubt this poem on a phantom tweak needs some real tweaking before I put it in a finished folder. Comments and criticism appreciated.



To My Left Pinkie

You were not sprained as I twirled
as if suspended on a rotisserie, slamming
each shoulder before my helmet broke
and I lay supine, a failed gymnast
in a hair-raising routine.
You make my neck a liar:
the pain comes from my cervical disks,
old donuts leaking jelly on the nerves,
not from some local dislocation.

I'm past the blackout pain, a telegraphic
shock sharper than any razor stropped,
as if my arm were an electric cattle prod,
my scapulae molten bomb fragments,
my ribs losing their welds,
barbed wire around my thorax
like a poisoned barrel hoop.
Three weeks post-accident
you have achieved a stardom undeserved,
you, alien digit on my keyboard
punishing each 'a' and 'z.'

Faintly I feel your origins
descend my inner arm and elbow
down to the ulna's tip until
pain absolutely concentrates
in your three-jointed misery.
You ache as if you had been broken
or come too near to frostbite
but there's no bruise or swelling,
just your wrinkled cylinder
with two patches of blond hair.
In pain's intensity, your pink and yellow flesh tones
seem strangely psychedelic.
How dare you play the fool
and insist it's you that hurts!
You, you were spared, no miner's canary
but a turd left in the tunnel after rescue.
So easy to ignore before,
I'm sorry I underestimated you.
I pledge allegiance to the body's meanest parts,
all are potential understudies
in the drama of pain's economy.

How odd to be upstaged
by such an undistinguished part.
The indignity! I cannot play
a 7th chord on my guitar, rude evidence
of how the body boils pain
down to an elementary deception.
How can I rail at you and indemnify my spine?
Who switched a deuce for a queen?

Your pain enlists a mother board
of cervical and other plexi
whose interwoven signals
processed through a blind committee
agree you are the victim and the oppressor,
symbol of all that alienates us from ourselves.
If we can't trust the origin of sensation
how can we trust anything?

Locke, Berkeley, Hume, I take it back.
“If a tree falls in a forest,” ha!
It may be that a headache comes
from undetected hemorrhoids,
bursitis from a hangnail,
the tick of my fluttering eye
from an abraded knee.

Pain is a currency, it seems
free traded throughout the corpus,
for me now hoarded in a pinkie bank.
Of all my separations, dislocations
and compressions, you claim pre-eminence.
If you were my middle finger
I could make the right response of you.
Instead I use my right hand to curse you.

Mainly your insult is one of disproportion,
how you encapsulate my suffering
into a small appendage,
oppressed and oppressing,
in no need of splint or dressing,
a nothing elevated to celebrity
in the tabloid of the brain.
You, traitor, puppet, fall guy, shill,
least valuable of digits!
You, worm not worthy of a ring,
usurper through your phantom pain,
poseur, impostor, bastard of extremities,
not even my first choice to pick my nose
when it should be my neck on the marquee!
Still, “Ouch, ouch!”--you win!



Unstably Yours,

CE

On Rachel's Death

We just passed the anniversary of my daughter's memorial service. Prior to that, on the anniversary of her death, we scattered her ashes where the river meets the sea on the Mendocino coast, where she and Jacob had played together.

It was tough but also freeing. Amidst my tears I lost control of the empty bag of ashes while being pushed at once from both the river and ocean currents. I almost fell in. I didn't recover the bag. There's a poem in that.

While looking through a draft file last night I found a three-line sketch and re-formatted it:


On Rachel's Death

The hole
in the ground
left by the tree

the hole left
by her life
or my life
or any life

always lacks
dirt enough
to cover
the uprooted
root-crown.

Loss is a coin
tossed down
a depthless well;

you listen
for a splash
that never

comes.


I'm in some sort of mixed state, can go from anger to worry to sadness to confidence to happiness in a matter of hours. I've increased my Abilify dose because of it.

Aren't some of the Olympic commercials terrific? Love the United ads.


In Kiloinstability,

CE

A Poem; Positively Bud, More Therapy

I wrote a poem, despite my recent aridity. I don't know what to make of it, but here it is:


At Least

My beard reflected in the glass door of the library:
salt and dandelions, the white fuzz.
I never thought I'd get this old.

Youth cannot imagine mortality's attrition.
In its Dr. Pepper commercial
the gum is always fresh and everyone's a virgin.

Still, the greater part of life is dimunition.
From 25 to 75 it's downhill. The body knows
but the mind may not face it until 50.

If then you accept your growing impotence
and avoid an angry showdown with your pride
you might age gracefully.

At least try not to be ridiculous
like the man with the ill-fitting toupee
worthy of its own hunting season.

***************************



Positively Bud Installment #9


"How about your mother?" Troy continued.

"She was sick a lot with headaches, you know. She never seemed very happy. Always going to doctors. You were afraid to ask her for help because she seemed sick and frail, yet she outlived my dad. I can't remember her laughing."

"Did she cook for you?"

"Yes."

"Did she wash your clothes, mend them, and keep house?"

"To the best of her ability."

"So your poor frail mother with her chronic headaches nevertheless loved you enough to overcome her illness for your sake and cook and clean and do the wash?"

"Well, I guess so."

"Either she did or she didn't."

"She did."

"Then she must have loved you very much. Your mother loved you."

"But it doesn't feel that way."

"Why?"

"Because I was afraid to ask her for things, afraid to be a burden to her. It was like an unspoken rule that she was exhausted, on her last legs so to speak, and we were not to upset her."

"So what? She had limitations, but she loved you the best she could. Your mother loved you.
Say it!"

"My mother loved me."

"Again!"

"My mother loved me."

"How much?"

"A lot."

"Enough that she consistently overcame her own frailties to take care of you. She loved you a lot. Say it!"

"My mother loved me a lot!"

"How does that feel?"

"Good."

"How does that feel?"

"Terrific."

"Repeat after me: 'I am special because I am unique. I am lucky because my father and mother loved me."

Bud did so, and the strange sensation of a visceral optimism came over him again.

"Great!" said Troy. "That's enough for this morning's session. Before this afternoon I want you to write, fifty times each, 'I am special because I am unique. My father dearly loved me. My mother dearly loved me. And I love myself.' OK?"

"Sure," Bud answered, his voice betraying a nascent enthusiasm.

Larry entered the room on cue. "Next on the agenda, my man, is some interpretive art therapy. Follow me."

They wound their way through several corridors until they entered a large rectangular room wallpapered in daisies whose long blue tables were strewn with magazines, posters and pictures, whole and in pieces. A cheerful, matronly woman with a gray bun stood at the head of the room. Several patients were thumbing through pictures at tables, intent on their work.

"I'll leave you here for now," Larry said and left.

"Hello, Mr. Rose. May I call you Bud?"

"Why, yes," he replied. The therapist looked like an overstuffed and graying Mary Poppins, silver reading glasses perched on her upturned nose, with a variety of brown and red moles on her neck which Bud thought could pass for art.

"I understand you're new to our program, so I'm going to give you a little individual attention this morning. Please join me at my desk." She motioned him over to the head of the room and sat across from him with an indulgent smile.

"What we do here is try to change your basic interpretation of reality," she said. "We begin with pictures. You tell me what you see and feel, and then I'll explore with you some alternate ways of seeing, OK?"

"Sure," Bud said while the singsong mantra played through his mind: "I am unique, unique, unique, my father loved me, my mother loved me, I am unique, unique, unique."

"Here's the first picture." She slid a black and white photograph across the desk. "What do you see?"

Bud saw a dog, a large tan boxer, freshly run over in the middle of the street. A truck was parked at an odd angle just off the curb and a man in a blue uniform, presumably from the truck, was bending over the injured dog. "I see a tragedy," Bud began, "a terrible accident. The man didn't mean to run the dog over and now he doesn't know what to do."

Mrs. Claiborne clucked. "You don't have to see it that way, you know, dear. Think of it this way: a dog with an irresponsible owner who let him run free without a leash was put out of its misery by an accident. A caring truck driver ministers to the dog and demonstrates human compassion. It is good that the dog died, otherwise he might have suffered more at the owner's hands. And the driver knows perfectly well what to do; he's about to call the pound to pick up the animal. The impact was too sudden to be painful. The accident will make the truck driver an even better driver, and he'll have an interesting story to tell his family that night. How do you like my version?"

"You have a wonderful imagination, Mrs. Claiborne."

"Hogwash! I have a limited imagination. But I have disciplined myself to put the best possible construction on things in the interest of mental health. Here's a second picture."

The notorious picture of Bobby Kennedy's assassination stared up at him.

"What do you see?" Mrs. Claiborne asked.

"A horrible tragedy," Bud said. "The death of a man who brought hope to many at the hands of a fanatic."

"Now, now, Bud, you're the one with the good imagination. What you see is the last successful assassination attempt on a president or presidential candidate. Reagan was wounded but survived. There has not been another tragedy like this in many years. And you know why?"

"No, why?"

"Precisely because attempts like this one gave rise to greater security precautions for all candidates. We have Bobby Kennedy and Sirhan Sirhan to thank for our genuine improvement in protecting notables. With this next picture I want you to try to see things more our way."

Something outside myself....

Calls

Though repeated over and over
they sound equally urgent

as if a mad ventriloquist had placed a hand
in each feathered back, egging them onward,

desperate to pierce air the way
the meadowlark embroiders wind.

Some may be calls for mates, yes,
and some for territory, but I swear

most call because they are birds
and for no other reason.

The birds are mad with joy
but they don't know it.

It takes a human mind to parse
delight behind these repetitions,

each as urgent as the last.

***********************************

Perhaps if I only wrote about things outside of myself, perhaps if I concentrated only on what is joyful, my mood would be better served than by the long analytical posts about how stuck I am. So I'll give it a shot, starting with today's little poem.

CE

How I Am Currently Responding to Current

Two weeks into ECT and I'm not doing very well. I feel in danger of complete relapse. What precipitated it was my sister's generous suggestion to have a driver take me home for the weekend to Mendocino. My sister's too good of a soul to say, "It's been almost three weeks and you're a space eater and I'd like my house and nuclear family back," but that has to be part of it, too, and I understand. Even though I try to make myself scarce, hiding in the basement with a book, going for walks, I am nevertheless an interloper, a species not native to this house, like a northern pike in a trout lake.

The thought of seeing my one true love, Kathleen, while still depressed, was too much to bear. I so want to get well for her; I want her suffering to end, and because of the love she bears me her suffering can only end when I am stable and my depression is in remission. As my illness began on April 1, 2006, it will soon be of two year's duration, with only two partial and brief remissions. I'm a sick puppy. I can't imagine being in Kathleen's position; I have been with her during her depressions but she's never had one this protracted and treatment-resistantant since I've known her. Nothing makes me sadder than the thought that my presence will sadden Kathleen. We had such hopes for this treatment! Obviously I need more, but how much will be enough? And I'm wondering if I shouldn't be on stronger medications as well to try to help stabilize my mood during treatment.

In any case I broke down in tears in front of my sister after treatment today, not a good thing. I also forgot a lunch date I'd made with a poet from San Francisco; the overwhelming emotion of my situation caused me to forget. I did call him and told him I had a good excuse for forgetfulness: "Sorry, I had electroconvulsive therapy this morning." He likely didn't need to hear that and was probably relieved not to have lunch with me afterwards, though he said he still wanted to meet. Oh well. I wouldn't have been very good company in any case.

I just finished Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, which my sister recommended. Atwood's work always humbles me and I did find this book alluring.

I got a note from Sam Rasnake today that soon a new issue of Blue Fifth Review will be out and had forgotten that I had a poem in it, "Home Surgery." I'll have another poem in Barnwood (a paying venue) and three in Umbrella. Niederngasse has also accepted a poem, as has Barefoot Muse. These are all pretty good venues and I'll post the links again when my work comes out. (Meanwhile you don't need me as an excuse to visit these fine e-zines!)

See that? Talking about something besides myself, like literature, helped the tears dry up. (I try to explain to Craig that he's not worth crying over but he doesn't get it.)

So, having mentioned a number of poems you can't see yet, here's one I wrote the other day in San Francisco:


Something Christian

Rheumy eyes, mahogany head;
tan polyester coat, white shirt;
no tie; septuagenarian
tiny Chinese-American
stood on a folding two-step
stepladder of aluminum
in Union Square and preached:

"Homo sick! Queer go to hell!
“AIDS wrath of God”

I must say I've never understood
why Jesus hates queers
more than other men.
Besides, if God has time
to invent new scourges
to punish the innocent--
babies guilty of birth,
patients guilty of transfusion,
doctors guilty of defective gloves--
maybe I'm on the wrong side?

"The city is filled with sin!”

How must it feel behind those rheumy eyes
to hate and think God's work is being done?

"You look unhappy,” I offered,
"Your eyes are filled with hate.”

“I hate the devil and I hate sin,” he said,
his thin lips set in a Maginot line.

"No, no, you hate yourself,” I said.

His look of incomprehension
was almost beyond redemption.
I should have passed and said nothing
like the other pedestrians
but something Christian wanted out.


Pray for me in whatever way approximates prayer for you; if you are an atheist you can wish for new treatments for depression, for instance.

In need of a miracle,

CE

Fulfilling an Assignment

Rachel is slowly becoming a groove in my sedimentary geology. The fossil fills with calcium; the calcium is mine.

My daughter lives through me and all who loved her. She was a joy and a gift. I did not cry over her today, which means nothing except an aberration in my limbic patterns.

Meanwhile, in filling up my dance card, my creative writing teacher gave us this week's prompt: to write a non-rhyming poem of 15 lines with the words "sour, pepper and seven."

I have given up poetry but could not fail my assignment:


Beginning with the Pleiades

Like white pepper thrown against the night
there are six, not seven sisters—
and Orion’s dog looks nothing like a dog.

Not to sour on the Greeks,
but if they had not connected the dots
into standard constellations

Would our imagination benefit?
Or must the memory of a superior culture
inhibit what we envision?

Pigeon shit scattered on Churchill’s statue;
winter may hide it but for now
the present outranks the past.

The Greeks kidnapped the stars,
but what artist among us could top
a terrifying darkness woven with bright gods?


More importantly, I received a two-page single-spaced letter from a major poet yesterday about my work. To my astonishment she told me that I was on my own; that the level I had attained would likely not be helped by workshops or mentors or other aids. She also mentioned that her success had nothing to do with connections but with the faithful licking of envelopes.

Perserverance. Again and again. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Never give up. The reason to write is because you are a writer and you must.

Kathleen and I had breakfast with Pat Jones this morning (art maven for Shit Creek Review), and we reminisced about the early LitNet and characters like Don Taylor, Jaimes Alsop and the the late Ron Jones. She keeps pushing me to post at the Gazebo again. Maybe I will.

Small world, huh?


2 Kilobunnies,

CE

Black Bile and Toss-Offs

Here's a cross section from a liver containing black and green bile:




As you know, the ancients blamed melancholy on an overabundance of one of the four humors, namely black bile. I'm sure my liver looks worse.

Home internet service has been cut off for now, so I may be blogging more infrequently. If we do get it restored, it will only be dial-up, where there is enough time to commit suicide between downloads, and where such waiting may indeed drive one to suicide.

I woke up today at 1:30 PM due to a new antipsychotic I initiated (Zyprexa), though my shrink wanted me to wait a week. I couldn’t bear to wait. I’ve been so discouraged I’ve begun to think of depression as a condition not an illness. At the end of July I will have matched my longest depression of 1982, 16 months. That one was cut short by electroconvulsive therapy, thankfully, something unavailable to me now because I make too much for the government to help me but not enough to afford health insurance. I should apply for SSI but am told the process is so time-consuming that I had thought I would be out of this depression before Medicare would pay for ECT. 16 months later that appears as a very bad idea, but there is also a strong pride within me that would refuse government help. As a former taxpayer that is also bad thinking.

This depression has not been as intense as the 1982-83 depression, mainly because at 52 I have a foundation of knowledge that gives me hope beyond my present symptoms. It doesn’t make the pain less painful, just less final. But the idea that depression could be my life condition does scare me. (Here I would normally begin to weep but the Zyprexa has the upper hand.) Also, as those of you know who have followed my journey, I have had brief spells of euthymia during this depression, only to have them crushed. In my worst depression there was no relief whatsoever before Ben Franklin flew a kite from my head.

Imagine that your brain was your liver and you had Hepatitis C. Or say you were a kidney that needed dialysis but couldn’t afford it, or a hip joint whose pain no cane could ameliorate but without funds to be replaced. These are metaphors to help explain manic-depression to those who don’t suffer it.

Because the disease involves the brain directly, the ego, the consciousness that says “I,” the brain, in what normally would not be faulty logic, becomes convinced that it, the brain, is the cause of the disease rather than a victim of the disease. Imagine if the liver blamed itself for hepatitis when it was really a contaminated needle; if the kidney blamed itself when its demise was due to lupus; or if the hip named itself the guilty party when every septuagenarian suffers hip degeneration. The beauty of hepatitis, nephropathy and degenerative arthritis is that the organs and joints involved do not harbor consciousness, thus can’t blame themselves. Imagine: “I’m such a bad hip. I’m a complete fuck-up. Why did I let the protective cartilage wear down? I should have told her to stop jogging in her fifties. But would she have listened? Woe is me, I am only pain, pain is all I am; if only I could be replaced! If your brain were in your hip, that’s how it would sound.

This is an oversimplification of a complex disease, yet all metaphorical parallels for other processes suffer some distorting parallax; in this case I think the comparison apt.

On the poetry front, although I have given up writing it, I still have submissions pending. One I sent to New Zealand Magazine by post. Today I received an acceptance of the poem, “Strangers.” Per usual I thought it the weakest poem in the lot; it was a toss-off, something I scribbled down about an experience in a matter of minutes. I find that such toss-offs fare far better with editors than what I consider my best poems, poems not only inspired but also labored over, with each word and line mouthed out loud and carefully considered. This is no criticism of editors or this fine magazine; I'm glad to be accepted by anybody, seeing as how I can't accept myself.

What I think my best is not what editors want. They want fresh experience transmitted. Photos of the human condition. Home movie clips.

The death of Confessional Poetry, whose heyday was the 60s, has been much exaggerated, and with six billion humans, say 2 billion of them literate, our reserve of individual experience is still holding. Still, experience is not an inexhaustible resource. The Romantics, like Coleridge, Shelly and Keats, hailed “Fancy” (their word for imagination) as the basis of poetry. Thus we have great poems like “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “The Eve of Saint Agnes,” both of them imagined. Romantics thought imagination, or the power of fictional creation, to be the heart of poetry. Nowadays it is the reverse. Only real experience, or at best “creative non-fiction,” satisfies editors’ craving for the real.

What this means for me is that what I consider my lesser poems, my toss-offs, will always be preferred over my better ones. I ever return to writing poetry, I must throw away my classical prejudices and write for the moment.

My essay on inductive and deductive poetry will soon appear in Blue Fifth Review and does a nice job of dissecting these preferences.

Meanwhile, in between crying jags and thoughts of hopelessness, impending impoverishment and the annihilation of the self, I continue to labor over my “airport” novel. I’m three quarters of the way through but have come upon a knotty problem; the idea and the execution of the supposed climactic ending simply stink. There is less tension in the conclusion of the novel than what precedes it, a death knell for any story. So I must start nearly from scratch and re-think the whole section. My self-imposed deadline is August 9, when the writer’s conference begins. Kathleen has offered to read the first three quarters of the book to help me realize an ending; I am loathe to inflict such suffering on her but have agreed to do so, as I am neither at my wit’s end nor beginning; I am without wit and short on Fancy.


3 Kilorats,

CE

Love Poem

I posted some manic-depressive poems a year ago; now why not some love poems? I don't have to be a poet to share what I wrote when I thought I was a poet, although saying this comes close to a tautology in its obviousness, more a redundancy, actually, just like my use of "actually." How I do blather! Ignore me. Or don't. And thanks for all the lively discussion that followed my last post.

Here:


Gift

You are a fever in my blood.
You douse the sun, turn the sky violet.

All my veins flow backwards.
Swollen with love, my heart seeks its double.

Your mouth seals mine,
inhaling all my purple waste.

Love, I am riddled with glory:
light pours through bullet holes.


Tomorrow I lead my first tour at the Fort Bragg Botanical Gardens as a certified "Master Gardener," one of the first in our county (though it's kind of like a medal from the Wizard of Oz; there are so many gardeners here who know so much more than I and always will).


Bouncing between kilobunnies and kilorats in a mixed state; little things piss me off, and I'm not just speaking of my anatomy,

CE