THE FOLLOWING POST WAS WRITTEN ON MARCH 5, 2021
The difference between your reaction to everything being wrong and nothing at all isn’t much. In either case you do the next thing, and the thing after that, in a succession of duties and prompts that are our lives—whether you’re paying attention or not. I tend to pay attention when I’m in trouble but when the coast is clear I can’t focus at all. The immediacy of Art as a medium, and the fact that I always felt like I was born to trouble, drew me to writers and creators who performed like their lives depended on it. Turns out they did, in most cases, but whether or not they were in The Shit I certainly was, and I came to the reading and the show. I came into the bookstore and pulled it off the shelf. It’s hard not to take being misunderstood personally, which of course fated the discovery of visionaries and poets writing from the outside and who I consider my allies to this day. I’ve come to view being lost as my true direction and this wisdom came with a price. Everything fell away and I don’t miss most of it but it’s always a gamble breaking from the pack. Lucky for me and the artists in my cadre, sticking around was only a rank suffering, so even if I never found my way I knew I’d never find it listening to my parents or profs either. Anyone who could take it and hang was suspect and my pain was a mark on me. I felt too much but still couldn’t be happy. This hasn’t changed but after long decades on the outside I’ve found contentment in my own strange conquest and prize. It wasn’t about being right, even if it feels good after being so maligned among settling minds. These days knowing I was right brings me no comfort as all I saw was the doom and forfeiture of the USA. I could’ve done more and that’s a burden I carry but with everything being wrong I’m set to rights, at the desk and right back where I started.
I only wanted a world of my own. I took my lumps thinking there was something wrong with me and even though I now know there is, there’s something far worse that’s been happening, and dark and ruefully coming to a close. We shouldn’t have killed people and we shouldn’t have tolerated a culture that worships death. Avoidable tragedy and horrible graft, war and starvation wages rage on. The only thing that’s changed is that we’re inured. We’ve total access but simply don’t care. We’re hemmed in and locked down in the system and at 46 years of age tomorrow I don’t think we could change it now anyway. You know the deal. You watch the news. Strident and progressive change continues only to get rivaled and checked. For every brilliant turn of science and technology there are swaths of the population denying it. The church says if you have a choice between vaccines then choose Pfizer or Moderna, as Johnson & Johnson’s formula is derived from the string of cells of an unborn fetus that died almost 40 years ago. The Governor of Texas is reopening the state on Wednesday as new and wild strains of COVID bloom. State Rep. Marjorie Greene mocks shooting victims in defense of gun control and a raise in the workingman’s standard of living is stalled in mock debate and obstructionism. The white-eyed vireo darts closer to me even on unseasonably warm mornings and despite plumes of cigarette smoke blown out of your Writer in the court. I’m not telling you to give up but I’m past wondering. I’m not waiting for stability or a return to normal. I’m at the desk sipping mint tea and would kill for an espresso with white sugar. My phone rings and goes to voicemail but the inbox is full. The last time I answered it was the office of my GI, calling to collect on my doc’s fee to perform my colonoscopy, after already collecting $900 a month for the procedure itself. I rant and rail here, because it’s what I do. I write about dastards and curs like Greene and Abbott and about fighting to get out of the hometown only to get shut down by the same ignorance in their ranks. I’m not even telling you to give in. But I am. This much craziness is too much pain.
I wrote from the hip and my seat here when I wasn’t busting my balls working for the man. I’ve a body of work behind me written catch-as-catch-can. I found a little glory and even magic at this altar and at these keys or the type. Used to be I was only reporting in the middle of my own ruinous reel and volleying between the self-talk of a parasite or a God. I know now what’s really wrong and how to change it and it’s my own seasons, my own daily ablutions and pitfalls. I eat a slow breakfast and I try to quit smoking even as the world we know gets blown right away. I’m not wondering or getting mired in if only; I’m a columnist and a poet whether or not you see me at the AWP or if I get paid. Beyond the trellis and wood fence, rich kids whine and play as a dark climate gathers somewhere in a shroud, crouching and ready to strike. They don’t know it’s the end but I do and I’m in here at the window getting it down neat and fine—because it’ll make me feel better and I said I would. I’m going to keep doing what I said I would and whether it’s out of love or spite I’ll do it more. I’m getting myself together and finding ways to cope other than writing 600 words a week in incredulity and rage. I’m not angry anymore. My trouble was always wanting more from the world and expecting others to act as good brothers and sisters, that we wouldn’t wage war and we could live and even thrive if everyone had peace and clean water. Of course there were other things working me, bad habits and the karma that fostered and spurred them on. That’s the kind of trouble I’m dealing with and working on what’s wrong with me is how I’ll spend my time. I’m moving toward my love whether she’s there and waiting or hasn’t even showed up to the ball. Of course this makes me part of the silent majority ain’t it, not holding any banner or putting effort into making a change. I don’t much like that either but I’ll be working at it, as much as I can, inside.
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on Friday March 12 at 7P.M CST.
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