9107

Another month rears it’s sleepy bollocks. I guess the trip is continuing. Left the barracks yesterday morning. Now, I feel I can say I’m in prison. There are 3 yards in Oshkosh. This one is the furthermost away. The back yard. We see neighborhoods. (Story is some of these cops live there – a big Yuck! Can you imagine “that” life? Yuck). Hear traffic & sometimes the race track. It’s a good yard. Met some great guys yes, some real pieces of shit. Some amazing artists. So without question I wanted to stay here. As I found the news I told all my guys in the barracks – adding “This is such an odd feeling. I’m actually happy”. So goes it. Since arrest this cell is my 6th move. Some guys are definitely double digits. They like to place you to see how you’ll be. I, because of my heart problems, have a lower bunk – lower floor restriction. The sergeant warns me “because of your restrictions we had no choice”. I anticipate “bubba”. I get an alright guy with stinky feet. Very quiet. Right next door to Slim. Alright. We’ll look out for each other. Right now like two old men fighting over the last cigar. “Listen”. He’s teaching me to project. Strange at times his enunciation is identical to Ginsberg’s.

No mail for the last couple of days. That’s hard. But I checked out a few books on cowboys. Lining up artists to draw up flyers for Noah’s band Highlonesome. That’s where all my pain resides. Funky shack on the end of town. Refrigerator on the front porch & my dog in bed with me. I miss Noah. Poets & musicians & every day
Joes can talk & express the sadness of regret. All I can do is stuff rags in that hole in my chest. The state can’t do a goddamn thing to me but move me. Lecture me. Torment me with that fence. My prison is one & one only & the fuckin state can’t do a thing to my prison. My prison is love. Prison of hurting my son. Worse time of our lives & I took the wrong fork. Go figure. I’ll survive and Noah will survive. Time survives. Like the river approaching a rock, we bend. The flow will never cease. The flow our life forces. Just a warning. If the state is allowed to entrap & lie, imagine the lives that live ahead destined to be fucked.
I’ll get up from that swing. There are quite a few guys here that won’t & no question - they’ll be throwing boulders in your stream. Change the name from prison or correctional institution can fool the taxpayers but the sad truth is semantics. Go figure. Maybe Slim should move in your neighborhood – “Listen”.


Speaking of listening – you read- right? Few years back I read “What Did I Do” Autobiography of Larry Rivers. Coolness in print. His stories are magical. His life surreal. His honesty unquestionable & his lovers – well divine. Frank O’Hara – Yeah baby yeah. I’m reading it again right now. Just put it down. Well for those of you who have read it, you get what I’m talking about. You who haven’t – get it. This ain’t no People Magazine bullshit. An amazing artist. A true American. A free thinker. An extinct idea. People don’t live – they follow. The cover up with perfume. Wear another’s name because theirs doesn’t matter. This country home of John Brown, MLK, Malcolm X, Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, WCW, Ezra Pound, Bobby Seale. Come on. I’m not just pointing at you. I’m pointing at me. The sleep I’ve slept. The revolution we’ve missed. Look around. Is this who we are? Yes this country reeks of hypocrisy - slavery – racism-sexism- homophobia. All the slime we scrape from our shoes & polish with tears & sweat from child labor & conditions that our own unions won’t tolerate. What to do. I can’t vote 2014. You can. One man’s prison is another’s welfare. Another pile for the dust pan. History lives before it’s recorded.

I got to work with Robert Creeley once for an Accurate Key at the suggestion & hitting over the head nudging by Stacy Szymaszek (one of the billions & billions of reasons I adore her). Got to hear him read. Like Jonathan Williams, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Robert Rauschenburg & Jasper Johns – plus a ton more of painters, dancers & choreographers – a Black Mountain alumni. A supreme poet. I end with his “Again”.

AGAIN

One more day gone,
done, found in
the form of days.

It began, it
ended – was
forward, backward,

slow, fast a
sun shone, clouds
high in the air I was

for awhile with others,
then came down
on the ground again.

No moon. A room in
a hotel – to begin
again.