This will be — at least, it will begin as — a potpourri. Why? Perhaps only because such suits my mood: Pensive, playful, peaceful, proud.

If that list seems odd to you, you’ve come to the right place: One of the tasks I’ve set myself, to be accomplished here, by my usual circuitous (…you may call it Devious! if you’d prefer formality to familiarity: But mark my words: No simpler road will take us the whole way….

And the terminus is -in my estimation- a worthy destination! One which, once visited, will forever remain a touchstone.

***

“To be or not to be”: Ontology 101

A poet makes a certain commitment, else he’s something else. I remember the comic Stephen Wright (he and I grew up in Cantabrigia, just north of staid, stolid Boston! 🙂 telling a crowd, “I know just how that is! Why, just the other day I was — No-o… Wait! That wasn’t me…”

Straightforward analysis explains why those few lines together produce unrestrained mirth! (I’ll leave it there, as an exercise if you will! 🙂 :(if you won’t, well, Ladies and Jelly Beans, that’s what the comment section below is for…( 🙂

I’ll provide hints and obscure riddlings along the way; so don’t feel compelled… (Although you should know: participation will count for 10% of your final grade.)

Let’s see now: Where was I? Well I remember planting my fanny firmly down upon the cushioned eternal Now. Seems likely -doesn’t it- that that’s the expected answer. Have you any argument to make us reconsider the proposition? (I don’t see any hands; but this question matters… I’ll return to it before too long.)

Anywho, we were talking about Wittgenstein’s perennial toothache, which reflects a remarkable fact about the present and the past: So far as I know, we can remember feeling pain; but it is impossible to actually feel the pain again, via memory!

But poetry is a counter-example: A successful poem doesn’t just evoke consanguine feeling: It re-creates it in one’s apprehension. (Quite the nifty trick, no? 🙂

https://oakdaleftl.tumblr.com/post/645802991636660224/being-but-men-by-dylan-thomas-being-but-men-we

My one and only spatial!

Here’s a puzzle of sorts… (I’ll explain, in detail, anon if I can remember…)

Much later…

Yesterday I met at a park in Jamestown, California, the most captivating Y-not! She was sitting, on a patch of grass in front of the old jailhouse — with two of her dogs (Loki and the nameless elder bitch) lolling behind her, nursing her Hurricane 25…

I’d come to the park seeking sun and shade and solitude, in which to dissipate the glow of the two Guinnesses I’d had on a lark… (The only way I’ve found to treat my thirsty moods, and remain true to myself.) But -better yet- I stumbled upon Amber Powers, and struck up a conversation. As is my wont, I let the questions ping-pong over the net of manners society provides and noted with what I hope was shared satisfaction: Our volley was not without some interest.

Of her I learned (and gleaned!) enough to admit to myself: I’d somehow become smitten, again! Hopelessly helplessly fallen so deeply in “like” that I felt like a new man, up to the oldest and noblest of challenges: Wooing.

(As far as my previous long-distance relationships went and my recent such, I confess: My sense of possibilities has remained outrageously optimistic… Only, their new-found old-fashioned acquiescence to logistics is new; (see map)

I have the requisite means. And, Lord love a duck, I am compelled -this time- to make a real quest of it!

How do I know?

I can’t possibly explain myself plainly… But I can and do often act the exegete — after a fashion: I sonnet!

Tweet “42!”

I’ll call her Amethyst, not Amber…

and let both the tease and the complement

linger a mysterious wafting scent

about each glance askew like bud’s camber.

;

(It is -after all- undeniably

so: The firmament relies on flowers

to stay both aloft and aloof! Showers

but tease us ’bout the ocean canopy

;

above and when a rain pelts reminds us

how far we’ve come — from the ocean below!)

Why talk of heights and depths where souls might go

when there is in each look we share the fuss

;

of whole lives’ pasts’ adventure to ponder?

And the trilled calling of birdsong yonder!

Pics to follow: Shot with 35mm film, of course!