Tag: Charles Olson

Categories
Blog

Staring into the void and getting nothing back

This is what we’re up against fellow blogging revolutionaries:

This has to stop! We have to resort to guerrilla tactics and use the big boy’s strength against them! Bloggers unite.

What if you looked inside and found nothing there? What then?

That’s what I feel sometimes when I’m staring into the void and find there’s nothing there. I scream into the void and hear only my voice echoed back.  There’s no-one there.  No-one to answer these questions that I have.  I don’t know whether I should look down, up, or in.

I’ve tried all three at one time or another.

Of late, I’ve been hanging out at the primal level little more than a beast.  Maybe that’s a bit harsh.  By default, I’ve been more embodying the image of man as painted by Hemingway that is “to do what men do – fish, hunt, fuck, fight, howl and die.” This makes life simple and easy to understand.

I’ve looked up. It was peaceful and very Zen.  Being one with yourself is nice, but it’s also very boring.  I feel much more alive when my hair is on fire (and yes, for those of you who know me, I don’t have any hair, well that’s because I burnt it all off!)

I’ve looked in.  The trouble there is you get lost inside yourself if you stay too long. Sometimes you can’t find your way back.  I’ve lost several friends this way.

As I write this post, I’m thinking maybe there’s something about a balance – that we need all three to balance.  I’ve been stuck in Hemingway mode for some time now having turned my back on any spiritual pursuit and run away from self-development. I’m out of balance.

There is a tide in a man
moves him to his moon
and though it drops him back
he works through ebb to mount
the run again and swell
to be tumescent I.

– Charles Olson

I feel drawn to my moon, but wary of the other paths. Either all good could come from them or none.  To sum this up, I think, if there is life after death, then pursuit of enlightenment makes sense. However, if there is nothing after they turn the light off, then it’s gotta be the way of the hedonist.

Until then, I think i’ll keep trying to push through the void…see if someone or something answers me back.

—

I think I’ve found the theme for this blog. It’s part journal, part diary, part love letter to you my friend.

I think I’m going to get back into doing challenges that are physically and mentally challenging.  I was inspired by the link my friend Cathy sent me.  It’s  something from the makers of the Art of Manliness called The Strenuous Life.  I don’t think I’ll join the program – ’cause that’s not how I roll – but the idea of doing stuff that taxes my ingenuity, physicality, mentality and practicality is intriguing.  And I have the perfect opportunity to kick it off.  One of army buddies is in-country in a couple of weeks and he wants to do some sort of challenge.  Open for ideas from you if you have any. My buddy will be in-country for 4 days, so the challenge has to fit in that time frame.

Ok, that’s it for today.  Until next time,

happy

trails

to

you

my

friend.

clay

Soundtrack:

Categories
Blog

Our choices are half chance

I looked on my Goodreads app.  I have 54 books in currently-reading status! My reading goal this year is 100 books.  I’m on 19. I read according to mood or what I want to explore on any given day.  Currently I’m bouncing between the Olson biography and his Selected Poems and Ginsberg’s Journals and Jim Morrison’s poems, both the Wilderness Volume 1 and The Lords.

The Olson stuff is turning me on intellectually, while Ginsberg and Morrison are hitting the passion button and firing me up emotionally. Sometimes, like this morning, there’s a battle between the two – the head and the heart.  I want to read both at the same time!

I might have to leave this one up to the dice, which by the way I’m planning to put into play again. Dicing, as it’s called, is a concept derived from the Luke Rhinehart novel, The Dice Man. I first red the novel back in 2004. The idea behind dicing is that our lives are mostly governed by chance. And what the Dice Man did was to take chance into his own hand by using dice to make all of his decisions. On my very first blog, I wrote a post about it.

Dicing 101

When you have a decision or choice to make, pick 6 options and then let the die decide by assigning a number to each option. One of the options has to be something that is way out of your comfort zone or that you would never do. The ultimate rule of dicing is that you have to abide by the outcome of the roll, no exceptions. I once diced for a week. It was a very interesting week and i’m thinking about bringing the dice back into play, spice things up a little bit.  You can one or two die.  Or your can make two options and then use odd/even to make the decision i.e. if its’ 1,3, or 5 do X if 2,4,6 do Y.  I prefer to do the 6 options roll.

Try it yourself.  The next decision you have to make, big or small, let the dice decide your fate.

Some word sketches, Costa Coffee…

plotting, plotted plopped
down in costa coffee, where
i do my thinking sometime,
eat cheese toasties, fat
dude in blue, small white
coffee, he sits for a few
seconds, then out comes the iPhone
(jut when you thought it was safe
go back into the water
lady in green long sleeve blouse, her
little friend wth a pink uniform
dances about the place

Note to self: Don’t try blogging when you’re tired or have just come from a party feeling topsy!

Anyway, I wrote a micropoem – What Would You Do

I’m plenty tired right now, so I think it’s time i bow out.

Soundtrack:

Categories
Blog

I had to find her the old fashioned way

5A.M Thoughts – We are all afraid to act like ourselves. I read that from a passage in Allen Ginsberg’s journal. That is so true.  Walk into a room full of people and if you’re like me, you probably size up the room before deciding how you want to show yourself.  If it’s a room full of friends, you’ll show one side of yourself; if it’s a room full of strangers, you’ll show another.  It’s even more nuanced then that.  Which friends are in the room will determine which side of you choose to show.  Granted, all these versions are you, but which one is the true you? Or do we wear so many different personas that we no longer know which one is the true version? The tricky thing with the mind is we can fool it into believing anything. So even though I might say I know who I am, do I really?

Continued on with the Olson book.  It’s easy to think that your literary heroes just pour great writing straight onto the page.  This is hardly the case.  I can’t believe how much Olson struggled to get his literary career off the ground.  The anxiety, the lack of confidence, the procrastination, even the greats suffer.  The only thing that can be done is to keep plowing away at it.

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men 
Gang aft a-gley. – Robert Burns

Yes old Burnsie was right, the best laid plans often go awry.  I had a plan for the day, but a quick phone call in the middle of my walk, ended that.

Question:

powered by Typeform

Well I was the recipient of the call to bring the mobile:

I had to find her old school.  I had an approximate location and a length of time she’d be at the location or nearby.  I found her without hitch.  I called an audible on the day.  Instead of doing admin in the morning, I worked on the chapbook at the place I delivered the mobile phone.

I also had the idea that this chapbook should be a collab with a fellow creative, someone visually oriented.  I dropped my dear friend Cherry Williams an instant message.  She accepted.

Afternoon. Admin. Done!

Finished the second cut of the new chapbook.  Settled on 26 poems.  I sent them over to Cherry to read.  I’m looking forward to seeing what images she comes up with to fit the words.

More admin to get through this evening.  I’m running a condensed team-building exercise tomorrow.  After my meeting with the manager last week, I got the impression that tomorrow might be a rough one.  Always hard work when you’re working with a team that has disengaged.

I’m fighting against the clock here and my body.  I want to curl up under my desk and sleep.  Actually I want to stretch out in my bed.

Actually there’s nothing to stop me.

Actually I think I’ll stop here, grab some Baudelaire, and hit the rack. Tomorrow is another day.  Did I accomplish everything that I wanted to do today? I think so.  That’s good enough for me.

Chow!

P.S. Did I mentioned I hate banks and governments and people who try to rip you off just because they can?

Soundtrack: