THE DANGER OF POETRY AND OLD MEMORIES
Early Saturday morning. The main tune of the day is rain. All the fans I own are whirling away in strategic places around the place I dwell in and call home. It is warm. It is clammy. Not unpleasant. The air feels rather soft, touching my skimpily clad body with soft gossamer fingers. It makes me feel sensual and dreamy.
After a rain walk with Super Dog, the day stretched ahead of me like a blank page. During the past days I've been drastically cleaning house. I hate cleaning, but even more I hate it when everything starts looking cluttered and dowdy and seems to be covered with a film of dirt. Action required!!! Three boxes of kitchen dishes went rattling in my little red wagon to the Salvation Army thrift store, enough to feed food and drink to an army. I don't even have a particular talent to be a pack rat. How do I end up being one anyhow? You'd figure that my kitchen cupboard are empty now. Wrong! The plus is that I can oversee what I have now.
The point I am making is that after the rain walk I came home to order and space. Dog and me had breakfast. Cat likely was hunting his own, in spite of his personal dish being filled with his top choice kibbles. And then I sat down in my rocking chair with a cup of tea, and thought of a poem. It doesn't matter which one. I envisioned the booklet it was in. I went downstairs to look for it. I'm not even sure I found it. I don't even remember what I was looking for. But my eye fell on a book called “Pocket Man.” Don Bell wrote it. A wild story about a most eccentric man called Roy McDonald. The man who wrote, “Living a London Journal.” Where was that book? And what happened to that funny other little booklet with his hilarious poem “The Answer Questioned?”
So I started rummaging around. Upstairs and downstairs. Soon upstairs I sat surrounded by books, booklets, newsletters, reliving the time of the late seventies and early eighties, a time of friendships, poetry and partying. Each item I held in my hands presenting me with a precious memory.

I Opened “Pocketman” and saw my neat ex libris I used those days to personalize my books.. A little, old wizened dwarf with a walking stick, in a woodsy nature setting, a friend I used to work wit gave me because she thought that typified me. And on the blank leaf beside it Roy, who gave me the book, wrote: “I liked your book of poetry very much. Your poetry is sensitive and honest as you are. I wish you all the best, always. In friendship, Roy. “( I had given him one of my handmade booklets.)

And in “The Answer Questioned he wrote, “This book was published last night. You have One of the first 25 copies. I treasure the copy of your short story, “Hey Diddle Diddle”.
Oh yeah, that was a story I wrote when he and I were in the same creative writing class. Maybe I should find that story and read it again. It was very Jungian. My mind was very occupied with alternative thinking and finding meaning in dreams then.

From among the books on the floor I had pulled out, at random I picked up a volume of Jan Figurski, The Stevensdaughter Poems. I always liked Jan Figurski, I liked his poems from hearing them being read by him, at poetry readings in The London Main Library meetings. Once he accompanied me with guitar, when I was reading my poems at the park. Looking at the book, I realized that I haven't even really read it. It will have to go to the bathroom. (A lot of my reading, I must admit, I do in the bathroom. One of Jan's poems I liked so much, I copied it into my “A Hobbit Travels Book, may the stars shine upon your face”a journal I used for sort of a record of poems I wrote myself, and some of others I particularly liked. Jan and his wife were expecting a baby, and he wrote:

A Sense of Wonder
One early morning me and you
and one as yet unnamed
will hear the sound of drying dew.
Our ears will tingle, softly mingled
with others still untamed.
A sound is but vibration,
As if that was enough!
But how we feel a finer sensation
is made of slipp'rier stuff.

Other poems he wrote are better crafted. I like this one because he tries to catch an emotion that really lies beyond his physical grasp.

My own introductory poem in the Hobbit book reads,

There are spaces
in time where we can live
in leisure and leave
all logic behind.

Where snatched from
our world by whimsical
faeries, it's only
sweet magic
we
find.

And I filled that book with hand written dreams and poems and longings and magic all signifying my state of mind at the time. Sometimes I didn't know if I was awake or dreaming.. I had day visions and night visions. I was in love. Experienced things that weren't One poem in the same book reads,

Air?

You found me unaware
and trailed a passionate kiss
along my lips, so swift,
I gasped at empty air.

Was that your dream or
was it mine or just a trick of time?
One thing I know for sure,
There was no body there.

The man I was in love with,without knowing about my poem, wrote.

When I dreamed you were here
you were.
As a dove my heart took flight
to decent upon your shoulder

Only to find a cloud
drifting away
in the morning mist
never to come again.

Was that about me? I don't think so. I was just struck by the similarity of dream feelings.

While dwelling in that time capsule of the past, I remembered one of the poem posters still hanging on the wall downstairs. I went to look at it. Frank Raymond, an experimental poet, great performer. He signed the poster: “For pretty netty.” Ah, I was still pretty then, although I never really believed it myself. Pity!

And then I though of Bill Bissett, experimental poet, and musician. He performed his poetry with rhythm instruments and song. He played with word spellings like Larry does. (Whoever reads this and doesn't know Larry, forget I said that. This is no place to explain Larry.) He also formed his poems into shapes on the page. (It's too much writing to give an example of such a shape. One looks like a sailboat.) A tiny fragment of his spelling, I can do.

u
say
yes now
th rain in th
treez the rain in
yr eye nd
evry way yu dew it

Bill moved to Vancouver. I wrote him a letter, just to keep in touch. He wrote me back. We corresponded for quite a while. He sent me his publication “Medicine My Mouth On Fire.” On the title page, in simple lines, he drew gulls in flight and waves, around, 'for netty, love bill.'

Some lines extracted from his letters are,”reallee nice to heer from you-that was a luvlee nite.” “Yes, sumtimes dreem images occur in th writing.” “Thrain seems to have stoppd heer, allthbe ok, love bill.

I have a newly pile of reading to stack on my reading bench in the bathroom. Oh boy. Will I really get to read it? Once withdrawn from my time capsule, the one I am still in right now, will life in “Outer Space” reclaim me and keep me busy with nowadays living again?

I started this journey into the past, early this morning. Right now it is almost 3 pm. It's good that I didn't have any “must does.” Forgetting time like this really can be dangerous.
Since the Dovetale blog is in hibernation, and I had on mind to try to revive it once more, (much chance!) I will publish this for dovetalers to read, and very likely also bring it to editing circle. Some people may get to read it twice that way. But I suppose that won't hurt.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO ALL FATHERS.

WILD THING

P.S. I don't feel like reading this over again, excusez moi for left typos.