Christmas day, Friday December 25, 2009 - 5pm

The first and last time I posted on this blog was May 14, more than six months ago.

So much has happened, so much has not happened. I often find myself thinking what if
someone was filiming my life as I am living it, like those reality TV shows, what would the
camera see... an aging ex-femme fatale poet, a writer, who despite the stregnth of her
gift as a writer doesn't seem to be able to get the recognition or audience for her work it deserves. A few times she has come close but either because of self-sabotage or external circumstances, she doesn't make it. For the past year, since losing her job teaching erotic writing at the New School, she has been trying to make a new, better life for herself. The movie would start with how I am now, cooking a lot of beans, trying to keep my apartment in better order, The heroine takes a brain training course on the computer so she will stop loosing her keys, it's working somewhat. She takes a ten - week poetry workshop with a former student in a library up in Harlem. She is the only one who is white but it is not problematic. Everyone learns and we teach each other. (I know that sounds corny but it is true. ) (I am so grateful to Monica, the leader of the workshop, and Heather and Renee who with me made up the workshop, for the great time learning and support we shared. We will be reading at Bluestocking in February and March. Dates of the reading will be posted here.)
More recollections of the past year will be posted here shortly along with my observations
on my daily life. Below you will find a poem I wrote on the first day of the poetry workshop,
I am just about to tell you something else dear reader when the phone rings. It is my dear freindRob Stupay, to wish me a happy holiday. He is a heretical jew like me and we both love
I.J. Singer He has just returned from Poland and say s he is glad he doesn't live there. I am too because then I would never get to see him. I invite him for dinner next Wednesday.

Now this is what I wanted to tell you.

Last night on Christmas Eve, I got a kiss, without even any mistletoe. As I was leaving my local bar, I went over to J., the bartender (he's a quiet one, a still water's run deep one) to wish him Happy Holidays and he suddenly kissed me. He missed my mouth by a third but it was still a good kiss, a surprise gift.

Here's the poem

On The First Day Of the Poetry Workshop

I wake up so early, dawn just breaking outside my window,
I'm so eager for poetry, eager for wings to take me
our of myself.
I want to write like I think, breathe come,
I want to kiss Walt Whitman's thumb.

I dress carefully, wear my favorite clothees.

On the subway, the C train,
I travel to the unknown,
the homeless man across from me rubs his bone,
I pretend he is Orpheus playing the flute,
I pretend he is the God of Poetry, maybe he is.

The train stops at 116th Street too soon.
I am frightened, will I try to play it cool
while inside I'm a griddle ready to fry,
will I show off like I did in grade school,
desperate for attention, raising my hand so much
the other kids hated me.

I walk up the subway stairs and I'm in a far country,
mysterious, exotic, in the window of the bodega
the only fruits I recognize are coconuts,
cars brake too fast for the light,
parrots shriek in the trees,
the questing drums call to me,
I turn the corner on 115th Street,
walk down a street filled with spears,
I go up the library staps,
open the door,
I am here.

Tsaurah

Thank you Jack Michiline for the title of this blog.
took it from your poem, Beauty is Everywhere Baudelaire.
The poem goes like this:

Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire
Even the worm is Beautiful
The thread of a beggar's dress
The red eye of a drunkard on a rainy night
Chasing the red haired girl
Baudelaire across the sky
You raggy pants
Laughing in the rain
Beauty is Everywhere Baudilaire

I choose the poem to welcome you to my blog, friends and curious strangers, because firecracker Jack was my mentor. He called himself heretic, outlaw poet, rebel jew. He told me never stop writing, I was like that too. I hope this is true.

Jack Michiline died of a heart attack on February 27, 1998 on a subway-train somewhere between his San Francisco home and Orinda. He had a posse of poems and eighty-three cents in his pockets. Now he is, in his own words, wandering in the streets of eternity...caw-caw-caw-caw ....

I dedicate my blog to Jack Michiline. May it inspire poetry,
good cheer, may it soup up your engines and juice up your plums.
I will post at least twice a week - poems, thoughts, maybe a story,
Dear readers, I hope you visit often, all comments very welcome.

Rackety Old Jack

rackety old Jack, three steps forward,
four steps back,
could crack a poem across the page
like greased lightening,
solitary old crow, rings
my spirit telephone, reminds me
be yourself, be yourself,
be yourself forever
caw, caw, caw
T.L. 5/20/09


Thanks to Navja Solemeni, for help in setting up this blog.
(Her poems will one day light up the sky.) Also, thanks to
Ethan Cornell, my long time friend and neighbor, for the
illustration that is the template. You can see me more of
his amazing work at ecsketch.blogspot.com/








TO SEE MORE:
http://jackisdead.com/