NO MOMMY TO COME TO THE AID OF THIS OLD BEATNIK

I've let too much time between entries elapse again and have no excuse. I've been working hard on poetry as my last few entries reveal. I've been sidetracked toward the short stories of David Foster Wallace — his Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. A suicide. I must admit all my early years I was unknowingly attracted to the writing of alcoholic males so who could I be but one of those? Only later did I find out how true that was. It's not the sort of thing that a young man can see into about himself and his taste in literature. Of course I was attracted to the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton too so it's no wonder that at age 31 or so, I would crash my car on purpose by going around a curve at a speed I knew would cause a wreck. Lucky for someone they weren't coming around the curve the other way. Lucky for me too, because three years of counseling and ending drinking eventually led me out of the despair I was living in. Unlike Sexton and Plath, my depression seems to have been curable, situational rather than genetic, but I lived in deep enough despair for long enough time to get an idea what that feels like. I feel sad for Sexton and Plath and Hemingway and Williams. 

I keep turning my mind to rewriting my sci fi novel and others too, my basic bucket list, but poetry has me by the throat and won't let go. I always want to put short poems into my blog but, recently, I've noticed that some lit mags don't want to read anything that has appeared even on a blog. The hell with it. It's not one of my best, but it's recent and it's all this 80 year old can do... and it happened to me so why not? My wife will like it.

A CHILDHOOD SURPRISE

Tricycles are fun.

Tricycles are safe.

You won’t fall over unless …

you peddle too fast,

and get all caught up in the joy of speed,

and your shoe slips from the peddle,

and your toe is grabbed by the spokes,

then you tip over quite violently

and cry and screech till mommy comes

if there’s a mommy to come

but if there’s no mommy to come

then you cry for a very long time

a very long time indeed.