Fresh Fruit

There is fresh fruit, though (thank you but no -)
I shouldn't think that fruit for me,
as one who eats not regularly or with appetite
(and besides -) my own hands are held
by the tree and not yet ripe for picking
or for carriage (yet still -) falls the apple
and this without me, yes

still falls the apple (and this without me)

When There's a Will There's a Way

The hall was narrow, just perceptibly so, in such a way that a tense man might walk more comfortably than a man at ease. A turn to the left yielded little and the right perhaps even less, although it was difficult to be certain; a fortunate turn to the right was possible or still more a fortunate turn to the left - the intersections were so spectacularly numerous - and at each stood a chair which sat a man, who would foretell the traveler of the imminent hope or despair awaiting he who turned left or right, according to his will.

"Sir," said a traveler addressing a man seated at the fork, "I've been walking longer than I can remember. I need to arrive soon. Please tell me the way."

"Dear traveler," answered the seated man, who was remarkably slight and pale, "you must choose a path according to your will, which leads to either hope or despair."

"I know this!" the traveler snapped, "each time I've been told the same thing. You must tell me which leads to hope, or I shall not move from here."

"Left."

"Thank you, Sir! Finally comes grace after all this struggle. Thank you again. I shall go to the left."

The traveler resolved to set off when -

"Right."

At length the traveler argued and fought with the seated man to understand but nothing came of it and finally he collapsed on the floor, losing his senses altogether and lay dying in utter exhaustion.

Whereupon the seated man calmly picked up the traveler, revived him with food and water, placed him in the chair -

and walked off, aimlessly.

Syrup and Salinger

If you're going to be 90 years old and living in New England,
you will require certain regular provisions, to say nothing of the
fact that (if you're going to be 90 years old and living in New England)
you won't let any crazy young cowboy - probably 2 years dropped out
of college with sweaty palms - acquire said provisions in your stead,
especially when you're damn well capable of getting them yourself.

With this in mind, I spent the last two weeks staking out the maple syrup
aisle (yes, there's a whole aisle; welcome to New England) at a Cornish,
N.H. general store waiting for a certain Jerome David Salinger to shuffle
in so that I might ambush him. Here is the conversation that followed:

"Jerry? Hello. I -"

"Christ. Please -"

"Oh, let's drop all that, buddy. I only meant to ask
you about maple syrup. I have my pancakes all ready
at home - fluffy as can be - only I find myself
without the most important -"

"Thompson's."

"Sorry?"

"I like Thompson's."

"That's lovely. Just lovely. Thompson's it is. I'm
sure you have it stocked to the rafters. Through
the ceiling, even. Thompson's to the sky, I say."

"Cold."

"What is?"

"Your pancakes."

At this, the venerable author turned to me for the first
time, likely in an effort to lend some finality to his
dismissal, and took care to deliver his words with
the kind of autumnal indifference which would normally
have sent any and all young optimism straight to the
check out line, but I had other ideas.

"That's not at all true, Jerry, no, quite wrong - my
best girl is keeping them warm for me while I'm out.
Can you imagine? She's at home warming my pancakes."

"Married?"

"Hell no! I'm scared to death of her and she is of
me, too; that's our great bond, our charm - we
both think the other might be more talented than
ourselves, and that's just too damn dangerous a
prospect to let loose and have run around where
you can't keep tabs on it."

"High romance."

"Take it easy, Jerry, there's more to it than that.
I was just making maple syrup talk, that's all.
Listen, I want to ask you a serious question, a
question about life - and you'd be a sorry
damn excuse for a recluse if you didn't answer -
I want to ask you if you've found a way out of
all this damn suffering, or even if you haven't
maybe you have the problem figured, and you
might be able to tell me a thing or two about it."

The old man turned his hand basket (which had not
accumulated any contents) upside-down and sat on it,
letting out an immoderately heavy sigh on the descent,
a production which I gratuitously imitated, but took
my seat directly on the floor instead and deposited
my feet, with undue deliberation, left on white,
right on black.

"The problem is birth. Having been born is a hell of
an imposition, spiritually speaking, as well as being
just plain presumptuous in a general sense, like getting
stuck with the bill when your party, endlessly numerous,
disappears at the last minute, leaving you in irrevocable
debt; which is why the more incorporeally fastidious of us
regard death with some appreciable gratitude and longing."

"Cause it pays the bill?"

"Sometimes. Usually interest is accumulated over the course
of a life, which keeps you at the table."

"What if you don't eat? I mean, what if you make it so that
they have nothing to bill you for, you know?"

"It doesn't work - if you don't eat you get thirsty, or
you knock over a vase, or you insult the chef."

"So what do you do?"

"Nothing. God loves nothing more than anything else.
It tickles the hell out of Him, you know."

"But -"

"You just have to learn to eat and do nothing at the same time."

"But -"

"Practice on your pancakes, kid. Good-bye."

Man's Grandeur

White.

"Truce, truce!"

Grey.

"Truce?"

White.

"Never!"

Exercise

Early one morning I woke up suddenly
with the thought that I should go jogging.

Then, I remembered that I don't jog.

At that moment it occurred to me that
I had just jogged my memory.

[there is hope for the world]

there is hope for the world
and it consists mainly in
that motorcyclists might be
thinking modest thoughts as
they pass loudly by.

Going For A Walk

It has been said: "These boots are made for walkin'."

Well, dear readers, that's just what they'll do -

On the morning of 6 September I will set off on a walk up the California coast. Sand. Shore. Jellyfish, one hopes. I will walk for approximately 100 miles and at the end I will come face to face with -? My true Self? Pretty girls? Perhaps both. What is certain is that, shall I live on, the experience will be documented and inquiring minds satiated. Until then -

(and if the weight of that then is too much, well, don't worry)

- then is also until.

Fre-e-mail

Observe your author
quite without his
syntactic armor
addressing his
girlfriend

(who, so far as we can tell, prefers to remain [deer-ly, doe-fully] anonymous)

in a stream
-of-
consciousness
e-mail
(fre-e-mail)
written this, the
evening of 3. Sept 2008:

thanks again for talking to me and encouraging me to take care of myself with a warm shower and a warm cup of tea and a warm book to read. my thanks to you for that. I'm a funny person to get involved with, as you know by now - by the way, this is a fre-e-mail in the most young and virginal tradition as was conceived, not altogether un-immaculately, by yours truly and fondly this afternoon - let me say that I say that flowers are nice when they can show you their smell in a chaste little gesture that's too little for any (cummings alert! shit! i slip into his too---for any--every---un---) routine like moe's hand finds it way, surely, handily, to the back of curly's head. what was I saying? you're a fine girl, in the last analysis. I'd like to you to hum more when you're looking in the refrigerator for something you forgot you needed on your cereal but that it couldn't in any spare sense of splendor do without. i want you to know that i guarantee victory. i guarantee triumph. before God, i guarantee it. it's a promise an apple tree outside our old house made to me when i contemplated the axe resting at its base. it whispered something unintelligible through the leaves, "what?" but i'll never stop forgetting myself under that tree. i get sad often, like old people do. wrinkles are prominent under my skin. i love you and thank you for the love you give me and your beet red heart from which roots stretch out ligaments moving fingers that tend to gardens.