how to stabilize

when your're in trouble

don't drink alcohol
don't smoke tobacco
don't do illegal drugs
don't engage in immoral sex
(sex outside of Christian marriage)
don't even entertain the idea
read and study the Bible
attend church if possible
and turn it all over to Jesus
He's the only one can save you
He's the only one who can
oh, yeah, avoid swearing
don't use God's name in vain.
as they say in AA and NA,
it's a tall order.
you won't get it all in
just a day.
do the best that your can
and trust God if you slip.
we are called to perfection,
but we all fail at times.
practice loving charity
and wear out worn out rhymes.

poem

i was pretty much headed down
and going straight to hell,
when Jesus came into my life
and now i'm getting well

the shame of sin had about engulfed me...
been so since i was young'
i had always thought that i knew better
than others.  i was wrong.

i felt alone on all the earth
and did not seem getting better,
until i bent my knees in prayer
and followed to the letter

the path that He laid out for me,
one both pure and simple;
and now i am sure of my reward
full and plain and ample

oh  it's not easy to get up in the morning
when you're old and full of pain;
but i still rise fairly early
to greet my Lord again.

o, you've got to get up in the morning
wash your face and make your bed
to face the day that's a borning
and get your scriptures read.


new poem

coffee is best when it's freshly brewed
at least that's what i've been told
the antioxidants are strongest
before it gets too cold

good morning

am having terrible pain in my back.  started night before last.   not sure how.  very disabling.  will probably have to cancel a couple of doctor appointments.  can't ride the bus like this.  was up during the night.  got some work done.  re-established august budget.   balanced.  interesting dreams just now.  one too embarrassing to relate.  the other about a woman i used to know.  a polite lunch.  something about the president.

notes and diary

had terrible leg cramps after nap after lunch today.  don't feel well.  think i probably lost a friend today...over politics.  hated to see it happen, but think it was inevitable.  not that i can afford to lose a friend.  i have few.  and i'm pretty much somewhat unhappy with just about everybody on the list. little things.   nagging things.  i really hate losing my temper.  anger is a terrible sin.  every bit as deadly as lust.  it buries an arrow in the heart.  i'm sorry it happened, but i probably won't do much about it.  it will wear off.  most things do.

butch
short for butcher
a butch haircut
butchered

keep sakes
key notes

ropin riders
roger roper

gerry mandering
made jerry mad
jerry mathers/
the beaver

ward and june
cleaver
mendenhall

fox news
get your fox straight

fox trotter

rilda b. and the wildebeest

old butermilk sky
o buttermilk pi

butter 3.71 a pound

from notes

indianapolis
the statue of tecumseh the indian
at anapolis
indian anapolis

piper laurie
laurel pipe

skinny affordable care
a stripped down policy
alternative...
not included

swapping jeans
swapping genes

when submission is just a click away

don't luce your moe mentum

crozier high
seeking closure

indie car
in the car

i dream of genealogy
in the middle of the night

chickamaugua
chicken itza
chicken gunya

warm coat carry
parts worn hart

true dough (doe)

doctor chicago
she cargo

nam myoho
yo ho ho

old burdav's
bird eggs for breakfast
saw jim wright (gem rite
there one time

beckett list

keep your eyes on jesus

not enuff to go round

hedda hopper
head 'o hair

ad minnow station
to the finland station
the finny tribe

good health care is
almost always expensive

the mont gum (n)nery
warts / a ward

the insure ants

white rain
tight rein

hospice
hot spices

hospital
hot spittle

daze, weaks and monks

ann a versarary

old potatoes
potatoes all rotten

cafe tearyeyed

words over herd

had a meal
emile

o my tokyo

a toehold in reality

fanatics
attic fans

get your pills down
piltsdown man

and try to stay clean
jacques lean

coming to a public
theater near you

baby lon (lawn)

summer reading
some importance

archie peg leggo

le' go o' my eggo

the sandy eggo

open a window
in flew enza

lame duck

whoopie cushion

i sat down on a loaf of bread.
it whooshed like a whoopie cushion
you used could buy at the local joke store.
it was almost all the food i had,
that and a little peanut butter.
i'll have to eat it anyway,
misshapen thing that it is.
it bears the imprint of my behind.
it's best to look before you sit.

great expectations

the flotsam and the detritus
of every day accumulates
to litter the surfaces of
my life.  i can hardly
escape the clutter.  each
item is charged with meaning.
i throw away what i can and
store the rest.  it reminds me of
mrs. haversham's room in england,
still adorned for a marriage that
never happened.  it occurs in
charles dickens' great expectations:
the rotten cake, the dress, the mice,
and pip comes to understand that
this is not the secret source of
his unexpected wealth...rather
a chance encounter on the heath
with an escaped convict led
him into his present wealth.  it
was disillusioning.  we do not
know the final source of things.
they are hidden in darkness.  life
corrupts and does not satisfy,
unless of course you turn to God
and find some peace and solace there.

jelly makin' (macon) day

it was jelly makin' day in dallas texas in the late 1940's on livingston street in highland park, a city within a city, surrounded by dallas texas.  the maid, capitola bishop, arrived early in her starched white uniform and old black ford.  mrs. latimer was up early as well.  breakfast would quickly be out of the way in the little breakfast room between the kitchen and the large grand dining room.  mr. latimer would be going to work, and little gerry, wide awake as usual, would not be going to school  today.

a very large white enameled pot sat simmering on the stove in the ample kitchen.  it was full of welch's grape juice.  tons of sugar and lots of pectin would be added and stirred and cooked.  i am not sure of all the detailss, but the jelly makin' was well underway.  eventually the rich liquid would be decanted into empty jelly jars which had once contained commercial jelly and were ornamented with animated cartoon etchings.  once the jelly was in the jars a thin disc of melted parafin was poured on each to seal the freshness. it wasn't really all that complicated, but it took time and diligence, and mrs. latimer and capitola labored carefully as little jerry watched from a nearby stool.

these were good times.  the latimers were gerry's grand parents.  his family lived in fort worth, but he was living in dallas to get an early start on public school.  he mostly went home on the weekends.  it was a wonderful life.  all were happy at the time.  life ran well and made good sense.  you won't find much of that today.

with a song in my heart

somewhat randomly arranged

gorbeduct
gorbechev
gorba the chef

let jesus reign
forever  always
o let him reign
let him rain

down on you
he'll heal your heart

change your life
or change your heart

keep on with the
heart of jesus

keep up from the
very start

it's not ok
to be bi or gay
psychologists
psychiatrists
will fade away

largely mistaken
they don't know jesus
no faith in Him
their hell still friezes
over easy

all sexual obsession
is abnormal

love is the norm
the paranormal

sex in love
the married norm
one man one woman
God's true love

all else is prohibited

deliverance is possible
and is so indispensably

nesca shri
it ain't nesca
sarah lee so o
nescafe

don't cry baby
i/van davis and Van cliburn
are both wildly available
on youtube

wear your shirt outside your belt
unless you happen to be the cook

turn your heart onto jesus
in all your ways turn over your heart
let your heart belong to jesus now
lose your heart   bare your heart

i'll pack an
alpaca

unpacked

every day in all your ways
thank the Lord Jesus

prove this just as if you could
make talk and walk

o love the Lord for all His goodness
sing and praise His holy name
love him always
treasure goodness and
all day sing

The Unhappiness of Man

take up your cross
the cross of Jesus
take it up to bless His name
carry it, care for Jesus
whatever burdens to Him
your bring

my arms are weak and
tremble with uncertainty

o be Thou my strong arm
in adversity

surely you are forever God
i will not worship ought but You

wino the rhino
wine stoned cowboy

E/death Sitwell

trivago/she vahgo

meditation at 2 am
almost medicine
in mendocino

examine your heart
on to Jesus

praise the Lord
all ye His creatures
let all with breath
His praises feature

and sea creatures

next food supplement
cheese and butter (real)

all that creep and
all that walk
all that bark,bellow
or talk

an ahna matta poeia
an avocada kia

dolts and idiots
idot

goody samara tan

you have the freedom
to take a wife
but know that choice may
result in strife

keep your sights on
Jesus alone
and you will find peace
as Paul has shown

weird and wired
injectable microchips

give thanks to Him
give thanks for food
trust Him for shelter
look for the good

walk on with Jesus
let Him lead you
you're not done yet
you're ever new

the Happy Celibate

hippie culture

opening an investigation
into just what went on in the
Garden of Eden
called Applegate

outstanding
"out standing in the rain"

no other lover necessary

ponderosa
ticonderoga

pack anna mules

simple ignition

stockings
in the stocks

dynamite
dime a night

zip recruiter
zap ruder

little joe

walter mitty's
hugh midity

atlanta, nevada

mark sitler
the mark

detroit   introit
detrop
do not destroy

poem

strangely, if there is no coffee made
up here at 6am i am somewhat surprised.
often it is ready by 4:30.  i do not
make the upstairs coffee.  i make
the downstairs coffee at 7am.  there
may be a little leftover old coffee
at any rate, and i can drink that until
some fresh coffee does get made.

abstention

it seems to me that i have read the comment more than once that ivan davis is the greatest recent american pianist, greater even than van cliburn.  that may well be true.  i am no music critic, but i do find in van cliburn's recordings and repertoire a sweetness and light that i do not necessarily find uniformly in the admittedly often overwhelmingly powerful published oeuvre of mr. davis.  i had the good fortune to meet ivan davis when i was young and found him very entertaining if somewhat aloof.  i have not seen him or had any contact since london in 1968.  although i live in fort worth, i do not recall that i ever actually saw van cliburn in person, although many of my acquaintance have.  i find it somewhat interesting that both pianists can be associated with fort worth...van cliburn for  obvious reasons and ivan davis because, although i believe he was born in electra, texas, his parents resided in fort worth at the  time we met.  it was a brief contact with the world of classical music performance.  i enjoyed it, but it had no lasting impact  other than the fact that i do listen to classical radio most of the time, hearing van cliburn frequently, and i also enjoy what ivan davis recordings i possess.  

literal, not liberal

just thought i would throw that in

dreaming 4:55am

dreamed i went into a little neighborhood methodist church off berry street in tcu with a roommate of mine from college.  it was fairly crowded.  it seemed a little strange.  the congregation moved into some back rooms and i  got separated from my college roommate.  it turned out to be a pro-gay church.  there were same sex couples present.  i saw an old neighbor of mine who i had some reason to believe might be gay.  she was alone.  someone said to me, "you won't hear a sermon like that at christ the king".  no, i responded.  i could agree with that.  then the rooms were emptying out, and suddenly i found myself without any clothes.  i found my way to a room with some clothes, but found none of mine.  i managed to c over myself up somewhat.  i spoke to a woman and a minister but got no relief.  i still could not find my old roommate who seemed to have disappeared.  i thought i was speaking to him at some point but then realized it was someone else, in tis case a person of color.  in the parking lot were some men who were auto insurance salesmen.  they were offering free candy suckers and something else.  i thanked them and told them i used their company, but i could not think of the company's name. it was something like traveler's.  at one point it seemed like i was in trnity church, my old one.  that was about the end of the dream.  i got up and made a peanut butter and jelly foldover and sat down to write this blog.  i never did find my old roommate.  there may have been a murder as well.  that is not clear, but it seems like there was.

old blog

by the way, my old blog is still available at gagblab.blogspot.com     there may have been a  couple of others, such as blahblahbloggert, but they may be hard to find. g.

correction

i want to back track a little to my former men's bible class at a different church.  i would not want to give the impression that the men themselves were anything but warm, inviting and noticeably noble. they even offered to provide me with crosstown transportation, if that would help.  (my present group also helps with such assistance).  i have attended three different men's bible classes now, and they were all exceptional groups of men.  my problem was sometimes with the teaching.  there were good ones, and not so good.  some just turned out to be that way later on.  the divisions in my church have been very painful for many people, especially for me because i was struggling with a problem directly related to the occasion for the schism.  i am largely recovered from that condition now, and firmly believe that i was able to make significant progress because i chose to align myself with a more literal and conservative approach to holy scripture.  it's been a difficult road.  i am resolutely  committed to my continued progress.  it's personal, but i think i have already shared enough of it publicly to justify a claim to at least a considerable victory. but that victory is not in fact personally mine.  it is entirely indebted to my Lord and Savior, and to the working of his Holy Spirit in my life.

hap hazard

tonight when i came back into my room, i opened up my jerusalem bible (a large interfaith version) more or less at random.  i first read a psalm, then a passage from ezekiel...instructions concerning the restoration of the temple, and then what i more or less knew would be a new testament reading.  it opened to luke 14 which just happened to be what i was reading this afternoon in a different bible as a part of my daily assigned readings.  i follow the acna (anglican church in north america) lectionary, but i was running a little ahead today because i had seemed to stall somewhere around luke 13 recently.   almost before i knew what was occurring, i was reading the story of a man who attended a feast, and taking place of honor was asked to take a lower place by the host when a more honored guest arrived.  this is a parable of the Lord.  the text reads "take the 'lowest' place lest you be asked to move down."  it would seem sufficient to me to take the "lower" place, but that is largely irrelevant. it reminded me of a joke i made about superman being late for supper because he wanted to take the "lowest" (lois) lane.  it also reminded me of an incident that occurred some years ago.  i was attending a men's bible  class at a different church than the one i attend now.  the men were standing around drinking coffee and the priest (teacher), one with whom i have relatively little in common except for the fact that we know each other, was present.   i started to take a seat at the lower end of the kitchen counter where we would have a light breakfast.  the priest immediately told me, "no, gerry, not that seat.  that's my seat." i responded that i was merely trying to take the "lower" seat, to which he rejoined, somewhat campy, "you would!"  i thought that was a little unnecessary.  and then, now it occurs to me that maybe the bishop was present.  he sometimes attended those meetings. it was a different diocese than where i worship now, and essentially a different denomination.  i remember the bishop telling me when i first arrived at that group, a fairly liberal one, that "what goes on in bible class, remains in bible class".  i wonder why he said that.  perhaps he already knew that i was very conservative.   i remember the times well, because it was shortly after that that we studied a passage in luke 16 about the dishonest steward which seemed to conclude strangely with a moral conclusion that one should make friends with the friends of mammon (this world), lest when one is cast out of the kingdom one may not find a place in the habitations of men.  we all had some difficulty dealing with that.  i asked the bishop if he had ever had to preach on that text.  he said yes, but i think indicated...with some difficulty.

afternoon dreamng

mother dad and my brother patrick and i are getting ready to leave for trinity church.  she has gone back inside to get her pink cope (cape).  i ask why she does not wear the purple one.  i know she has one.  then i realize that she can't.  the bishop will be present.    not an especially unusual dream, markedly liturgical.  one of mother's proudest moments was walking in procession at the consecration of a bishop who had been our parish priest.   she was such a loyal episcopalian.  and democrat. and burgeoning feminist.  i'm not sure how she would have adapted to today's social and political climate.

she just about lived to be a part of it, but she had been sick with alzheimer's for years when she died fairly recently.  she knew i had become more conservative as i recovered from my own mental illness, and she would probably have followed me wherever i chose to go ecclesiastically, but she would have had her reservations. she would, however, have been happy for me, and maybe that would have been enough.

from "one bird flu"

he opened a window
and in flew enza
singing "some enchanted evening"
like ezzio penza

from "one bird flu over the cuckoo's nest"

mumbo jumbo
got some gumbo;
grew big ears
like little dumbo

got called down for
elephant ears, and
ended up with
irrelevant fears

catch up

it's 9:07.  nanoseconds.  thought it must be about 9am.  been down for about an hour.  had to go to the store after breakfast.  very hot and oppressive outside.  needed food supplement for the weekend. got cookies, ice cream and popcorn.  have to go about twice a week now.  financially difficult, but it beats being hungry in the middle of the night when often i am trying to work.  will probably be doing more visuals, but my scanner is incompatible with this blog.  may have to spend some money on a converter...too much, but then, what can i do?  i've just about balanced the budget, the annual budget, even with the extra meals because of my transport to church on sundays.  got enough in there for the dentist twice a year and a little christmas.  wish the federal government could do as well.   i know people need help, but are they really doing everything they need to do to help the world at large?  like quit smoking, drinking and doing drugs. many are not.  it's a tough world.  get tough on yourself. participate. help out with the problem.

dreaming

time to get up and get out of the mission.  mother is gone.  i inherit a fairly good bicycle.  i can still ride.  i am riding down camp bowie boulevard, towards town.  i worry about the front tire.  i pull into the back of an old house where there is a used book shop.  a couple of gay guys are  inside.  one asks me something and then i am in a little cubicle next door with a computer.  i do a little work.  when i get back outside, the bicycle is gone.  i forgot to secure it.  i did not have a lock.  that's the way lessons are learned.   that is what my dad would have said.  i am crushed.  i really was up working on the computer a lot.  got some things done.  ran  into some problems.  now its time for coffee and breakfast.  then i have to go to the grocery store.

new image

just created this

afterthought

had i not so easily surrendered my christian values and culture as an undergraduate at rice university (o fortunate fall) i might have had a better career and a successful marriage.  but then i would never probably have majored in english; or if i had, i would probably have switched to theology once i had exhausted the relevance of most literary studies.  the only professor i had as an undergraduate who seemed to grasp the importance of all that was monroe spears.  looking back at his auden study i am impressed with the depth and the significance of such a study, and inspired to try to be a better poet.  monroe's tragedy was my tragedy.  i thank God i have lived to more or less fully recover.  gerald george   

dreaming

yesterday morning i dreamed that mother left a large trust, the virginia trust, and that i was its director.  this morning i am dreaming of a musical, "the celibate prince", about a prince who comes back from the dead with his mother to rule over a rejuvenated earth.  perhaps monarchy is the best form of government, but it has always had its problems.  only eternal life can protect the life of the chosen king.  perhaps it is a parable of the return of jesus...with His mother. and then there is My mother.  will she be coming back to me?  and should i or may i marry? there are many obstacles.  as holly golightly says in "breakfast at tiffany's", marriage is a novel idea.  she says " i've never been married before".  well, i have never been married before.  perhaps it is possible.

random file (part two)

8:30 pm

I am largely alone,

Without God I am largely alone in the universe

I cannot be reached by computer or phone

11pm

Traveling on icy roads, obscure roads

It is getting late in the day

We find an inn but there is no food

Then we stumble on an apt. well appointed, no one home

Then four young black women arrive

L. is traveling with someone different now

I am almost statisfied

Eating my 4 o clock dinner 

Very satisfying

Back to sleep

01/10/17  12:30 am

Three good dreams

A young woman here at the home got so drunk and disorderly at a house party that she almost was not awarded the fellowship she had been entitled to, but in the end she was.  There was disagreement among the judges.  Her partner, with whom she was dancing, was so outraged by the situation she started to take her shoes and leave.

2/22/27 3:46am I am involved with a group of criminals.  We gather at an apartment we intend to burglarize. It is decorated for Christmas.  Some of our gang are already there.  I am involved with a young woman whose parents are of another releigion.  It is all very confusing.  A note from someone. He has to be on the road in the morning.  Only time for a quick meal/  italy pizza takes too long.

Dreaming. 

“we’re better off than we were nine years ago”

I am hanging out in the apartment where I should not be.  The wife of my accomplice shows up with her kids.  I try to duck out.  I hear a man say the above:

01/12/17 5am  the odd thing was, I found an extra hundred dollars in my accounting the day before.  a friend has been here to visit.  We had a good one.   It seemed like no major temptation.  we had not met for fifty years.  Came home, ate some more and went to sleep.  Then I had the dream, just now.   I was in an apartment, my apartment, near bluebonnet circle.  J. was there, with c.  He wanted c. to spend some time with me..  I was to loan c. a hundred dollars.  Then c. decided he wanted to leave.  Then the police inspector came and questioned me.  There was blood on the floor in front of the toilet.  I realized that I had fallen.  To marry is my ultimate wish.  And I believe marriage to be for life between a man and a woman.  It was a terrible dream.   There was a young woman with c..  I went outside.  I waited for a bus.  It was hilly and cold.  It was the wrong bus.  I had trouble finding my bus pass.  Seeing j. was nice.  He could have been the devil, but he wasn’t.  I think I will be ok now.  I yielded a littlein the dream.  I will not in life itself….. 

And then suddenly it was haircut time

I’m going to take someone to church.   sometime

9pm

I take a drink from a placid lake

That comes from my refrigerator

In a glass container, pure white glass,

And I know that I will drink more later.

I am consumed with a parching thirst.

I just ate a chicken salad

It is bedtime and i have not

Prayed at all.  God  speaks to me and

I am silent

I have lost some weight in the last few days

I’m not exactly sure just how

But it serves its purpose to save my health

When the slab I crave is of marbled marble

Andrew marble

My Lord is so fine

I praise Him all the time

01/15/17 1:30 am

Dreamed we were required to notify management whether or not we attended breakfast.  I constructed a rather elaborate note for that purpose.

Time to start getting ready for church.  I have to take the bus this morning.

Drinking cold coffee from the blue willow cup and saucer steve gave me yesterday for a late Christmas

thinking aBOUT Donald trump,  thanking God. Feeling grateful.

need to scan my computer.  Will do now.

4am  the Jamnia Rescension – strictly hypothetical

I leave for church in about two hours

3:30 in the afternoon.  Waking up as if drugged. A man looked at me with obvious hatred today at the bus terminal.  Probably because I am white.  At a large airport terminal.  Flight crew (many of them) are lined up to welcome aboard.  I am accosted by security.  Manhandled.  Photographed from every angle. 

People were strange when I got home.  Almost no one spoke to me.

I feel terrible.                                                                                                                                  

1/16/17 4am

Waiting for dad to come home so we can have dinner.  There is a large sack of chicken. K. has already got hers.  It seems a little light.  There is mine and dad’s.  we pick it up.  We are also picking up or delivering payroll.  I am handling a huge stack of money.  I am also looking at boots and shoes for work.   Am with mr. l.  I already have one new pair.   A new shipment of boots has just arrived.  I buy one.  I have dress shoes too.  There is something in the air...maybe a drone. 

Slept good.  Almost all night.  May not have been up one time.  Ate a whole jar of pbj last night and yesterday.

Confrontation with linda x..  Mia runs out of the upstairs apt. to me on the ground.  More than one grocery store

Mystery?  How about heaven and hell.  John paul got it right…Sartre or the Second

Automatons riding around in driverless cars

All uber alice/a gentile by far

Cross over the bridge”

Cross over the bridge”

Find a friendly way of living

Cross over the bridge

When your new Rochelle can’t bind you then

You uber self will blind you

Lover, come over the bridge

Sunshine on my schoulders makes me happy

Fritz scholders

Sunshine of my back side makes me high

01/19/17 6am

Staying with mother, hanging out at a large Methodist complex, on a cliff near an Episcopal church.  Looking for a bed or a cot.  No luck.  Look for a meal, not much luck either until I get a large metal bowl of lobster, crab and shrimp salad or stew.  Trouble getting a Yule tinsel.  Talk to a crotchety old pastor.   No real communication.  Finally get in my convertible and go home.  Looking for an old car I abandoned, the gold Malibu.  Where is it now, do I have its number?  Stopped in traffic.  Making a left hand turn.  Hilly street. Mountain town.

Go home to mother.  Not much solace there

New blood blister on my toe

Doctor it

Doctorate

Dr. Jackal,  mr. hyde

Keep this around,

Surround o’sound

It’s our world now

The forgotten man

When IGNORence was a way of life

01/23/17 5am  had a beer and a drink in a greybar with tom present.  Earlier was at his room or apt., up a very steep incline.  I get my car started, just barely, and cruise

I have a crystal ink well

Cut from a sphere,

Octagonal sides

I baptize myself in

A sea of ink

I like to get wet

I write for a while

Daddy is there

Coming home to mom

Vanishing into the

Humid night air

Wishing forever had

Come and then gone

A university town

Full of gay clowns

I’d rather not spend

Too much time there

A spot of twilight

Oh crescent moon

Like an orange smile

Cantelope slice

In a pumpkin at halloween

Everything trimmed and nice

1/24/17  6am  looking at giant bluebonnet blossoms (lupines) with richrd t. in forest park, fort worth, dick c. walks by and speaks and goes into a mausoleum like library.  Showing Richard the rice campus I want to take him up into the baker tower where I lived but someone speaks to him perhaps Robert h. Then we meet a young woman in an elevator he knows.  She is working on her first novel.  I tell her about the Emily dickinson competition. 

1/28/17  because of my condition I could no longer travel, not very far, anyway.

Mother is dead.   It came fairly suddenly.  Sudetenland.  I am accepting it

Now I travel mostly in dreams, to Houston and otherwise

I wander in the Montrose district.  I have a little car.

It is the old west.  It is a movie set.  It is an industrial setting.  There are blacks in hiding

02/10/17  6am  even though I give my body to be burned, if I have not love, I am nothing.

Mother’s gone to heaven

Therefore let us smile

She may be there forever

Or only for a while

They say we will come back to earth

When Jesus makes His move

And brings the dead back with him

To justly His Word prove

So let us now rejoice

And praise His holy name

Whether in heaven or on earth

His Presence is the same

Chocolate Pudding

We would make instant pudding at night

When we came home on the motorcycle

After riding across the Bay Bridge in the

Cold, foggy California night.  It was

Her idea.  After she had betrayed me

With my best friend in San Francisco,

I swore I would never eat chocolate pudding

Again.  But of course I did.  Tonight all alone

In the home by myself, I ate a small

Cup of pudding. There are

A number of them in the re-

Frigerator.   It’s all I have an

Appetite for.  There is plenty of

Food.  I am just not hungry.

I drink my tea and write poetry, or

At least what I call poetry.  I hardly

Know what anyone else says.

Smores aborg

but i won't eat jello chocolate
pudding cups now.  not since
bill cosby

cozbi...a character in the old testament

03/03/17

She was out of the question,

Out of the question,

Totally out of the question.

It was a personal quest.

I’d abandoned the rest.

It was a sort of a test.

I won’t do that again.

I have no one to talk to,

No one but you Lord

You are always there,

Thank God, my Lord.

Almost lunch time

Frank o’hara

Lunch poems

Lunch was eggplant a la rudy

Long slices of eggplant in their

Eggplant shape, fried with cheese.

Outstanding.  And two kind of squash.

Should have been $15 a plate

Something to write home about

If I hadn’t already been at home.

Better than chicken and isn’t that what

Eggplant is all about.  If you plant eggs

You won’t get chickens unless you

Get a soil sample first.

Then there was dessert…an apple concoction

With whipped cream.  Made me think of

Plum duff or plum nothing, the name I gave to

Nora’s place in California where there was

Nothing to eat except plums in their season..

At the Present Time

A man I saw on the bus yesterday

Had an open wound on his wrist, all ragged and pink.

He was black and the wound seemed more terrible by contrast.

His hair was matted, almost in locks and

He seemed to be picking at his wound with his teeth.

Perhaps there were stitches there.

He mumbled to himself, barely audible:

“No one ever wants to help me…

If I had a dollar for every time…

That one got to ride for free…”

He asked the woman in front of him

For money and got none.

Eventually he turned to me and asked for a dollar.

I did not have one to spare and

I rarely open my wallet on the bus.

Sometimes I have a dollar with my pass.

“See what I mean,” he went on;

“Someday you will have to stand before the Lord.”

Oh, I know that, Mr. Lazarus.

I send checks to the Gospel Mission which

Operates a medical clinic you just passed by,

I said to myself.  He got off at the Salvation Army and

I was just glad not to have had an incident.

I carry a whistle with my key.

I will put him on my prayer list and

Tuck a dollar in my pass when I can and

Send the Mission another check…real soon.

That’s the best I can do…at the present time.

03/21/17  2pm  have put noontime prayer off for a while while I tended to other projects.  Time to get with it.  It does not take that long.  It has few appointed readings, mostly prayers and psalms.  Will report back if I find anything interesting, not that it is not always interesting, but I mean out of the ordinary.

2:30pm  just ate half of my lunch cheeseburger.  Was good.  There is a possibility that I can get some help here with my diet.  I have been told that I need a high fiber diet, more vegetables, less meat.  Someone else is getting help, so I think that I can too.

My right arm has been hurting for almost two weeks, from the shoulder down to the forearm.  I am somewhat worried.  I do not know what happened.   Perhaps I slept on it too hard, but  I am afraid something may be broken.  I do not go back to primary care until May…unless it gets more serious.

I have Rita to write still.  The package I Had for her was too expensive to mail.  I will construct a lighter package  sometime  today or this evening.

My new essay seems pretty good.  Perhaps I can get it published somewhere.

Think I will finish the cheeseburger now.

A few  minutes later.  Perhaps it’s time for a short nap now.  I think I need some sleep.

03/22/17  12:05 am  awake in the middle of the night

I often feel better in the little hours

Of the morning, after a few hours sleep.

I wake up refreshed and rejuvenated.

It is a good time to be alive.

Earlier I was desperate and alone.

My body continues to break down slowly

My right arms has been hurting for

Almost two weeks.  No idea what that

Could be.  Maybe I just slept on it

Wrong.  Maybe I broke something

In my forearm accidentally.  I won’t

See primary care for another six weeks.

I am ignoring the gastro doctor for

The most part, but I will have my

Scheduled colonoscopy at the end

Of may.  I itch and scratch something

Terrible at times…all over, up and down.

I have not said evening prayer for

Yesterday.  Maybe I can do that now.

12:43 am

Just read evening prayer and compline

Psalm 106 rehearsed many of the marvelous acts

Through which God blessed the people of Israel

As they escaped Egypt into the Wilderness

Exodus 14 recounts the miraculous

Passage through the Red Sea and the

Destruction of Pharoah’s army.

Ephesians 4 encourages us in our walk

With the Lord, calls to mind the Oneness

Of God and the uniformity of the faith.

The various roles we may take in serving

The Lord are mentioned, and our common

Faith is further encouraged.

I recited the Magnificat and the

Nunc Dimitis.   No supplementary

Canticles were used.

Concession to the Weather  3/26/17

It is in the 50’s at 6am.

It won’t get out of the 60’s today.

I was going to wear my new vest sweater,

The one I bought on sale at Dillard’s,

But I have changed my mind and

Will wear my black nylon jacket which

I have had for fourteen years.

I can still wear it because

It is Extra Large, though tight.

I just increased my pledge to

CTK
 .

I am so grateful unto God to

Finally belong again to a church that

Actually preaches the Word of God

With a fair degree of accuracy.

I do not understand a politically

Conservative philosophy that is not

Deeply rooted in the Word of God and

Committed to its practice.

Washing out my underwear in the

Lavatory which I have to do every

Few days, (not quite so much these

Last few days.  I feel really blessed)

And my long support stockings which

Do not machine wash very well.  It is

The middle of the night, early morning.

Took care of my teeth.

Take care of my eyes.

Adding Mother into the mix

mother and mahler

Traffic Jam in the Nursing Home

Mother wheels into close quarters.

A white haired man has trouble getting by.

They jostle for the prerogative…

(prayer rogative…a prayer of request…a play on words).

I am here for her care meeting

She eats her chocolates gingerly and

Wipes her fingers like Chaucer’s

Prioresse in The Canterbury Tales.

Mother has gained several pounds.

She eats all of her meals.

I am forced to cool my heels

For ten minutes in an outer lobby.

There is a man looks like my brother…

Same face, balding head, bushy beard.

Time passes slowly in the nursing home.

Mother’s meeting lasts five minutes.

Won’t be long; I’ll be here too.

I Am Thinking of Hocking the Car

Mother had a little money

Left to her by her Mother,

The proceeds from her mother’s house…

$50,000.

Dad somehow used it as leverage

In his business dealings and

It was lost in bankruptcy.

She took it all the way to

The Texas State Supreme Court

But she lost..

Today she is almost penniless

In a nearby nursing home.

I have just enough to live on

As long as I can

Take care of myself

My brother is not able to help

I have nowhere else to turn.

It’s sort of like Granddaddy said

To Grandmother before he died…

Keep a roof over your head, Virginia.

Keep a roof over your head.

Mother and Dad married on September 11, 1941

In Dallas, Texas, at Highland Park Methodist Church

In the chapel a few months before Pearl Harbor Day.

When I asked her about it’s being on September 11

(The World Trade Center disaster day), she replied

That was just one more catastrophe that happened to have

Occurred on that particular day of the month.

But it really wasn’t always that bad.

They had a lot of good times, too.

I just had an inquiry about that date

From a paternal cousin.  She was working

On our family genealogy.  I am glad

To have had the family I have had

Even if I am largely alone

At the present time.

I feel like I’m headed for the guillotine

I have five dental appointments in the next four months

I have an ingroan toenail that has to be yanked

My socks have grown sheer and stained with blood

And my computer does not work worth a damn.

I am severely depressed.

My duties here in the home weigh on me.

The whole country has gone mad

I no longer have a church family.

I feel as if I have been had.

My friends, the few, are little comfort to me

My writing career is in a shambles

I really feel like giving up but

Somehow or another I still have to amble

Down this road a little longer.

Mother needs me.  I must stay strong.

For a number of years

Mother, Dad and I

Put in a garden on

A rather large plot

At the Aledo ranch of

Their friends, the Maddoxes.

It was west of Fort Worth.

When we turned off the highway

Onto the Aledo road, Ginger,

Our Brittany Spaniel, began

To get excited.  She had been

Born there.  Dad would

Plow up the earth with

His tiller and lay out the rows

With string.  We planted

Onions, tomatoes, beans,

Squash, okra, and one year

Had a good crop of young lettuce.

The produce was considerable.

We went there almost every

Weekend.  There was an old

Largely empty, farmhouse where

We could rest and have lunch.

We shared the produce with the

Maddoxes whose fruit trees

Punctuated the plot in late

Summer.  We would eat fresh

Homemade peach ice cream.

It was an idyllic time

The Maddoxes are gone now

And Dad and Ginger.  Only

Mother and I remain behind

And of course the Maddox

Children.  I remember a

Foal of young colts one year

So alive and playful we

Captured them in photographs.

I’m like Daddy when I run out of money

I will find it somewhere if I possibly can

When I was little

Mother often read to us

At night.  She read

“Tom Sawyer”and

“Toby Tyler”.   I re-

member those two.

Now I can’t even

Tell her thank you.

She is so blank

And distant now

She still knows me.

I still feel her love

But we no longer

Share our memories.

We have grown

Far apart.

Mother Waves Goodbye

She is almost 96 years old.

She is in Memory Care in a nursing home.

She knows almost nothing, hears almost nothing and rarely speaks.

Her hand comes out from under the covers to take a piece of diabetic candy.

That’s about the end of it.

When I leave she waves goodbye

In response to my feeble wave.

It is almost more than I can bear,

I never loved woman more

Nor ever can

Mother in Paradise

She laughs and runs and trains her dogs

Her parents are there also

And her whole family…numerous

Dad and his are there as well

It is a place where we will go

When we pass on; eternity

Is not a dream, it’s real, it’s alive

Mother passed away

It came at last, it

Came to pass.

Once she lost the will to live she

Lost the ability to live.

I felt the spirit of my younger brother come close indeed

It was John Glenn George, deceased, so close

I could feel him here with me

Loving and encouraging

Ink hemoraging all over the page

She is in heaven now

Mother at 95

She can no longer have a hearing aid

They are too expensive and she either loses them or

They simply disappear like

Anything of value in that lonely nursing home.

I take her what clothes I can and

Chocolate diabetic candy one piece

At a time with a store in her drawer

She rarely speaks but she still

Enjoys her meals and has gained weight

She is not uncomfortable at this time

Sweet Hour of Prayer

It was Memorial Day, 2014

I was watching, almost by coincidence,

A Japanese movie, “The Burmese Harp:,

About a Japanese soldier who poses as a monk

And buries the war dead he finds in Burma

After the war.  Suddenly I realized that it was

Memorial Day, and I thought of my own dear

Long sick Mother, nearby in a local nursing home

At age 93, and what if I had been lost in a war

And never saw my home again.  I carry photos

Of her in my wallet. Perhaps that would have been

All I could have had of home

If I had died in a foreign land.

The soldiers sing, and the monk plays the harp

There’s no place like home.  I started to cry

Mother at 95

She does not resist the showers now

At times I almost think she knows me

She was beautiful, strong and vibrant once

Before the disease took over her

She may live to be 100 yet

She is just that strong and there is still some love

That she can give and still some love that she can get

Mother and Patti the welsh corgi

Sitting on their swing on the

Back porch of her apartment on

Hulen Street at Harley…just wish I could

Reproduce the photo

She was not the oldest living of her family.

Her grandmother reached at least 97.

Virginia Ann Latier (Jinky) Geeorge passed away today,

January 27, 2017.  she was 95 years old

Mother died

She’s in heaven now

I met two people in church today

They both had known Mother

Mother’s Binoculars

They were sort of like opera glasses

But much more spectacular, though small

And in a leather case…adjustable

She might have had them for sporting events

She loved baseball and tcu football, for

Decades she and Dad sat on the 50 yard line

I took them with me to California

And left them behind  in Oregon

She had wanted them back,

But they were lost.

Was not a nightmare, just an adventure.

Am writing a book “how to bury your mother

For less thaan $2000.”  And your younger brother

For the same amount.  I was lucky to have it.

I had sold the car and mother had some left over.

There were donations, some substantial.

I have a photo of the gravestone with

Hers and Dad’s and Glenn’s names

And dates.  It is transmittable.

Losing mother

Losing mother was in a very real sense, the psychological and spiritual sense, one of the hardest experiences I have ever had to undergo.  After Dad died, 25 years ago, Mother and I more or less became totally dependent on each other.  Oh, she almost always had a dog, but I shared in the dog as well and that was a part of our bond together.  The grandchildren disappeared, my older brother was largely absent, and my younger brother eventually faded from view as well.  We only had each other.  It was not so intense at first, in fact it was downright unpleasant at times, but about ten years ago she began to develop dementia and became increasingly incompetent.  Finally I took the reins and we moved into an apartment together that lasted three years..  we had one final dog.  Then she went in a nursisng home and that lasted another four years.  Finally she died.  She hardly know me or anyone or anything.  It was tragic.

Mother’s Ashes

I pack my mother on my back

As once she packed me inside of her

I carried them all the way from the church

To the bus line, maybe half a mile

I brought them home and set the box

On a dais for the night

It all seems a little strange

They will be buried in a few days.

That last smile

When for just a moment

Mother’s sun broke out of the clouds

That surrounded her

The fear, the anxiety, the pain, the anger

And for just a moment I think she knew me

And a great smile spread across her face

After that all was darkness and

I knew she would not live much longer

She rarely regained consciousness

But I had that smile and I knew her face

And now she’s gone

Her ashes are

Sitting in my vcr

Dvd combination

Her portrait is on the stereo

I will never forget her

Waving good bye as I

Drove away, standing behind

The security door

It’s ash wednesday march 1, 2017

I went by the cemetery to see the

Engraving on the urn burial marker

They’re all together now

Mother, dad and glenn

I will go back later and  take

My little whisk broom

To dust the stone

Whatever happened to jinky george

Is it possible that such a strong

Vibrant woman could be reduced to a

Shadow of her former self.  She retreated

Deep inside and became a practicing stoic

Storing up for the long haul

Relaxing in her middle son’s care,

She hardly ever speaks or hears

She smiles sometimes, there are no tears

But the love between them it is still there

They carry on as though there were

No tomorrow other than their

Little life in a lonely land

There is still a light in her eyes

When she sees me, even if

It is just once a week.  When I come down

The hall and she is sitting in the

Dining room, finishing a meal, she

Lights up when she sees me although

She no longer has any glasses

And I light up inside as well

Although I know she hardly hears me.

There is so much wrong with me now,

My foot, my eyes my teeth, my mind

I may join her soon and we may

Be together again for a little while

And that’s enough to make me smile

Through the tears.  Heaven is

Where she is.  That’s where heaven

Is for me.  I still believe.

I have been to see mother

She was pretty much ok

Gave me a big smile

Liked my shirt

Looked good herself in

Her purple cotton pansy blouse

I try to keep her dressed nice

I am more or less ok

Jinky became a hero again, not so much a heroine, like hero in “hero and leander”.  She was stripped of almost everything – her possessions, her dog, her very mind, but somehow she persisted..  she  survived.  Over the first year of her confinement she went  from being incognizant, infantile, infirm to be resolute, determined and cheerful.  She began to take an interest in her surroundings.  She no longer sought so much to escape as to be helpful, compassionate, enlightening.  She could hardly hear, her speech was marginal, but her smile was infectious.  She enjoyed her meals.  She survived.

Mother could have been on “falconcrest”

My mother would have been  a falconress

poem By Robert duncan

Right after “dallas” on friday night tv

On hillcrest, ironing laundry

When I came home, late from the bars,

High on smoke, we would have a

Cup of tea from the old white ironstone

And sit together until bedtime

Those were very special times

I hold them precious in my mind

Tired and lonely, eat-

Ting dry ramen noodles

For a snack,

I am reminded of mother and me

Just barely holding things together

I was abused and alone

Except for her

I would buy a five pack of ramen

For a dollar and go

And stay with her for a day or two

That was it

That and instant coffee

That was about the best that

I could do

She holds her own, struggling in rough waters

She is ninety-four in a nursing home

Her son comes to see her every other day

There is so much f or which he can never atone

Their love is the stuff of cinema and novels

And yet she can hardly hear or speak at all,

Once after he helped her brush her teeth, one day,

She laughed, and her little barque jumped and yawled

Their beauty garners the attention of nurses

And attendants, helpless to assist

Each shares this moment in eternity

As they ride the waves they cannot resist

Is there a God? I tend to think there is,

But how would we have known him if it were not

For His great passion, reflected in such as this,

Perfecting faith that comforts us in love

My mother had more or less ten

Aunts and uncles on each side.

I pretty much knew them all.

She marched us out to visit them

In dress shirts and little ties

My two brothers and myself

They are all long gone now

But mother is still alive, me too

I have no children and almost

No nieces or nephews now

I am largely all alone

I wish my brother lived nearby.

When mother passes

when she goes on to

The other side

It will be a great sea change

I will be alone at last

How just how long I

Do not know

But I will follow

Fairly soon, I feel

Fairly sure

She and daddy will

Wait on me,

And grandmother,

I am sure

Testing, testing  03/22/17  2am

A few other things about Mother

One  time I came into the dining room at the nursing home.  She was sitting close tone of her friends.  She spoke up and said, “This is my son”.  I can hardly tell you how good that made me feel.

Another time she was folding up the bibs in the dining room, very carefully, like she was doing altar work at church.

One time when she was sitting with her friend (she had one in particular), she would not take a diabetic chocolate until I offered one to her friend.

When Father Darryl brought her communion, she folded up my handkerchief very carefully and handed it back to me.  Father Darryl said, “See, that is virtue in action.  It is still active”.

There are two pieces in my collection “A Life In Verse” that belong in here: “Mother’s Red Shoes” and “The $500 Couch”.

one time i found her in her room,kneeling in prayer, beside her bed.  it was in early morning.

Back to my journal.  I am entering saved poems from a recent mss.

Watching Daddy Die

Watching Daddy die was difficult;

It took place over several months.

I had been in New Mexico,

Living with Mary Connell,

Speaker Jim Wirght’s poet sister.

When I came home, Daddy was

Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

He had smoked two or three packs a day

Most of his adult life.

He died in a matter of months.

He underwent chemo and had a good

Attitude; but he had serious questions.

I was not much help at the time.

I was still a practicing Buddhist.

We had disagreements about his driving.

He would drive himself to and from chemo.

I lost my temper some of the time, but

Just before he died, we talked, and I

Was able to tell him how grateful I was

For all the times he had rescued me.

He literally had saved my life.  He

Told me he was glad I told him that.

He was thinking that he was a failure.

Mother did her duty by him, but

Somewhat coldly..  I asked him if he

Wanted to know what would happen

Afterwards…in this life, I meant.

He said he guessed he would get whatever

Mother gave him.  It was a grand affair.

I did not take communion at the Episcopal funeral.

He had been pretty much ok until right at the end.

Several clergy came to visit.

Then at the last he just curled up and died.

Mother gave him a puff of smoke and I had turned on

Some classical music.  I was not there

When he actually died.  I was on a bus

Coming crosstown.  The funeral car was

Already there when I arrived..

I was only vaguely aware of him

In the other room.  I looked away

When they took him out.

Mother was a little emotional.

That was about all there was to it.

People came back to the house after

The funeral, family and friends; and then

Mother and I picked up our lives and went on. 

I Just wish I could have talked to him

After I had my conversion.  I would have had

More hope  to give, but I do have it now. 

I have the hope of the resurrection,

And I still hope to see him some day.

03/24/17  12:24am  I was feeling no love for myself or for anything else.  I woke up from a different dream.  About the grateful dead, and Berkeley and nora and alice breslow and Thomas Parkinson.  I went to the dining room and got a cup of tea and some cold French toast.    I sat in the little sitting area upstairs and thought a moment.  Connie #2 has  given me her email and phone,

I accidentally flipped my scales over onto their back last night.

Threw out the trash

Feeling good once again.  No more grieving…I hope

03/30/17  here am I Lord, it is I Lord, I am one who is calling in the night

Here I am a Soul on Fire  Third Day on YouTube

Noon

w/o/ a prayer, you are a prey to Satan

w/o a prayer, w/o a doubt

if God exists, is God good?  Is He good by definition, or is He good by demonstration

what does it mean, “to be good”?

to be loving, is that good?

What does it mean, “to love”?  could it be called, ultimate concern?  Concern for the ends of things, for what becomes of them, for their ultimate purpose…the purple papoose, porpoise skins, split plum

Ripeness is all, let fruit from the tree free fall.

04/01/17

Sometimes people really amaze me

Poets especially

They can be so absolutely certain

That they know better than anyone else…

About death, for instance.

They know for a fact that they will never see

Their loved ones again.  O wonderful certainty!

How courageous they are to accept this

Final verdict, this final doom.

Richard Howard for instance

In a recent poem named many poets who

Now are dead. He had no hope beyond this life.

It goes against all established witness  or

Almost all.  Who informed him of that!

I expect to live forever in the company of heaven.

I don’t know about the rest of you.

from a random file (part one)

                                                                           

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J O U R N A L A New Revision 1/2/2017 Hp

12/06/16  2pm

My hat goes off to

Mahatma Gandhi

Who left a tooth in

The town of Kandhi

Issachar bought a car

From Zebulon,

He would go far

In search of truth

Discovered Ruth

And in the end

Drank sweet Vermuth

Go buy a car,

Abiathar.

12/7/16 testing.  How’s it working.  Seems ok.  8:45am

12/8/16 3:50 pm

When your caretaker is a thief

You will be subject to pain and to grief

There may be no immediate escape

The risk is real and the loss is great

A decanter

Eddie cantor

Ernst Kantorowicz

History professor

Berkeley, a favorite of

The poet Robert Duncan

12/09/16  1 pm  watched part of an old “gunsmoke” after lunch, an excellent lunch.  Was well written and well acted.  Serious tensions, adequately resolved.  Real danger.  Life threatening.

3pm  I want to tell you about our lunch today.  We had baked catfish fillet with shrimp on top with a sauce, pureed cauliflower as a starch and steamed greens.  There was a corn and chicken chowder soup and bread pudding with a sauce for dessert.  It was heaven.  Breakfast this morning was scrambled eggs and polish sausage, fresh cooked oatmeal, grits and coffee.  No telling what dinner will be.  And so it has gone day after day since dinner Monday.  I just wish I could recall it all.  What has happened to us?  Where are we now?  This home, endowed by w. h. grove, is a shelter, a solace, a place of reflection.   I hope to live here for many more years.  Even without the gourmet food, the past three plus years have not been that bad.

Some people have trouble understanding the source of my present happiness.  I myself cannot explain it. It is fate. It is the Will of God.

12/10/16  4:30am

A million legal abortions a year

Did you also vote for that?

You hollow caustic hypocrites

I live in a single room, without a kitchen, but I am richer than a king

A convention is coming to town, the sheriff expects to write a lot of tickets, that’s all I remember

I go, I go to prepare a place, a place much better than you know

And you, you Mr. D., why don’t you quit practicing to be a practical imbecile

And where is Mr. Skeffington? Ms. Bettie Davis

Moan hypocrite, mown lecteur

Sometimes it’s the best that you can do, just to get it said.  Morning prayer

It’s cold, Nicole

Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah   halle lu   jah

Aunt Hallie and Grandmother Lou

No mention of you, Flo

2:13 pm  12/11/16  dreaming.  I woke up from the nap.  I had no dog, but in the dream a little grey poodle was with me, like mum’s dog candy, and I was in a restaurant on an interstate in arlington, trying to feed her, and water her, and keep it together.  The waitress let us sit in there.  Actually I had some money.  There were students.  There was a big college, but not the one I was looking for.  Then the students turned into monsters.  I lost the dog a couple of times, but recovered.  (Dudley just called, she is on her way) there was barbecued chicken everywhere.  Then there was a couple present, someone a little like lalu,  whitey’s daughter perhaps, the one we never met, she and her male partner offered to get us home but he wanted to go to their apartment first to spend the night, and he did not want the dog.  I had been on a bicycle but it broke down.  The waitress had won some money at bingo.  I hid some presents, one to be honest, in a deserted concrete building that turned out to be a post office, and when I went back the right present was not there.  And I could not find the correct collage, and /or the church where I had left mother, Christ the King off Bellaire south, down the hill and to the right, but it was all different.  Then I heard something was happening with mother, and then I heard mum was dead, dodo told me; she just could not take the strain.

Dudley is coming. She is bringing mother’s presents. I am Falling apart like pat.

Monday morning, December 12, at 1:30 am

Dudley came yesterday.  She brought my Christmas and mother’s.  this morning early I dreamed that Dudley brought a good breakfast in a Styrofoam box. 

Psalm 42-43. one psalm.  Why are you so dejected my soul and so disquieted within me

My help is in the name of the Lord, who hath made the heavens and the earth

Blessed be His name forever

As the hart panteth after the brook’s water, so panteth my heart after you, my God

My soul thirsteth after God, the living God, living waters, when shall I come and appear before God again, o my soul

O mio solo, o loving God, o how I long to know your presence.  For you have promised to be with me always.  Praise be for your eternal kingdom, and for your everlasting word

My tears have been my food and drink while continually they do ask, “Where is your God?

12/12/16  8:30 am  grandmother latimer driving her old 49 ford in highland park village with several young men in the car and then down a narrow driveway at the house on hillcrest just barely missing scratching an old 57chevrolet parked on the side.

Martin placing oranges outside selected doors here at the grove home

Defending trump

12/14/16  5:30 am  slept almost all night, once again. Must be the doubled up anti-depressant at bedtime.  Pat is on psych meds now.   Saw uncle jack sitting in a corner at a basketball game.  He hardly knew me.  Must have alzheimer’s.  asked me where I was now.  i’m here at the game, I responded.  Dr. Moab came out of his exam room.  I went in for my accordion lesson. He charged me $25.  Woke up singing chris rice “he’s been lied too, lights his own candle, some other way”.  Carry your candle.  Feels pretty good.

Trump is not empty headed.   He has lots of ideas.  You just happen not to like them

And racism.  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.  We have our differences, in some cases serious differences.   If that is racism, then i’m a racist.  Race is a part of reality. 

Robin thicke

Robintech

12/15/16  10:30 pm  dreamed Carolyn S. was dead.  Wrong about that.

Found my appointment cards, several times.  Not really

12/16/16 3am first freeze expected on sat. night, tomorrow, in mid to late December

“baby, it’s cold outside”

6:15 am  driving out of Houston with pat and glenn in an old volkswagon bug with no brakes,  mad at glenn because there are no brakes, behind a van load of church people, I have to drag my foot on the  ground to stop the car.  Richie o. is there.  White rock lake powder

Yesterday I took the bus

To town to go to the pulmonary clinic.

It was a fairly cold day,

And the people on the bus were sort of chilly.

This is the first winter I

Have ridden the bus in quite a few years.

I travel through the homeless district.

Colder weather is on the way.

I notice people’s coats and wraps.

Some are ostensibly nervous.

Downtown where I change buses

Two young men share a bag of chips with

The ever-present pigeons.

The pigeons hustle for every contribution.

I notice one with a split white tail.

He makes his way into the center of action

And emerges with a morsel of food.

By then there is some bread as well.

Bread pieces fly into the air.

The split white tail moves in and out

From the periphery

Then a bus stop employee

Scatters the pigeons out of the way.

I see them lined up on a rooftop like

Vultures waiting to swoop again.

I had never noticed them up there before.

Finally I get on my bus and

Go to the bank and the bus again.

A young man tells me of his plans

To study and become a preacher.

I try to be encouraging.

When I get off the bus at the medical clinic

I pull a tendon in one of my calves.

It is very painful, but I have to

Limp up the hill and see the doctor.

I am disabled on the bus ride home

And almost fall getting off of the bus.

One of the riders was an older man who

Spoke a lot about the life of tramps.

He himself was a king among tramps,

I’m fairly sure, but it made for a good

Ride; and once I got home I got off of

My feet and am much better this morning.

I remember a question the young man asked;

“Are you ready for Sunday morning”.  He was

Referring to a change in weather, but I

Told him later on that that

Would make a good title for a sermon.

Am I really ready for Sunday morning?

That’s a good question; I probably          

Will not go to church.  It’s sure to be cold

And probably icy.  I have a ride but

My ride home might not be a

Good idea if there is ice.  My church

Is a long way across town.  I’ve been to church

Three Sundays in Advent now.  I may miss one, but

I’m sure I’ll get there Christmas day.

12/17/16 1:30 am not only not convinced the Russians are responsible for the election hacking, I am not convinced it really ever happened at all.   The president (Obama) kept assuring us that it was Virtually impossible. 

The Maddox women want to go to New York on their own.  Their father may not let them

Sandy McR. complains that because of trump’s victory he won’t get the triumph sports car he  always wanted.  I thought that was obama’s fault

Nightmare dreams about sandy.  And attacks by other worldly aliens.  Now They really might have done it.  No one has suggested that so far. C(h)ancel choir

“You’ve been hurt and lied to.  Light your own candle some other way”…chris rice (op sit

Cancel

there were these extraterrestrials who came to earth and were abducting the homeless who carried signs that said "will work for food". they took them to a remote processing plant where they were canned with labels that read "will work for food".

Aunt Best

One of my best aunts was dear aunt bess, although bess was in fact my grandfather latimer’s sister and therefore my great aunt bess.  She was born in the northern panhandle of texas and attended clarendon junior college as a young woman.  She had one sister and four brothers who survived infancy.  Her sister was my great aunt bert or bertha, but bert deserves a separate essay of her own.

Bess married George witte who was, I think, perhaps a petroleum engineer.  As I recall, George managed a petroleum refinery for magnolia oil on the north side of fort worth.

George and bess lived, as I remember them, in a modest but respectable house on willing avenue just off of Elizabeth boulevard.  At one time, I think they may have lived in a larger house on sixth avenue where bess’s parents, George and daisy latimer, lived with other family members, including George witte’s mother, and his and bess’s son, George, jr., and a cousin nancy latimer (perhaps), the daughter of Calhoun latimer, one of bess’s brothers.  Or was that Suzie Weirum with whom I recently  spoke. I have heard that they had a sleeping porch for the summer time.

Bess had a beautiful singing voice and sang with a group from the fort worth women’s club and perhaps one at texas Wesleyan college as well.  I thought of her this morning as I was heating kettle corn in the microwave.  Bess always made popcorn balls at Christmas.  I imagine she used black strap molasses or pure ribbon cane syrup.  The popcorn balls were large and sweet and crunchy.  My mother, jinky George, took my brothers and me to see aunt bess often, especially at Christmas time.  I really enjoyed aunt bess’s popcorn balls.

There was a bedroom in the witte home that had belonged to George, Jr.  George, Jr. was tall and blond and handsome, had attended rice university, served in the navy, but was already grown and soon married when I knew him in my adolescence. George graduated from rice in 1945, the year I was born, as I also would do in 1966, graduate from rice university, that is.  George witte, jr. had traveled extensively in Europe and was a very cultivated and gentle man.  He and his wife  had three children, two daughters and a son.   The older daughter married a yale English professor and surely has a family now of her own.  George, jr. passed a few years ago.

George, sr. was a jovial, friendly man who when I knew him was largely confined to a wheelchair or bed.  He liked a good joke, and my dad would encourage me to tell some jokes a bit too racy for our tastes current today.

Bess’s sister, bert, married an oil man from new York and lived in Venezuela for a time.  Fred weirum died relatively young and left two children by a previous marriage, a son and a daughter, whom bert raised to at least some extent.  Fred weirum, jr., was a rice engineering professor and susan weirum married a lawyer from fort worth.  After uncle fred died, bert went to college and became a librarian.  She lived in Houston for many years and often entertained me when I was at rice.  Later she lived in fort worth, close  to bess, until she passed in the early 80’s, I think.  She was very conservative politically, and an early supporter of Ronald Reagan.

I remember uncle fred from family funerals in dallas and fort worth.  He would often tell my brothers and me a story from kipling’s JUNGLE BOOK, “how the elephant got his trunk”.  Oddly, bert lived on kipling street in the Montrose district of Houston.

Bess lived well into her nineties.  I used to stop by and see her from time to time.  She took good care of her mother, daisy latimer, who lived to be ninety-seven or ninety-eight.  My mother, also a latimer by birth, and known to her family as Virginia ann, is almost 96.  She is physically strong and well may live to a greater age even than her grandmother.

The latimers were a very interesting  family.  I have told the tale of their progenitor, George latimer, sr., in another place, as it was told to me by my father who was not related to the latimers by blood.  My father was a last name George, as am I, and I had three great uncle george’s: george witte, George latimer, jr. and George mancil, my grandmother’s brother, who had an interesting story as well.

Please forgive the eccentricities of my word processing.  I am just now trying to get used to windows 10.

12/19/16  3:20am

Peter wood

Peter wood was an interesting older gentleman.  I met him on my way to new York when I was fourteen years old and riding on a greyhound bus.  Perhaps I should tell you how I came to be going to new York from texas alone at such a young age.  In the mid 1950’s, my uncle jack George and his wife maxine moved to norwalk, Connecticut, as a result of his, jack’s, employment with midcontinent oil supply company.  Jack was actually to be working in new York city and would commute to work by either car or train.  In 1956, my father, allen George, jr., who was vice president, secretary and treasurer of American standard life insurance company took our family on a long (three week) summer vacation from fort worth to Norwalk in a red and white ford station wagon.  Our party consisted of my mother, Virginia or jinky George, myself, my older brother patrick, and our younger brother john glenn George. It was a wonderful trip with highlights in a tour of Washington, d.c., and an opportunity to see new York city which both patrick and I had already seen at our respective ages of four when our grandparents, frank and virginia latimer, took us by train on a similar expedition.  granddaddy latimer was general auditor of the texas and pacific railroad.  I have some recollection of that trip, particularly of the hotel in d.c. and going up into the torch at the statue of liberty.  I also recall encountering a man in uniform at the hotel in d.c., whether military or a doorman I am not sure; but it makes me think of Dorothy parker who asked a man in uniform outside a new York hotel to call her a cab.  He responded, “madam, I am an admiral in the united states navy.” “well, then,” quipped parker, “call me a destroyer”.

Jack and his wife Maxine George, and their two children laurette and johnny, pretty much always came home to texas for Christmas in those days.  In December of 1958 jack suggested to me that perhaps I would like to come and spend the summer with them in Connecticut.  I am not sure how seriously that invitation was intended to be, but I took it quite seriously.  In the spring I began approaching my father about the possibility.  At first he was quite negative and said that we could not afford for me to go, but finally he relented and I made plans to travel by bus as soon as school was out in late may or early june.  I seem to recall that it was with some trepidation that my parents and brothers put me on a greyhound bus in fort worth.  My uncle jack would meet the bus when I arrived in new York.  Dad had some parting words of caution.  He told me to be careful about taking up with strangers and to especially watch out when I had to use a public restroom.  with those words, I departed.

It was almost no time before the bus stopped in dallas, texas.  We had a brief stop there, and I needed to use the restroom.  I do seem to recall that an older man seemed to be watching me closely as I used the urinal.  I was guarded but not especially panic stricken.  Back on the bus, somewhere along the way, I found myself seated next to an older gentleman who introduced himself as peter wood.  Peter was a somewhat older man probably in his sixties or seventies. I had a small portable chess board, and peter and I played chess along the way.  He was retired and had been in florida and texas, and was on his way to spend the summer in new York.  He told me that his favorite hotel in new york was the plaza, and that he would be staying there.  Later jack would venture an opinion to the effect that the plaza had perhaps the best public rooms in new york, but was not necessarily  the best personal accommodation.  Jack’s company kept a suite at the waldorf towers.

Peter and I chatted away happily all the way to new york, including through an incident when the bus broke down and we had to wait by the side of the road for a replacement.  Some neighboring farm people who were having a picnic helped us out with fried chicken and watermelon.  There was nothing ever even remotely improper in my friendship with peter.

Peter gave me his florida address and we corresponded for a number of years, usually by post card.  I think he asked me help keep him abreast of the news which I sometimes attempted to do.  A classmate of mine from public school had asked me to do that once while she was with her family in germany.  I relayed public news, but she let me know that what she intended was personal news from our schoolmates.  I did my best to comply.  I can still remember being in a drug store on berry street, buying a large postcard to send to peter wood.  And then, eventually, i heard from peter no more.

Peter was just one of a number of people I met in my adventures on the bus, both locally and on my trip to new York.  I met a woman who may have been named mabel, an older working lady, to whom I gave up a seat on the local tcu bus when I was young.  I often rode the bus to town, even when I was just ten years old.  There were few safety concerns in those days, and my parents let me ride alone.  Mabel, it turned out, lived in a garage apartment around the corner from my parents’ house just off university drive.  I would often call on her, unexpectedly, and she always seemed happy to see me.  That was when I was still fairly young.

The summer trip to connecticut was a very eventful one.  We went to mystic seaport, a reconstructed whaling town, and cape cod where we climbed the pilgrim’s monument, and to old Sturbridge village, a reconstructed new England farming town in western Connecticut, with frequent trips into new York.  It was, you see, my third trip to new York; and I was only fourteen years old.  When it was time for me to come home I flew american airlines, my first flight.  I remember that aunt maxine prepared cold corn on the cob, which I oddly enough liked quite well, for me to eat on the plane.  I am sure there was a good meal served, but I can just imagine eating cold corn on the cob on the plane.

I did make a mistake about my first trip alone to new york, coming home.  I came home a day earlier than expected thinking to surprise my mother.  My friends bill chappell and galen kleinfeldt met me at the airport with bill’s parents, the William chappell’s senior.  When I got home to our suburban home in fort worth, I did surprise mother; but she was not very happy about it.  She had wanted to meet the plane herself, with dad and my younger brother, john glenn george.  I heard her tell a friend as much over the phone.  But it was most certainly a wonderful trip, and I got good mileage out of it when I got back to school in the fall of 1959 when i was just starting high school

A few potatoes

New potatoes

Down to 242 right now

12/21/16  12:01am  woke up singing Michael smith’s hallelujah.  The new allelujah.  Playing it now.

3:31am  woke up singing “o  happy day”.  Dream of visiting with john E.  He was headed to hong kong and back home.  Dream of making plans with jack gr.  He has been traveling also.  An elderly man is escorted into Christ the king by a valet.

I have to shave today…closely with a new razor.  Newt razor hall.  J. fig newton  j. newton razor

Weigh 245

Gerry George’s Christmas

It was terrible

It was too terrible to tell

Today I went to the nursing home to see mother

It was the day of the Christmas party at the nursing home.

She was bent over asleep in her wheelchair in a hallway

She would not or could not wake up for a very long time

I wheeled her down to the dining hall

Finally she woke up enough to take a piece of candy I brought

I unwrapped one of her presents for her

It was the red sweater with the fuzzy black poodles on the pockets

She smiled a little and ran her fingers over one of the poodles

I do not think she ever even knew who I was

She finally ate a little food and drank some juice

There was a santy claus and some musicians and we sang a little

She rocked her wheelchair just a little bit

She hardly hears a thing

Then she started to cough

I was afraid she was choking

The nurse came and checked her out

He had even checked me out earlier

He asked me why i was so downcast

I quoted psalm forty two to him

Why are you so disquieted my soul and

Why are you so disconsolate within me

I could not take it any longer

I put her presents in her room and

Caught a bus home

It was a hard trip on the bus

So many people, so much sorrow

I had a meal waiting

I stopped along the way and picked up some medication

I was thoroughly traumatized

I undressed and lay down on my bed

And now I am crying uncontrollably

I just want to die

I don’t want to go through Christmas alone,

And Christmas without mother means

Going through Christmas alone

I have no one to help me with my word processing

I am all alone in the world

I hate this operating system

I was happier with windows xp

I cannot successfully move texts

I can only transmit this file in its entirety

I hear sobbing

It is a sob story

The story of a son of a gun who loved his mother

I drink you in deeply

More dearly to hold

Than life itself

My home in the cold

O come all ye faithful

Benito uncle remus

 O come and go with me

While my soul is stretched out like a sheepskin

With pegs in its corners

To gather the dew that

My sorrow rains down

There was a genie trapped in a bottle.  For a thousand years he vowed to reward whoever freed him with that person’s heart’s desire.  No one came to free him.  After that he vowed to destroy whomever should let him out of the bottle.  And so it was.

When grandmother was dying in a nursing facility in dallas, I became emotional while holding her hand as she was held up by a tied sheet in a sitting posture in a chair.  The nurse came in and told me that I must not get emotional with the patients.  It was disturbing to them.  That’s how it is with mother.  It is very difficult.

Paul said I have only luke with  me…luke, the beloved physician, I presume

I have only mother, only mother with me now.  I will try to see her every day.

                                                                             

12/22/16  8am

Destroying my computer, trampling in it the mud and water

Trying to smoke in the dining room

Mary calls me from jail

Kelly prompts me in Christmas gifts

A whole four blocks of downtown torn down to rebuild..a cathedral?

Losing my notebook

3:12 pm  daddy chasing me over the skyscape of san francisco as I leap over the golden gate out to sea headed west

12/23/16  12:43 am

With Jeanne h., as has become fairly usual, I tell her that I have translated the first six verses of dante’s divine comedy during the night.

In the middle of my life’s journey,

I woke up in a very dark wood

Because I had wandered off the straight and narrow path

It will be difficult to tell how things were,

The wild wood so savage and difficult

The thought of which brings me back to my old anxieties

A terrible place, death itself would appear no more desolate

But if I am going to tell, the good that came

I must write about things that are not so good

How I ended up there I cannot really say

I was so overcome with sleep at the time

That I began to stray, leaving the true path

12/23/16                        

Two smoky columns of figures wander aimlessly down the page

And now a slim line of text puts in an appearance

I wonder what the day will bring, what rare gift will I receive

I am so blessed with this place to live I cannot but be thankful to God

The dreams that haunt me in the night

I walk around at night downtown

Distant people are shooting with rifles

I find an old deserted church building

I go inside and someone says

Gerald George, are you here to sit up the night with me

It is a shelter and elke Garcia is here and speaking to me

It’s time to make the coffee

It’s time to go downstairs

7pm  hunger is the human condition.  Hunger is universal.  Hunger is unavoidable.  Embrace hunger. Hunger rules!

Pop cornballs

Futures in corn

I fain would eat the husks my master feeds unto the pigs

Honey locust pods or mesquite, saint john’s bread

But I am at home

There is nowhere else to  go

Grateful for the corn

It’s like that man young Abraham said to me in san Francisco many years ago about going home, there’s no food there

I do have a jar of bread and butter pickles.  I drink the juice to alleviate my leg cramps in the mornings

Sweet dills and mother’s candy

A feast

Iced water

And never forget F.H.B., family hold back.  A smart ass liberal asked me if I really thought prayer helps.  Well, it got Donald trump elected did it not?  Maybe half a million babies can be saved this year.  If you  don’t want to bear the seed, don’t do the deed. Self indulgent hypocrites

Like grandmother’s watermelon rind pickles

And speaking of miracles…how about that election.  Who’d o’ thunk it!

Trumpet

Trump it

8pm shakespeare’s death year 2016  400 years

Cottage cheese and fruit (mixed) with pepper from the dining room

Remembered I still have a sandwich in the fridge…it can wait until tomorrow

Tv went out

Will be back in half an hour

10:30 pm   no response but d.s fairy tale tell of ball gowns in new Orleans

Ate a large banana nut muffin

Time to sleep good nite

12/24/16 11am  limping again.  Applying heat.  Seems to help.  Church tomorrow.  Will try to get some rub but it Will be Christmas day.

12/25/16  5:42 am

Saint Bonaventure the mind’s road to god

Saint Augustine love’s doctrine

A dangerous adventure along wooded paths.  And in cities.  Terrible destruction.  The city of aleppo.  My husband’s to Aleppo gone.  The bride of Christ.  Digging in.  dante’s divine comedy

Hostess snowball with a candle in it/bluebonnet circle drug store

Mother and I find each other in the dark in the park after a terrible flood.  Daddy and uncle jack are there.  Earlier we were in the will rogers’ coliseum

French cuffs and collard stays

What do you say

Is it not a new day

At 5 am

Making coffee in the

Upstairs dining room

I long for sharing, an intimate sharing, whatever is possible, I believe in that

                                                                                  

Father, forgive Lawson.  He has no idea what it is he is doing; in rejecting me he is rejecting you.  But you alone can show that unto him.

Turn to the back,

Go to the back,

Mary Magdalene

11:08 12/27/16 coming up on the slaughter of the innocents

10:50 pm an hour later.  Grandmother’s house In highland park a suburb of dallas.  I get fed anyway.  So  much for all of these clowns.

5am  have signed up with a temporary work agency.  Get a call which I am finally able to return. It is an 8 day assignment in Burleson.    I am being given instructions about the bus transportation.  I hope that it is fairly simple.   But perhaps the job is for someone else, a woman.  It is only five hours a day.  I will almost net nothing at the end.

1:30 pm

When will I appear again

At the altar of the Lord

The New Testament in verse

This morning I went to the podiatrist;

I have to go from time to time.

I took the bus as I usually do,

And spent some time forging rhymes.

There was a rapper in the station,

Carrying on something fierce,

But I just waited for that situation

To pass until my bus should at last appear.

My feet are sometimes passable;

Sometimes the doctor throws a fit.

I try to amuse him with jokes about

Podiatrists that rarely work… as jokes, I mean.

There was a podiatrist that moved

To North Dakota seeking tall bunions;

Another sent patients to dancing school

While waiting for their toe to heal.

Podiatry is in the Bible;

In the book of O’podiah.

I get weary of the heavy word play

And settle for a Sack of Rye. 

Sack is an old English form of wine,

And rye is what my grandfather drank,

But if I could both live and die at the same time

I’d pause a while to sit and think.

These words are positioned for your amusement

But even when they fail, it’s what the Muse meant.

ALGOORHYTHMS

“I drank a liquor never brewed”,

And this is what then ensued:

I fell into a kind of trance

And watched strange creatures madly dance.

It was a kind of bacchanal

For which I gave great thanks to all.

12/29/16 this morning brings two related emails, sent by a new correspondent, that seem to me somehow remotely connected.  One is a dish in time  being I am fairly comfortable in a conservative Anglican alternative version of George eliot (mary anne evans) who was a Victorian novelist with novel and radical ideas which bore fruit in her living outside of marriage for thirty or so years with George henry lewes.  She is quoted in a late review, (she was a contributing editor to the radical Westminster review) referring to “silly” female novelists.  I wonder if she somehow included jane Austin, or the bronte sisters, under this reprehensible umbrage.  Perhaps if she had stayed closer to convention and closer to God she would not have written so many excellent novels.  There is no doubt about her literary gifts, but moral examples are still in some question. 

The other offering from the same source is a Thomas more poem “in the stilly night”.  Now, “stilly” strikes me as a “silly” and non-existent word insofar as I know even in more’s time.  The poem itself is fairly trivial, I tend to think the author (a saint in the roman catholic tradition and by almost common consent) might just as well have used the adjective “silly” as “stilly”, but that in no way reflects on his sterling example in speaking up for morality and common sense in his opposition to king henry the Viii’s questionable marital behavior.  More was a staunch roman catholic who firmly believed in the pope’s supremacy at a time when reformation thinkers were challenging that stance continuously.  Perhaps they had a valid point or series of points.  Perhaps if ecclesiastical authority is undermined to that point, it can be further taken to undermine the authority of duly consecrated bishops as well.  If man cannot be trusted (and he rarely can) perhaps we can find a way to put our faith in God through the wholly scriptures which is the solution of most protestant denominations.  I am not essentially in disagreement with that proposition.   The church is Still in need of reformation, and not over largely “silly” matters.  It is important to have a valid church, but the difficulty comes in the designation.

Life is torturous at its best.  Some things have to be accepted as facts of life.  Some things are taken on faith.  There may be some distinction between the two.

2pm 12/29/16

After a George Michael song

“Last Christmas I gave you my heart”,

You gave it right back, you said please just don’t start

This Christmas I tried it again today but

But You gave it right back on the very same day

I love you I am sure but I really don’t know

How to love you, if you could just show

Me how I’d learn it for sure

And give it to you in a way that is pure

It is a good morning.  it is about 4am on Friday, December 30, 2016.  I have been up since 2.  I went to bed about 10pm.  I have now accomplished essentially all of my chores.  I may or may not take a nap.  I probably will later on.  I am not tired at this time.  I am refreshed.  The computer is operating successfully in my room, at least for gmail and writing. Praise be to the eternal God who aids us in all our good endeavors.

Without shirley

There’ll be one less soft shoulder round here to cry on

One less sympathetic ear to here

That lsd that you used to use for you to fry on

Won’t do you any more good now you are out of beer

There was lots of time for you to seek repentance

Even if you knew not you’d done wrong

Your sanity was bought for just a pittance

By a demon who could sing along this song

It’s best to wake up each day clean and sober

That way you have a chance to do some good

But if you won’t try and clean up your remittance

You’ll pay the piper ere you’re gone too long

Cancel it, chancel  it

Chancellor child

Chisai

The dems: those with a dim view of reality

                                                                                   

Ear o’ taitted by it,

Mr. toe buy it

Run to the end

In the end I was

Almost 72 years old

With almost no recognition

To talk about and

A body of work

So extensive that

If I could just

Keep it intact

Was certain to score

Someday, some how

I  could see it coming

Lady Fame from afar

I could almost taste it

And yet it was

Still ephemeral

Shaded in gray

I gave myself over

To an all gracious God

And accepted His decision

Howsomever so odd

I knew that I might

Reach the end without fame

But if it should come

It would not be the same

Does he know

Can he guess

You are all so well but

It must come out the blessed

The complainers

They are always complaining about something,

Like the hebrew people in the desert,

Murmuring, murmuring.

Now they are complaining about

The housekeeper.  Hey, they just don’t know

How lucky they are

To get their laundry done at all.

She’s the sweetest woman in the world

And one of the

Most hard working.

I depend on her all of the time

She just likes to get her

Work done on time.

We live on a schedule

As best as we can.

01/04/17 11:10pm

Woke up singing “total eclipse of the heart:”

Now there’s only love in the dark

Three small houses of crystal caskets

There are fifteen or twenty of us in all

Awaiting final disposition

I have a new family

A congregant named Emily

They shower me with gifts and love

I’m glad I am the object of

Five hours sleep

Good start

Won’t you come and live in

My father’s house

At long last love

With a coat hanger and a

Blue flowered tie

I am a snake handler

Preparing to die

Don’t have a lot of money

Give not often but when I can

To union gospel and cal farley’s

And monks in a distant foreign land

01/05/17 5am

Screamplay

About a young gay male who has lost his mother.  In some kind of crowded academic lecture setting his grandmother comes into the hall and then comes over by him and lies down on the floor and apparently dies.  He is trying to lock the screen door on an office or apartment that belongs to his councilor.  The hook is high up on the door.  His counselor is a sympathetic young woman.  He is at a college reunion using the urinal which is a hole in the floor and he misses repeatedly when someone comes in behind him. 

“total eclipse of the heart”

Rather like the black and white taste of honey film from the 60’s.  he is kicked out of his hotel/school for having a gay affair.  He says he intends to marry the boy whom he calls his little girl friend

Waking up repeatedly, he needs to  shave.  It is his day to go see his mother in the nursing home.

2:16pm bloody, as usual. I am on the phone with darla getting a number for greenwood.

When mother is gone I will

To a large extent have lost my

Reason for living. I

Will be bereft and inconsolable, but

Perhaps I will not be alone

Or barefoot.

Poor tom

Poor tom’s a cold

One of these winters

We’ll lose poor tom

He won’t come in

From the cold

The ant and the grasshopper

Starring tom bruner as the grasshopper and

Gerald George as THE ANT

Saturday morning

When an old affliction returns, sometimes

It is difficult to understand

Why God allows these things to happen

Over and over and over again;

But perhaps there is a learning process

That goes on within our souls

Which prospers us with many trials and

Helps us to grow and adjust.

Sometimes it is a physical pain.

At other times a nagging habit

We have to accept for a season although

We hope for delivery in the end

It is best to just continue plugging

Away at our problems, carrying on

Until we see the light again

And our sun bursts forth with

A wealth of song.

And, oh, we know how these things go

We are sinners until the end when

We meet Him ere long

The Devil himself will not leave us alone

Unless we drive him out somehow

But our Lord Jesus Christ is always there

To be of assistance and help us out

I notice the Internet is on active

That is a temptation at times also

I could seek to escape in a sordid fantasy

But I won’t,  for I value my soul too much

To be cast in a useless den of sin

That would cheat me out of my

Final reward.

It was bin ramke the poet who wrote me almost

Forty long years ago,

Yours is an effort will be rewarded

I’ve held on to that as

The years explode and simmer in

Anger and hate

My life is good

Much peace of late

Like hooded monks in a foreign land

We make our way over snow and sand

Until we reach our ultimate goal

The treasure found…and not fool’s gold

The trouble with long johns

They’re hard to take off

Your feet get stuck in a

Serious way.  One could

Conceivably have a difficult fall

Or a difficult summer

If you happen to live where

It snows all year long.

New razors

You’ve got new razors

As far as I know

j. newton razor

j. fig newton

Rice benefactor

Senior follies

1963

Raisin perfect

Raisin’ cane

If He came back,

When He came back,

Would he come back

Where, how and why

WhaT ELSE IS THERE IN THE END, EXCEPT FOR POETRY.  Ellsworth johnson said at ellesemere

Or was it elsenore

The teens and the twenties were good places to be…a hundred  years ago.

Mother

As long as mother was with me

All was well,

I did not know

Nor could or should I know

What the future might hold for us

A meal,

Perhaps emile

The 1871 overture

Christmas comes quickly from year to year as the years begin to slip away

Jerusalem is mine,

Thus sayith the Lord

I will not yield its glory to another

Not that I really give a good damn any more

Do not excite the brain more plainly Lord

That may contend with sleep as by the board

I place thy proffered hand to meet my grasp

At the hallowed end begin my last

Blast

Fetch shakespeare then and let him feed my brain

Where showers wash and spring brings pleasant rain

Perhaps at night I yet may fall asleep

And you my Lord may learn in time to weep

Dreamed I was offered a cheap French video biography of penny J. .  Dreamed a fictional description of our episode.  Terrible experience.  Took place at jerri reidy’s in Houston.  Art gallery situation.  Political ramifications. Finally get her back and then lose her to death.

Not as sleepy as i should be.  Only slept a very few hours.  Have to get ready for church now.

Luck now

Boyce’s voice inside my head.  Am I already in hell perhaps?   Is hell just a metaphor for the human condition as we know and experience it?

Jeanne’s voice

2pm

I remember the early morning, the dreaming…the alarms.

I put on some clothes and shuffle on down to the

Dining room, where I make coffee and bring in the paper.

I catch a bit of FOX on the tube and head on back to

My little room where I groom myself and take my

Medicine.  I pray a while and read my scriptures.

Take care of my teeth, doctor my eyes.  It’s an

Important time for me; perhaps I will write a little

Poetry.  Perhaps I will address my email, or look for some

Music or other diversion on the computer.  It is a

Good life at seventy-one, almost seventy-two.

Whoever thought we’d live this long, and then there is

Mother in the nursing home, going on ninety six.

Weekdays I may go to her or else a doctor if I have to.

There’s shopping to do and letters to write and on

Sundays I still go to church.  I visit with friends

Keep up with the dog and keep out of trouble as

Best as I can.  I watch Shakespeare on dvd with

French subtitles.  That keeps my mind a-hoppin’.

There are neighbors to greet and charities to be

Donated to.  The bed to make. Music to hear.  I

Guess I’m glad I’m still alive.  Wouldn’t you be if

You were me and someone asked you how you are?

Hello.

And I can remember a hippie settlement at

Wheeler ranch in northern California where

There were hobbit houses (diminutive) with

Smoke stacks and little kitchens where people

Ate oatmeal all day and mostly smoked weed.

Velvet caped Guy and I hitched up there one

Time and hiked in from the unfriendly road.

There was a precarious shack perched over a

Canyon with no one home and an interlinear

Bhagavad gita on the living room floor.  It had

Been purchased in wheaton, Illinois.  I knew that

Bookstore because my father visited there on

One of his regular visits to Chicago.  I had had a

Dhammapadda in the same format.  No one

Attempted to lock their door.  Our hostess

Hooked up with a gangly young man I just

Barely remember.  Another time I dropped off

Guy at the parking lot at the start of the road.

The neighbors were hostile, and that was before

The county came in and bulldozed the whole camp.

Mr. Wheeler had enjoyed the diversion.  He had a

Small sauna which he liked to fire up.  It was not

Far from the Pacific coast or Morningstar Ranch, another

Famous commune started by one of the

Limelighters I sort of think.

I’m not going out today.  It’s Sunday and the

Buses only run once an hour.  It is also

Very, very cold.  Down in the 20’s.  I have

A good jacket thanks to a friend’s daughter who

Dropped this one by.  I did get out to

Church this morning.  The little church on

The prairie.  It was brought in from the

Country a few decades ago.  It is

Conservative Anglican and that is the

Way I like to pray, on my knees or

Standing up. especially when I am going

To be hearing the Word of God.

Get some music if you can, the you tube

Takes a little while to load.  Mostly

Contemporary Christian with a little

Classical and opera thrown in.

Heard Marianne moore read in central park in new York in 1965.  She was in her seventies then.  She was not the best reader as i recall.  That was commonly said of her.

Heard Marianne faithful (mick jagger’s old girlfriend) singing “as tears go by” over satellite tv from London the same year.  She was positively stunning.

Gmail jamail gerar gebar ali akhbar khanifferate

Used to read with  JAMAIL  AT THE BLACK DOG

TIGHT AS ANDROGYNOUS

Various And sundries

The sun dried everything in sight

Paul Wilbur looks a lot like jack i.

Same moustache

Pastor paul Wilbur

1/9/17 6:30am

Mary did you know

That your son one day would be restored

To the kingdom

Dream of working inside the tomb, a small oval shaped boulder with a chamber cut out

Fear of being locked up inside

Someone comes to ask what time I might be needing help

I do not trust that person

If the portal closes, the tomb will lock

Paranoid fantasy

8am

In my dream I hit jim C.

Arguing about politics

I am getting ready to leave town

Jim goes into a bathroom

I follow him in there

Bad dream

Morning night mare

“because I love you

Just the way you are tonight

Tonite

Saint stephen’s Presbyterian church has been vandalized

Christ the king Anglican has also been vandalized in the fairly recent past

I thought perhaps it was the church politics, but probably not

It’s very sad when someone or some people attack god’s church

I once told a priest that sometimes I got mad at God

He told me, you’re lucky you get mad at someone who is going to love you anyway.

Won day, when I was with you, when the world was new and we were just a few who would have loved thee, that’s the way I feel tonight

10:47

It will be noon soon

My bad toe bothers me a little

I just hope it does not come back

The way it was, ingrown and painful.

I feel a little stressed out now

I try to practice stress reduction

“but i can tell you anyhow”

It can’t be cured by suction