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