Last summer when I was living in Brooklyn I was watching a doccumentary with my brother about Hitler and WWII. It was a doccumentary about Hitler's presence as an orator, and master of his own image. The narrator claimed that Hitler never let himself be photographed with his hands in his pockets. Thinking of this, not Hitler exactly, but where such an idea might of come from, the idea that being seen with hands in your pockets as a sign or weakness or ineptitude. Thinking of this I walked back the street back to my apartment, making sure that my hands and arms were swinging freeley, and trying to fill them with mindfulness, feeling it full on through to my fingers. I felt there was a difference, a way of being part of the city streets when inhabiting some kind of confident pose. Whereas, before, stuffed hands in my pockets and head down, I felt like I was a somehow vulnerable to the many sets of eyes I would walk past, the fact of my not rising to meet them an indicator or respect; for myself and thiers. So I worked on this, coupled with a quote from the Beastie Boys, "What's running through the mind comes through in the walk", thinking that a practiced posture will develop different habits, trying to be a better person. When walking down the street with a friend that summer, I told him what I was doing, thinking about a practice in moving. Telling the story much like the one I just told, his response was "Why do you want to be like Hitler?"

back when not way back but kind of back relatively speaking say almost one forth of my aged years say if i were eighty say a fourth would be twenty years but i'm not eighty and not about to go into age and weight time and place but say lets just say way back when when i had moved to seattle out of college and was visiting amy down in oakland we would come down to oakland and she would come up to seattle say a long distance thing and it worked pretty well for a while but one trip this time we had been over in san francisco for some reason maybe to go as far as the beach or maybe simply to go to a record store i don't know but she liked to walk and still does and we were walking still do through the down town area say walking down market around where its starts to get hairy right past city hall and the other day looking up at the new federal building over looking a carls jr. where there are some sad people milling about in front of at all hours some more busy than other and the man the guy we were walking down the street and we were younger and looked to be in love and people would stop us and say particularly homeless people would stop us and compliment us and then hit us up for money or whatever because not only did we look happy but we looked nice in that nice nice way that naive way that sucker way and maybe we still do turn the frown upside down or maybe we don't maybe just a quick denial a refusal of the question a knowledge to avoid the eye contact in the first place the idea of seeing what's coming of course not nothing how could we know but the man had red hair a beard grown out of proportion he started talking we stopped we couldn't help it to lend an ear maybe i stopped and she stayed with me i don't know but he was talking and we were talking sort of and actually trying to move on down the street we were by large fountain talking about how beautiful she was and yes smiling and nodding and moving away okay nice to meet you a hand shake moving on and he said yes i remember he said how would you like to watch while i fuck your girlfriend while shaking my hand and that was it we left after that didn't say a word about it really asked her the other day if she remembered but not it was gone i don't remember the guy but remember the feeling a bad one a young one

Say the conflict, a conflict, say, is what to call ourselves. What is our ‘thing’ our history? What are the words they will use to describe us, to describe me? Say, modern and post-modern, and now what? This time. This one, where an immense subjectivity couples with the eternal, as in, yes, there are times to make immense declarative statements. Yes, there are times we make immense declarative statements, and times we let it all out or in or standing still or running away. A massive psychology, a massive subjectivity whereas we can be understood, but not all the time.

Instead, no, it is the frame we are looking at, describing. Exists in a bubble and at the same time, supremely talented. Both you and us. I and them. The King and I. Etc. So it is not the thing, no, it is not a matter of right and wrong, not the materials and principles, the backlog of information accessible to us through the Internet, a phone call away, walking through the graveyard on a cell phone, but the groovy eye, the one eye, the shut your eye off once in a while eye. No pictures, no piles of pictures, not an immensity of stored data. I go back and lose it, the train of thought, the interruption a phone call an email, the end of an empire, the idea of an empire to hold and to cherish. Past an idea, past discussion, nobody would believe me anyway if I told them, saw it myself. No, what we’ve become is not a thing. We’re too complicated now. “Of Being Numerous”. George Oppen. But we must have a thinglyness. It must have a thinglyness, but not as a thing derived from a thing, the new model, but a mode a transport. Not the words but the mechanism of delivery, or watching and being watched; that we will understand over the course of time, that our infinite subjective will settle.

It is no longer a fractured world, a waste land of dejected pieces, but a world of infinite connection. And no longer do these connections defy explanation. History and science and economics are cornering the market. We can explain almost everything. A non-sequitor is traceable, not fooling anyone. No, we are left with a wheel of subjectivity, a wheel of experience where everybody is right and everybody is wrong. We have turned back on ourselves, back to our mechanisms of perception. Seen as the media, touched as an advertisement. Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Sometimes sometimes and never maybe. Always maybe. What does it matter? A man slashes at an already dead fish. Time moves on. This is our next challenge, certain in our uncertainty, the inverse, and one that doesn’t. Plurality. The plural. And to connect that which we need to is to rediscover that which we need. And so what it is is not a thing but the thing’s movement, the machine and what it is doing, where it is taking us. Yes there are many kinds of trees in the forest. Yes, some of them are particularly beautiful yes. And yes we are standing on a path, and yes there is a swath of trees knocked down over there. But the movement. The drawing of lines, connectors, this is our task.

At one point in early adolescence I found myself at church camp, some kind of over night spiritual retreat for kids. I'm not sure why we were there, and am assuming my dad made us go. My brother and I. It was totally awkward, but we managed to have some fun. I remember sitting with some kids who were being read to, some kind of bible story with pictures. I thought about how I wasn't into bible stories but it was nice to be part of this little group, sitting closely and warmly together, somebody else's family. One afternoon we were walking through some grass and my brother spotted a snake in the grass, a small one, a gardener. I reached down to pick it up and it jumped up and bit me on my little finger. My brother then grabbed a stick and wailed on it, killing it. We picked it up holding it from its head and dangling, its body still intact, I proudly told a few people that I got bit by a snake and that my brother had killed it in retaliation. There were two little holes on my pinkie, no venom or swelling, just a simple bite. The snake probably didn't deserve what it got. The little holes stayed on my finger for a long time.

The bench, otherwise known as the lake perch, just down the hill from the apartment, a.k.a. the home. Runners running. Birds doing their bird thing. Not a poem but a simple return to writing on a widening notebook. A skinny green pen. Two pairs of skinny legs moving in the dusk. Pointed away from the sun, say north or a direction resembling north, it was good to see a few of those people who have run past. Some of them look at me, some of them don't. No action, or no result other than the acknowledgement of presence. Not even a nod, but an inclusion into the park scape. Music that was bleating behind me has stopped. Stop smoking, stop blaming your problems on other people. The music has started again. Fragments of conversation. The sounds of traffic passing by, engines and motors. A mother and her teenage son. Neither nor, a thrift store coat. Social responsibility lies with the socially responsible. To see a move end call it a night. A movie with no end. The fading sunlight, a voice rising in its approach, and the sun made of light; not a burning ball but a yellow symbol, abstract as meaning. A Charlie Brown Christmas. A trip to the museum, closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. A sigh from a mother walking with her daughter. Anything but made up. Don't forget to call. Don't forget to write and bring pictures, the fading voice and the quiet entrance into a room. A memory of a video game, a half smoked cigarette. Traffic increases and the glances made apparent, to option, out-source, a conversation outward, building a relationship or looking for an answer. Making other plans, but not surprising. I'm not trying to recreate the situation, but interpret with a bias as full as weather, a wind blowing outside of the car. Headlights on, okay if you want it to, but the same pace, the pace of circling the lake. Perhaps a piece or part of it, a gap in conversation, a fraction of it overheard, and though not miscontextualized, misconstrued, no, but recorded as is. Simply and without judgment, to be lead to what is important by a narrowing of options, that importance finds you. A lake in the city's dusk. A small bird diving to the bottom of the pond. The expression on the face of sentiment, not important, but a lasting image. A short legged dog trying to keep up, in good conscious, and a heart beats rapidly, as if the words had caused the race to begin, not the gun but the intention to signal. Pick you head up. A runner's pony tail swishes. Could it be any other way? Not what we see but imagined to have been. A glance at the man sitting on a bench. Taking notes on just that, the notion of looking. Recognition and awareness. A simple meditation, and done so through practice. Not a technique. No ending.

The stock market crash of 1932 was brought on by falling interest rates and bad car loans, the oil industries plight to introduce radios with metallic car frames. Ironically, Henry Ford was the least affected of the industry moguls as he and three others climbed new heights in awareness. Spinning greased up gears always a hit amongst investors, he retained no status like that of the insufferable nagging feeling one stock broker might have to deal with, jumping from roof top to roof top, running from the cops. These stories of grief high up high light the national mood that follows “bad” teachers or trying to avoid the pitfalls of modern medicine, the Ovid and the Odessy “giving back” to a karmic society. Poor values and more highlight the mid 30’s insuperability, placing a man’s palms against the beating chest and sweating forehead of the stock broker’s wife, already at a distance due to long hours at the firm. These hopes and others are reintroduced come the beginning of the mid-eighties.

semi early morning unlike most climates of posting this one comes early on due to the fact of elevated transport concerns say a new day a new work day this time with use of a motor carriage to speed up along the highway in a direction untypically crowded due to flight towards the big buildings no this time instead we move away from them to the low lands north berkeley said right off the highway practically begging to be arrived at via motor car not pool just me alone solo driving concentrating on the road ahead the other cars maybe a turn signal a light but who cares the birds flapping outside an engine passes as she descends the large hill outside the apartment and the blue sky is pale and nondescript to my left i can look into the neighbors apartment them too on top the hill but not in a wealthy way but a small space shared way an apartment for those who bring all their references and one that i happened to move into maybe too big or grand for my ambitions but nice nonetheless if that is a word what will become of it of anything roasting grand avenue letting the mind wander thinking about keith waldrop the opposite of letting the mind wander and his now translation of baudelaires flowers of evil maybe i can trade in a couple items i don't want in order to obtain it but talk is cheap ill probably just buy it put it on my credit card sunshine morning hotel no tell etcetera butter talk just outside below where the window can frame the grill i used last night sits the coals burned out and the catfish i had thrown down on the metal eaten just a few pieces left still stuck the metal cold maybe a prowling cat will eat it yes it is that kind of neighborhood

I remember as a kid having a painting session in my dad's kitchen, painting pictures on a summer day in Mineral Point. No ornamentation or description of those summer days at my dad's house, under the care of Wealthy, a kind old woman who still mystifies me today, her relationship to our family, why she would watch after us kids...because she was paid? Where did she come from? Regardless, we were painting water colors in the kitchen of the old Victorian house down on the corner of the large hill. Not knowing what to paint, I took my cue from a public service announcement alarming the cartoon watchers of the fact of child abuse, how to spot the signs as a poorly painted water color depicting a monster standing by a child's bedside, fangs and blood imagined as the abused psyche of the truth telling child. Taking this cue, I painted this picture, hoping to get some kind of recognition as damaged goods, a deep dark well of emotion justifying my fears and wants. My brother wasn't impressed, probably recognizing the picture for what it was (a fake). My father equally less so. No one brought it up and it escaped the world again.

hi no pretense sunny day in a quiet oakland neighborhood just got back from a little trip or two one to the homeland wisconsin for a family event marked by presents and sugar and the other a brief trip down to sunny southern california desert to meet with friends and both times without live in girlfriend shes off doing her own thing but as i wait i wait await you know the time share holiday that kind of thing waiting and living longer than ordinary education plays a role says the newspaper but as i wait later on today ill go meet with a man who might offer me a job though im not entirely hopefully good timing though since the current means of employment doesnt begin until the next week and i find myself erasing punctuation very much a transitional period while lacking a space amongst other things maybe this is the time to make phone calls to apartments here in this one filled with smoke as something in the oven i think it was a potato pancake from decembers activities filled the apartment with smoke and though the windows are open my eyes still hurt and it looks a little cloudy still but i can't tell if thats just me or the smoke still on its way casually moving towards the exits fresh air still coming into the insides the breaks are few and unforgiving times like these require scooters to send down hills not messages but the messengers themselves in all of their healthy glory hercules and isosceles marathon twenty eight days later the post is filled died at the finish line slipped on the rope the sweat and embroidered on his sweater reads snowflake nineteen hundred and fifty four new year etc option for change et al