Smoke Bunnies

Hey, I know how to blow smoke rings, but do you know how to blow smoke bunnies?

A Letter Sent By Bird

Saturday
39 degrees 26.470 minutes North Latitude
44 degrees 14.110 minutes East
Day 29?

Dear Lord,

Today, one of the Unicorns died. I know they are one of your favorites, "Take extras special care with the Unicorns!", you told me as we screwed down the hatches and slammed the door. There wasn't much I could do about it, this boat sure is a lot smaller than it looks once we were packed with all those late arrivals. But nobody got serious until the water was waist deep.

Lord, could you be troubled to say something to my wife? One hot cooked meal per day is not being unreasonable -- we all have been troubled by this calamity. I just happen to not wear my feelings on the sleeve of my robe. My Dad was like that, and his Dad before him. She could also stop with the attitude, Lord, lots of attitude. And please don't say that I should beat her with a stick. I'd no sooner beat my wife than beat any of my children. We all end out the best we can.

Speaking of the children Lord, I thought they'd be more serious about the gravity of the situation and also of greater overall use. There's been some horseplay with them and a few pairs of animals and much hard feeling all around because of it. I don't know if the doves and the elephants will ever be reconciled because of these frivolous hijinks by Shem, Ham and Japhe.

Well, that about does it, my back is killing me and it is no fun cleaning up pens, as you could well imagine, I think. A nice steady wind out of the west would be much obliged with no more griping from the cheatas and the wolverines at 3 AM, is that so much to ask? But you told me you knew the plan and what you are doing. I am still trying to get over the images of my whole neighborhood, and then country, drowning.

Your most faithful servant,

N

Being Hurt

We hurt ourselves, it is avoidable, but we intentionally hurt ourselves in the body and in the mind. Kerouac had the opinion that this was a self regulating subconscious attitude -- a way of offsetting our boundless good fortune with an amount of self-generated bad fortune, to keep things feeling balanced & normal. We do this to keep feeling we live in a world with walls, a world that needs walls and doors and our stuff, we have Joy as our right hand and Suffering and Anguish on the left. Like a snake eating it's tail, ignorance reinforces ignorance. We get hurt. Being hurt is safe.

Happy Father's Day

I love him, but we don't talk. It is that Father/Son combo we have chosen to follow. Two not talkers. To his two grandchildren (one 8 and the other 9 months) he Terra Incognito. But why drag other people or kids into this, right? That only makes things more complicated. Like someone responsible for their own happiness, I try not to add people to the equation, though there are naturally many people who are part of the equation. There are many people who keep things running smoothly for me and him, that is exactly part of the problem. We tried therapy a few years back, had one meeting with a consoler, and that helped, but we didn't follow through.

If there is a question of Blame, and we need to make up our minds, my Dad says I left, and never came back. Never returned to the Table, never returned to the Circle, never united with Family. I say, in response, I left a long time ago. I left before high school. I left in junior high when I had to protect myself from my Dad's disapproval, disappointment, and resentment. And later, much later, whenever I'd visit, you'd sit there and let me talk, not listening to me while you read your newspaper and got on with your day. I was a noise.

I realize by me writing this, there is one more layer between Father and Son. But I can't help it, the writing. The extra layer added I'll now try to peel away: I cannot give my Father the gift of Insight, nobody can be given that, we have to discover it on own. But I can wish him a Happy Father's Day, with Love from your Son.

Wherever we are, Happy Father's Day, Dad.

The Great Day

There is a color picture of them, by the way they are standing, you can tell they are happy, happy in a way like it is Christmas. Grouped together, the shot is close, but the viewer cannot recognize faces, because everyone wears masks. They point their automatic weapons in the air, while smoke is visible in the distance like the wing of a huge black crow. The old, less progressive government has fallen, and now after they have executed a few people from that defective regime, the slate will be pure all clean sparky new. Simply stated, the Great Day has arrived. It has arrived, see, it has.

the oldest question

i feel you hating me
it is a terrible feeling
but what can i do?

this is an old question
old as people have been
in the world to ask it.

Super Jesus Christ

It didn't matter how many "super" criminals I fought. There were no super criminals. I'll say it now, I'll write it now, down, it was all done for PR -- like the biggest three-ring boondoggle of all time. And for awhile I believed it, I played along. Believing for a new tomorrow, like a magical puppet -- almost like a super Jesus Christ. We produced our theater with the finest special effects. Occasionally I was even "defeated". I was left for "dead". Great celebrations were had when I "returned". I was good for the economy. The working classes worked harder because I was there, fighting for Peace and Justice and all that extra fucking shit. Rotting in me was the dawning realization that the FATHER I never KNEW picked a planet whose historical juncture at the time of my arrival was set and unavoidable. Father wasn't an idiot. He knew after the plagues and other natural disasters, by that time, I wouldn't do anything. He knew by then that I would have a revulsion to ever do anything. He must have loved me very much. Dad, why? I can still hear a few of them screaming, on a calm soft night when there is no wind, 2,000 miles away in any direction. Some are killing, others being killed. Men, women, children, babies. Killing, being killed, fighting, crying, dying, why?

Hello News People!

Hello news people out there, reporters, journalists. I just wanted to start out by thanking you for reporting that one seminal story, where an adult, usually a man, hurts a small child. I wanted to thank you for reporting it over and over again, stories of a small innocent children getting hurt or killed -- presented as a punch in the eye. Very dramatic. Of course, the little kid getting brutalized story is not as good as the white blonde female teenager missing, presumed murdered article. That story has a wider demographic I think, don't you agree -- it helps if her parents are reasonably unattractive -- like the missing girl is a veritable "diamond in the rough" compounding the whole tragedy. Of course, when selling & getting those numbers up, you can always fall back on presenting some kid with some kind of disfiguring lamentable disease, anything to get out the news to us. But don't be surprised if I turn away, politely, as a father, and a human being from your horrible compulsion to explain the world as graphically, and as painful as possible, by using small children as punctuation marks in a diatribe to sell ads. Isn't that what it all breaks down to in the end? Selling lipstick, ass shrinkers, canned goods, time-shares, SUVs and alcohol.

Disturbed

We stay at a fine little hotel in Palm Springs, a place where I love to wake up on what will be a flawless desert day and see the huge mountains shimmer in the heat. We are going down to the pool, when I notice a small notice posted in the closet. It says the Hotel wishes us to have a pleasant stay, and that one should not be noisy or be bothering other guests past 10 PM. The flier concludes, "If you are disturbed, please feel free to call the Front Desk (0) immediately." I immediately called them, for I am disturbed. They did not know what to say.

your heart

i thought of a few interesting things
before i went to sleep last night

a funny thing unasked for or a lyrical phrase
both fine untainted like sustained notes

i promised i'd remember
in the morning but knew i'd forget

when a line or a word or an image
jumps out at you but you don't write it down

& you say you'll remember in 12 hours or the next
day or whatever delays you

this is how you slowly and surely damage
and dishonor your heart

after reading a few poems by/john wieners

our life is funny and a bit crazy
like a record (three little pigs)
being played in another room
on the wrong setting, too fast
which in fact is happening right now
& makes me laugh

CM Evans - Published! Again!

Surprise, a third collection. One more for the road. This 200 page book "CM Bergomont's Poetry Jamboree", a collection of my poems and illustrations, is twice the size of the poetry collection "Poetry from the City of Brass"-- I like how the cover turned out. I like the insides too. I just ordered me a copy to make sure all my corrections have gone in. The next book after this will be a 200 pager of my collected cartoons -- many that are posted to my cartooning website CM Evans Cartoons -- but that will have to wait for fall of this year, because I'm pooped. I hope a few of you out there decide to enjoy the fruits of this labor.

CM Evans - Published!

Heelllo all. It's me, your old pal CM. I now have 2 books, on CafePress. One is a selection of my poems, "Poetry from the City of Brass", the other, "Selected Short Stories - The Vignettes" is a selection of my short stories. Many of the poems and short stories have appeared here, but others have been floating around in my files -- some going back 10 or more years. It is my hope that these collections have "legs", and could be enjoyed by people who generally hate poetry and writing. Those are the kind of people who I write for. I've been thinking on using the "print on demand" service with CafePress for about a year, at least, so I'm glad now I did it. The covers are gorgeous 4 color glossy printing, and the inside is greyscale. After two aborted attempts, it wasn't too difficult once I got the hang of it -- but if anyone out there wants some pointers on how to design for print on demand through CafePress, I can give you some tips. Hell, if you are writing and want to have me publish your book, let me know, if I like your work I'll set it up for you. I could even design the cover of your book.

Cats

We go out of town for a few days, the cats don't see us around, they wonder where we are off to. And while we are gone, the cats think about us as the cats sit in the places they expect us to occupy by the normal daily-habit-routine-of-things. Then the cats forget about us, but then when the neighbors come over to feed them, these people are recognized as "not us" by the cats, so after the neighbors are gone, the cats think about us again. This remembering forgetting recalling goes on for a few days, until the cats are not certain if we, their owners, are entirely real, or just thoughts the cats have in their own heads. Then unexpectedly, we arrive back home in the middle of the night, and the cats look at us. They are happy we are home, but they are not sure if they have dreamed us out of thin air. The cats feel a bit shy. To determine if we are real, and not just a manifestation of their own thoughts, the cats stay awake and sit on us and hang out in the room for hours that night. It dawns on the cats we are real, we always existed that way. Now the cats have no idea where the hell we have been, or for how long we have been gone, except we have been somewhere -- re-entering from an environment that smells different.

sparrow

my faults
my positive adornment

my virtues
my base obscurement

once like
little lines and scratches

now like
terrifying mountains

and
precipitous gorges

me like
a little sparrow

tiny free
blown amongst high and low

happy in
the blue empty sky

Jack Spicer, nor John Wieners - or - My Dada Moment

Up until last week I didn't know a damn thing about Jack Spicer, nor John Wieners -- which astounds me, flat out astounds me. I appreciate knowing my writers, and I try to be aware about stuff in general, so I am not totally stupid. I had not the faintest inkling of two great and influential poets, Jack Spicer being one of the dynamos, one of the stars, one of the prime movers of "The San Francisco Renaissance", even though he despised publication. Richard Brautigan dedicated "Trout Fishing in America" (one of my favorite books) to Spicer, fer kristsakes! I mean, I know about Ginsburg and Ferlinghetti and Kerouac. I know about the Beats, I love City Lights Bookstore, I got drunk countless times at (and hid Hell Money all over) Vesuvio. I just can't believe I didn't run into the other side of the coin or discover the rest of a world, that universe, that story. I even studied at SF State, in the English Literature Department, in Creative Writing, yet no peep about Jack Spicer, who taught a famous poetry workshop, there. I can't understand that. Possibly people at SF State hated him, I don't know -- SFSU was a weird place full of disconnects. What a huge omission! So I ordered, at Latif Harris' suggestion, Spicer's collected works, and I'm picking up some collected poems of Wieners, and I look forward to reading these books & other poets that studied with Spicer and his cohorts -- including Latif Harris, who has his own collection of poems, "Bodhisattva's Busted Truth: Selected Poems and Dohas of an American Buddhist" out from last year. This all reminds me of a associate who is an artist, a fine artist, yet I discovered he had never heard of Dada & had no notion of it whatsoever. So here's my latest Dada moment, I guess. One of many more, to be sure. I truly do not know what I do not know.

Poem to Latif

meep meep

honk honk

bow wow wow

said the crow

to a cloud

Two Long Stemmed Roses

Two long stemmed roses hang on the wall, over the door, affixed there by not my hands. Long stemmed roses, blossoms dry and pale, an insect moves disturbing the dust. I have seen love grow and die, I have felt passions seize us suddenly -- tempered with a flawed reluctance. But now it is reflections on this love past, swelling in me, influenced in part by this room with books and scattered papers of writing and poems, and part of me, on how I gave and it was lost. The roses hang a few inches apart, blossoms down. I lean closer, and I look for the first time, and I see the roses have no thorns, and two leaves.

Pink Diamond

I go looking for you, but after 3 years I would have been surprised to find you still working the counter at the jewelry store. I remember how we told stories to everyone about the wonderful pink diamond that was displayed in the window -- such a rarity -- that is what started us off in the relationship. It was romantic and fun at first.

Then you dated other people without telling me, you told the other guys you were fucking I was your best friend. At the end of the year, after confusing me with lies, you took off and vacationed in Hawaii with a finance. Later, I called you up in my sleep in the middle of the night and told you I was lonely and I missed you, and why? But if you answered then the question, why, I wouldn't have heard it, because I was asleep.

Now there I was, 3 years later, actually excusing myself from a circle of shining friends, all of us piratically locked elbow to elbow laughing and chatting in the cafe. I told them I'd be right back, and I quickly walked down the street to the mall a half a block away. I watched myself in the glass doors, the reflection almost a silhouette, more like a hole than a person, and then I went in. The pink diamond was gone, and so were you.

fish in a fish tank just looking around thinking the tank is huge

7.12.99

latif i call you on my birthday and we scream like pirates

you old fucked up coot but we laugh ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa

because we both know someday i'll be just like you

and you'll be just like me but for now we're just like

fish in a fish tank just looking around thinking the tank is huge

blowing bubbles

and knowing

somehow the food will be coming down any time now