Advice

1. Take some time off and reflect on what happened. Absorb the past few months and try to get some perspective. You'll need this kind of introspection if you wish to aspire for the higher office, a position you clearly believe you deserve now.

2. Focus on the work you should be doing. Be the best at exercising what power you have now. Rebuild a feeling of cooperation, transparency, and accessibility -- even to the people who hate you, or disagree with you.

3. Demonstrate the kind of discipline when a microphone is stuck in your face, or camera, that you will decline to speak. Realize that many interviewers are on the outside friendly, but most of these interviewers want to record not who you are, or what you want to be -- what they really want are your gaffes, they want to record a display of presumptiveness towards power.

4. Realize the more you seek national exposure, at this time, the more you fritter away what small amount of political capital you have gained. This is because you are speaking too much, too soon after the election. As in point #3, it brands you as a blatant opportunist, a power monger, and a fool.

5. Educate yourself in the following areas, at least to the point where you can name some names, have a general appreciation for, or show you know the big picture, or basics concepts of:

- World Geography
- International Relations
- National Affairs
- Economics
- The Civil Rights Era in America
- American History
- History in general
- Linguistics
- Psychology
- General Science
- General Political studies
- Basic Philosophy & the history of Philosophy
- Comparative Religious Studies

Also read "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli, read "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville, read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William R. Shirer, read "The Spanish Inquisition: A History" by Joseph Perez & Janet Lloyd, read the Constitution of the United States, the United States Bill of Rights, the Amendments, be familiar with the significance of the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, understand the valuable concept of Habeas Corpus, be familiar with the history of the Supreme Court and famous cases -- you may wish to take some introductory classes, or do undergraduate work at a law school.

The good news is, realistically, you have at least 8 years to "bone up" and get educated the rest of the way. I don't think the first 4 colleges you attended were very good schools, or you didn't apply yourself. So get your head down, start some night classes at the local J.C., and see where it takes you.

Poem - You and Me

the first time we broke up
was at a harbor

when we got married
it was on the top of a cliff
and we held onto each other
as tightly as we could

now ten years later
divorce proceedings
negotiations about money
day in day out of a tug of war
.now
...raking
.....leaves
........while i wait
..........to take you to the
...................................train

(knowing all along it is rather
pointless to rake because
who cares if they pile up
and a million more are ready
to fall and erase this work)

i suppose they call all
this suffering and punishment
acquiring wisdom through
direct experience but i don't
know what kind of wisdom
i am acquiring

i wish i did understand
why it must
be so painful in the process

but who am i to criticize the
flow of this relationship and how
it brought me more direct
wisdom

oak park
november 2008

Poem - fall

11:06 am

fall is an ocean of leaves
overdue library books
making sure the drains are clear
ready for rain

Poem - boys rake leaves into huge piles/ on the side of the road

boys rake leaves into huge piles
on the side of the road

listening to a tinny AM radio
playing a pop ballad about love

like the possibility of romance
there is no end to the leaves

until they all have fallen

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Monday, November 3rd, 2008. The day before the biggest election of my life. Weather in Oak Park is surrealy nice -- 75 degrees. All the trees are changing into their striking fall colors with no fall chill, not a hint of winter in the air. It's been this way for about 3 days, and we'll keep having mild sunny days for the next few days. Who would have thought the Midwest could have finer weather than California? A thunderstorm that will break the spell is set for Thursday, or Friday. After obsessively watching the polls and the predictions, I've been reading old Horizon art books, right now I've gone over a interview of Hemingway by George Plimpton in Havana, in 1959. Hemingway, of course, is brilliant in the discussion and a bit quarrelsome with some of the questioning, as if he was hung over, or wanted to get drunk again, or both. He also said some things that are new to me, and I can think about what he said that day, back in 1959, in Havana, for a long long time. Making sure I spelled George Plimpton's name correctly, I discover he died in 2003. I didn't know Plimpton was dead. Hemingway, he blew his brains out with a shotgun in 1961, aged 61. Plimpton died of natural causes in his apartment in New York City, aged 76. Can you imagine the way you'll end up? The time, place, and circumstances? With such events happening around me, intertwined with the past, and the fine weather at the present, it seems inconceivable that I, or anyone living now in this moment, should die.

Adios!

i.

I've been thinking about Lao Tzu, nothing specific, as I pack the last few boxes. I clean the apartment for the last time, put the boxes in the car 1 by 1, in no hurry at all. When I know I'm done, the place is cleaner than when I moved into it, empty, serene, ready for someone new to move in and fill it with all their hopes, dreams, talk and worries. I take one last trip into the building when there is nothing left to do. I let myself in, as if I still live there, as if I would be staying there more. Here is where I pause, I look, I listen. I see the floors are almost dry, I peer in all the rooms, I say nothing. Cars move up and down the steet, the sky looks like it might rain later this afternoon. All is done. On my way out, I bow to the apartment of the second floor. Adios! I say. Then the door is locked, a few minutes later the key is in an envelope in the building manager's mail slot.

ii.

Driving away, with the last of my stuff, I almost feel blue -- but there on the side of the road is Lao Tzu. Under the falling leaves, he might be reading a Pennysaver, but I'm not sure. I pull over and he gets in. We drive through town to the flat, and have tea in the kitchen sitting on boxes stuffed with packing paper.

Poem - i have a knife

i have a knife
i was cutting things with it
when i realized knives are ugly
like guns are ugly

anything built to divide
sunder or cleave cannot help
but be a monstrosity

no matter how you
dress it up

Poem - robert the great poet

robert the great poet
you're getting old and
i'm not ready for that
feeling a certain
indicisiveness in your mind
or a hesitation in your voice
due to age due to
infirmness we can't escape
i remember in the past
there was nothing half done
about you as you pounded out
verse in the summer fall winter
spring files everywhere with
correspondances papers exploding
in all directions heater blasting
in the livingroom with that
curious green shag ancient
carpeting and now
you are a faint voice on the
other end of the phone
getting fainter and fainter
as i think about it & i feel
like now i have betrayed you
because i write things like
this and you are such
the poet

Poem - oh well when i'm

she's a tough bitch
of a waitress and
she thinks she's better
than me so she
gets in close and invades
my personal space but
oh well when i'm
writing about her she
doesn't know what to
do because she's
never seen anyone do
that in a restaurant
before

The Last Time I Saw You

The last time I saw you, years ago, was on a bus. The second I got on, something told me this would be possibly the last time I would ever see you again. So I confessed my love for you, and my admiration.

I saw how my words made you very upset. And when you became agitated, I knew it was the last time I ever would see you, in this lifetime.

Lao Tzu Does Nothing With the Rain

i.

Lao Tzu is gracefully watching the raindrops fleck on the window, beyond the window is the side of the abandoned house. As he observes, I cannot help but watch as well, Lao Tzu does nothing, but for me every drip is magnified. Each raindrop becomes like a whole country, or a room of the Louvre, or of a kind of imperishable great love. I realize these drops of water could be anything and everything, all at once. I realize, also, that these drops can be nothing, or about nothing at all, totally unimportant. Then I am astounded -- look at how the raindrops fall, flecking the window!

We watch for a long time.

ii.

Lao Tzu having done nothing, is now done. He smiles at me, never saying a word. He goes out through the back of the kitchen.

Poem - it rains on the abandoned house

it rains on the abandoned house
masking the frequent beeps i hear
of dying smoke detectors because
the power in the home has been
shut off for at least a year

"the more it rains the more it rains
the more it keeps on raining" (these lines
taken from winnie the pooh and they
are true as true can be while
i hear the ducts softly clicking
as warm are comes into my room)


North Lombard Street
Oak Park
Oct 2008

Poem - i'm sure it made good time

here's a happy poem
designed to inspire

i saw a small cloud today all alone
in the blue blue sky

it was alone but not worried
taking it's time

headed NW towards chicago
i'm sure it made good time

Poem - stone is comforting for a stone

i give up i go to sleep
i turn to stone

you are smarter than me
wiser than me

giving up is giving up
dreaming is dreaming

stone is comforting
for a stone

Poem - the historic baseball team

the historic baseball team
lost the game

the man watching this
has a white handle-bar
mustache

he quits the bar
in great anger and disgust

off he goes almost
bumping into a young
pretty blonde

They Don't Need Me

I don't remember the first debate at all. I was high as a kite on pain medication, and some other pills I popped at the last minute. All prescribed, I might add. I've been saving them up. You'd never know I was high and out of my skull. Out of my mind, you know what, I did great. The second debate, I can vaguely remember, when some parts didn't go as well as I wanted them to. That is difficult for me, not being top form. This last debate, I'm going to get higher than I've ever gone before. My body will know what to do, after being so paradigmatic all these years, my mouth and face and body will get the job done. They don't need me. I'm sure of that.

What kind of mission was this, anyways?

Seconds to impact, going in too fast. The scope is hash, probably jammed. Then I'm in the trees. The left wing shears away in a shivering spectacular explosion of carbon and titanium fragments as the jet fuel blooms fiery red and yellow. I can feel the searing heat through my suit when the whole airframe twists.

I come to right before dawn, I see that I am wrapped in part of what remains of the jet. I numbly feel myself up and down, the left side of my face is roasted a bit, a nice 3 inch gash on my knee, but I think it still works. Somehow I get out of the burnt harness, and I extricate myself from the wreckage. I carefully look around. I'm in a meadow. I crashed into a slot-like canyon -- anywhere else around here, I can see I'd have flown into a rock wall. It was like threading a camel through the eye of a needle. What are the odds of that?

And as I'm congratulating myself on this, I see odd shapes all over the field, in the trees, everywhere. They are vaguely familiar, and totally out of place, and I feel subconscious horror. I don't know why. But in the growing light, I have to go and see what these things are. Walking up, I notice how one of my bombs has burst open, ejecting whatever it is all over the forest. Before I took off, I was told that this was a very dangerous cluster type "shock and awe" payload. But there are no bomblets anywhere. As far as I can see, there are stuffed toys. Specifically, stuffed gray bunnies. Hundreds and hundreds of stuffed, cute, toy bunnies.

They sent me to drop a payload of toys. They said it was bomblets, but the bombs were full of plush gray bunnies. Bunnies. Again, to repeat myself, bunnies. My face is starting to hurt like hell, and now I can barely bend my knee. What kind of mission was this, anyways?

Chung Tzu Discusses Roy Lic

Now I am with Chung Tzu, who comes by unannounced, but he is always welcome, and he knows it.

"What about Roy Lic?" I ask Chung Tzu.

"What about him?" says Chung Tzu.

"Roy Lic does not exist!" I say.

"He does, and he does not." says Chung Tzu. "But I know there became a possibility of Roy Lic either existing -- or not existing -- when certain people asked about if he existed, or not."

I pour Chung Tzu a drink.

"So, now, what do we do about this potentially existing, non existing Roy Lic?" I ask.

"If Roy is around, let him decide." says Chung Tzu, who downs the cocktail in one gulp.

Poem -- a. b. c. d.

a.

the bar is busy
i have my spot

words please don't
slow me down

i need you
like a train needs track

b.

a glittering party is
set up at the farsin
mansion as dusk
arrives

i walk by and see
an old man in a tuxedo
standing on the stairs
waiting for everybody to
show up

c.

they ask for the
beer list

& pick
a mediocre ale

d.

roy lic slept
here in this poem

but roy lic
does not exist

I Know What You Mean

He serves me and later he asks if everything is okay, so I say the food is great but about an hour ago 3 cute girls got on the train for a club in Chicago and I didn't follow them, and I'll never see them again. The bartender doesn't blink or miss a beat, he says, "I know what you mean, buddy. I know what you mean."