Got Mashed Potatoes

Last week, Carl Rakosi's collected poems' stronghold on my desktop was violently coopted by James Wright's Shall We Gather at the River. It is a small, thin, book. And it is a staggering achievment. The best way I can draw any comparison to it is to list it in the "downer" category. Fans of the downer album rejoiced last year when Neil Young's On the Beach was released (legitimately) for the first time on cd. On the Beach has been called the downer album of the 1970s.

So why buy a downer album? Or a downer book?

I guess it's probably better to ask -- what is a downer record or a downer book? For me, it's a work that's thoroughly morose and downbeat. But that doesn't mean there aren't uplifting or positive messages to take from the work -- it just may take multiple listenings/readings to discover these. That may answer my first question.

In the case of Shall We Gather at the River there is almost no sense of light coming out of the end of the tunnel. It is not a book for a bright, Sunday morning. This is a book for the end of the day, alone. Wright is the master of the single, self-contained line, especially the closing line. He can leave you bruising at the end. I've been busy with editing lately, but if I find some time, I'll post a cognizant review. The problem is I can't imagine many people wanting to go to some of the places Wright journeys to in this book. People today don't have the patience to understand loneliness or bleakness. They fall back on "It's depressing!" without learning, thinking, or feeling anything from the words on the page.

In the meantime, as I'm out of words, here's the country quiz, in case you were wondering what country you were. I'm Ireland. When you're done, you can take the book quiz (same site) to see what book you are. I'm Watership Down.

Gotta keep the site educational.

James, where have you gone
With your white bird,
Your golden corn?
Did your loneliness survive
Its flight from poverty,
The streets of Minneapolis
Fading from the horizon?

Or has it remained to overwhelm
Taxicabs and train terminals,
Spilling into the streets—
A plague too ancient
For poetry to heal
Our anechoic cries.

Let us unite, then,
The priests and prostitutes
In the checkout line,
Just long enough
To compare our empty
Pockets, forgotten by Gospel,
The black cameras
Capturing this last act—
Companionship of the poor,
Our shared emptiness.

Ugandan rebels attack refugees, kill 192

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Scores of rebels armed with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a refugee camp in northern Uganda and torched huts, killing 192 people and wounding dozens more, a local legislator said Sunday.
Saturday evening's attack on Barloonyo camp in Lira district was one of the worst in recent years by the Lord's Resistance Army, a shadowy rebel group that has been fighting the Ugandan government for 17 years.

As the insurgents surrounded the camp from three sides, many people ran to their mud-and-grass huts instead of trying to escape, and were burned to death when the insurgents set fire to the homes, legislator Charles Anjiro said.

Dr. Jane Aceng, head of Lira hospital, said 56 people were taken to the hospital with burns and shrapnel and gunshot wounds.

The camp was home to about 5,000 people displaced by the insurgency, which has forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes.

The camp was being guarded by members of a local defense force, who were outnumbered and outgunned, Army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza said, confirming the attack.

It was not possible to contact the Lord's Resistance Army, which is led by Joseph Kony, who claims to have spiritual powers. Estimates of the group's size range from hundreds to a few thousand.

It is not "one world". We are not "one people". That dream is folly.

It was after three days of chase
without sleep, sight or
experience that I knew:
I cannot close him.

Nab pulls me aside to a gas station
with a roof on three legs.
All the truck-driving patrons
sip their coffee and watch
us sit in our booth. I recognize
a face, but the name has run too
far, and I recall what it is like
to wake remembering a dream
without words or images—
just emotion slipping away
like a tide that will never come in again.

I sit there and cry as Nab watches me
closely over his coffee that I know
tastes like tar, but he does not say anything
about the tar or the chase or everything
worth sitting in booths worth crying over:
even Carmody before he changed,
ideas before balance sheets,
the times when bigger was brighter
but now only seem farther—
even naïve, as if effort equaled audacity,
as if the thought of getting up right now,
out of this booth and going back out to face
is nothing but the next line in a script
I have lost.

The tavern’s patrons blend with the walls
painted full with smiles and sharp teeth,
the same song coming from everyone’s eyes—
no ears or noses, torsos or legs,
just a school of smiles with teeth,
swimming through the same song.

Nab and I get out of there pretty quick.

Next door it’s packed so chest-to-chest
we can feel everyone
breath in their drinks:
Nab says a martini olive’s slipped
into his belly button; he gulps—
Carmody climbs onstage,
and everyone starts dancing to
the mood they’ve seen in movies.

Carmody hides behind the microphone,
staring at himself in the reflection
of his resonant guitar, his image
glancing off the polish of the floor,
creating a ring that surrounds
us all: Carmody after Carmody waves
hand after hand at guitar after guitar
bouncing of the floor inside the floor.

The crowd out-dances itself with
Carmody locked in his own staredown:
“He a vampire after his own throat,”
Nab whispers in my ear, but
all I can hear is the swish of his
whiskey splash against my ribs.

It's update time. That special time for wrfarah.blogspot.com, in which we depart from our amateurish poetry and silly, prose musings, and actually give the readers a cognizant news report. After all, what's an ethos without clarity?

• I do have a job now. I'm a temp, but us temps prefer the term "contract". It gives our friends and family the false impression that we negotiated this "contract", and that we're very serious, and that we're not really just cheap labor without benefits.

• I work for a company that processes a great deal of financial transactions. I don't think it's important to discuss the details. As I replied to my grandmother, who asked me whether my new job was interesting: "No." But it is fairly challenging. The day passes, and I find myself returning home happy. And I've found myself guilty for underestimating the value of a paycheck. Remember all that liberal goodness about the evil of money and corruption and blah, blah, blah, blah? That's great and everything, but life sure is less stressful when you're not worrying about making the bills.

• No, I'm no longer going to the women's college. I may return at a later date once the finance situation improves.

• I am still editing my second book. It's going slowly, but I'm pleased with the progress. It's less a process of fixing what is there, and more a matter of what should be added. I can see a point -- maybe two or three months down the road -- in which I'll be satisfied with it.

• I've been kind of nervous at this new job because: I'm contract, and they can dismiss me for no reason; my job could move to India at any moment; every phone call I make or take is recorded and archived; I'm videotaped everywhere except the bathrooms (and I'm skeptical about them too). So rather than cruise the internet on my lunch break, I've been bringing Theodore Roethke's complete collected poems. The last two days I've read the same one over and over again: "The Pure Fury". Roethke has his oblique moments, but also his great ones.

• The Roethke reading is probably informing a new Carmody poem I'm working on that should be up on the site in a day or so.

• There are three areas of ceiling where I work. The middle area, the largest, which covers the call center, contains 3,150 ceiling tiles.

• The 29,452nd meal this morning: mini wheats that were actually mini. Why do they have mini wheats that are the size of my hand? At what point do they become "maxi-wheats"?

• Working does not mean my visits to the clinic are finished. Hopefully I'll return to my friendly, twice-weekly morning place next week, where the opinions and movies are free . . . if not always intelligible.

• The movie of the week at wrfarah.blogspot.com is Frauds, a silly, scary British film with Hugo Weaving and Phil Collins.

• And seeing as I've always disagreed with the assumption by all Dylan fans that "Blonde on Blonde" is his best album, that is this week's cd of choice. I still say it's not his best . . . but it's growing on me, with classics such as "Just Like a Woman", "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine", and "Pledging My Time".

• I've finally gotten my wife to admit she doesn't like our fourth bird. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to convince her we need to get rid of it. Who am I kidding?

I walked down the steps to lunch today. That preprogramming from college, in which all my friends took the stairs up to the library's third floor -- even if our legs were trashed from a workout -- plugged in, and I found myself inhaling the slightly faded chemical scent of the dark orange hallway.

The only way to reach the stairs is to go past the huge service elevator that no one uses. It's just for furniture, I suppose. But preceding the service elevator are two narrow hallways. Hallways so narrow that the designer of the huge service elevator must have blushed upon completion. I suppose someone could move a thousand small parts through the hallways and into the elevator where they could be assembled into a monstrosity large enough to warrant such an impressive elevator . . . . Of course upon reaching its destination, this object would have to be taken apart to maneuver through the halls. As I tried explaining to a co-worker last week: "Logic isn't malleable. It's sense that's not at all common."

So I'm getting off-point. Here I was taking the stairs, all alone, with anything to do and any way I wanted to do it for 30 minutes, hurrying down stairs facing windows that had been carefully boarded up with thick, vinyl coverings -- as if whatever happened in these empty, forgotten stairs must be kept private. At the bottom, a second doorway I'd never noticed before stands, bricked up, with only fresh grout giving it away. It gave me an excuse to kneel down, tie shoes that were tight, and brush at my pants that were clinging with static, as if I were praying to this forgotten wall, the smell of the dust -- giving thanks for the way my muscles relaxed and my headache subsided.

he can hear her
soften her voice
as she matter-
of-factly mentions
her birthday,
but the bitterness
is clear across

dead air and deepening lines
over mirror lake,
which he has never
stared into or swum,
only gazed
at the surface
of glaze,
shining like a golden cross

over an alter before
the kneeling masses
who pinch and pray or
carry conversations or
dead relationships

through stifled sighs—
platitudes from a paladin,
bearing weight that is not hers,
weight that is not there.

For anyone with a lot of time on their hands and in the mood for reading, they can read an example of the cost of freedom.

I've sometimes thought that it's been a real waste, running for as many years as I have been . . . and deciding not to coach. I've led athletes into battle before. There's no reason I couldn't do it again. But then . . . that's not true. There's something different about being one of the hunted . . . and being someone who is only allowed to watch, comment, inspire . . . yet in the end, merely hope.

That, and, "What little control coaches have!" as the coach in my novel, STFL, despairs. If I compared writing to coaching, I could state a lot of differences. They are similar in at least one way, though -- you're trying to reach people, and you can never be sure how it'll turn out. You may end up missing everyone. You may hit dead-on with the ones you mean to . . . but then alienate just who you didn't mean to alienate.

So why have I chosen the selfish route? Why choose to write novels no one will read rather than take an opportunity to affect young'ns lives? At least with writing, I can control what I want to control. The book can suck, but as long as I like it -- who cares? I wrote the book I wanted to write. Goal accomplished.

Coaching? You're dealing with people, reality. No matter how hard you try, it can all go to hell. "Your weapon, his kill." Or as Rhodes says in Day of the Dead, "It can all be undone in a matter of minutes."

And we can all sympathize, can't we? That feeling, after it's over -- that knowing that things can never be the same -- that "irreparable" understanding. As Dylan put it, "It's alright, ma (I'm only bleeding)". Or more directly:

You've got friends who believe in you, Joe. There's a reason tracks are ovals. Keep running.

So there it is! Screw you, Sanderson! Think you're so perfect? Well take a good, long, gaping look at some proud imperfection.

Now I know what you're thinking. "This was 'Imperfection Week' but you only posted on one day!"

Well, what can I say? I'm not perfect.

Ah, the miscellany section! To compile this list, I simple thought of something Sanderson would say . . . and then wrote out the opposite (which happened to be true).

1.) I have never, ever -- at any point in my life -- been considered "cool".

2.) I do not wear trendy clothes. My fashion sense is circa 1993.

3.) I dislike, and avoid, trendy places.

4.) I honestly, most of the time, much much more than I ought to admit anywhere -- do not care. About what, you ask? Yes, I answer.

5.) I am not adventurous, risk-taking, funny, classy, severely intelligent, quick, sexy, or prepared.

6.) I have few useful skills. Thinking about this now, I cannot name one truly unique, useful, boastful skill.

7.) It is not a true statement to say that most people generally like me. I tend to stoke the fires of discontent and annoyance at a greater rate than I imagine humanity's median rate of stoking to be.

1.) Way back in my formative years, I got into a fight with a kid who lived across the street from me. He was a bit of a nancy-boy, always taking charge, thinking he was better than everyone, having to have his way. One day -- and I don't remember the specifics -- I'd simply had it. A bit of a row broke out, and I slugged him one hard in the face. Not two minutes later, my dad -- who took the bus in those days -- came walking up the street from the bus stop. He greeted the neighbor boy in his usual friendly neighborly way. And this kid, who was really upset (not really crying, but trying to hold it in) acted normally, as if my dad's son hadn't just belted him. I know at the time I was really pissed, and felt like I needed to unload . . . but I've regretted it ever since. To this day I wish I could apologize to that kid.

2.) One day, while working at my high school job as a pizza cook, I complained about something the lunchtime cook hadn't prepped. The lunch cook was a fun-loving, if incredibly lazy, guy. My manager at the time told me I could sit there and complain about it, or I could call and complain to the lunch cook. Taking this bait, I called, complained, and regretted it. Life's just too short to quibble over sliced green peppers.

3.) Just because you get married doesn't mean you can't still regret not asking out the cute girl in your aesthetics class who had a boyfriend that openly slept with her and another woman. Salt was rubbed in the wound when I later learned 3rd-hand she was sort of interested . . . but moving to Pittsburgh to live with the sleazy boyfriend and the other woman.

4.) I've had many friendships fall out. Even in the instances in which I feel no guilt . . . there's that nagging regret that wonders if I could have done something else to salvage it.

5.) Easter Sunday of 2000, I was driving back to school at night. Just outside of Mauston I hit, and probably killed, a wolf. It probably wasn't my fault. But man . . . a wolf. It's one thing to roll over a squirrel or bunny. But a wolf . . . that's terrible.

Sure, I may be married now. But that doesn't erase:

1.) I once cooked a feast of a meal for a woman . . . who ate, drank, and dumped me right after setting down her fork.

2.) I, not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but FIVE TIMES believed women when they told me they "just wanted to be friends". The total instances of contact or conversation with these women, these friends, after the break-up? All five women? One. One time: a horridly embarrassing, tense conversation. There's a reason they say they "just" want to be friends.

3.) I once believed I could maintain a relationship with a girlfriend who moved to Australia.

4.) I once plucked up the courage to ask out a girl I'd developed a crush on -- I walked over to her, sucked down a gulp of liquid courage, and was about to speak when . . . she turned and began making out with her girlfriend.

5.) I once believed women cared/listened to what you said in bars.

6.) I once got up the courage to call a woman . . . but then hung up just as her phone went to voicemail. Luckily she had caller-ID, called me back, spent two years with me before agreeing to marry me, and now graciously puts up with all my shit.

1.) As a child I once proclaimed: "It is my goal in life to never swear." Sure fucked that one up, didn't I?

2.) Ever the music lover, as my tape collection grew, I became disenchanted with this new format -- these . . . cds. I declared one day, "I will never buy cds." I now own 300, 400 cds? Who knows?

3.) Back in my collegiate days, drunk on the elixir of freedom, I announced: "Marriage? Ha! That is for the desperate, the meek -- those who fear being alone. Those who look to society to tell them how and when to act." I wonder what my wife thinks about that.

4.) Years ago I scoffed at poetry -- "Who writes poetry?! Who reads poetry?! Poetry-shmoetry!" Now one may click on the down-scroll button to read my latest poem.

5.) Once I told myself, "I will never work a 40 hour week in an office job." Today I opened my first check from my brand new office job.

"So Will," he says to me, as if he's about to ask me something very important, or as if he's going to tell me something that I need to know. "It's my birthday next month, and . . ." he goes on and on, telling me all about what he usually does for his birthday, and how he cooks for some friends, and where they go, and what they drink, and what he says to them to discourage them from getting him gifts, and how they still give him gifts, and how they spend the rest of the night, and how he got off of work the next day because of it, and how only two or three or twelve people remember his birthday now, and how his mom once forgot his birthday, and how mad he was when he got to school that day, and how ever since then . . . .

I looked at my computer screen. See, other people had come into the room at that point, and he was looking at them, not me. So I didn't really have that eye-contact obligation to maintain anymore. I've known him for eight days. I've thought about him a lot. And I've decided that I cannot imagine an instance occurring in which he could be convinced that he is not the most interesting person there is.

For instance.

Today, I heard him introduce himself to a group of people. He followed others, who stated their names, where they had worked, and that's about it. What did he say? He gave his name, and then told everyone that there were very, very few places he has not traveled to . . . even on a weekend jaunt. To illustrate, he said he would even randomly get up and drive to New York City on a Friday and then drive back on Sunday. He finished his sentence with a lilt, as if to create some expectation -- setting up a dramatic pause, perhaps.

The room "Ooed". I gagged.

But this guy has done me a service. For this week is now Imperfection Week. Yep. It's time for wrfarah.blogspot.com to air its dirty laundry, admit its faults, make its admissions. I've decided:

I need to be the exact opposite of this guy (let's call him Sanderson) who I now have to see five days a week. To do that, imperfection, humility, modesty, and honest will reign supreme.

I actually started this -- a bit impetuously, I admit -- this afternoon. After Sanderson explained to me how well he knew everyone at some trendy bar by his trendy house in his trendy neighborhood, I exclaimed: "Most people find me boring, so I don't know anyone who works at any bar in the entire country. I just sit there and drink my dark beer and think my dark thoughts."

That shut him up.

Well, ladies and gentlemen,

There are certain times in life, when we have to just sit back in our comfortable chairs, ponder thoughtfully for a moment, and ask ourselves: "What Smurf would I be?" To assist you in this crusade of knowledge, I say "click on", my friends!

The rental of the week, here at wrfarah.blogspot.com is The Philadelphia Story, because sometimes you have to go back to the classics.

For those of you wondering, yes, I have listened to Stone Temple Pilot's No 4 CD since my rant on them. But just once. So what is it?-- Are they still a great (but now unnoticed) band? Or did the end of the drugs mean the end of the music? I still don't know. Maybe a couple more listens will help. Maybe not.

See, it's hard to try and pick up an average disk once you've rediscovered a brilliant disc, such as Brendan Benson's debut, Mississippi One, which contains that catchy little ditty, "Insects Rule", which boasts such precocious lyrics as:

I once knew a woman she was skin and bones
She invited all the insects to come into her home
She trained them so well they could answer her phone
But the day finally came when the poor woman was overthrown

Her husband returned home from voyages at sea
To find his lovely wife dead and a spider sipping tea
He drew his knife and sawed into half the spider's eye
An army of red ants barely took him by surprise

The sailor and his wife lay dead while neighbors peeked in
Outside the dogs were mesmerized by the humming from within
News spread throughout the town of the insects' revival
People gathered in the church to pray to god and quote from the bible

Men came with gasoline and torches abright
A million flies covered the sky and it was dark as night
The crowds were barely heard beneath the buzzing of the bees
Now the insects rule so get down on your knees

And the town crier said, "You god fearing people had better beware
Gather up your idols and begin to prepare
The time has come the locusts have taken the air
Negotiation's on and the bugs don't even care"

Men came with gasoline and torches abright
A billion flies covered the sky and it was dark as night
The crowds were barely heard beneath the buzzing of the bees
Now the insects rule so get down on your knees
Now the insects rule so get down on your knees

As I can't top that tonight, I bid you "sleep well".

“You can’t start this way,”
so I walk out of work smelling
danish and citrus,
Paris and palms,
stomach full,
sharps and flats.

I picture
biting into lemon,
stuffing pulp up my nose,
wringing a rag
in my head,
escaping to a roof,
round grit
sticking into skin.

The ride home kills,
just as all returns,
like draught,
supply silence.

“This has to be the last time,”
so I look her in the eye,
stand on two feet, hands
gripping my waist,
wading,
thinking about Steinbeck:
Travels With Charley,
page 38,
white line,
black line,
bag pressed thin.

Back to the chimney,
I read on,
a private conversation,
an orgasm outside of time:
guitar solos and citrus,
danish and spice.

Ears blazing,
I thrash against the end
of the colors, the damp
of the rag, crust already
locking between my eyes:
a Roman emperor rolling
along the top of the wall,
stone pressing defensive
tattoos into my skin.

1.) I read through a 28-page document today that went on and on about professional this and professional that, and dress code this and ethics that, and tardiness this and sick time that, and professional, professional, professional. What I couldn't understand is how there was a typo on every single page of the document. How could all these "professional" people not hit the little "ABC" symbol?

2.) Someone tell me just who goes to see the movie, You Got Served. Tell me. Really. I want to know who would find a "badass dance" movie exciting enough to throw down $7 to see. Economy's not yet recovered, people are careful about their dollars, yet You Got Served is the #1 movie in the country? It's a "badass dance" movie. Think about that. Couldn't they wait for it to hit the video stores?

I'm sitting here, and I'm trying to imagine a conversation in which someone says to a friend, "Let's go see You Got Served. That looks sweet!" But I just can't believe that would happen. I can't believe people would say that, think that, follow through on that. It's "badass dancing". Technically, it's not even possible. It's like a male period, or a married bachelor. But there it is, dominating theaters across the country. This is our culture. You Got Served. Yeah.

I've done gone and got myself an honest-to-truth job. For a while, anyway. I start tomorrow. It feels like the night before the first day of school. I hope they have good lunch.

I set up the drum set for the first time in . . . more than three and a half years. And wow, was I rusty! I'm sure the downstairs girls loved it, hearing all my missed beats and skipped cymbals

But the best thing that's happened recently, other than some fine progress in STFL, is that I found a great book last week -- Carl Rakosi's Collected Poems. It's brilliant. I love getting those lost, little books that the literary establishment doesn't even realize exist. I wish I could add some Rakosi here, but he indents so much -- in nearly every poem -- that I couldn't bring myself to scandalize the man. If there was one poet I could meet right now, it would be Rakosi.

sustain entertainment,
drink drunk down all days,
she tells the bellhop,
with buds between her teeth.

she’s known this hang-
over before, behind sun-
glasses of fingerprints:
it is forgetting memory creates,

a slowing drain,
a mixed miss of seasons,
blurring leaves above snow,
new-fallen or has it always been this way?

you need to dance to be
seen, she said, smoking
and stubbing her toe,
the ashes resting on rose petals in reverse.

the bellboy takes her tip all alone
as she turns and tries
to remember the first feel of the fabric
against her like

they’ve all worn,
they’ve all smoked
they’ve all stripped
they’ve all been