Category Archives: Uncategorized

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corporate ladder

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“don’t worry about your place
on the corporate ladder,
there’s always some fucker
down there, two rungs below
…rubbing two sticks together
– trying to start the fire
to burn you down”

or so says Gus, the new bartender
at the Los Lobos Bar,
but what does he know (I tell myself)
damned bartenders
and their sage words,
all of ‘em
trying to sound like they
know things the rest of us don’t
trying to act like they
have done it all about two
weeks before the rest of us

…they think they’re a sounding board
for the desperate
and they think that we have no place
left to go

Gus asks if I want one more
before he gets busy
with the lunch crowd
but I wave him off
saying I have to get
back to
the office.

W E Patterson's avatar

The anniversary of Shakespeare’s death

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“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”

–excerpted from “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun”; Wm. Shakespeare

Today, April 23rd, we mark the 399th anniversary of the death of (quite possibly), the greatest poet of all time, William Shakespeare. What kind of writing blog would I be running if I let a date like that go by without a mention?

Me – I am not a Shakespearean scholar. Far from it. But the snippet above, from the song “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” from the “The Tragedy of Cymbeline” is a favorite of mine. This play was first performed in (or around) 1611, or about five years before Shakespeare’s death at age 52.

It’s mind boggling really, when one thinks of the vast expanse of time across which Shakespeare’s words have traversed. Which contemporary author, poet, or playwright has penned words of such lasting significance? What does the future hold?

Will the world have become bored with the written word 399 years from today – by April 23, 2414? I assume we will have discarded paper books entirely by then (long before then the way things look). And presumably the electronic readers that are now replacing books will have long since been replaced by some yet to be discovered form of media. Perhaps by then we will be able to simply download the great works of literature directly to the brain through some sort of telepathic transfer, thus ‘short-circuiting’ the entire educational process. Or maybe not.

Maybe we will have destroyed our civilization by that time. Maybe the few survivors will find themselves huddling around a fire outside of a cave reading from a scorched volume of the collected works of the Great Bard. “As chimney-sweepers, come to dust”, they may read those words aloud, words that will be by that time nearly 800 years old, and nod knowingly to each other.

William Shakespeare…nearly immortal.

In any case, the complete poem may be read in its entirety here.

W E Patterson's avatar

change,

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“Life is about change…”
…says the new VP of sales
to the sweaty
gaggle of lackluster
regional managers

…says the cheating husband
to his sobbing
soon-to-be, ex-wife
as they sit opposite each other
in the back booth of
the Tollbooth Diner at
around 4AM

…says society queen
after announcing
her elopement
with the gardener
shouting it out
to all present
at Thursday afternoon
book club

…says the stammering pastor
to the confused flock
as a last, but lasting
ad lib
to conclude
an otherwise fine
sermon on the sins of the flesh.

…says the physician
to the amputee

…the educator to
the dropout

…the defense attorney
to the recently imprisoned

…the orderly
to the restrained

…the old to
the young

…but it’s all a ruse

I think
a gigantic bogus ruse…

no one really wants change
we all want to circle the

drain

circle the

town square in the
64 VW Beetle forever

W E Patterson's avatar

poem tiff

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remember last July in Miami
you – in your Lily Pulitzer dress
me in my Korn t-shirt
cargo shorts and
indigo flip-flops
sitting at a bayside table
…you smoking
like you’d never heard
the news about that
habit
me drinking gin martinis
and both of us
talking about that
poetry reading
in Broward
a couple of weeks before
where the guy with the
glass eye killed it
with that poem
…
the poem you can’t remember the name of
…
and you said that it
was the finest poem
that you’d heard in
the past decade
and I said that if
that guy didn’t have a glass eye
that you wouldn’t
have regarded that poem
so highly

so we had a tiff over
the poem
…damn poem tiffs
three quarters of an hour later
the waiter comes back with
our check

saying to me that
my Visa card had been
declined
some days there
is no easy way out.

W E Patterson's avatar

wine glass in winter

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there’s a wine glass
on the table
on the back porch

by the swing
beside the flour bin
beside the feed sacks
that the cats sleep on

Sadie left it

one afternoon
last fall
when she stopped by
to drink
port wine
with me
and to tell me that she was
quitting drinking
in 72 hours
and to let me know that
she’d decided to forget
“the regimen”
and she was going to tell
the doctors in Philly
that she was going to
move on with her
new life
…in Scottsdale

and
when she left
that day
..she didn’t
rub the tummy
of the Buddha
that sits on the shelf
by
the back steps
and she didn’t
pick up
Lancelot and kiss him
behind the ears
or toss her hair
over her left
shoulder
or remind me to pay
my phone bill…
…I knew she was
gone, so I
left the wine glass

…on the table

where it collects
winter light
at half past three
in the afternoon.

next month
I’ll bring it in
and wash it
and put it away
but for now it is too
cold for me
to leave
the kitchen
and the
cats

So, today
I’ll think of
Sadie in her
sundress
drinking
saying that
if she had another year
she’d
go out to Michigan
and look up her old man
and her daughter
but at the present time
…
she didn’t think she had it
in her

W E Patterson's avatar

Thinking about time, Misao Okawa, Van Gogh, and Delmore Schwartz

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This week I am taking a short detour off of the poetic superhighway, perhaps into the philosophical ‘weeds’, but nonetheless, here’s what’s on my mind today. A news story that I read earlier in the month at first amused me, then it nagged at me for so long that I returned to the article for a re-read. My take away on the re-read disturbed me.

The article that I am referring to is one of many that appeared on various internet newsfeeds, as well as in the print and broadcast news media. It announced the birthday of the world’s oldest living human, Misao Okawa of Japan. Ms. Okawa, who on March 5 of this year, celebrated her 117th birthday, made her numero uno of the supercentenarians, a supercentenarian being defined as a person older than 110 years of age.

In any case, it was a ‘feel good’ article, and Ms. Okawa, who appears to be mentally sharp, and in good physical condition for a person of her age, had quite a lot to say to interviewers. Most noteworthy of her comments was one regarding life in general.

“It seemed quite short,” said Ms. Okawa.

I was stunned. If the life of the world’s oldest human seemed, “quite short”, what hope is there for the rest of us. As a time junkie, I calculated that Ms. Okawa was 57 years of age when I was born – a lady well into middle age at that time. Now in her later years, her she was telling us that, in effect, it had all passed very quickly.

Get it done, make the list, and make sure you get as much in as you can, because you only have your ‘allotted’ years. That’s what I take away from Ms. Okawa’s interview. If you want to write, paint, improve yourself, or travel to the ends of the earth, there is no better day to put a plan in place than today. If you want to build a cabin in the Rockies, ride a horse, jump a freight train to Calgary, or rekindle a lost romance, do it now.

Some of us are allowed many years, others of us few. Yesterday, March 30th, marked the passing of one who was allotted few years. It was the birth date of Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh was allowed only 37 years on this planet before insanity drove him to kill himself in July of 1890. In his wake he left a legacy of art that will survive him by millenniums (if civilization survives that long).

So this is where I am today, midway between Van Gogh’s birthday, and the first of April. Do I have a poem in mind for this occasion…well I do, but it’s not one that I wrote. It’s one of my favorite poems, and it contains one of my favorite poetic lines:

“…time is the fire in which we burn”

This line is from a poem by Delmore Schwartz, titled “Calmly we walk through this April day”. This poem describes an April day in New York City in 1937. I hope that you enjoy it.

Oh…by the way…
Ms. Okawa was asked the secret of her longevity.
She said, “I wonder about that too.”

Mahalo
ed

W E Patterson's avatar

Notes: on a final poem

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write it fast
it’s your last

so to do it right
you’ll have to
drive out
to that truck stop
a few miles
outside of Harrisburg
PA
at 2AM
ignore the pain
enjoy the rain
find a booth
in the back by
the kitchen and ask
the blonde
20 year old heart-throb
to bring you coffee
and a cheese danish
for the road
and you tell her to
keep the refills coming
because you’re – ‘all in’
and heading for
the long haul

AND

it’s all uphill isn’t it?
like pulling
into Leadville, Colorado
in an 80 ton Peterbilt

so JUST

focus on that
laptop screen
and keep typing

after all

…you’ve been writing

for about seven decades
(haven’t you)…
so write a little more
(can’t hurt)

and
tell them how it is
out here on the edge

and most of all…
…don’t pull back
slam the throttles
to the fucking firewall

but
explain it carefully
to anyone
who will listen
and don’t let up
give it all you’ve got

for another hour

then

you can hit Send

and push this shit off
to that literary journal
in Indiana

 

and after that you can
drive back home
in the Subaru
and roll up
like you’re going
to live another
50 years
and park behind the house
beside the tomato garden
and
tiptoe in so you
don’t wake the dogs
and sleep
until
the Sun
says
no more.

W E Patterson's avatar

reflections on a reduction in force, circa. 1996

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you think
when you have a job
to go to…
…one that
requires that you
wear a necktie
and appear in
meetings with
corporate clones
as well as,
note-taking
corporate drones
and debilitated
veterans of
countless takeovers
…you think
to yourself
that it will last
for as long as you want
…a charade can last forever
and
you believe in your heart
…sincerely…
that the
goodwill pump
in your chest
will beat on
…ad infinitum
and after that,
you say
to anyone who will listen:
“sometime
around the year
two thousand seventy seven
I’ll abandon this madness
for my
ranch out west”

where you’ll
drink a lot
until late at night
every night
like you always have
and you’ll tell war stories
in the only bar in town
to half a dozen
late night
well-heeled patrons
and you’ll
paint
that barn in
the South Pasture
blood red
and write poems
and read Proust
and raise
Siberian Huskies

….and…
when daylight wanes
you’ll learn to love
the sunrise
and you’ll fly that
damned helicopter

and you’ll
go to the Calgary Stampede
one last time
and you’ll tinker with
that old Case baler
out in the shed
every night
after supper
until your fingers
get blue and numb
in the February cold
and then
one night
when you are drunk enough
you’ll pull out that laptop
computer
the one that
you’ve kept locked away
in the safe behind the stairs
packed away with your
forty five
…and you’ll look for him
the one that you ‘furloughed’
in 1996 (or thereabouts) to
see if he ever,
…regained his corporate footing
or remarried
or found his lost child
but ultimately to find out
…if he has
in some way
caught up with you
because
you know if you don’t
do it now
…in the end,
you’ll do it
eventually
on your back
looking up at the
sky

W E Patterson's avatar

The Land of the Brave

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today,
you’re on your own
stay where you are
and don’t move
you won’t stop me

from writing a poem…

I’ll travel
today
to a picnic table
in a scenic overlook
by the Interstate
where I can look down
on
the traffic pushing
west toward
Ohio
and Indiana

and Chicago
and snaking east
toward New York

and Boston
and Philly
and I can watch the
Kenworths rumble
into the
last rays of the sun
and the Peterbilts
tumble into the

dark

and I watch
the headlamps
of a hundred cars
an hour
pan the twilight
all of them on

their way

to somwhere

and

before I leave

I watch
a solitary
Winnebago Brave
limp along
in the slow lane
like a wounded
water bug

heading west

crawling toward

the Continental Divide
two and a half days distant
(at fifty eight miles per hour)

…then

I watch
the sun sink
over the Delaware River
and I smoke an
afternoon pipe
and drink coffee

and I paint the words

rushing up

from late day

onto the back of

a past due

water bill

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On Collins Avenue, last week

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on Thursday afternoons
Emily drinks vodka gimlets
with a guy
at the Fountainebleu bar

…he’s a b-grade actor
who is 3 times her age
…he’s a ‘has-been’
…a forgotten relic…
with silver hair

…a guy
who has fifty grand
left in the bank,
a guy who has
a cancelled
AmEx Card
in his wallet
and has recently had
his powder blue
Bentley repo’d

…a guy

who has a
house in The Gables
that’s in foreclosure
and a wife in Palm Springs
who is on the move…
and a daughter in Betty Ford
recovering…

…a guy
Emily has ONLY seen
in reruns on cable tv
late at night

…that guy…

but Emily delights

in the fact
that a tourist
from Montreal
walks up
as they finish their

gimlets

and asks b-grade

to sign his cocktail napkin
and then
Montreal tourist asks
b-grade actor
if he’d ever met Pablo Escobar
and asks if he knew
Ronald Reagan
back in the day

and

if he’d ever met
Don Johnson
on the set

old actors die hard
this one smiles politely
drains his gimlet
and signs the napkin.