Category Archives: Uncategorized

W E Patterson's avatar

Sandhills expedition

. Uncategorized . , , , . 4 Comments

don’t kiss me good-night
— tonight
sweet Nebraska
don’t let me
die in search
of that
elusive Valentine
don’t call me
names for the sake
of trying to change
my mind
don’t call the place
I’m in – devoid
of sensory pleasure
don’t call the road
I’ve travelled – sublime
or call me one of the
fortunate few,
and
don’t read the last
words that I wrote
to you and
call it literature
or the last poem
I wrote for you
and whisper
the last 4 lines
to me from the comfort
of
your cellular phone
from your loft in
San Francisco
or from your cabin
in Oregon
…so, just let me be
here
in
sweet Nebraska
with its golden half moon
pushing up over
Scotts Bluff
with Wyoming
being its own same self
to the west
and the wind from
Manitoba wafting through
the open windows
of the 1970 Travelall
let me pitch my tent
in the shadow of
Highway 20
…underfed lanky coyotes of
doom howl
in the distance,
give me one more
night
before I go home.

W E Patterson's avatar

great aunt

. Uncategorized . , . 3 Comments

Libby
who moved
to Sun City
to live with
her 3rd husband
a retired driver for
Consolidated Freightways
told me that she
recently
found a coiled rattler
near her pool slider
and a scorpion
sleeping on the gravel path
alongside her garage
and she suspected that
wild animals had
infected Demetrius’
food bowl
(her Pomeranian)
and that Nip’s
water dish
(her Siamese)
was compromised
in some way
so
she said that
the lifestyle
that she had imagined
when she was a girl
growing up in
Manhattan, Kansas
had evaded her
and now
as she approached
age sixty seven
her expectations had collapsed
due to the uncertain
and turbulent
housing market
and the unavailability
of jobs in the
hospitality industry
and she told me
quite discretely
that she suspected
anti-government activity
in the desert south of town

W E Patterson's avatar

war

. Uncategorized . , , . Leave a comment

last night

I could have written

a fine poem

but I didn’t

instead,

I called the dogs

away from the porch

and we walked

into the last, long

shadows

of early evening

through

late summer rye grass

along

the end rows,

of a corn field

that flanks

the Missouri River

and

we passed,

the railway siding

where a half dozen cars

sit rusting, emblazoned with

rail logo like: CARGO

like: CN…

and: SOUTHERN

big old seventy ton

goliaths,

they wait like

forlorn old derelicts

abandoned steel horses

from a long ago war

waiting…

determined and alone

for a ride – a hookup

for the run down

to the yard

in Kansas City

or Topeka

 

so we go on

the three of us

me, KD, and Goliath

up a hill,

then along

the gravel path

that leads to

Union cemetery

where

they buried

a soldier

three weeks ago today

…we see the small flags

that are planted

in the earth

marking the grave

no headstone yet…

…it’s too early

but there is time

plenty of time

and

it’s quiet here…

… and it will be

for the next

ten millennium

and for another

ten millennium after that

so

we take the stillness

seriously…

…me and the dogs

and we walk home

taking a direct route.

W E Patterson's avatar

points west

. Uncategorized . , , , , . 2 Comments

Some days,

I miss the hinterlands

some days

when the inland rains

don’t let up

and the gators

have snapped at the

last golfer on the course

in West Palm Beach

and the biggest python snake

in the world has been captured

in Kendall —

swimming in the pool

of a famous – but now

disgraced athlete

and the most informed

newscaster in the nation

has rushed to

Miami Beach

to report on the latest

scandal involving

some pseudo-politician

…it is then

…(and only then)

that I long for the plain pine bench

in the birch grove

on the shore of

some Lake Woe-be-gone

six miles southwest of Hibbing

…the one we used to sit on

when we were both nineteen years old

and we would both look west

far past Fargo, and Bismark,

…not stopping there…

on past Missoula and Couer d’ Alene

raising a toast to the setting sun

believing that it held the answer

to a tough question

that neither of us dared to ask

both of us thinking that if we

could just

watch it drop below

the horizon

on Venice Beach –

– just one single time

that our lives would change

forever.

W E Patterson's avatar

time spent

. Uncategorized . , . 2 Comments

When it’s late at night…
… 2:45 AM
and you listen to the wind
blow through the palms
on Singer Island
and the wind whispers to you
saying,
that the past
17 years have been
a commercial success
in spite of it all,
remember that,
the damned,
fickle, late night wind

is:

Lying to you
telling you that
you really haven’t lost
3 homes to foreclosure
and that your position at the
brokerage —

the one that was arranged
by your cousin Sid
was simple destiny
yours to use or abuse
and the time that you spent
incarcerated
for two and a half years
was just time
owed the pensioners
for your sacrifice
at the hand of the
consummate professional,
the ultimate Satan
although it resulted…

…in the destruction of
your constitution
…the dissolution of
your marriage
…the demolition of
your soul,
(although not necessarily
in that order)
but in the end
your time
in Federal Prison
was a walk
in the
proverbial
park

W E Patterson's avatar

when I wanted to be Johnny

. Uncategorized . , , . 2 Comments

When I was fifteen years old
someone asked who I wanted to be
when I grew up
and there was only one guy
I could think of
so I said
“I want to be just like

Johnny –”

— Johnny Carson

not because I wanted to
be a TV guy
who wore great suits
and lived in Los Angeles, California
(which was a long way from…
Minden, Nebraska
and far from Las Cruces, New Mexico
and far from Hibbing, Minnesota
and St. Charles, Iowa
and Laughlin, Nevada…

where I grew up…)
but maybe it was because
Johnny was so much unlike
Uncle Morris, who
drank each evening, and
lost the farm to the bank
and lost his wife to a charlatan
and his children to The County.

Perhaps it was because Johnny,
exuded behemoth cool
with the cigarette carefully hidden
beneath the desk
(the minimalist)
each breath measured and timed
that reassured me each night
at ten thirty (Central Time)
that sanity ruled

after all.

W E Patterson's avatar

nothing left to do but to write about it

. Uncategorized . , . 9 Comments

When there is nothing left to do

but to write about it,

you’ll know it — because:

The locks must be changed,

and you’ll find the keys to the Subaru,

in the mailbox,

and the flower bed,

has been desecrated,

with a sharp instrument,

and the last flight to Philadelphia,

the one that departed 20 minutes early,

is now over Cincinnati.

It’s then you’ll find:

Your driver’s license

book marking a page in

Nabakov’s Quartet, and

you’ll find your Certificate of Live Birth

mixed with the unpaid bills.

You’ll find Captain Crunch cereal

in the dog bowl.

You’ll find crumpled cigarette packs

in the freezer,

and refried beans from the Taco joint

in the blender.

 

When there is nothing left to do

but to write about it

you’ll find out that:

Your attorney is under indictment,

your physician is in restraints,

and a politician of lofty stature,

is called a war criminal.

And you’ll read that:

A young man died last night,

downtown,

with a gun in his hand,

while an old man wandered off,

to die on the tracks.

And some young girls have gone missing,

and more soldiers have died,

while insurgents have been repelled,

and rebels have been armed,

and more dusty capitals defended.

Losers have suffered heavy losses,

while the winners toast their gains.

And in Hollywood, California,

a has-been actor died yesterday,

of remorse, bitterness, and old age,

his body carted off to the County morgue.

And there’s not a damned thing left to do

but to write about it.

W E Patterson's avatar

Blasting it out

. Uncategorized, What I'm Writing . , , , . 8 Comments

“There’s no rule on how it is to write. Some days it comes easily and perfectly. Sometimes it is like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.” — Ernest Hemingway; 1953

As both of my readers here know, I have written a bit lately about the creative process, or lack thereof. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned in a blog post that the poet Julia Vinograd compared writing, when things were going badly, to falling, as when things were going well it was much like flying. Shortly after that post, I came across the above quote from Old Hem’ himself, a man who no doubt had some good days writing as well as some bad ones. I’d copied these words into my notebook, under ‘inspirational quotes’, and forgotten about them. Not one to wimp out on a tough writing project, Hemingway didn’t take a day off to recoup at the day spa, meditate or to prune his bonsai tree. Nope, when the writing got rough, the Old Man got tough, by blasting through at all costs.

In any case, this quote resonates with me today. Earlier, as I was trying to find the perfect blog post to fill my weekly void I was drawing a blank. Maybe it’s the summer heat here in South Florida, or maybe I’ve inhaled too much of the smoke from the fires that are blazing in the Everglades a few miles distant, or maybe I’m distracted by the latest headline grabbing, senseless shooting, I don’t know, but today I decided to drill the holes and blast my way through.

That said, I am wondering if any of my fellow bloggers find that their motivation and creativity tends to ebb and flow with any kind of regularity. Could it be related to the cycles of the moon, the changing of the seasons, exposure to sunlight, or maybe it is related to some unexplained cosmic force? A writer friend told me that that he worked at his creative best for only about one week per month. The remaining three weeks of the month he felt that he was not working at his creative best, although his work output remained fairly constant. The longer I write, the more it seems there is some sort of regular pattern to creativity, although I cannot isolate it to one week per month.

If either of you have any thoughts on this, feel free to comment here.

Now, back to work for me…I have some holes to drill and charges to plant.

W E Patterson's avatar

thirty eight fifty

. Poetry, Uncategorized, Writing . 2 Comments

One day last month

I put on a clean shirt

shaved and said

that today

I would write:

The Most Profound Poem

ever written:

so

I left 2 dollars on the

nightstand (for the maid)

and walked across A1A

to the Bamboo Bar

and ordered

the vanilla Eclair

from Claire

and I said:

today, great words

will be written about

important causes —

— causes

that must be addressed

and it will ALL start here

on the back of a cocktail napkin

conceived

in a wave of post-blackout

clarity,

such words will

inevitably

be read in Congress

and met with pious nods

and quoted by the President

before being met with

self-righteous indignation

by members of the opposing party

and decried as heresy

by the Vatican

and cause

street signs to be desecrated

in the Third World

and

billboards to be burned

and words of protest

to be painted by rebels

in lime green paint

across a railroad car in Honduras

and to appear

on the rear window of a 1954 Plymouth

on Obidos Street in Havana.

and nailed to the door of a police station

in East Timor

but Claire simply nods

and

sits my coffee before me

on a plain napkin

with a bill for 38.50

from last night.