W E Patterson's avatar

the bill

. Poetry . , . Leave a comment

I dare you to come after me
I dare you…
…to taunt me from the shadows
of the side alley on Williams Street
after I have been drinking at that
no-name joint next door to the
pizzeria that’s open all night
and I dare you to try to find me
in the morning when sun is
five minutes from rising
and the last hangers-on have
toddled off to the serenity of
comfortable beds and crisp sheets
and morning love
and champagne cocktails
and I dare you to locate me
through some long forgotten
personal ad in a bankrupt
magazine,
or from the 1978 Mankato, Minnesota
telephone directory
or through some
mutual friend whom
I haven’t spoken to in 15 years
or some
long retired
derelict watchman
from a Denver train yard
who reported my death
two decades ago
and I dare you to show up
where you aren’t welcome
poking and prodding me
telling me I have to
pay up one last time
submit to a final examination
so I can make plans
for the next transaction
and I’ll watch idly by
as you exhibit your superiority
in matters such as these
So
I dare you to locate me
when I don’t want to be found
when I want to be left alone
But you will find me in the end
you’re a treacherous old
merchant.

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.

W E Patterson's avatar

hammered at the intervention

. Poetry . , , . 2 Comments

I was hammered

at the intervention

drunk on a

bourbon bender

–walking in

at first light of day

into a

crowded room

crammed with the pious

the teetotalers,

the caffeine junkies

the newly saved

the members of the clergy

the neglected son

the vindictive daughter

the condescending,

next door stoop sitters

and

the supercilious shrew

from the paint store

who’d dropped in

to watch the mop up

to see the boss

meet his match

ungloved at last

there to see the

New Reality unveiled

when the old bastard

finally gets his

and to watch

(happily)

as he’s driven away

where Jim Beam

can’t find him

and when it is time

I clear my throat

and carefully construct

a most eloquent

rendition of the facts

at the end of which

I wish Russell well

in his recovery.

W E Patterson's avatar

Thursday thoughts on writing, falling and Julia Vinograd

. Uncategorized . , , , . 8 Comments

The great poet, Julia Vinograd, the “Bubble-Lady” of Berkley, noted in an interview that was published last year, that writing poetry, when it works, “…is a lot like flying.” Because, when it doesn’t work, it is a “…lot like falling”. Ms Vinograd, who has been writing poetry since late 50’s, and is the author of no less than 59 books of verse, should certainly know something about the creative process involved in writing a poem. I am thinking of her words today as I peruse a folder on the hard drive of my laptop called poems_unfin. These poems are ones that I started but didn’t finish. They remain unfinished, not because I do not have the wherewithal to complete them, but because the process was becoming, as Ms Vinograd says, a lot like falling. Anyone who has written anything for public consumption (poem, short story, novel, blog post, etc.) knows the feeling, and when you are falling you know it.

Poetry projects, I think, are particularly vulnerable to rapid abandonment due to the very short runway they allow the author. The type of poems that I enjoy writing (and reading) are typically in the vicinity of 550 – 1300 words – and that is not a lot of room for error. Compared to say, a 30,000 word novella, a typical poem does allow you a lot of space to say what you want to say, so you’ve either got to say it quickly and say it very well, or just forget about it. Unlike novels, short stories, or even non-fiction work, there isn’t another chapter to distract you when your motivation drags.

It is worthwhile to note that there are a good many more poems in my poems_unfin folder that reside in my poems_COMPLETE folder. For this reason, often I find myself returning to my unfinished work and giving it another go, but I will be honest, usually it doesn’t work that way. Some poems must remain unwritten until the chemistry between subject and writer comes together and the poem takes flight. Sometimes, well most times really, that doesn’t happen.

So this is what I am thinking about this afternoon at EEOTPB. In addition to several poems that have made it into my poems_COMPLETE folder, I plan to post more about the writing process, and what mine is like, but more importantly I hope to hear from you, about you. I have communicated with some fine poets and writers since I have been blogging here and I’d like to know what makes it all come together for you. Is it a particular time of day, a certain chair, a certain pen, a laptop in the park, or an old Smith-Corona in the basement? Do you prefer classical music playing on the stereo (headphones, yes or no), jazz, kick ass rock, or maybe you prefer stone cold silence. How about drunk or sober (don’t laugh as many have tried both. For me the latter is the only way to go, but the great Charles Bukowski preferred the former, although he did confess to writing a few good poems while in the clutches of a ‘black hangover’).

In closing, I shall link to one of my favorite poems by Ms Vinograd here.