Saturday, May 23, 2015

Booktalk

Thank you for joining in this journey with me. Do you hate it when someone calls some simple pencil scratches on paper accelerated into a book, a journey? But proceeding in the spirit, not having had a drop yet, by the way, [‘by … the way’, get it?] I am glad you are willing to share the toll on the road to the end.
It keeps me alive.
If I didn’t think you were there to pay the freight so to speak, had something in your pocket there on the seat beside me, that is, to buy some grub and have some left over on the other end of the turnpike [page-turn pike – do I have to explicate?], I would just quit.
Like you and the rest of us faced with pressing ahead, I mean moving forward, not pressing per se, but then again [‘then again’, think about it: I’m trying not to repeat myself and besides, you get in beside me here on this journey, taking a seat that you paid for once again, you get my drift; ‘you get my drift’, think about it]
I must be putting the pedal to the metal or you wouldn’t have laid out the cost of the ride already.

You know you’re hitchhiking, and I’m hoping you have a beer or a story or a joint or a kindly place to rest if needs be; that is, my ride with you already beside me, my having something virtual to look forward to, by virtue of your having hopped in and having already gotten here [x], then I guess the ride-journey metaphor doesn’t work quite, given that you could have picked up the book … stop me right here … you picked up a book that’s already a book so’s it must have already been paid for by somebody and then you might or might not put it down or bring it to the register, risking the guilt that you paid the toll or just had a cup of coffee and paid the toll to somebody else who already bought the book that you’re willing, if you did bring it to the register, to gamble it be worth the ride, price, burden and the guilt over both the coffee and the coffee and the book when there’s a baby, education, house, Mercedes in your drive, a future that may have benefited by not having been preempted by our journey begun here in front of us, since you got in.

So isn’t it the truth, hard to be authentic here, stay on track [on a journey home or away, on the seat beside me in the car or train or ox cart box, maybe scanning the horizon] when cool cynicism put those last words down, needs be that there’s a little bit of toll ready, maybe gas money, then I guess we’re already on our way in a respectful sort of way, you acting your part and I acting mine [and, of course (course, heh) directing].

Just so you know where I’m coming from, so hard just to be here, inside the journey you could burn or close, I feel like I’ve already given too much of my gratis side and need to share my gravis side, as opposed to my graveside, since you already put your change on the table so to speak to read this.
You and a few thousand others, I hope.
Words are so easy to get on and ride.

2010

And Wacky Am I

And now wacky am I, I thank you, mother, for the days I take no pill; the oak table that folds upon itself, a hinge, a turn, a hidden b...