Pork and beans

Just how cool is Robert Downey, Jr? A guy I never much cared for: for all his talent, there was a foppish smarm that was always there, an insouciance that undermined, at least for me, his roles. Then there were his drug addictions, incarcerations; he fell away. Cut to Iron Man, the surprisingly solid superhero flick now raking in truckloads of cash: he's just the right age, time and trouble have weathered ever so slightly his face, a boyishness is gone. There's
a laconic ease to his delivery, a droll way which was always his specialty but all the same was never exactly authentic. He's an unbelievably inspired choice to play Tony Stark, billionaire weapons manufacturer and future alcoholic. After Spiderman 3's embarrassing flame-out, Iron Man, a character with nowhere near the recognition as Spidey, Tony Stark has caught on in the public imagination. Without Robert Downey, Jr, that ain't happening.

***

Saturday. Carrollton. Yeah.

That time is now

Wednesday evening, warm, bright, all summer: I'm home from the Alleycat where I stopped for a glass of tea. Last time I was there I discovered a waitress was from Chattanooga. We traded stories. Tonight she was back, watching her little boy play with a Pirates of the Caribbean skeletal action figure. It was her third anniversary. They were waiting around to go out to dinner. Cute couple.

***

O poor blog, how I have failed to tend you.

***

Last week I was inducted into my high school's Wall of Fame. A kind gesture, though that sort of attention makes me uneasy. My remarks began thusly: "I kind of hate inspiration. You're all smarter than inspiration. So thank you for being here."

***

And, praise God, the school year is over. I barely survived it. Somehow, I fear the coming year will be just as insane. Readings in Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, presumably Georgia, Brooklyn, and who knows where else look to crush me.

But it's all great fun.

***

I bought new shoes.

Back home

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Look, right there in the lower right hand corner:

bound galleys!

My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge now exists as a nifty promotional paperback.

I must confess a certain excitement.

POEM AT ALTITUDE

Whatever you take with you into ascent,
whatever you bring with your body
into the half air, the world above this one,

whatever you carry, whatever is
the design of your needs, take
these, too, these words which weigh nothing,

can’t be forbidden, won’t be
detected, confiscated, stripped
from you in the naked light

of security, which at the end is a lie,
whatever is left behind, missed
when it’s too late, in motion,

going and gone and up and away,
whatever you shed with speed,
keep with you this knotted

up bundle, made of air, these words
which are falling out of
the world like the sun,

because I can’t go or follow or trace
or point to the sky
with the blessed certainty

in the folds of every accordioned map,
because I am thinking
of a bird’s hollowed bone,

because all I once wanted
is not what I want
now, keep with you

whatever you want,
want these words
which are a prayer

to your return,
your safe return,
to your nearness.

Until

Had no idea I'm up at Verse Daily today.

INVITATION

One more wrench lobbed into the gears of time
won’t seize up a single thing: not
the rain pounding at my door
like an aggrieved neighbor
whom I can’t help but offend.
I have been good, a long time I have been
the model citizen slash inmate
here in the kingdom of karma,
though I hardly cared: dawn
set the birds singing their odd hymns,
to which there were no
human lyrics, nothing to pretend
to others I knew beyond
reasonable doubt. Nothing
to tell you that I am
haunted by. I have been
waiting for the phone to sing out,
though the odds are
good it is not you
robotically attempting
to sell me wood laminate for these floors
which aren’t my own,
I should probably tell you,
in case that is important
in some way I can’t yet understand.
A long time it seems
the rain has been trying
its liquid way in
and I have been good enough
to listen to it all
and say this is music
you should hear beside me.
Even the dark has come,
the whole night,
all itself unbroken,
the sartorial stars and the sky which is unbearable.
There is something
I mean to say
just so
but it breaks apart, it breaks apart,
it breaks.