Celebrate Poetry with The Heretik: On Friends

HOPE MAY BE  A BURDEN
And life may make of us a beast
When what matter mosts, we care about the least.
Forgive me.  I fear I am entering a rhyming phase where words and sounds come to together.  My sound and my fury.  Together they blow.  I blow.  I go. Oy.

F*ck it.  This is my blog. (like anybody cares.)  I think I want to dance now.
Dance this mess around. Whatever.  Oy.

If I was dancing now, I would have a hard time choosing.  That's a white male thing.  Having a hard time choosing.  Then going on about it forever.  Making it all about you. Which I guess in this case is me.  Enough about me.  F*ck me.  Which I guess is the point.  Sometimes we get to that point.

You get to that fork in the road and the ghost of Yogi Berra tells you take it. Take the fork in the road.  You gotta do something so take the fork in the road.  Take it, m*ther f*cker.  How are you supposed to take a fork?  Hey fork this.

Someday soon, you will ask someone you trust the question why am I where I am? That person you trust may answer in either of these two ways most caring.  The first way?  How did you get where you are?  Don't ask me.  You're the one who's driving.
The second way?  How did you get where you are? 

What are you worried about?  You are right where you are supposed to be.  Right where you are supposed to be is not an answer for people getting shot or for people who want to shoot other people or for people who want to shoot themselves.  I could just be shooting off my mouth here, but I don't think so.

I think I want to dance now.  If I was dancing today, I could only have one of two choices. Or I could be like a certain friend of my mine  and somehow have them both.  One perhaps more important than the other. For now. Or not.  Where is Professor B when you really need her?

Did somebody say something about dancing? I think I want to dance now.  Picking one or the other?  Fork that.  Hope a burden?  Fork that.  A fork in the road and yo must make a choice.  Fork that and fork me very much.   Thank you.

I want to say thanks very much to everybody who stopped by yesterday, mostly to the ones who stopped by and dropped off some comments.  What you drop on me lifts me.  That's all I got.  What you give me.  Thanks. 

Oh, and these poems.  These two dear friends I have never met in person, but only on the wire.  We are but birds on the wire.  Fork that.  Turn on the musicks.  Let's Gdansk.

Leah from Corrente figured me out a long time ago.  Was wondering where she was, where she had been. Wonder must cease when your friend comes back.  Lauren Bruce?  Ah, oy.  What can I say?  Hers is a poetic life. I am graced to have met her.

First poem is for Lauren, the second one for Leah.  Or the other way around.  Share some hope.  Share some love.  Let's dance

The Heretik Joe Ivory Mattingly ask you to share your hopes and comments freely.  I would particularly like to know what songs you would send to a friend  on a day like today.
Thanks.

and you seem to be
at one of those points.
where the point
seems pointless
and the only point
jabs you in the gut
and you wonder  now
now how how
and i going to get
around this point.

"Circle"
Joe Ivory Mattingly


**************

early in the day
i sleep

for others
i leave the night

the harsh day
waits

until you are
ready to wake

in the endless
night of dreams


“Early in the Day”
Joe Ivory Mattingly

Comments

[pissed off patricia]

And for those of us who are yet to figure you out? Please help us.
Perhaps this is one of my blond hair problems.

[The Heretik]

Me? I am a work in progress. Most of the time.

[Lauren]

You know, that first poem describes my life right now like you wouldn't believe. Maybe I'll memorize it and turn it into a mantra.

[dorsano]

Great site Joe - a distinctive voice.

I would particularly like to know what songs you would send to a friend on a day like today.

Just about anything a nightbird would play.

[Treban]

"Killing in the Name of" by Rage Against the Machine always makes me feel kinda warm and fuzzy all over on days like this.

Feeling quiet - angry - scared
your here
i'm here
they're here too.
Together - apart - alone
but not often.
urbane dissillusioned asleep
but never sleeping
dreaming awake.

[Treban]

F*ck, I can't decide whether to dance or be be been be be beneath be be before be be being. . . , , .

[Treban]

too many f*cking choices!

[Leah A]

My dear Heretik,

Words fail me, truly fail me. Both lovely poems. The real thing. One dedicated to me is almost too much loveliness, but not really, says greedy me. A first; no one has ever said, "I wrote this poem for you."

What to say besides, "wow?"

I hope a heartfelt "thank-you," will do.

I see you attract poets, by design, I understand. On the internet, in skippy's blogtopia, are we creating our own "Paris in the twenties," or New York in the thirties...forties, fifties, & sixties, come to think of it? I think maybe so.

So much talent, talent to burn, but let's not, she hastens to add. (A sensitive subject for a heretik, I know)

Such a special pleasure to watch talent while it's maturing, before it's on the curriculum, so to speak. I used to wonder, whenever I'd pick up a volume of some writer's letters, how did all those people who were getting notes from, say, Edna Vincent Millay, know those were letters they ought to put in a drawer. Now I understand.

Again, thank-you.