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fossil fool

staples is the treasureland...i feel like those chip and dale chipmunks...
wide aisles and tall shelves...post modernist factory of clerks and writers..
found typewriter ribbon..black only now...the upbeat cello of its time soundtrack
for disney....of course now it would be dubstep...the oboe basson and claironet

got this olivetti underwood 450...made right here in canada from nineteen seventy two..the year canada won the world hockey...i was nine years old at the time...
came with original case with someones blue lined little paper scotch taped to the
inside of the case..."i bought this in nineteen seventy two" all oxygen aged and yellow...

been watching poets speaking on the web lately..avoided this all these years to not
end up writing like them which is easy.....thinking of how terrible some of their events
in their lives were.....realizing ive had my own to now...not to bitch or whine...

there is sits....a prized posession that i go down and plunk away on in the nice dry large old basement underneath a table lamp after a long day of errand running..walking and travel in the crowds of society....now i look different more then ever and feel it and walk proud.. when i used typewriters and poets were my heros and heroinne drug to help keep me sane in my mad world of turmoil i wrote and wrote the noise of this machines that i owned drowning out the unhappiness..the little radio with cool music..then the cigarettes and then the booze...i wrote on blue airmail..onionskin because it lasts better then paper..and i always bought good paper..like the Parker Pen for writing and thge smart phone gift.....

lately for inspiration on the bus with music i scan the wireless adresses for all the cities little magic boxes that send signals...all locked mostly...but the titles are priceless and as the bus rolls past their signal and renews it with a fresh scan its exotic names like poem titles.....witty and humor filled....Dougfather..and Mythsterious..
loftgirl.....etc etc.....

i watch burroughs mesmerized and read sextons letters....plaths poems...elliot smiths music..watch kerouc deconstructing on the television interviews...listent to chet baker and often listen to cbc news while bus riding...writing in my little notepad...pportions of what my eyes take in my ears pick up words..descripts and my camera on out of focus black and white or sepia snap pics....

typewriters were like women.....i loved them..they were complex and needed much much attention.....hours flew by sitting with them....ribbonwork and machinery like perfume...writing was like lovemaking.....words were foreplay....travel was the agony of mind flex....theme..transitions...spilled coffee and toast crumbs...ink....ink on all shirts...pencils...dated works and undated works...unfinished poems...and poems i didnt remember at all..........there will nver be anything to replace my typewriters...the computer is the new medium....the little phone hard to write on with my fingers.. but the typewriter is amazing....still.....and i havent written a poem yet on it
savouring it....

i can type with both hands now without looking at the keys....what it took the other kids in business machines days to do has taken me thirty some years...if it makes me this happy then it was worth it....

i keep writing because i love words...i had a hard time understanding meaning..
questions mean more then one thing in my head..school was almost impossible...
but i had a typewriter to just create on......if i had to live off of poetry i would have...
edited it..punctuations...re worked them...these are just like napkin works...im
meticulous..i have not even used two feet of ribbon on the new spool yet...

yet i cant remember names well enough or birth dates or favourite colors...
but i try.....

and the typewriter doesnt need power....just lanterns....or daylight...
portable..

people used to write letters....real ones...im one of those old fossils
......

Comments

young age has found me, arthritic at the keys...as I no longer throw pixels at my eyes... I returned to the well hoping the ink was not dry...I loved her, too...hid from her, lingering the scent of my words...lusting her to my arms... as words swayed across the paper...a one and a two and a three...syncing with the deep vibration of the cello...the cello I never learned to play...sitting next to the guitar soaked with ink from my written fingers.

Time held me then...a child hungry and weak...for words...words I had never heard or could speak or even hope to speak...as the cello continued to thump...now time spits on my shoes for a shine...they are fake leather...such are my words...false in the air, a screech from crows scattered by coyotes wanting a free meal...I sit alone...edgy from the baying, wish they would leave me to my letters...she misses me...I know she does...she will write back.

All the while I stood by the mail box....she had used electronic mail...I sit alone...age has made me young, too young to read...my nightlight flickering...fading...as she finds another and I search for another....hoping to find?...a song once played on an old 45, spinning me to sleep with the soft skip of love gone by

Scott

the river still untamed framed with its luscious lurid banks
the bands of churning clarity and unrest tannic passion..

i have tasted this
wandered that
the tracks blown in by hot winds
and falling fallout winters grace

all of it spinning into the gravity
the wheel alive beneath
a life of its own
and then

the slow motion
eruption of magic
the hot rage of
words and wonder
like a flare
limping earthward
the fronds of tension
swaying in that held
breath

the music soundtrack
full like a day broadcast
across the persona bandwidth

flickering like hot memories
torching alive the hulking
ghosts and letting in light
letting in the rain
letting in the bitterness
and the soft edged sadness
that crept up to enfold its arms
about me

the warmth
the contact
where no one
threw their shadow

i am enlivened
and alone
sitting in the rambling
life
the new emerging year
a throne

but alive
and knowing
that
there will be
another

and a new
moon

a new age

you are a better writer then i
i enjoyed reading your comment

thank you..

author comment

conceived in a fit
of laughter
and abbreviations
stealing letters once
meant to give meaning

until unicorns no longer
had horns
and dwarfs no longer
Cinderellas

as the ball was danced away
while I lay awake searching
the rambling night
gone hot with sirens,
horns,
bells hanging from the necks of cattle
that tomorrow would ring
in the church steeples

as

time ushered away
once majestic trees
carved into beds
and lined with silk
to comfort the remains of skeletons

no longer welcome in the closet

where my cello rests
against
the wall waiting for
the river to run dry its banks

so the soldiers
can stretch imaginations

and

carry that music back to a land
where notes are played
in between gun shots
and serenades from
deBergerac

a slam of that snare
sharpened
cutting reflections into
pieces
to teach chords and scales

it brings me alive
the sound, that is
of night, of life
of hearts beating

fast and hard
at the thought of music's
lips

whispering in my ear

A fine compliment you offer, sir. But I must say that you will find no reasonable soul that will concur. I wake each morning hoping that yesterday's visions beget today's words in a way yet unspoken and unheard. I find them. Those words. But it is not I who writes them.

Scott

crush breakdown and build
formulae

like old trucks
and the rush to keep ahead
of a wall of need

till another nobility
arrives on their steed
and boredom
mounts derision
away from larks
and pretti pictures
from the dark

enthrallments
in installments
neither entrap
nor engage
love
or
and nor hate

sweetness like
enemies
are close to the bone
like a moon in
slim moments
shows her age

concurrentz
is the powder
like infinite
miracles
drizzling
dripping

vision time
dream time
honing time

words for the baskets
of pleasure
the wasteland
hunger pains of treasures..

author comment

as windows
fade away
in night's lurid
moment

we feel a greed
insatiable
yet, undefinable
mystical
enough to forego
necessity

to fill our cognitive
bellies
with the quell of letters
strung together on
the psycho path,
marking blood lines
on our cheeks
with each subsequent
kill

until the mistress sleep
creeps up in her lace
and
makes an offer
we dare not refuse
laying our heads on her bosom
and watching reel-to-reel
history
in a language
that has no
subtitles

somewhere
in those scenes
are the words that we greed
for
that will draw us from

our homes,
our lovers,
our breath,

statues
chiseled
for no other reason
than to make shadows
of
our lives

dark silhouettes
cast upon floors

and walls
and streets
and skies

aimlessly lonely
with time
holding our hand
and leading us
away

Scott

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