A Few More Lines to Ease You Out of Whatever We have Been Doing

Overstimulation.

No time for polished thoughts

Forget sentences

Inspiration

Flashes

Sparks of recognition

spoken

in the mind

Just listen

and try to keep up






I have wanted to write since I was a child

and I’ve been an adult for a long time

There’s nothing between us

You and me

You and yr dreams

Me and mine






Our dreams are palpable

I’ve seen them walking down Mission St.

holding the same festival guide

designed by Mitche Manitou

I’ve heard them so many times

in so many places

I don’t know the difference

Your words form the rhythms

I think in …






3 o’clock snapping pictures thru the alley

What is this they ask

new to the mission

and maybe San Francisco

It’s a literary festival

as if that explains everything

as tho this thing has been going on since the dawn of time

And we stutter to answer

This thing not conforming to conventional press releases

There are a lot of authors

we say

in explanation

It’s crazy,

Yes, there will be poetry

But what strikes me on this day after

so far in

the end is a blessing

What strikes me is the magnitude of its sanity

how much sense it makes

you make

We all make so many kinds of sense

meeting serendipitous in the middle of the street

We might be lost but there is a pretty bright light

between us and

we are going the same way now






Tearing away from conversation

because I had to see Bucky

I was so excited

Crowding around the crowd around the door

A girl I didn’t know wanted to know

if I wanted to get closer

and everyone moved aside

She smiled

and I made it thru the door

The joy on her face

the joy that must have been on my face

Bucky telling the room

This Is What It Was Like To Be Here

A “yes” from someone in the crowd

because it’s true

Time was coming out of his mouth

and into our current

understandings

I have never lived in Punk House or any punk house

wasn’t ever crying in the 90s

didn’t have fucked up friends

or need help until later

But Bucky is a vessel

We are all vessels of our own choosing





Do you know

we filled bars that are never full

with books in our hands,

every door we passed we passed on greatness,

hurrying

with our heads down

to the next big thing

unsure what it is

but certain to find it?






There are different degrees of serious

and now that you don’t know what to do with yourself

now that the congregation has ceased

and we no longer chase one another

for sport

or whatever we were doing

Allow me to proffer a resolution:

Make a resolution.

Write it down so no one can see it.

Work on it.

Spend your extra time for your self.

If you don’t have extra time

resolve to learn

how to make time.

Time is synthetic:

it must be constructed.






If so,

take what is yours

and spend it wisely

Take chances

but talk to yourself

like you mean it

You mean it

I’ve seen it

in everyone.






There are some things for which the only appropriate response is a poem or a story or a painting or a song. Resolve to surround yourself with more of these things, with more of these people, for more of the time.






You are older

Don’t forget

part of who you are has settled

There are different degrees of self-trust

You are not always right

You want comfort

as much

or maybe more

than you want anything else

You can justify this

if you want to




Think about it

just a little more

You can widen the distance between yr own revolutions

You can pick up and keep going.






None of this matters

if we don’t harken The Call

This isn’t a journal

but you could have written this

It’s not what you think

that makes this special

if you consider this special

It carries both of us inside of it

like a womb

to a place that we might go






You might be surprised

if you sit instead of standing

shut up instead of talking

who might approach for the first time

to show you their truths




You might recognize childhood for what it is again

Alien to the way you see yourself

and the rest of the world

Open

you might remember who makes the resolutions

and who follows them






There are so many sides to you

and this poem

or whatever it is

is too long

There is so much more than heart

to satisfy






Be proud of what we have

and do it justice



--

I wanted to write a personal retrospective in response to my introductory Happy New Year, about how this year's experience was different for me than last year's, and maybe I will yet … but in due time.





Charles and I took so many videos between Oct 1-9 that we are still wading through them. He has done a write-up of Surf Lit here and is doing a piece on Bawdy and RADAR now. I’ve got videos from the Virtual Reality panel and Porchlight that I’m in the process of rendering, followed by Lit on the Lake and Quiet Lightning. So come on back. In the next week or so we will put this puppy to rest … until the Mark Twain Ball!!



I will say really quickly a big Thank You to all the volunteers and to the committee for all of the yearlong work you do (it’s not quite enough to say it on Facebook, you see). This festival expands us in more ways than we can celebrate in nine days.

Hope to see you soon and often,

Evan