I've been listening to a live recording of John Cage's Empty Words and hadn't realized, until I visited Mark Woods' blog, that today is Cage's birthday.

The recording is irritating in that the audience is totally obnoxious--catcalls, curses, continuous interruptions. But Cage is calm, serene. He manifests indifference to the assholes, staying focused on his precise vocalizations.

*


I've been rather depressed this weekend for a variety of reasons which I won't go into and that I can only hope I emerge from before too long.

One bright spot is Anne Gorrick's I-Formation, Book 1, (Shearsman Books, 2010). I'm reading it very slowly because it is clear that this is a deliberate book which cannot be read too carefully. I plan to write about it in a few days. Whether for this blog or for another context I cannot say.

Saddened to read of Gary Sullivan and Nada Gordon breaking up. I've never "met" either of them in the flesh, but I've interviewed both of them and genuinely like both of them.

Sometimes I wonder about desire and the strange places it takes one. I ache in silence and then I yawp....and what?

*

Rebecca Loudon's ongoing answers to my question piece continue to amaze. I've met a couple of poets over the years whom I considered to be geniuses. Leslie Scalapino, for example. I met Leslie in person on a couple of occasions. Rebecca is a genius too, a great weaver of universes. I have to meet her before Geof sings his dirge for me for real. It's a goal. I've an open invitation to read in Seattle. Readings always ramp up my anxiety level, but if it's an opportunity to meet Rebecca, I just might be able to choke down my fear and whip out the credit cards for another improbable adventure in poetry. I'm thinking very seriously about this now.

*

I'm drinking wine and occasionally rubbing my right nipple which is now as hard as a pebble and growing more and more sensitive.

Writing poetry is a lot like worrying a nipple.

*

Earlier today I was writing in a notebook about sexual desire...

*

One of the things that most saddens me about the Cage recording I mentioned earlier (I'm on the 2nd disc now) is that the hecklers are Italians. Italian is the language I love most after English. To hear it spoken as ugliness is upsetting. I suppose I have a tendency to idealize things, people and to be disappointed by realities.

*

It is my hope that my book EXPOSURES, when it eventually appears, will activate some beauty in the world. That someone might become aroused.

*