Poem for Lance

 

OK, let's begin with a treatise on regret

je ne regrette rien

start over

is it too late?

start at the beginning,

This is what occurred: I lost it. It's wrong to say the world spun, rather it upended itself. I was horribly embarrassed at the same time terrified, why embarrassment was the first emotion and fear the second I don't know. People are staring at me, I thought, over and over again, people are staring, get up, get up. And I still sat there on the curb, unable to move, my heart throbbing: what did it want, why wouldn't it slow.

I thought there were rules

I thought there was a smart move

I thought I was above all that

I thought I was doing the right thing

I thought I was helping out a friend

is it too late?

I'm obsessed with certain things. Measuring for instance. I think about how many cement blocks we walked before we knew each other. How many paintings in second floor downtown galleries we stared at before we loved each other. How many French bistros to decide it wasn't going to occur. I know it took two views (brown California hills, ocean, cliffs, furtive evergreens) to change my ideas on the nature of clarity

it's too late

great masses of dirt, twisted metal, lead for children, brown paint and wood, all in a white box, a series of white boxes, we nodded and spoke in low tones.

Good-bye, love New York for me

Good-bye, love Portland for me

Good-bye, love Sacramento for me

A city is like a person, they can make you happy or unhappy, it is foolish to say where you live doesn't matter, you make a commitment to city once you fall in love

and commitments must be honored.

I arrived in San Francisco and thought, why did it take so long

No one is looking at me, they're turning their heads away as they pass, in our city you don't look, and as I realized that, I relaxed a little, I was anonymous by my behavior out of the norm, I had aquired invisibility of the homeless, I could sit here all day, if I needed.

is it?

Obsession #2, algebra and unwieldy math, that which insists it is fixed and is not.

If I could have been, a shitty mantra for anyone.

Courageous, instinctive, primal, ( I continue to dream of Ray Bolger in Oz, and all the brown paths that led in every direction), still original, aboriginal

is it?

The story behind that is that I was really good at addition but when they came to teach us multiplication I rebelled and the whole division thing was way over my head and geometry don't even get me started and I didn't feel comfortable until much later with algebra. Algebra is okay.

Am I trying to or does it just work out that way, and

My heart still pounded, I still gasped air I still didn't know why I fell, why walking to the grocery store would be, I knew only that I saw my fellow derelicts, sleeping under a BUSH, PUSHING A SHOPPING CART FULL OF BUNDLES ACROSS THE STREET, PREACHING on the street corner, walking past me with fingers growing out of his arm socket, I could look at each of them in the eye and be regarded, the moment I was able to stand, we would not look at each other again. I lay back on my back on the sidewalk and breathed deeply, and people walked around me.

it is?

When you think of the word patience, what comes to mind? Pilgrim ethics? Machiavellian plotting? Needlework? Missed chances? Knitting? Chess?

are you sure?

It's all about how you come to the problem. The rational is only arbitrarily so.

 

What happened was

And then I forgot

But you were supposed to

This is my direct quote for the day: "Don't you think it would have been agonizing?"

So it is, so it is.

So I had a map of Spain hanging in my bathroom for a while, thinking that it would be comforting to look at Barcelona (Obsession #3) often, to know it was there waiting. Imagine my dismay to discover I had to search -- hard! -- for it every time. It was always more north or south than I thought (though never more east.)

I arrived in Barcelona and thought, how long will it be

With age comes language, I can hear words, guinea-T, goombah, guinyinay, odd nodules on a voice of precision, spots of laughter from the orchestra pit.

I got home and sat on the bed. the room was full of crap, newspapers covering everything, dirty clothes carpet, piles of phone numbers on small pieces of paper covering the desk.. I started phoning up the numbers, and when a person answered, I said, I never want to speak to you again and hung up. I left the same message on answering machines. Then as the phone rang, I walked out the door, not even shutting it behind me.

much too late.

Jane is very small and round and a lot of things I'm not including small and round but also blond and ever so. I feel often enough like a poor cousin she refers to me as the wholesome girl next door type and you can imagine how devastating that can be and she spends more on make up and hair and nails than I spend keeping my car up. Of course I adore her and I got them together and this is funny, that night I went to my folks house and out of the blue my father said

When I walked in the door my father said, "Remember, no good deed goes unpunished."

I thought it would be okay

I thought it was a rational decision

I thought I was over it

I thought I was above all that

What was I thinking

One more time, is it too late?

 

The secret feeling: ambivalence.

(and you thought it was love)