Expired Yugoslavian Passport turned secret diary of poetry & ephemera, shared with a friend never met (like most of you) in Gifu. He’s from BC and met my brother in another life, somehow. Heck of a writer.
Anyhow, we fill up pages as desired and mail back and forth like a secret for everyone to see.
{transcription from an “field notes” notebook while in bed… stashed here so I don’t misplace}
[Unrelated photo #SnowyOwl]
Finding home
No longer daunted By subterfuge Payola schemes or even Assassinations by a religious stooge
Still enamored by overbites Pretty lies feathered caps and quicksilver mines
Confused by burning coals to alchemize cartoon currencies in a triangular ruse
I don’t need a course To tell me to be happy I already know what wealthy means Have you a garden, a pen and Wood stove?
The answer to the biggest question is: “to love, and to be loved”
The pathway to go there is: kindness, tolerance, empathy, intrepidness, weakness is strength
All this is to say: Cynicism avoided, reality reinvented, consensus subverted, admiration for the usual Savor the regular days, notice the magnificence in nonchalance & common place.
Get down on your knees!
To look closely The tactility of grass The softness of sand The circles and cycles The shards of pottery The ants smaller than the other ants The lichen, the moss the dirt The rivulets The worm holes to everywhere else
Just remixing some passports from Romania and Albania.
Remixing expired passports from Romania and Albania into “dossiers of mystery and tactical intrigue” complete with endorsements, visas, assignments, sightings, safe houses, maps, aliases, poetry, ephemera, snippets, stamps – both ink and postal – musings, memos, codes, secrets.
Completely usual behavior – carry on with your diligent efforts.
Checkpoints include: Sri Lanka, Nepal, Diego Garcia, Vatican, Athens, Kyoto… etc + green beavers and diligent dogs
was just waiting for someone to ask me the time so i could say “North by Northwest”
walked to post office
as rain fell
imagining Van and Vic
in April & May
writing new endings by
crafting beginnings
with new cast of darlings
{mailed 4 packets of printed matter}
2 "forged" passports
4 x postcards with dozens of stamps
1 portrait of young sailor
now a fire
Two observations outside of the doctors office yesterday / yes, can help me to locate myself when my head is spinning after injections
In November 2022 I was very pleased to be a very lousy guest on the very gracious Jason Emde’s podcast (broadcast in Gifu rock city) in which writers share their “early, unripe… etc. etc.” work along with Jason’s curious questions, amusing banter and general graciousness.
very un-reliable account of King Tut’s life. this is not science (yet i won the ribbon)
We spoke for something like four hours which is a world record for me of late, yes I was a little spun out and it’s not my finest moment *but* gave me an opportunity to dig deep into the archive to find things from my legit early days. Of course about an hour makes it into the finished program but my goodness, is it a lot of action in an hour. Leaping wildly from topic to form, location to era, anecdote to musing. A bit rant-y sure so hold on to yer cap.
from my fave of several college/university experiences at Larry Harper’s honours creative writings class making a collective chapbook with my “Sweetgrass” story
In this case I pulled items from: fourth grade King Tut mimeographed hand out from my (award winning :-)) science fair project at Prince Charles Elementary; newspaper editorials and chapbooks at the Orem (UT) high school; early stories at Utah Valley community college; and, the beginning of the *disgruntled with the literary establishment years* at University of Utah years.
(one of several fusillades fired in the Orem High School newspaper (under different surname), this one about student teachers from BYU
Yes there are many digressions, rapid speaking, a few shots fired, salvos really, a bit of sweetness and a bit of tenderness as I figured out who I thought I might be when I was already completely myself.
Chapbook with brother Bob (Cmdr USN) about hippie elementary school teacher’s bus made at Orem High School Unified Studies program
Jason welcomes under-qualified window-washer Dave Olson & his fantastic beard & beautiful hands for a natter about punching or hugging Dostoevsky, see-through loincloths, meeting REM, borrowing mustard from Allen Ginsberg, dodgy Greyhound stations, working out the writing life math, and how cheerleaders are people too.
There’s ropey Egyptian history, a savage polemic, the details of hippy teacher Mr Boris’s new motorized home, a few bits & Brother Bobs of Dave’s early poetry & prose, & Jason getting his Tutankhamun timeline wrong by only 3700 years. An unnerving—if not terrifying—time is guaranteed for all.
Check out Dave’s creative life archive at https://daveostory.com—much to enjoy there. Music by the outrageous DJ Max in Tokyo.
“Hero card” images: unrelated to snippets below, as far as I can tell anyhow
Still enamoured by overbites On your couch learning French French as slowly as possible Prevents encouraging habits and libations
Depths and perceptions Pacific driftwood heave Bog lands Where the houses will float away Though welded to the dock
Can’t hear you over the brightness of the lightsMoved it over a peg to the left It didn’t seem So symmetrical Unnerving The symmetry, you see Makes me dizzy & rather unsure on my feet
Bag of Zippers Essence of Bergamot Samovar Lilywhite leaning Envision a clear path homeward Considering Lubrious Plaintive Budding Eagerly
Wafting sage and lavender Transcendent to Tibet High valley with a path Leading towards mtns unknown
Riffs about the glory of journals, diaries, notebooks full of musings and importance of turning off inner-critic and not overthinking while savoring the process of transcription, curation and further creative wonderment from Kura barn in provincial Japan. With evidence with my own process.
Items are Marty Thurston’s backyard studio for “Personal Archeology – Postcard #88”
Plus sorta re-cap how far I got about Circumnavigation poetry book project, tips and tactics for enjoying and “doing something with” your diaries, scrapbooks and so on, having multiple books on the go (and mixing up with all manner of stuff all at once, notes about semantics of freeverse, lyrics, short stories and prose poems, and probably a riff about remembering to forget, questioning “who are you making this for” and where I place the ghosts.
Finally, I read straight from some barely legible poetry scribbles with meanderings about sensory depravation chambers, menthol smokes with Leonard Cohen, Pan Am flights with Zeus, Buddha, Glen Canyon, and solving algorithms with nuclear fusion.
Ambient video version of a Postcards from Gravelly Beach podcast “Nepal Stupa Choruses” with a cycle of poems written on a lake heading towards a temple and tea in shadow of Annapurna – the audio in the *actual pod* is much better but just happened to film whilst recording and added a few snaps from the journey for amusement and colour, so here we are, in my kura barn studio in provincial Japan, ergo:
“Washing dishes and busted spectacles lead to rowing a lake in Nepal figuring out deity, enlightenment, peace and power with choruses fresh from diaries – plus Royal hospitals, poetic devices and question mark eyebrows. Your turn Buddha, your turn.”
Monday morning-ish, getting head spinning fluidly by riffing with ya
Just transcribing poetry notebooks, journals, diaries, and so on on a “typewriter-style” computer input device (a gift from Dome Wonderland) and date-stamping pages when done sometimes, while listening to The Matinée’s new album in kura barn studio in provincial Japan – sometimes squinting, something showing the notebooks (trying to maintain momentum).
Poorly lit, no narration, mediocre posture – working on poetry/musings book: “Circumnavigation, of Sorts” Nov. 2022, Tsuchida, Japan. That’s the full real deal.
Washing dishes and busted spectacles lead to rowing a lake in Nepal figuring out deity, enlightenment, peace and power with choruses fresh from diaries – plus Royal hospitals, poetic devices and question mark eyebrows. Your turn Buddha, your turn.
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