7/30

I should be in bed instead of scratching scratching with the pen parked on the side of the road next to a ditch but there’s something in this full buck moon that’s making me itch and the eyes of a white tail peek from low walnut branches and I wish we could walk together I can shut off this truck and we can disappear into the cornfield you and I but you don’t trust me. But I hold hope that one day I’ll walk with you some magic will descend over us and walls will fall and we’ll disappear together maybe that will happen at the end. But tonight I’m pulled over on the side of the road beneath the full buck moon and I’m gazing at it and you I’m gazing at the loveliness and on Thursdays I’m usually tired yes it’s a long day early to rise I open myself to the sun and let it go through me I prepare for the 4 services the pies don’t bake themselves the fish and chicken don’t arrive this way no the pole beans don’t dip themselves into holy water no no the heirloom tomatoes don’t turn themselves into jam it all must be done beneath the summer sun yes yes and I’m home now and I’m thinking about Anselm Kiefer I was reading his notebooks last night and his notebooks make less sense really than whatever it is that I scratch down… but of course his scratching made sense to him as my scratching makes sense to me. But Anselm Kiefer the Great German Artist yes and I think how do I make Sassafras into a painting like Anselm Kiefer’s? Because he has God in him what would Jesus do WWJD yes yes it is the same because Anselm Kiefer has God in him how do I make Sassafras into a great painting? How do I make my 8 seats into a great painting that spans 25 or 50 or 100 feet into the sky (Babble oh me oh my I pray it isn’t true…) and travels the globe I ask this every day. No I don’t want more than 8 seats. No I don’t want a James Beard award and if Michelin came to nod in my direction I would hang my little star on the door but it would be little match against the big stars in the big sky hovering impossible and infinitely above it. But you see there is God inside an artist like Anselm Kiefer… to be able to achieve this kind of art… this is the work of the invisible force this is the work of a higher realm…

“We should never touch artists or a poet in moral categories. It’s different… [Artists] have a responsibility to do their work as accurate, as concentrated as possible. But they have no social, historical, or whatever responsibility. You know the worst people did the most wonderful work. We have to separate the work from the man.”

-Anselm Kiefer

Yes this is a transcendence but you see it will never be True without humility and it is very difficult very difficult profoundly difficult to make an achievement in Art on an enormous scale without compromising humility no it can only be done by rejecting the awards by doing it only because it is true regardless of what comes whatever awards or blame or disdain or… yes so you see the work must remain pure so it can climb the steep mountain to God it must reject the awards it must reject the disdain it must reject the blame…

7/31

It’s kind of like a war—though what do I know of war…—I keep showing up every week and I keep pushing and pushing and pushing. Progress is difficult to see and I may never see it. It is the work that endures. Within the work progress can be seen. But it’s Friday morning 6:31AM and my thoughts upon waking are this. Is there an ending? Just keep working. Yes I’m reminded of the rose that grows because that’s what it does and it blooms and returns to dust until it blooms again and I think that I’ve bloomed many times and many times I’ve returned to dust and many times I begin again.

10:24PM

Sitting down to the desk when all is quiet in the sleeping house… like a pianist sitting down to play Moonlight Sonata… yes I sit down to play the same song. These words may be different than the others I’ve scratched but are they? The same theme runs through the same questions asked the same introspection. Yes I went about my day first in the country then into the big city then back to the country again and all in time for chicken cutlets at Nona’s and running through the rain with my littles and Mama quick dry off pajamas over-sized t-shirts then a movie and popcorn the littles snuggling on pillows and blankets piled on the floor. And I’m back at the desk beneath the lamplight and I’ve one more day before the 12 courses begin again and there is much to do but there is nothing that must be done you see I write the music and I play the song so I’ve no excuse not to dictate the pace to which I march along… This week there will be peppers and sweet corn and eggplant and melons and tomatoes and squash and beans… And new things are happening yes quietly there are new things happening I don’t like loud new things no no. Please quiet. Quiet please.

To Posterity

1.
Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.
Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?
It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.
By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me
I am lost.)
They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink
When my food is snatched from the hungry
And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty?
And yet I eat and drink.
I would gladly be wise.
The old books tell us what wisdom is:
Avoid the strife of the world
Live out your little time
Fearing no one
Using no violence
Returning good for evil --
Not fulfillment of desire but forgetfulness
Passes for wisdom.
I can do none of this:
Indeed I live in the dark ages!

2.
I came to the cities in a time of disorder
When hunger ruled.
I came among men in a time of uprising
And I revolted with them.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
I ate my food between massacres.
The shadow of murder lay upon my sleep.
And when I loved, I loved with indifference.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
In my time streets led to the quicksand.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers would have been more secure. This was my hope.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

3.
You, who shall emerge from the flood
In which we are sinking,
Think --
When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also of the dark time
That brought them forth.
For we went, changing our country more often than our shoes.
In the class war, despairing
When there was only injustice and no resistance.
For we knew only too well:
Even the hatred of squalor
Makes the brow grow stern.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we
Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness
Could not ourselves be kind.
But you, when at last it comes to pass
That man can help his fellow man,
Do not judge us
Too harshly

The Over-Soul has been weighing on me. What is the intention of this space and is this intention aligning with my reality… I have no expectation of this space but to write often. More often than I have been. But I do write daily though the words don’t always feel right so I keep them. Or I keep them because they’re mine. And my words are searching and clawing at intention and expectation if I had an aim I could write toward it but in this strange space on the internet what is the aim? Because I’ve written long works very long works and they are my life’s work undoubtedly but the internet space is not meant for long works it isn’t focused enough for something so developed so each week I leave here a thought or two but something’s been missing I’ve been searching searching searching to close the gap and this morning I picked up Elena Ferrante’s Frantumaglia as I often do to fill the emptiness and I realized my answer was in the title: jumble of fragments. An unstable landscape of the mind, consisting of conflicting sensations, chaotic memories, and debris that feels like the true, chaotic inner-self… it perfectly captures the messy, fragmented, and elusive nature of human identity and the creative process. 

I say yes to the fragments for this space this Over-Soul. Though they had already been written the fragments they have been there every week spanning years. And from that wreckage the debris the unstable landscape of the mind I may pick up a fragment here a fragment there and see if they belong together to form a whole and use that whole for something else. The Over-Soul is not the space for the whole. It is the space for the parts to live together.