Part I


the plateau. the truest of them all. coast line. night spells and even controlled by the dream of meeting again. the ribbon of darker than light in your crown. No region overlooked. Third picnic table to the drive at Half Moon Bay, meet me there, decant my speech there. the table by the restroom block. While the tide is in show me your oyster garden, 3:00p.m. at half-light here in the evilest torments that have been shed.---------------door locked.  The moors. Cow herds and lymph nodes, rancorous afternoon West light and bending roads, the cliffs, a sister, the need to jump. There is nothing as serious as this. There is nothing nor no one that could ever, or would ever on this side come between. Who needs sleep or jokes or snow or rivers or bombs or to turn or be a rat or a fly or ceiling fan or a gurney or a cadaver or piece of cloth or a bed spread or a couch or a game or the flint of a lighter or the bell of a dress; the bell of your dress, yes, perhaps. Having been crushed like orange cigarette light in a pool of Spanish tongues. I feel the heave, the pull; not a yawn but a wired, thread-like twist about my core. Up around the neck it makes the first cut, through the eyes out and into the nostrils down over the left arm, on the inside of the bicep, contorting my length, feigning sleep, and then cutting over my stomach, around and around multiples of times- pulled at the hips and under the groin, across each leg and in-between each nerve, capillary, artery, hair, dot, dimple, muscle, to the toes and in-between them. Wiry dream-like and nervous nightmarish, hellacious plateaus of leapers. Penguin heads and more penguin heads. Startling torment. The evilest of the vile mind. The dance of despair: if feet contorted and bound could move. The beach off Belmont. The hills and the reasons I stared. Caveat after caveat at the heads of letters, on the heads of crowns, and the wrists, and on the palms. Being pulled and signed, and moved away so greatly and so heavily at once in a moment, that even if it were a year or a set of many months it would always be a moment too taking away to be considered an expanse, and it would be too hellacious to be presumptuous. It could only be a shadow over my right shoulder as I write the letters over and again. One after another. Internally I ask if I would even grant a convo with Keats or Yeats or Plath or Hughes? Does mine come close? Does it matter the bellies reddish and cerise giving of pain? Does it have to have many names?


"This is the only Earth," I would say with the bouquet of lilies spread out on the table. Are lilies only for funerals, I would never make or risk or wish this metaphor, even play it like the drawn out notes of a melody unwritten and un-played: my black box and latched, corner of the room saxophone. Top-floor, end of the hall two-room never-ending story, I'm the left side of the bed Chicago and I see pink walls, bathrooms, the two masonite paintings, the Chanel books, the bookshelves, the white desk, the white dresser, you on the left side of the bed in such sentimental woe, **** carpet and tilted blinds, and still the moors and the whispering in the driver's seat in afternoon pasture. Sunset, sunrise, nighttime and bike room writing in other places, apartments, rooms where I inked out fingertips, blights, and moods; nothing ever being so bleak, so eerily woe-like or stoic. Nothing has ever made me so serious.

Put it on the rib, in a t-shirt. Make it a hand and guide it up a set of two skinny legs under a short-sheeted bed in small room and literary Belmont, address included. Trash cans set out morning and night, deck-readied cigarette smoking. Sliding glass door and kitchen fright. Low-lit living room white couch, kaleidoscope, and zoetrope. Spin me right round baby right round. I am my own revenge of toxic night. Attack the skin, the soul, the eyes, the mind, and the lids. The finger lids and their tips. Rot it out. Blearing wild and deafening blow after blow: left side of the bed the both of us, whilst stirs the intrepid hate and ousts each ******* tongue I can bellow and blow.

Last resort lake note in snow bank and my river speak and forest walk. Wrapped in blocks and boxes, Christmas packaging and giant over-sized red ribbons and bows. Shall I mention the bassinet, the stroller, the yard, several rings of gold and silver, several necklaces of black and thread? I draw dagger from box, jagged ended and paper-wrapped in white and amber: lit in candle light and black room shadow-kept and sleeping partisan unforgettable forever. Do I mention Hawaii, my mother dying, invisible ligatures and the unveiling of the sweat and horror? Villainous and frightening, the breath as a bleat or heart-beat and matchstick stirring slightly every friends' woe and tantrum of their spirit.

Lobster-legged, waiting, sifting through the sea shore at the sea line, the bright tyrannosaurs in mahogany, in maple, and in twine over throw rose meadow over-looks, honey-brimming and warehouse built terrariums in the underbelly of the ravine, twist and turn: road bending, hollowing, in and out and in and out, forever, the everlasting and too fastidious driving towards; and it's but what .2 miles? I sign my name but I'll never get out. I am mocked and musing at tortoise speed. Headless while improvising. Purring at any example of continue or extremity or coolness of mind, meddling, or temptation. I rock, bellowing. Talk, sending shivers up my spine. I'm cramped, and one thousand fore-words and after words that split like a million large chunks of spit, grime, and *****; **** and more ****. I might even be standing now. I could be a candle, in England, a kingdom, in Palo Alto, a rook in St. Petersburg. Mottled by giants or sleepless nights, I could be the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, a heated marble flower or the figure dying to be carved out. I'm veering off highways, I'm belittling myself: this heathen of the unforgettable, the bog man and bow-tied vagrant of dross falsification and dross despair. I am at the sea shore, tide-righted and tongue-tide, bilingual, and multi-inhibited by sweat, spit, quaffs of sea salt, lake water, and the like. Rotten wergild ridden- stitched of a poor man's ringworm and his tattered top hat and knee-holed trousers. I'm at the sea shore, with the cucumbers dying, the rain coming in sideways, the drifts and the sandbars twisting and turning. I'm at the sea shore with the light house bruise-bending the sweet ships of victory out backwards into the backwaters of a mislead moonlight; guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos swept like black coffees on green walled night clubs, arenose and eroding, grainy and distraught, bleeding and well, just bleeding.






I'm at the sea shore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets, ******* and two lines left in the letter. I’m at the sea shore, my mouth is a ghost. I've seen nothing but darkness. I'm at the seashore, second picnic table, bench facing the squat and gobble, the tin roof and riled weir near the roadside. .2 and I'm still here with my bouquet wading and waiting. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. My inches are growing shorter by the second, cold, whet by the sunset, its moon men, their heavy claws and bi-laws overthrowing and throwing me out. The thorns stick. The tyrannosaurs scream. I'm at the sea shore, plateau, left bedside to write three more letters. Sign my name and there's nobody here.

I'm at the sea shore: here are my lips, my palms (both of them facing up), here are my legs (twine and all), my torso, and my head shooting sideways. I'm at the seashore and this is my grave, this is my purposeful calotype, my hide and go seek, my show and tell, my forever. .2 and forever and never ending. I was just one dream away come and keep me. I'm at the sea shore come and see me and seam me. I'm without nothing, the sky has drifted, the sea is leaving, my seat is a matchbox and I'm all wound up. The snow settling, the ice box and its glory taken for granted. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. The room with its white sets of furniture, the lilies, the Chanel, the masonite paintings, the bed, your ribbon of darker on light, the throw rug **** carpet, pink walled sister's room, and the couch at the top of the stairs. I'm at the sea shore, my windows opened wide, my skin thrown with threat, rhinoceri, reddish bruises bent of cerise staled sunsets. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. I'm at the plateau and there isn't a single ship. There are the rocks below and I'm counting. My caveats all implored and my goodbyes written. I'm in my bed and the sleep never set in. I'm name dropping God and there's nobody there. I'm in a chair with my hands on a keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock, horse-riding into candle light on a wicked wedding of wild words and teary-eyed gazes and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder. I'm all alone but I feel like you're here.



Part II




I wake up in Panama. The axe there. Sleeping on the floors in the guest bedroom, the floor of the garden shed, the choir closet, the rut of dirt at the end of the flower bed; just a towel, grayish-blue, alone, lawnmower at my side, and sky blue setting all around. I was a family man. No I just taste bits of dirt watching a quiet and contrary feeling of cool limestone wrap over and about my arms and my legs. Lungs battered by snapping tongues, and ancient conversations; I think it was the Malaysian Express. Mom quieted. Sister quieted. Father wept. And is still weeping. Never have I heard such horrifying and un-kindly words.-----------------------It's going to take giant steel cavernous explorations of the nose, brain cell after brain cell quartered, giant ******* quaffs of alcohol, harboring false lanterns and even worse chemicals. Inhalations and more inhalations. I'm going to need to leap, flight, drop into bodies of waters from air planes and swallow capsules of psychotropics, sedatives beyond recalcitrance. I'm requiring shock treatments and shock values. Periodic elements and galvanized steel drums. Malevolence and more malevolence. Forest walks, and why am I still in Panama. I don't want to talk, to sleep, to dream, to play stale-mating games of chess, checkers, Monopoly, or anything Risk involving. I can't sleep, eat, treaty or retreat. I'm wickeded by temptations of grandeur and threats of anomaly, widening only in proverb and swept only by opposing endeavors. Horrified, enveloped, pictured and persuaded by the evilest of haunts, spirits, and match head weeping women. I can't even open my mouth without hearing voices anymore. The colors are beginning to be enormous and I still can't swim. I couldn't drown with my ears open if I kept my nose dry and my mouth full of a plane ticket and first class beanstalk to elysian fields. It's pervasive and I'm purveyed. It's unquantifiable. It's the epitomizing and the epitome. I have my epaulets set for turbulent battles though I still can't fend off night. Speak and I might remember. Hear and it's second rite. Sea attacks, oceans roaring, lakes swallowing me whole. Grand bodies of waters and faces and arms appendages, crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and I'm still shaking, and I'm still just a button. And I still can't sleep. And I'm still waiting.

It is night. The moon ripening, peeling back his face. Writhing. Seamed by the beauty of the nocturne, his ways made by sun, sky, and stars. Rolled and rampant. Moved across the plateau of the air, and its even and coolly majestic wanton shades of twilight. It heads off mountains, is swept as the plains of beauty, their faces in wild and feral growths. Bent and bolded, indelible and facing off Roman Empires too gladly well in inked and whet tips of bolder hands to soothe them forth.-----------Here in their grand and grandiose furnaces of the heart, whipped tails and tall fables fettered and tarnished in gold’s and lime. Here with their mothers' doting. Here with their Jimi Hendrix and poor poetry and stand-up downtrodden wergild and retardation. I don't give a ****. I could weep for the ***** if they even had hair half as fine as my own. I am real now. Limited by nothing. Served by no worship or warship. My flotilla serves tostadas at full-price. So now we have a game going.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------  My cowlick is not Sinatra's and it certainly doesn't beat women. As a matter of factotum and of writ and bylaw. I'm running down words more quickly than the stanza's of Longfellow. I'm moving subtexts like Eliot. I'm rampant and gaining speed. Methamphetamine and five star meats. Alfalfa and pea tendrils. Loves and the lovers I fall over and apart on. Heroes and my fortune over told and ever telling. Moving in arc light and keeping a warm glow.

the fish line caves. the shimmy and the shake. Bluegrass music and big wafting bell tones. snakes and the river, hands on the heads, through the hair; I look straight at the Pacific. I hate plastic flowers, those inanimate stems and machine-processed flesh tones. Waltzing the state divide. I am hooked on the intrepid doom of startling ego. I let it rake into my spine. It's hooves are heavy and singe and bind like manacles all over me. My first, my last, my favorite lover. I'm stalemating in the bathtub. Harnessing Crystal Lite and making rose gardens out of CD inserts and leaf covers. I'm fascinated by magic and gods. Guns and hunters. Thieving and mold, and laundry, and stereotypes, and great stereos, and boom-boxes, and the hi-fi nightlife of Chicago, roasting on a pith and meaty flame, built like a horror story five feet tall and laced with ruggedness and small needles. My skin is a chromium orchid and the grizzly subtext of a Nick Cave tune. I've allowed myself to be over-amplified, to mistake in falsetto and vice versa. To writhe on the heavy metallic reverberations of an altercated palpitation. The heart is the lonely hunted. First the waterproof matchsticks, then the water, the bowie knife, crass grasses and hard-necked pitch-hitters and phony friends; for doing lunch in the park on a frozen pond, I play like I invented blonde and really none of my **** even smells like gold.--------------------- There are the tales of false worship. I heard a street vendor sell a story about Ovid that was worse than local politics. As far as intermittent and esoteric histories go I'm the king of the present, second stage act in the shadow of the sideshow. Tonight I'm greeting the characters with Vaseline. For their love of music and their love of philosophy. For their twilight choirs and their skinny women who wear black antler masks and PVC and polyurethane body suits standing in inner-city gardens chanting. For their chanting. The pacific. For the fish line caves. For the buzzing and the kazoos. For the alfalfa and the three fathers of blue, red, and yellow. For the state of the nation. But still mostly working for the state of equality, more than a room for one’s own.-------------------------------------------------------------­------"Rice milk for all of you." " Kensington and whittled spirits."
(Doppelganger enters stage left)MAN: Prism state, flash of the golden arc. Beastly flowers and teeming woodlands. Heir to the throes and heir to the throng.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------- The sheep meadow press in the house of affection. The terns on my hem or the hide in my beak; all across the steel girder and whipping ******* the windows facing out. The mystery gaze that seers the diplopic eye. Still its opening shunned. I put a cage over it and carry it like a child through Haight-Ashbury. At times I hint that I'm bored, but there is no letting of blood or rattle of hope. When you live with a risk you begin at times to identify with the routes. Above the regional converse, the two on two or the two on four. At times for reasons of sadness but usually its just exhaustion. At times before the come and go gets to you, but usually that is wrong and they get to you first. Lathering up in a small cerulean piece of sky at the end turnabout of a dirt road

What a city I murmur to myself looking at its map.
We approached the city known as Dis,
with its vast army and its burdened citizens.
At last we reached the moats
dug deep around the dismal city.
What destroys the poetry of a city?
Automobiles destroy it,
and they destroy more than the poetry.
Dante and Virgil chased by 7 or 8 dangerous devils
Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, ***** . . .
Our heroes reduced from metaphysical philosophers
interested in god and what man has done to man
to improvising primitive tools for survival.
Hope abandoned, we rate our chances of expiring
in the nuclear fire – excellent –
during the decline of western civilization.

On the other hand, I hope
our current problems are only temporary
and it’s just a matter of time before
the public ignores the 24-hour news cycle.
Bad news sells but the good life’s all around us.
One feels love and devotion
even for the 60 million who voted for our opponent.
Vaclav Havel said with a wisdom well beyond brilliance:
“Either we have hope within us or we don’t.
It is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not dependent
on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation.
It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart
that transcends the world as it’s immediately experienced.
It is not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense
no matter how it turns out.”

It resembles grief. But it's not quite grief. I'll give you grief.
Certain days planned to be eventful I look forward to for weeks.
Let the peaceful transfer of power proceed. The sorrow and the pity.
Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth.
When the laws are kept, how proudly the city stands!
When the laws are broken, what of the city then?
We are moving through some allegory between a City of Hope,
where history has been abolished, and a City of History,
where hope can be slipped in only as contraband.
Failing to achieve understanding, we're searching
outer space for an entity to unite us as humanity.
That person, or city, is consciousness.
Two ancient female poets are a revelation,
the clarity of their complaints: lost lover, lost city.
Our enemy eventually becomes our brother,
his misery lifted by coming to her city.

THAT crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, "O sea-starved, hungry sea.'

In each moment, each pursuit
Improvise.
It’s nothing more than living Now.
Of course you’ll f---k it up at times:
Mistakes belonging to a human
As does dust upon a mirror.

In each moment, work or pastime
Improvise, extemporize.
You have encyclopedic knowledge
In your little life-so-far;
Gifts and talents, skills, capacities;
Experiential knowledge
You absorbed the moment you took breath.

If you do what I advise
You see patterns that transmogrify,
Patterns that will make you wise;
Patterns when you make each minute your device.

Despite anomalies,
Quirks, and incongruities,
This the key to bring to light
The star you are,
Becoming brighter with each gesture.

Make a pact with you yourself
Put old habits on the shelf of things gone by.

You improvise,
You start to fly.
By and by
You are the sharpest, deepest, most profound and visionary
You alive.

Improvising Your Way Through Life 8.5.2017
Definitely Didactic; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea.

DEAR PENPAL PEOPLE, the golden: (every word meant)

ONE more year
2022-2023
couldn't he?
is 3sixty five days a bit too much to ask?
the moment of leave
the moment that actually defied MATH
ONE of the all left & gone
Do you know what that even means?
my idea of the improvised life
would've taken another 'responsibility'
would've been revived
ONE that would break
the ONE distorted continuity
And I'm NOT
no I'm NOT
NOT talking
Oh no I'm NOT
talking about some lost lover
what it means is even worse
NOT talking about a parent
nor a Mother
I'm talking about my idol person
my life's mentor
a teacher person
a friend human
I told him:
'you inspire us more than you think'
he laughed it off;
knowingly to its mean
into the blink
of which I always think
he knew
he had to leave again
Again to leave
don't get me wrong
I'm proud you see
but again
To Leave
The left
is our bodies
of 6ix, 7even, & 8ight
BODIES
scattered ahead
heads nodding
Improvising
Improvising
Improvising
that's all we've ever known
AGAIN
to the SECOND CITY we reached a fail
because To the reached
to be reached
is a long gone ship sailed
And my old self reads a paper
for some advise to be 'preached'
erasing the once To be reached
DO YOU KNOW THEM FEELS?
the ONEs ought to the golden trumpet's week?
I am weak
define my feels
I don't want to seem
TO BE nagging
but please tell me
DO YOU KNOW THEM FEELS?
the ONEs when you have to press ******* DELETE?
DO YOU KNOW THEM FEELS?
that I've had to thrown in a matter
of ONE alone sick year?
Again to fly
To look up to the SKY
after ONE meet's high
on a February's lie
upon the April's subside
& ONE which June
aimlessly
ironically
denies
DO YOU KNOW OUR FEELS?
DO YOU KNOW MY FEELS?
Dreams get lost
Dreams get crashed
Hearts get broken
Hearts backlash
Reality seeps in
Reality back stabs
I know no control
talk to me
about a stash
about a future
a plasticity
one which I refuse to be
yet I see you
you see
we observe each other
our harmony
long time
in no see
my humor withdraws
the purple room
haunts me
wooden blocks
shatter
me & the latter
our intermediate selves
splatter
cleaning tables
we ate on
we gathered
ONE YEAR YOU SEE
I'd like back my FEELS
of the previous
one, twos, & threes
STILL THE TABLE IS NOT CLEAN
tea 56 times a day
I drink
I swallow
violins know how to play
sad feels on display
follow your follow
out of my head
out of my lane
out of bed
everyday
to the shadow in the wall
I kinda pray
anyway
don't wait for us
don't wait for ME
I suggest we continue
Improvising
my friend
acting that way
(you see)


                                                          ­                                  ------ravenfeels

When and where did I begin, do I begin, shall I begin?

With vague childhood memories of growing up, in not too wealthy circumstances during the years after World War II, in a small part of a big town house in a little district town surrounded by mountains?
With being afraid of the chicken and geese my grandmother kept in our backyard? Of the delirious fever fantasies I still remember during two attacks of scarlet fever exactly around Xmas-time in two consecu¬tive years when I was 4 and 5 years old? (Must have been a real treat for my parents, and my grandmother, who was living with us!) Or with the fears and nightmares I had about having to go and fetch a bucket of coal from the dimly lit basement, whose dark corners in my imagination were full of hidden dangers and hideous monsters?
Or with the routine of crossing main street to go into the smoky old little pub with an empty mug, worm my way through the forest of trousered legs, hold up my mug and a few coins to catch the innkeeper’s attention, watch the tap beer fill the mug until it made a nice foamy crown on top, and then carefully manage the high steps of the stairway back up to my father´s supper table without spilling any of the precious liquid?
Or with first memories of suffering injustice, of a child´s most ardent wishes coming true (rare) or remaining unfulfilled (the rule), of happily riding around on a bright red wooden fire engine, clutching my favorite cuddly animal (of off-brown cloth, stuffed with sawdust, lovingly made by my mother)? Or with spectacular (and usually ******) crashes with my first wooden scooter, then proudly and even more daring with a precious metal scooter with which one day I managed to crash through the glass door leading from the backyard to the hallway and, miraculously, only suffered some minor cuts?
With the fast years of grade school at whose end where not only my first pair of glasses (much hated) and the then obligatory entrance examination to high school? Or, on  a quite different scale, the end of the allied occupation of Austria and the birth of a new, neutral and independent state - registered by me mostly because of diverse ceremonies that interrupted the school routine and brought unusual treats like ice cream or chocolate bars from parents & uncles & aunts?
With the first two grades of highschool, when I got up at 5.15 a. m. every morning and sleepwalked/scurried to the railway station to catch the express train at 6.15 a. m. that took me to the next Gymnasium 50 km away? With the pleasures & dangers of these daily train rides, the first cigarette smoked there, on the lavatory (with much coughing and a sinking feeling in the stomach); the first strange sensations - sweet and hurting - when a certain girl walked by; the occasional fights with other boys about God-knows-what-seemed-so-serious at the time? Or the memories of the huge fist that grabbed my heart when I saw my best friend, who tried to show off while our train was entering the station, miss the iron steps and simply disappear under the carriage - and with incredible luck resurface seconds later, white as a sheet but unharmed?

Or maybe with the hours I spent, after several years of not so enthusiastic practice (which nevertheless provided me with the basic abilities) alone with the piano in my grandmother´s salon, playing sonatas and dances and ètudes with growing ease and ple¬sure? Or with the bitter, bitter tears of pain and disillusionment when, at the age of 15, I had to bury my dreams of becoming a pianist because my hands started hurting terribly after only a few minutes of playing and the doctors told me, after one year of trying all kinds of treatments, that I had developed chronic tendonitis? Maybe with the many hours I spent reading numerous books of all kinds or sitting at the piano as an adolescent, improvising then popular songs (like the Beatles), or just playing some fantasy tunes, trying to give shape to my feelings and moods? With the memories of when I ´courted´ my then girlfriend not with words but with passionate songs played on ivory keys - and of my hurt pride and feelings when she, apparently unimpressed, preferred a more world-wise class-mate of mine and left me almost wrecking the poor piano with violent dissonances in e-flat minor hammered on the bass keys?
Or maybe with the first sobering experiences at summer jobs in steel mills, on construction sites, in the roofing business? And with the first 'wild´ parties during these summers at the garden house of a friend, where only a few years before we had been playing Cowboys and Indians, fighting the neighborhood boys, and where now we were sipping wine and/or gin tonics etc., smoking expertly, dancing to loud and slow music, hugging our partners close, feeling very wise, terribly attracted and at the same time a bit afraid of what might come of it?
Or with the final two year of high school that went by like in trance, filled to the brim with a hyped-up mixture of studying, playing billiards, dance class, dating, promising glances, secret meetings on warm summer evenings and at the skating rink in frosty winter nights, summer jobs, parties, the shocks about the death of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, organizing the graduation ball, ceremoniously opening the polonaise, living through the ups and downs of the final examinations, getting terribly but wonderfully drunk on the afternoon after the oral finals and recovering sufficiently within two hours to gracefully play the role of the class speaker and deliver the public address at the farewell dinner ...
And then the final trip of the graduating class - two weeks together on the beach in what used to be a budding Yugoslav seaside resort (and now is a recovering Croatian seaside resort), with the sun and the sea during the days, dancing and wine in the evening, my first experience at a strip-tease show (rather pathetic, never saw another one) and, a few days later, a heated but somewhat inconclusive evening with a member of a group of Swedish girls that had arrived at our bungalow village...

... then coming home, parties continuing, but noticing how gradually the closeness of all the years of small class community begins to loosen, the growing awareness that a formative period of your life has come to an end, you will not go back to school again in fall ... and by mid-summer everybody has discovered that ... my highschool girl friend tells me about her plans for the future ... I tell her about mine ... and we quietly acknowledge (looking back, it is almost unbelievable how quietly this is done) that we do not appear in each other´s plans ... years of relationships grow pale and finally evaporate under the hot summer sun ... I work another four weeks in the steel mill, read, meet with friends for drinks in the evening, start thinking about how student life will be, what The City will be like ... eager to get away and yet a little hesitant of the unknown ... playing the piano often, taking my leave from people, from places full of sweet and painful memories ... sorting schoolbooks, putting things away ... already growing out of the room I have shared with my ´little brother´ ... out of my parents´ house, my grandmother´s world, my brother´s boyish affection ... growing out ... growing up?

                                                           ­                   © Walter W. Hölbling

Improvising Yoga

I improvise my yoga as I improvise my jazz.
Good, bad or mediocre,
What comes out is not a razzamatazz
For glow or show
But enterprise for health and beauty;
Creativity that builds the body
And the mind.

At the moment yoga is the craze - a phase.
But movement never ceases,
And the creases never stop.
So take your body seriously;
Use each object as a prop
And make each move a yoga.

Improvising Yoga 12.2.2019
Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin

'let's walk to the ocean'
said the passing clown to the mime
it's quite a long way
expressed the mime
'yes it is?'
the clown replied
mime frowned
and they began walking...
clown in his big floppy red shoes
mime improvising as he went

at the edge of town they ran into a juggler
on the corner trying to pick up a few coins in his cup
clown asked the juggler if he'd care to join them
in their walk to the ocean
juggler said 'why not, things are kind of
up in the air for me right now'
they headed west toward the coast
clown had 5 boxes of Mike and Ikes...every flavor
in his red scarf on a stick
mime had plenty of slim jims
this would keep them fed until they reached their destination

several hours into their odyssey
a storm approached
a lone well drawn pine provided refuge until the storm cleared
as well as a snack and chance to learn of each other's journey
to this point
clown had done many things throughout his life
in pursuit of love, home and family
but he had failed in his search for a life he always dreamed of
and now this face of heavy make-up and big red nose would
hide the fact that he lived a life of constant sadness
mime had been a singer and worked for years to perfect
his craft... dreamed of making it to the big stage
but he refused to sing what they wanted him to sing and even though he had amazing talent, he was refused time and time again
becoming a mime would mean he'd never be reminded of the beautiful voice he possessed
juggler was a star pitcher known for his amazing fastball when he graduated college and was only days from signing a contract with the Yankees when a car accident damaged his shoulder so severely he lost his fastball
he juggles to keep his arm in shape in case his fastball ever returns
juggler asked clown why they were headed to the beach
mime was interested as well and produced the perfect look of inquiry
clown stood up...tossed the red scarf on a stick full of Mike & Ike's over his shoulder, brushed himself off and replied...
'why not?'

hugs
life  
love  
new  
true  
moment  
open  
step  
just  
hop­e  
god  
like  
breath  
friendship  
wait  
forever  
complete ­ 
day  
time  
dream  
chooses  
music  
dance  
far  
way  
danc­ing  
ok  
oh  
experiences  
end  
met  
heart  
world  
picture­  
know  
dreams  
truth  
friends  
lets  
understand  
making  ­
beginning  
leaders  
ya  
thought  
blah  
friend  
story  
loo­k  
haha  
page  
passion  
sitting  
everyday  
came  
establish­ed  
remember  
real  
work  
great  
noise  
understanding  
hea­r  
make  
brings  
arises  
walk  
flow  
value  
saw  
comfort ­ 
taken  
stepped  
near  
inside  
hello  
song  
experienced  
­living  
brought  
away  
number  
meet  
crowd  
hey  
sorry  
w­aiting  
jesus  
alive  
searching  
oops  
strength  
body  
wro­ng  
right  
people  
honest  
difference  
limits  
sit  
taking­  
treasure  
discovering  
absolute  
desire  
extreme  
browsin­g  
begins  
normal  
untold  
minds  
alike  
center  
spring  
­release  
service  
closer  
fame  
rough  
movements  
cluster  ­
unfinished  
jump  
prevails  
finish  
improvising  
provide  
­capture  
active  
adore  
exchanged  
amazing  
traveling  
thin­ks  
racing  
cool  
embracing  
crackle  
subdued  
listening  
­pop  
crumble  
bells  
everlasting  
movement  
lying  
limited ­ 
giggle  
beginnings  
boundaries  
character  
unlike  
silence­  
finding  
reverie  
pulse  
laughin  
gonna  
direction  
reck­less  
finished  
wider  
umm  
conformity   
discoveries  
resid­e  
repetitive  
maintained  
whoa  
boredom  
ultimately  
trans­ition  
hi  
completed  
major  
scrambled  
recent  
winners  
c­ompletes  
differences  
plows  
responded  
10  
gtg  
say---  
­yesterdaysinging  
foreverpraising  
todaydrawing  
bang-crunch-b­reak  
arm  
symphony--  
quack  
exiting  
complimenting  
uniqu­ely  
c'mon  
any'  
--  
move--  
lyricality  
ugh  
anxious  
s­tops  
creator  
understood  
creative  
encourage  
rhyme  
chat­ter  
guard  
talents  
wow  
reaching  
thousands  
celebrate  
­cramped  
perfectly  
mess  
group  
stanzas  
symphony  
doubts ­ 
epic  
hehe  
pursues  
stepping  
await  
expecting  
spaces  ­
anxiously  
revealing  
profits  
conversations  
react  
postur­e  
challenges  
counts  
ambition  
comments  
forevermore  
dis­covery  
action  
sky  
change  
emotions  
pure  
instant  
feel­ings  
laugh  
grabbed  
try  
years  
pray  
start  
family  
di­minishes  
surely  
different  
continue  
truly  
warning  
old ­ 
having  
memories  
smooth  
fails  
minute  
hearts  
breeze  ­
standing  
miss  
broken  
wondering  
wave  
expressions  
futu­re  
shadows  
learning  
joy  
able  
leave  
beautiful  
starin­g  
really  
hold  
forgot  
watch  
live  
ready  
whats  
arms ­ 
battle  
mouth  
breathing  
got  
light  
conversation  
maybe­  
minutes  
moments  
fun  
want  
set  
faithful  
say  
thank ­ 
reading  
night  
anxiety  
good  
dark  
course  
need  
choic­es  
drink  
room  
stand  
poem  
written  
push  
peace  
white­  
apart  
wide  
notes  
awareness  
clean  
steps  
countless  ­
purpose  
aside  
cherish  
ears  
sleeps  
beating  
hour  
mee­ting  
expression  
gives  
draw  
soon  
lil  
travel  
roll  
s­tarted  
connected  
common  
acknowledge   
wants  
spoke  
triu­mph  
board  
sung  
secure  
agree  
relief  
quiet  
known  
so­ught  
lovely  
boom  
month  
sing  
ending  
order  
hidden    ­
embrace  
wealth  
lives  
placed  
running  
looking  
precious­  
shared  
figure  
endless  
loved 
walking  
furniture  
stop ­ 
ahead  
glory  
yes  
ring  
wind  
special  
free  
daily  
op­ening  
drawn  
security  
loving  
finds  
second  
stairs  
cor­ner  
blast  
fully  
moving  
tree  
flows  
wonder  
early
hugs­