memoirs of a soccer-poet-dad

i wouldn't believe it myself but it's true. here i am now a soccer dad and loving it. nicholas joined the local league and tomorrow will be his third game. if i ever get off my lazy ass and upload some pics i'll post them here. because i am a proud papa and i wouldn't have thought that i'd be cheering in utter joy at the sight of 4-6 year-olds chasing, and occasionally kicking, a little round ball in a field of grass.

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i've been outta it. it was a long one yesterday. afterward i tried finishing reading dodie bellamy's barf manifesto but 3 pages in and i was down for the count. i woke up an hr later with a crick in my neck, the chap in lap, and my laptop unopened on the table beside me. getting up from the prone position to turn out the lights, lock the doors and head for bed was harder to do than a skid-row drunk passing up the chance for free booze. i was zonked. out. like totally. fer sure.

* * *

i agree with sr priego's piece he titled seriously. if you're gonna go thru the bother of setting up, and i assume write and maintain, a blog what the fuck do you mean to block access to it. i find that sort of thing annoying at the least and goddamned arrogant by the blogger. if you don't want readers then don't write, okay.

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the past few weeks have brought parcels of poems. well, the u.s. postal service, that nearly quaint and antiquated of organizations, did. and as quaint as the postal service might be i love coming home to find envelopes and packages stuffed with pubs and poems. especially if they are unexpected, like today, but so very welcome.

so here's a few:

i've received a packet of pubs from john bloomberg-rissman

white chapel by ryan scott

and today i came home late after a very long and trying day at work to find jone cone's recent chap, family portrait with two dogs bleeding, from arnold skemer's phrygian press. my partner in rhyme, jonathan hayes, also has a chap from the same press and i see in the listing in the back of cone's chap so does geof huth.

these pubs makes me, in the words of mater from the pixar movie cars, happier than a tornado in a trailer park.

* * *

cuz ain't that what it's all about, love, and friendship in all its manifold forms. and poetry. i've hit an age now when i think that what really matters is the practice of lovingkindness and that this world is more than enough. as bloomberg-rissman writes in the notes section of his chap a spectrum of other instances [bamboo books; 2008]:

To quote lolabola, who gets my award for writer of the year for just these words: "are you sure you don't love it all? I certainly do. it's the end of the year and I love everything!"

* * *

as the beatles concluded one of the greatest rock albums:

and in the end the love you take
is equal to the love you make

i suppose that that is what happens when this dude, me, i guess, turns into a soccer-poet-dad.