bueller? bueller?

had the day off which meant, hopefully, doing a lot of nothing. only got that partially accomplished. spent most of the day in the garden de-pooping [hugo is a large dog, and sophie, even tho she is a much smaller australian shepherd, can really produce] and removing leaves. trees sac has, in abundance and it seems all of the city's trees leaves find their way onto our front lawn and back garden. besides, a storm is expected by tonight and i wanted to get the leaves felled by the last storm out of the way to make room for the new batch of incoming leaves.

also spent some time reading what i can find online by new zealand poet bob orr. a few days ago i was reading the new zealand anthology big smoke. packed with historical data and poems of writers active between the years 1960 thru 1975 this tome is quite a compendium of some seriously good shit. i read the poems of orr and copied down these lines in my moleskin:

first
last
are nothing

I'm not interested
in moments of eternity

I'm here
I'm somewhere
else

the bio-notes for orr detail the fact that he had worked for 20 years on the docks in the waitemata harbour. i'm listening, sounds like a cool job, but i''m rather leery by what i remember reading the bio-notes for a british alt-poet from a long defunct lit journal that said the poet just finished a residency on a dock. i thought that the poet was being clever in the bio and took a blue-collar job because the poet needed the dough. but no, the british government was setting up poets with residencies with various industries as poet-in-residence of say airline pilots.

nothing wrong with that gig, but ugh. turns out orr is a pilot on the harbour. works, or used to work, up to 70 hours a week. whoa! if it seems i'm making too much of this poet's working life i must again state that i think poets should be doing all kinds of day jobs. and a poet who can work such a physically demanding job and write poems and publish and be overall a presence in contemporary new zealand poetry, man, color me impressed.

how's the dudes poetry? orr is a quiet voice but apparently a decent sort of chap according to this profile published in 2000, loyal to his friends and a hardworker both in poetry and his day job. i found myself lost in his texts, a good kind of lost, a few made me laugh outright. there's a touch of sadness and the daily working lives of both writers and people who make their living by their hands keep orr's lines taught.

i was so lost that perhaps if there was anyone around this afternoon between de-pooping and shuffling leaves they might not have recognized me. i was so gone that i could almost hear ben stein's voice from the film ferris bueller's day off [1986] calling out, bueller? bueller?