Wednesday, September 08, 2010

h=e=y=g=o=r=g=e=o=u=s

once upon a time i was fascinated by the gnosticism of philip k. dick. i wanted to become a mystic you see even if i'm not particularly religious. what is cool about dick is his endless sifting of our trash in our culture. if this world is made by inferior god[s] as dick believed than the way to find god[s] is by searching thru the lower reaches of our culture. so by studying trash i might've found mysticism.

well then okay, but still i find things rather fortuitous, or not. the title of this post comes from a graffiti scrawl i pass everyday on the back of a street sign on my way to work. i must've passed it many times before noticing it. the words 'hey gorgeous' are written rather hastily it seems and lack a kind of artifice that is usually the mark of a talented tagger. instead, 'hey gorgeous' looks like it was written by a hack.

but i'll take it. the past couple weeks has seen me bent to my desk for many, many hrs a day. i am, hell we all are if we work for a living and really don't we all have to work for a living?, stressed and am feeling the pressure. then it happened, i saw 'hey gorgeous' like it was a greeting done especially for me. out of the trash came a modicum of grace. and i said, shit, even if that's just some piece of crappy graffiti i'll read it as a signal that the world is all right even if it feels like hell. and the world is telling me about it even if the world could be full of shit.

* * * *

in other news do read jim mccrary's essay re the role of poetry and saving the world. i agree with mccrary. all we can do is read and write and if that makes us better people all the better, but poetry perhaps can save your soul, maybe even save your life, but it sure as hell not going to save the world.

it's raining tonight. an early fall. i saw jack o'lanterns for sale at the safeway supermarket tonight. it is time, it is the season, for pumpkins and candy corn. i am on the edge of my seat.

4 Comments:

At 9:01 AM, Blogger John B-R said...

There's something quite "protestant ethic" in some many poets, including me. For some reason fun just isn't enough for us. Maybe poetry won't save anything ... As the song says, "I may be going to hell in a bucket, baby, but at least I'm enjoying the ride."

You are gorgeous.

 
At 9:26 AM, Blogger Jim K. said...

haha...uh-oh, mccrary..
look out

 
At 9:16 PM, Blogger richard lopez said...

i've been battling the protestant ethic of singular dourness all my life too, but i'm also enjoying the ride and am doing my best.

jim, mccrary is one of our greats.

both of youse is gorgeous

 
At 9:47 PM, Blogger Jim K. said...

to the ride and the best..
there's only so much life left

that ethic is weirdly intense.
300-yr-long talons.
they fly outside churches now,
they are bigger and more sacred.
shares uber alles, dire leads
to dour. dour leads to mediocracy
and collapse, actually. dead cert

things change anyway now, so I
take the explorer model.
make what you can,
brush off the wevils

 

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