hotter than the surface of the sun

today is the first triple digit degree day of the year.  so hot concrete melts beneath your shoe soles and cats become puddles of fur on neighbor porches.  i mean holy shit hot.  the kind of hot that would vaporize frosty the snowman and make the old scratch himself weep in pain.  i'm not complaining.  summer in sac translates to at least a few days of super hot heat.  but oh the light.  the lovely california light.  van gogh and the rest of the post-impressionists would cum in their pants upon witnessing such light. 

and so in this heat the mind coagulates and thoughts turn to sludge.  the soul seeks refrigeration.  the body chooses to stay indoors, watch movies, read, do a little youtubeage, not cook for turning on the stove is anathema because it will heat up the house, and drink whatever is at hand, even glasses of water. 

why complain.  as david bowie once said, i don't need t.v. when i have t. rex.  today i read this interview with oz poet les murrary.  i have somewhere subhuman redneck poems and murray's verse novel fredy neptune.  what can i say.  the interview was refreshing to my spirit.  murray's deft talents are in abundant evidence.  the dude's anti- attitudes were a medicine for my melancholy.  my education was similar to his.  we both chose to unearth poet after poet in the stacks at our school libraries rather than read thru our syllabuses.  murray's work is not what i cottoned to in the past.  his poetry always seemed a bit too formalist for my taste.  the problem lies with me.  can one love the ramones and and not love bach too?  can i not love the writings of w.h. auden and d.a. levy?  short answer -- yes i -- you -- can. 

oh there is something about the vernacular republic in the name les murray.  so common.  so plain.  but there is beauty in it too.  a google search tonight led me to another les murray, a well-known sports announcer.  why should that make me happy?  have you tried googling richard lopez?  fuck, there are millions of us.  even if i shortened my name to rich lopez there are vast numbers of us.  still life is lived in the demotic.  my own name is plain as plain yoghurt.  there is an army of me.  i delight in my own vernacular republic.  poetry i discover is everywhere i see.