i'm deep in it.  each time i fret and fuss over this and that i tell myself to back off and give in and give up.  sounds passive but i'm here to tell you it is not.  what i do is my best to accept things as they are.  what i can change i change what i can't change i accept.  that's goddamn hard thing to do.  i'm not at all stoopidly saintly either.  i'm not.  learning that little bit takes a lifetime and i still forget to let go.  hence shit tends to bubble under the surface and stress is manifested in a tightening of the lip, a furrowed brow and sleepless nights.

and but so that is no different than how most of us experience our postmodern world.  or post post modern.  or whatever.  better than a pre-raphaelite world for d.g. rossetti et al. were after an idealized, romanticized reality that would not, could not, be realized again.  utopian thinking.  not that the world can't be a better place.  it simply will never be that place we hold dear in our minds.  as werner herzog says, the poet must not avert his/her gaze, the poet must look absolutely at the world.

well, enough of this silly rant.  i'm afraid i'm losing my humor.  samuel beckett was correct, the world is both tragic and funny.  sometimes we are in on the joke.  sometimes the joke is on us.

in the meantime i am giving thanks.  thanks for my friends, like b. c. and their son j., my friends in the art, my family, anna and nick without whom i could not walk upright on this earth, my partners in poetic collaborations, the art of grade z cinema, reading and writing poetry, being alive and conscious on this earth no matter how long i live i do so in utter amazement of this gift of life, books, the internet yes for with the internet i have found many many writers made lots of friends and created more and i hope better work by their example, dvds, and the luck of having just the least bit of facility with words so that i might express my wonder.  this is not an exhaustive list.  it is not the least list either but an outlet composed at a moment's notice.  let these awkward utterances stand and sing, as the great stevie wonder once said, in the key of life.