Category: Stream – Morning Pages

Stream-of-consciousness Morning Pages

Stinkronicity, safety in numbers, Fleming’s badda bing, automatic fem ducks, sharing rope, I yam, wearing critics in back of your head, poetry + expression 062723

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

Listen, I know when I’ve been read. I love synchronicity and am always on the lookout for it. Synchronicity is like a rainbow. You have to stop to appreciate the missing link of probability. Seek safety in numbers. Or electromagnetism. 

I mean, when I see a swarthy swaggard with a low-buttoned shirt point at me, wink, then make that moistened click-click sound, I assume he’s giving me the Fleming’s Hand signal: pointing out my magnetic field, offloading one or both of our currents, and letting that thumbs-up carry him into a groovy cosmic day.

What’s up, Babe? Flemings right-hand rule(s!)

But synchronicity is not specific like a verbatim lift off another’s work. Know thyself and hold center in your personal experience. Stall in the shadows of your higher guides and it tethers them from balancing a universe. Release the archetypes and the myths. Release the bats*. 

[*Birthday Party reference, 1982. No correlation between the lyrics and my interpretation of this coined expression. But the tone of that song is bangin!].

I have been t-r-y-i-n-g desperately to get a moment to do this online thing and hit Publish. My workload doesn’t provide enough play. I did play Saturday. Shared meals and walks with longtime friends and found luck. It’s good to get out.

But fu-uuuuu[k] a few ducks.

Not literal ducks—ducks are cool. I mean people being weird. Expression is necessary; repressed emotion can lead to violent reaction. Work it out on yourself. Who wants to invest in petty content and put it that in their head? That question echoes…. Wit, even scathing, is something entirely different and that I get. It is better to laugh if given that cathartic choice. But any group you seek to share the spice of life with can pass you weak sauce. Listen out for quacks about COMMUNITY.

Community can be code for turf. Ones wouldn’t need to defend virtual, hybrid, or in-person turf against what might seem obscure unless feeling threatened. People scoff if they think an existence scoffs at them, even though we all live 24 hours a day within personal missives that are not the same. Neighbors can act like patrols, mistaking divergence for deviance, and puffing up with self-righteousness as if authorities of this asstral turf.

Seeing this pattern when it comes to poetry is bleak. Like what poems did these aspirers read growing up? Mass thinking is a theme that’s been addressed quite a bit by writers. So it is interesting to see writers who’ve settled into their voice extend, within the support of a community of any size, some kind of gavel for molding others on their imagined turf into the limits of themselves. I’m not saying to destroy things but would like to ask again: If power were a pill, what would be your side effects?.

What is relatable, deep, or masterful to me means no loss in equal footing. Even if I feel like puffed-up power plays are noise, that occurring current is not directed. Within my own experience, I know great power when I read it. I knew it growing up and was lucky not to have to hurry with worry about fitting in to play follow-the-leader. One advantage of poverty is excusing yourself from games of whom can afford the best toys then struggling to realize that material things can be false securities or sidetracks to inner development.

I yam I yam I yam. 

Forgive my explosive outburst. I have ten minutes to exchange this block into energy.

Back to that great power, only a few books spooked me in my young days, mostly with haunted text of what they weren’t saying. Meanwhile, being graded on shutting up and determining from inane test questions what we’re supposed to glean from great and flowing rivers of literature. I do not believe I saw the same things the tests saw; they were captchas that ask you to identify mountains and they’re all on one side of the image, but a wee peak eeks from behind the corner of a building, plus all their reflections show in the pooled rain, so you try to guess what they want you to say. Pick your battles to get a good grade. And there’s often an opportunist standing nearby who tries to tell you that what you see is foolishly untrue. That is called posturing.

Taking a wagging voice from their psyche, engrained in their shadow—there’s that heavy word shadow again—and projecting it out as judge, jury, and executioner because it can’t be seen while happening, let alone let go, is far more destructive than being rubbed by a well-written poem one may not comprehend. It’s the critic one escapes by wearing in the back of the head.

Gee, was it something I said? In reality, my inner work doesn’t involve the phasing archetypes of others. There’s no one fix to problems that stick. There’s no one fix, to everyone’s problems, that sticks. There’s no one fix to everyone’s problems; at least not one that sticks. There’s no one fix to everyone’s problems—at least not one that sticks. There’s no one fix to everyone’s problems. At least not one that sticks. 

Is that everyone? Oh, right, hyphen. 

There’s no one-fix to everyone’s problems, at least not one that sticks. 

Happy? No? Maybe work on that strategy for mild and safe poetry? Might I suggest Fozzy bear jokes or teatime miniature precious moment quilts. Ha. 

Again, what poets expect that? Where? What did they read ever? If you suspend the thee and thine, poets were rich with vocabulary and metaphoric resonance. Puzzles that can save you should they become more true. Shake your fist at the language or the mirror or the sky. Look around. Go argue with Joyce because he will tire you from all your kicking.

Heartsmiths, I’m not perfect. Here I am venting because I tire faster and faster of the high road. Imagine if I didn’t hold back on trial jabs comin at me, bro. Would I be sweet like Mary? Shocked and inarticulate? Are you out of your group-think minds? She asked, noticing the clock was six minutes past the hour.

Nooooooooooooo! Maybe if I borrow 15 minutes at lunchtime…here’s a scene. Is this scene good or lame?

Bring sneakers for walking on cowpatties every 6 feet and call out as you skip: love love doom, love love doom, love love doom. Silence! This void is Community! Who dares usurp our tweety sale of biscuits: NumNumNumNum!
Tis arrogance behind epointing finger! Burn the witch before the crone comes for you! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Whatever. Back to work. 

Fonts. Come-at-able hosiery. Cold hard likes for likes. FutureYou 6/18/23

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

Fonts. Which do I choose for FutureYou. Why isn’t Bookman in this app? Ooh, how about Apple Chauncery:

No, Apple Chauncery would get tiring for a long-format writing. Also, I have to be conservative with stock image selections this month and can’t re-purpose a unicorn atm.

Ugh! Do I have to download fonts. Haven’t I struggled enough to progress on content for mthrfkng decades to grandfather out of being chained to the transatlantic boob tube to give a like for a like. Then cut into any remaining non-work hours to Google “submit?” Cutter. I’m already somewhat environmentally damned just for the writing part. And, also, and keep this under your wigs, I see a lot of less-than-good stuff that blows up because some poor non-profiteer is working the algorithms. It’s true. We have to stop being free content providers for social media. Somehow somehow. This whole pipe dream shoved down the throat of artists is pure gasoline. I get that there are some way encouraging shows, like The Bold Type and Younger, about publishing companies being able to read and choose outside of influencer-level social followings, and it’s Bronte neat that they end some episodes intimating finding relevant work before the closeup of a teardrop followed by the words “this is why we do it.”

Therapy. My insurance requires four failed attempts, at anti-depressants, to cover Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, but that’s a story for another day. Yes, I finally have insurance. Don’t get me started. Snap off any comparative thoughts. Snap it off. Snap it off. Fonts. Does it even matter? Here’s Garamond:

Yeah, what do you want, Gentle Reader?

I said I wasn’t going to use the term “gentle reader.” It made a huge return in the early 1900s and was all over Hoffmann’s crucial tales in the 1800s and Swift used it in the 1700s for Gulliver’s Travels (if my sharp and forgiving memory serves me correctly, which it sadly does not always do 🙁 ).

bending time – love ciphering – 061623

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

6/16/23

Today: twenty mixes for dailies, outdated subscriptions that want $500 a year to continue with them, cutting losses and purchasing basics like an LUFS meter for EBU R 128 output and a sibilance plugin that doesn’t rape your spectrum and updating noise reduction tools to work with the fucking constant OS-architecture-compatibility changes, weekly conference looming meeting where i get to show the intranet i’ve been working on to organize the continuous proposals and budget forms in a way that we can compare them over the years, fifty emails to read and automate to a spreadsheet and pull out action items for another spreadsheet that links to a reminder calendar, mapping out over 200 groups worldwide and streamlining the data to an added layer for centers of excellence in tech to compare with our network, running out in the early am to clean and prep the writing lair for a guest, tree limbs down from a storm through the roof, students with deadlines who turned in their stack of paperwork to check and forms to submit to the registrar so they can go forth with pride, and everything i pass needs attention.

I am up for the task. The tempest never knew a better friend than me. It’s magic is neither black nor white and there’s no moment of forgetting or stepping outside of code to use our sacred connection as boast for others to glean that i am worth more than either of us believe.

That said, so much drags me down to the material level. No matter how much i cut the trammel, this life of responsibility finds and overwhelms me.

Within all of today’s frackery, i looked at the faces of deadlines and retarded ten minutes of time into needed hours by writing this little exacting kite of poetry. And we fly, we fly, we always fly. Not a thing anyone can suspect or project can change this personal maxim.

This bit is about the complex language of logic compared to the clear universal language of math; ideas related by agreed upon code. Amazing. But it’s harder to explain or create with ambiguous words describing feeling. That goes especially for explaining love.

love ciphering do not speak on the problematical get in this floorless chariot stick to the walls as we’re spinning riding an ark of Greek math from a semi-ecstatic stoic poet with a heavier key than technology in the 21st century love L a F o g l e

It’s even harder to read a good love scene. FutureYou: star date 061423

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

That’s what I’m talking about. Thank you, Ken doll. I thought of this piece this morning while writing a scene for a book called FutureYou: 

Good morning, Alastor. I woke rested in my own wing. Night made no sound save its stillness in rest. We rose refreshed, ready for a cup of coffee and a walk without prate, though prattle a lyrical flow like words sewn into scarves and hats; blue blockers to keep the lingering sleep, as we float about the flocks and lilies flushed beyond perfection in the scatter of the waking sun that arises raring for our need. Listen in circadian impulse to answer the tryst with soft touch imbued by ratcheting motor-tasked fists, released from discord in today’s ballade, where I am the victor. But you can still be a hero—the sole need for shaven legs to slide down your fur. Let the balkers find their red herrings while love remains the curse and the cure.

Cere is so in love here and I have to stay offline to write these scenes. Have you ever noticed how much people can suck? I should finish that sentence: the life out of your motivation and self-possessed belief in your abilities to handle the truth or not confuse myth?  I need to pay tribute to Skroll again so he doesn’t drive me. I could schedule online days around scenes where a hammer needs to fall and write out all that angst after processing the confusion of Skroll’s kingdom.

Mourning pages 6/11/23 – I’m some kind of responsible speed dial list for my old party friends

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

I talked to one of my friends last night. He was drunk but had enough on top over the brain stem to ask if you can order a breathalyzer on DoorDash. Solid. You don’t take your car or keys if you plan to drink unless you want a court-ordered breathalyzer on your starter while you try to piece your live back together and let the rule of not operating heavy machinery while under the influence sink in. He knows this but got one of those early starts at a BBQ that was just supposed to be a pop-in. So I went to get him. It may have all just been a ruse from the cosmos to get me to socialize for a bit, and it is pretty hilarious to talk to a friend when they’re snookered. I took the roundabout and asked how fast he thought we were donuting.  Then had to actually stop for donuts. Yes and.

Tell me a story, he said, then fell asleep by the time I got him home. He missed the part where they skipped the scapegoats and went straight for the king.

My mind was on Claire anyway. She’s a real pill. Her presence, the audacity, causes rivers of energy spikes throughout the community. They jump up like spawning salmon, each bubbling out a quick comment:
“You make me feel dumb,” said the first one. Splash!
“You overthink things,” said the second one. Kerplunk!

She routinely has to find a whole different river to birth her thoughts. A real pill. Side effects include temporary psychosis, imaginary flirtation, alienation, and bowel rot. Ask your doctor, before leaving the pack, if She is right for you.

Most people fail at power. If power were a pill, what would be your side effects?

Anyway, Claire is very important to me and I for one love her fire and water, like a thunderbolt that reanimates the dead but will not be particularly harnessed. I just like to send her things that center me like writing, artwork, and creative encouragement. And of course humor. That’s about as close as I can get and still stay grounded enough to work all day, promote my mission and industry, teach, mentor students, do DIY work on houses, help oversee a ton of events and presentations, stay educated in too many interests, and not just want to stay at peace and rest in dreamland. 

I guess I understand Claire to some extent. And will her to hear me say that there really is hope that things will get better as you are never at the end. 

I wish she were here now…helping me figure out how to get my friend into his house. I actually do have a dolly with a leanback setting for heavy things. Or I could just belt him in the car, crack some windows, and lock him in for the night? I mean, he can get out if he wakes but no one can get in. Or I can just sit here and write this little ditty and try to wake him every so often for about six seconds of nonsense.

It is a pretty night and I do think I have a marker on me and some lipstick. He would look very pretty with a defined brow, a pencil style or even borat mustache, ooh, and the raisin plum color would really bring a cooling blush to his lips and cheeks. I think that a sweet memory like that would make this all worth it.

Mourning Pages 6/10/23 – Why can’t churches come clean with the back story?

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

It’s a known thing that writing letters you don’t send can help you get the block out. I have good relations with several Ministers, Pastors, and even a Prophet. This is through my audio/video production work. I did have to drop one client who pressured me about where my belief stood. It definitely wasn’t in their pentecostal sexist mess. I was raised Methodist and some of my kindest school friends were in the church. I wrote music with a friend who sang while I played violin. People told us we had the holy spirit in us and I found that cool but superstitious. Mostly because they had such a specific understanding in mind which was not mutual understanding. This friend and I would hang out without a mean word for anyone–no gossip, easy laughter, hikes through nature. But her father took a job out of state and she moved.

I tried hanging out Sundays with another friend at her Baptist church. Her grandparents were mean and severe and should be trapped in an American Gothic painting. They drove her to some stripper pole bucking come adulthood. But I found another friend who I didn’t have to do church weekend things with–we’d watch Dr Who and discuss adaptations to Dante’s Inferno. She made high school worth being in, though she probably had no idea what I went through at home.

I have had some conversations recently about about moving past passing discussions and joining a congregation or two. But all my shadow feels is a doomish end where my free will is bent into the shape of an existing community. Community just is not a dangling carrot for me anymore. I get along better with thought leaders than I do with herds of thought. I just cannot make assessment comfortable for people all of the time. And they do not buy the joviality I try to maintain. I think I’m chemically marked by heartbreak. Anyway, I decided this morning to write a letter responding to an invite; a letter I won’t send because it is too complicated:

Pastor David,

Good to hear from you. You should know that while I respect your faith, I am also into literature and history so will not likely pretend that the story of your religion was more than adapted during times of conversion. I wasn’t there but The Golden Bough is another good reference book; and I greatly know that there is no situational logic that multiplies free will by any amount of blind obedience or suspended belief. That has to be crowd control just as we should be miraculous beasts. 

Too much? I don’t know if you are a theologin or grew from a lineage of truth where openmindedness lets in devils—is there a word for that?—or other taboo: land mines, trap doors, s sounds.

But overall, I like the things you’ve said. Just want to put it out there that I feel no need to agree with your geospatial account of events. I can however see where we might agree on an end truth or two. Such as love is inherit and we should try to include our fellow [hu]man.

If that gels, then I will save my Zenner card cross jokes. And we can agree that the devil sprinkles in truths so that the truth resounds with you. While demons confirm that the evidence points to or unmasks you. As when tricksters take a joke way too far because power becomes a perverse goal once too much power has been taken away. The hurt hurt.

The hurt hurt.

I am good with this idea of grand intelligence and of healing fragmented consciousness. I feel the earth long to be within harmony with its fruit. But humans are not the grandest flowers here and show to be ailing with disease, while I for one root for her immunity. Heck, what if there was a whole core of failed higher species sinking under the eroding ground and feeding…sorry, that was a sci-fi tangent. 

Anyway, this planet was designed to be somewhat perennial and with as little or as much maintenance as desired. But the aberrant of our species keep taking the balances and I would like to revisit some theories, such as survival of the strongest. The fists of miraculous beasts are nothing compared to the strength of enlightened minds, like Einstein. I get why that transatlantic cable was revealed and how crowds jump upon technology within their coming-of-age stories while lumping older ages in with prehistoric zones. And meanwhile contributing by taking up 90,000 lbs of space on average per person with their leavings. While losing their shit over being forced to sip through paper straws. 

Oof, it is hard to talk about coming back to a youthful and naive belief that I’d gleaned as being important to my mom when I was wholly dependent on her and just wanted to see her rows of pearly teeth. It was a snug bubble to speak to the sky and think the trees and birds reacted to my sound. Childhood is magical like that. But as far as what you do, while I could understand need for shepherding, or for a bigger governing mystery, and that the surrender to goodness avoids obsession or compulsion in our short time before death, and that therapy moves only as fast as student debt, I don’t think humankind has earned continuance nor can this fruitful rock hold immortality.

Still want to hang out? Ha. I’m laying it on so feel free to be scared off or weirded out or uninterested in a conversation that might roll your ankle. 

For your elder, I recommend an rf blocker like a lined hat for electric workers. Whether dementia or a psychotic episode, all that matters is peace of mind. Be strong. She is in there but can’t come to the phone at the moment. I’d suggest friend 2 to go on a trip so friend 1 can have some freedom to her thoughts without too much separation anxiety that has no end in sight. Of course, the Creator gives better direction than me. Plus, I can’t step foot or roll my own ankle into your congregation. It houses too many judgmental conformists who pay to be absolved from their fear. I can’t handle that headache. I did check and the rf blocker doesn’t work for my rolling mind, nor do I have any kind of intrusive paranoia. I am one who will always investigate to make sure of a good foothold. I’m like Scully and Mulder became one. And I’m a fan of technology. Btw, never did understand the tin foil hat thing — wouldn’t that make you a walking antenna?

Ok, well, that’s enough. Well, one more thing. That cannibalistic reenactment ritual is some sophisticated bait and switch. Where did that come from? Did primitive cultures eat the dead? Was it like livestock profiteers who made that taboo? It had to come from somewhere. You don’t just eat a body or drink blood without some back story. Again, I am asking. And did not grow among too many taboos or too many elephants in the room. We were taught to appreciate the open think. 

So, yes, good to hear from you. I’m not asking you to expend any amount of effort or draft some kind of defense. God no. I am no homework monster, though do think that the written response can provide clearer careful wording. If it’s processed well as in reflected over. Should these thoughts be things you’ve perhaps already reflected on and you find it easy to reply to, I would appreciate understanding how to come home. If it is home. To come back to that place that made my mother happy in her faith. Though she made sure we exercised our greatest gift of free will and did not try to control our decisions of belief. So ultimately, I may not need much outside of the prayer closet aside from worry-free human interaction.

Does not planning your immortal escape burden the next brood with existential longing? Hmmm

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

see how small the world

This poem keeps coming back to me. It’s in my 2007 book the waywith sun, though I believe I wrote see how small the world in 2004. It’s in my stack of hard drives I am not sure who to burden with. 2004 is when I went freelance from my 8am-10pm job and got to spend some time with the poetry circuit in Chicago. Even then with some freer time, it took a mighty push to be able to stop output long enough to put a book together. I can’t even look at the stacks I’ve amassed.

Last year I started shredding my morning stream papers. Was feeling buried. I did get Schrivner and got close to putting out a collection in 2021. But ultimately what is the point? Trying to market kinda killed my desire to apply the trimmings on songs to release to the void. And there are so many warnings about fame for sensitives in the books I’ve read. It’s the same with poems. Taking a lifetime of crucial therapy and turning that into a brand gives me dissonance. I can’t tell you how heavy it feels to live in the error card where the fallen rule over crowds of gossipers and anecdotal spinners who neither listen nor can say for themselves what has value without group consensus. Popularity is a fawning curse. It takes you from your journey and traps you in a phase that cancels out your voice while the crowd wears the t-shirt of the thought, within shoddy seems of customized threads. There is so much opportunity in beauty that I am hit by lightening at every evidence–Goethe’s hero looking for signs only in the air, above the billboards, outside of the marketplace where a redeemer chases out the sellers of his tortuous mortal fate. Stuck stuck in phases that do harmonize with our species and stumble to encode the tonic from space. Such little time in these bodies and in these chances to map our path and energy to an immortal escape.

Instead they transfer longing to the next inhabitants who might break through the dark shadows of our waiting, the next bound brood.

So back to this old poem of eternal language that smacks as archaic as thee and thine. But the archetypes wrote it, and I listen to mine. Thema Wayne, I believe, after she was Emma Nation, who lives in the waves of all densities and does not take in constraints. Of infighting or emulating while she survives on crumbs, leavings of the benighted, and has no time for your pop theories. Give her history, give her future, give her something you’ve built upon an original thought or even upon a ruin. Break your circling and break your loans in your short time with old tomes. Reincarnate yourself in safety and lay that on your seeds, if you will. But she is the seen shining for what cannot be unfelt from the atmosphere.

Hope I didn’t spook you there. I’m going to revise all of that into a booty song. Another writer mentioned a clearing and now I wonder if that is a thing. A known theme. That place you go in the middle of the wildness to rest and see things clearly. What I do know is that we are not visiting for stagnant daily violence. And personally don’t feel it’s for leisure, self-promotion, or to add to our home’s sickness. But I could be wrong. Because this chance is not worth arguing.

see how small the world

who falls apart & who remains.
how much still stands. & what’s the change?

What stands has always been.
((innocence) in (experience))

The deity, the magic, the energy
(that gives what lives in mystery)
tunes emotion to reason
the shocks, the spins, the seasons.

Spirit,
my twisting hermit,
spinning on the rack of despair;
the wheel, that spire,
is magic:
inspire in wonder
full strength.

A hanging man needs trading;
he walks in a dead wonderland
w/ thickets to harvest–
a clearing

The sort to pardon a way.

In a forest, in a tower, in judgery,
the stars, a twirling starer
the error still holds discovery
error, err, how fair.

cost will still stand. collect the change
keep in part. heart will  remain.

See the need for shelter
feel the strength of care
tender the garden to prosper
err, how fair, how fair

We walk in imagination
in hand, a held temptation
the part–that holds frustration
keeps the heart in patience

& the whirlwind is sublime
its beauty we honor divine
humanity in keep in kind

my friend in the end is Eden
how fair, how fair, how fair.

Kenneth Patchen was a sexy beast. Dead poets make fantasy safe for the aural sapiosexual.

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

Sae true, my love.

I never outgrew talking to dead poets. Got pretty serious with Blake and a couple of others, whispering their verse deep in the woods down the path from my childhood home. Of course that got a bit unmodern once I was old enough to hear the world shouting at me. I loved Kenneth Patchen instantly and wanted to take him as my undead bride, but had superstitious need not to upset Miriam. Sure, that might be magical thinking but I will; so it is not impossible to expect that some loves are too great to upset. Who knows, if I had been in the same time as Kenny, he could have shown more of the same bullshite if a, gulp, girl expressed the need to connect in real time. Unless I was/hadbeen a nun or an overpriced courtesan. It is so good that all of that boy/girl outdated thinking is over and done in our modernity.

Anyway, I guess my convoys with Ken doll are what one might call safe fantasy. And again pretty PG-13 because I believe in great love more than any other theory of [hu]man. It is just that sometimes you need someone to address or even an audience but saying Gentle Reader doesn’t cut it, because it seems like a voice that belonged to others for many many moons.

In 2001, I cut out iron-on letters to make a tank top that said “Save it for your blog.” Who knew the blog would blow up then be reinvented with a cooler youth-conceived name then just called ‘blog’ again after that millennial batch got old really fast. I feel like our Gen X time stretched out but then we didn’t take a picture of everything or much or up the profit machine by working for free posting our lives as a blur of reality content. I only knew handfuls of freaks I saw at shows. You could still get pummeled for tats or hair color then and you’re welcome. I mean, I get it. As said previously, I thought problems might go away if the old guard left or died off. But I never poopideed on the minds that advanced freedom or discovery. And even now I realize that there is always an ungeneralized story to those who dedicate their lives to getting involved in the political world. It is a damn luxury to sit back and crap on political efforts before heading off to an overpriced music fest that just isn’t all great. The pop formula and all-chorus alt bands were an issue well before it all went robot and punks went country–those same punks, by the by, that refused any form of musical romance because it was not brutal enough. And yes, they made for lousy lovers unless you had some kind of kink to work out where you just wanted to be dominated. Would have hated to wake up from that psychosis to see the wank who worked out the bully to take his porn guts education out on a fem who was somehow convinced that this was a barter that might lead to a great release from all of this stupidity.

I can tell I’m going full Grandpa Simpson and am not even going to proofread this because who cares? No one comes here. If they did, I hope it was educational. Maybe a bit less douchery could bloom from reading these epic truths or whatever this is? If it helps, I could say I’m a man or an alien or AI. Maybe AI will save us from ourselves. Except that it is probably programmed by ERROR ERROR ERROR…

For Kenneth Patchen
It was never done,
your walk from pyre to pyre
on celestial stilts. Each step shed
its charry skeleton closer to the ground.
And money burns faster than faith
when you have no faith in money.
In the sorting of possession—
a ring, identification, unfinished words—
the poet doesn’t leave much unsaid.

Whorls of swords scrape blood
and opinions, temper the edges
of youth, make room for memories
in the widowed grip on the hilt
of a hero’s blade. Honesty is
the death of the body.

There’s no need for music,
my love. Death dances
a swansong after birth,
waiting to eat its own words
from the beak of another stranger.
But should we need
our own dance, our own music,
your lips sang lullabies
wrapped in animal instinct,
in the sensualness of holy writ.

LAFogle©2021
written for the Los Angeles Poetry Beach Festival

Happy Deathiversary

Columbus, January 8, 2022

Happy Deathiversary,

I imagine you’d like us writing poems for you. To shake the trees with the breeze of words read aloud. In this you never left. When the flowers return, I’ll pick a Tiger Lily for you. It is my favorite flower, as the symbology means “For once may pride befriend you.” Sounds sweet, but what of pride and tigers is nice? When respect teeters on arrogance, dignity on conceit; which angel became devil and how could that battle reward the meek until the winner was determined? Reeks of a propogandistic maxim to me. Behold! The tiger has no spots! Look on, Cheetah Lily. Look on, seed. You be the rain if we must cry. You be the thunder if we must roar. We be the laughter in this undead tragedy, watching trash TV, calling idealists naive and the hopeful prideful; but spare the stars not in the sky.

Ken, I like talking to you because what I just said was probably more freeing than odd. I too want to speak all the words; for the angels to be more than sightings of intrinsic phosphene firing from the mind’s magnetic sight. We ride in the hands of a godlike child flying ghost planes through a more visibly sick world. Each night, grown offspring fold their robe of slights in sackcloth palls and sheets of dread. Their causes have waned and with them go covenants, modeled foundation, with styled scarves concealing torsoless heads floating above their animal vessel. How long, father, is this tournament and when do we rest?

Hey, when I read works of your generation, my gender sticks out a lot in prehistoric moments. Growing up, this was like being a child in the room while parents speak of you like you are not there or comprehending either meanings or intonations—it’s really patronizing and disassociating. I wonder if anything hits men over the head quite so much when they grow up reading—superiority of other men? But I can close one eye and read through timely reification, so long as the women and innocents were danced with instead of dissected as syphilitic zoophilic pieces of seductive naughty bits, slain for laurelled perspective dominance. People now don’t dismiss vessels as easily by the tango of their chromosomes, though hopefully we grow more increasingly modern. Remind me to ask you if you remember first learning of anim-, herm, and their loanwords?

Her rib is a feather. My feather of roots spin ahs and guttural pauses from an eternity of
questions we’ll ask again until answered: Why. 

Sure is a doozy bartering for belonging in this collective consciousness. I guess we all have our side of the planet to gaze from at the flat line we understand to be round, while the unconventional dally with infinite walks up the glassy stairs of logic, and all the sounds hitting the ground like acorns with their hashtag caps and waggy nutbrains.

You were ahead of your timeline and I was lucky to find your seeds; seeds to which each(s)(p)age can relate: you noetic, throbbing in a larger state of grace With loose punctuations for new thoughts that seem they weren’t supposed to full stop. But I don’t know. Mine’s a perennial view. I’ll write a poem when the last one fades. Until then, Happy Deathiversary, my friend. 

Long, the joybells ring!
With energy for better things;
The contentious turn content.
The end.

[From Erik van Loon of Poetry Train] A few weeks ago I asked the poets of LAPB2021 to write a poem to commemorate the 50 death anniversary of Kenneth Patchen on Januari 8. LA Fogle wrote the letter above to Kenneth and to introduce this letter she wrote me:

I wrote a poem last month for Kenneth Patchen’s birthday, hosted by LA Beach Poetry and Poetry Train, with the theme of “Get Ready To Die.” That piece might be better served for today, the anniversary of his death. So, instead, I will write him a freeform letter of sorts. ~ LAFogle


Featured on Poetry Beach https://www.poetrybeach.com/2022/01/08/happy-deathiversary/

the sea + earth gave birth to wonder

Sae true, my love, my ain sae true
love The sea is callin you The wind
is hollerin Her cut-throat openin
in song, out o tune

Tis true, my dear, she’s callin
tae wimble her weavin loom
The boat sways in black waves
tethered frae fallow tae toom
Respicere, my dear, she’s nosin
the sand Ne’er ween, but weet
I will follow you

Transcendin thought o where we lay
sae if you must go, sae if I must stay
Carry the great & ferry the sea
narry the wait & marry to me

Poem: LAFogle©2007, music: After-Death Plan©2017

Mourning Pages 5/31/23 – Time to vamoose

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

I am pretty much recovered from surgery and about to head out a conference then to Detroit for a concert. Honestly, after seeing shows constantly for decades, I’d rather have a cup of coffee with my grocery clerk and hear them talk about the history of their neighborhood than hear about one more rocker’s music collection. At least cutting up tapes of old organ & calliope recordings, throwing them into the air and then editing the bits of tape that landed on the floor together at random to create the middle 8 of “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” has a good story to it. But this upcoming show is a nostalgic one. Suppose they all are these days.

It’s time for me to get back to work and put streaming time into bigger stories. Honestly, I piled so much on that I can’t tell what’s next, just that I’m in a constant fast flow. It is strange how little I want to see anyone these days. Back in Chicago, when I had to rebuild energy, I could always find something stimulating like the Humanities Fest or a historic graveyard, hop a train to explore a new part of town, or just go read in the library at the Museum of Surgical Science.

Now I am feeling restless like there is nothing left to see here. At least I can retreat into imagination with the writing space. It is called HOWL, which stands for Hidden Oak Writer’s Lair. It is in a duplex I bought about six years ago though it feels like longer. I was pretty grief-stricken around that time after my dad died and got this place to house my sister. It had been vacant ten years and was a bit wrecked. We spent most of our time refinishing about every square inch of that it. About the fourth time redoing the yard and remodeling the interior, I decided that was enough of moving three steps forward and one step back. Coincidentally, it was apparent that I was going to lose all of my marbles if I did not get some silence and uninterrupted time to read, think, write, and just be on my own wavelength for a minute or two or a thousand. My husband is likely the kindest person I know, and having family has been good and stabilizing for me. But it also means that my constant stream of consciousness and blatantly unconscious to conscious stream of thought gets tucked away. And I get very tired of being so got dang entertaining all the time while trying to set aside pensive thought and deal with not being able to pick up a thread once a train of thought is broken. I cannot help this current and rather enjoy it than feel neurotic about it or deal with people who think the solution is not to think so much.

My father was a thinker and we always had a very easy and interesting flow. Writing is a lot like having a conversation with him. Anyway, I decided we had put too much love into this duplex not to take it to its full potential and I needed a place to go and just be me, so decided to make the place a short-term rental. We added many updates. And I spent a lot of time making it a place I want to be in by doing the DIY work to stretch the budget with carefully selected furniture pieces, artwork, cartouches and trim, soft bedding, and inspiration. I even found church doors and architectural ironwork, so it will get better and better a little at a time. I spent a lot of time on the yard which was originally a dead space full of poison ivy vines. Now it is a sanctuary with an eight foot tall privacy fence and both a gigantic sugar maple and massive black walnut tree in the back yard. It took time to understand what thrived with those trees in that soil and I spent many a day tearing at the roots and laying walkways. The ever-growing library is my favorite part of the place. It adds a official layer to my ongoing book search.

A couple of weeks ago I went to an antique sale and scored Updike’s Rabbit Run and Rabbit Redux, Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems, Writing Down The Bones, Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections, and Patti Smith’s Whitt. I was very touched to read Patti’s longing and wrote her a response piece that may or many not see the light of day. 

HOWL has been booked every weekend since February, so it has been a lot of cleaning. But that means I have to make time and get to write there while the washing machine does its thing. Then I’ll take a break and mow the lawn or weed, sand a door or stain. Now people are starting to dip into the weekdays and it was just booked for over a week straight. Not sure how I feel about that. Though I love that one guest lives in town but wanted some writing time. That was kind of the point and I am happy to share the sense of peace I get from this space. Also, I have a lot audio work to catch up on, so my time will come. 

Peace and sayanara

Mourning Pages – 5/30/23 Oxytocin – OXTR gene

~ LA Fogle ~ Leave a comment

I have a visitor who likes to come here to collect my thoughts. The best I can figure is that this is payback for failed efforts to borrow my essence with a membership card. Fuel is expensive. You can starve if you don’t know how to generate it. Cannot see a world in a grain of sand.

Let me break it down now that I’ve seen the lament and nonresponse to direct candor combined with social media blocks. This is so he can continue to “muse” off of my work. I’m not a muse and not amused. And had enough triggering damage from trying to be his friend. Even if you are so careful, leaving references vague doesn’t work if you confuse which artwork or concept is known, like Albion, and which is specific to me. You could seriously damage a person struggling with mental illness with the degree of subterfuge I experienced, and it seems probable that this is why so many crazy lovers crowd the room and the landscape. If the door to the objective closes there could be no coming back. Read that again and tell me if you think you are creating mystery or magic for other people as a love addict.

Common manipulation tactics include inflating perceived market value, and framing oneself as a skilled lover, and inserting fear of other partners or options. That toxic bachelor stance of adults who live a little is literarily the serpent dropping down from the tree. If any of these seduction category tactics work, it establishes fast intimacy while the playing wanderer gathers intel like a vitiating scribe. The intel is leverage which can also be gained by going for compromised targets. Other classic power plays include love bombing, sharing too much too soon, coveting someone once you see that person has currency, ignoring their achievements, withholding admiration, isolating a person, and deflating their morale so they won’t share. For sensitized person(s), the confusion can trigger old trauma. If you can pinpoint that this person you trusted is not who you thought they were and you manage to escape the chaos, they might broadcast their lamentation in an attempt to garner sympathy from new unsuspecting women. This might look like vulnerability from someone who just really has a big heart and wants to love, which is hard to resist, so always listen to your intuition and know that healthy love is clear. It is not so confusing that you wonder if you might be snapping or enter some kind of protective dissociative state.

In this case that manipulating love addict is hurting and could likely feel all of these emotions. He’s not some kind of evil mastermind but follows a well-practiced pattern. This could be due to an aberrant oxytocin receptor and a non-normal pair-bonding pattern. Loop de loop. Oxytocin can surge with preoccupation on the uncertainty of relationships, while stalking bad relationships, during arousal, and during types of suffering such as isolation and high rumination levels. So lamentation on unrequited love or ruin increases oxytocin levels. In women, oxytocin drops from ovulation to bloodshed so that is when they will either cuddle with you or make a stew from your bones. Hold the marrow. The OTXR gene aberrancy has links to developmental insecure attachment bonding.

This is not the kind of thing you experience, struggle to understand, then keep to yourself. Identifying bad patterns and reasons means you can try to stop yourself in real time. Shrugging things off at the conscious level only works during high phases. Can’t escape that governing mind.

Oxytocin: figs, watermelon, avocado, massage, cuddling, yoga, music, love, intimacy, orgasms, touch (for some, that’s physical and emotional touch), lavender, jasmine, sage, sandalwood.