Random Blathering (not really about CF or transplant or really anything)

My sister's favorite posts are the ones when I write a bunch of random stuff that comes to mind and so for sister, I say, here you are:

My high school English teacher posted a poem today by Charles Bukowski that brought back a lot of memories for me of old friends and old times and mostly of learning to write in a stream of consciousness in my high school English class, maybe because I hadn't written like that before, or maybe because I didn't know that's what it was or what I ought to be calling it. 

I remember that Kathy always wrote much more metered work than I did, and she still does, and I still don't  . . . know how I feel about that.

Here is the poem that Mrs. A posted: 

Hemingway Never Did This

by Charles Bukowski

I read that he lost a suitcase full of manuscripts on a
train and that they never were recovered.
I can't match the agony of this
but the other night I wrote a 3-page poem
upon this computer
and through my lack of diligence and
practice
and by playing around with commands
on the menu
I somehow managed to erase the poem
forever.
believe me, such a thing is difficult to do
even for a novice
but I somehow managed to do
it.
now I don't think this 3-pager was immortal
but there were some crazy wild lines,
now gone forever.
it bothers more than a touch, it's some-
thing like knocking over a good bottle of
wine.
and writing about it hardly makes a good
poem.
still, I thought somehow you'd like to
know?
if not, at least you've read this far
and there could be better work
down the line.
let's hope so, for your sake
and
mine.
Charles Bukowski

I remember, then, that Allison and Arthur and Brian and I had an ongoing joke about Charles Bukowski mostly because Arthur hated Charles Bukowski and that we once got drunk in a park and laid in the grass looking at the moon having an argument about if it was pronounced "Bookowski" or "Buckowski" and that Arthur won because we were all in love with him. 

 

I remember that this week I was shocked to learn that I had deleted a pivotal email FOREVER and that for all my sleuthing it was gone gone gone, as I tried to find it like the last left clue in the rebuilding of what had been before, to see what’s left there now.

 

I had a heartwarming moment with a few friends a few nights ago and the only way I can describe what warmed my heart is to say and really mean it, You didn’t have to do that for me. But you did. And I’m so thankful.

And for once, you would not believe it, but the thankful feeling and it’s landing spot is not the romance or the one who brought it.

Perhaps that doesn’t make any sense to you, but it makes sense to me in the place of the text that’s gone forever.

 

I wonder about cliches in life and in writing, like writing a poem about losing some text on a hard or floppy drive so that it doesn’t exist, the way a floppy drive doesn’t exist: any more.

I wonder why we hate cliches and love cliches and so we call them “universal,” when it’s all different words for the feeling of “I’ve heard that before,” and the difference is whether it bores you.

 

I wonder about the accent of e in French and if Kathy will correct it, silently, secretly, above.

I wonder if Kathy will wonder why I’m not calling her Kathleen in this blog, or if she’ll ask me to change the name or her name altogether tomorrow.

If so, I will name her Catherine. That’ll fool them.

 

I wonder about Catholic girls that change their names in youth or adulthood and I wonder about a movie called “We’ve Been Reading Joyce In Class" that my friend made in 1996. I’ve been reading (and I’m not kidding) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man  again, no kidding nor exaggeration to the content of the rest of this post, (which I realize now, only a few people will enjoy). I’ve been reading Joyce in class, literally, only because I found a copy and it makes a good decoy book for sitting next to a student trying to model a good reading habit while spying on them and their progress or lack.

 

A car crashed outside.

 

I like the way the Bukowski poem ends with a comment about the Bukowski poem and how it doesn’t accomplish a lot, but promises to try to accomplish something tomorrow.

I like poems that promise something for tomorrow.

 

Beth Peters