There was no rain but clouds and Jeremiah woke up sick. One hour later in the bathroom still retching we recalled our favorite scenes from the movies – like when Sam hits the cave troll on the head with a frying pan. How old was I when I had cows. I fell asleep reading Bhanu Kapil Water Damage. I didn’t fall asleep again for a long time, though. I just lay there, a headache setting up shop, wondering what I could do about my sentences.
I used to think the way words sounded was more important than how they moved, the way they arranged themselves over the course of a sentence, and how it felt then following. Now I don’t. It’s true that I read a lot, but I mostly remember in fragments, if I do. By what virtue of weather I can’t say the office windows are misted and the sunny landscape beyond them is blurred as if with veils. I imagine if I’m lucky this will resemble the arrival of my death, the one moment in time I can count on. Well, maybe the way they sound matters, too.
“I thought boys only sat on eggs – I didn’t think they just sat in the nest.” I have no idea what happened to the geese where I used to fish in Chesterfield. The river went up after two days rain and they were gone. I did forget “generative eagerness” but then recalled it reading Kapil but please, don’t go scavenging for evidence. I once said that Bob Dylan could read from a phone book and I’d pay to go see it. I’m fast but it’s a question of what notes, changing positions, and metronomes almost always screw me up but drummers don’t.
Timing is everything if you want to be a hypnotist, a baker, a fiddler, drunk or not. In Galway Ireland I played Pastures of Plenty and a woman came up after to say you’d be better if you could hear yourself, or look for the middle of the song and not just getting through it.