Poem: Flotsam

 

I am a truck driver and researcher at Virginia Tech.  This is the truck referred to in the poem below -obviously more limited where it can pull over than a car.

Two Poems Together: Epiphanes and Soteros

Epiphanes is Greek for "God Manifest" and was used by ancient kings like Antiochos IV to boldly state that the king was god himself in the flesh.

Soteros is Greek for "savior" and was used as an epithet by ancient kings usually because they had reacquired lost territory.

These are some of the things I have seen recently that inspired these poems, particularly Epiphanes.

Las Vegas Thoughts in Two Poems

It is Fremont Street, I spelled it wrong above.  Might retype and rephotograph it later.  

The last one is a reflection on the booths in the photos above, if that is not already apparent.  I believe all people worship, the difference is in what we choose to worship.  It is important to think about.

Poem: 2026

The same poem is presented again below larger, and with a more normal typeface.  I brought my cursive Olivetti to the Starbucks today and then retyped the poem again when I got home on my Royal Aristocrat.

It is a bit melancholy, unlike most bright and wildly optimistic New Years poems, but I think it is worth thinking about.

 

I think it often does a poem a disservice to explain it but I can at least explain where it came from.  Some of you may already know I collect ancient coins and objects.  This small glass bottle below was a Christmas present this year.  It is probably around 1700 years old, made in the Roman Empire.  Holding something like a coin or this bottle and thinking questions like: Who owned this?  What did they use it for?  Did they value it highly or was it casually discarded?  Would they be amazed and impressed or nonplussed to see that is exists today and is valued by me? are what lead to the thinking that brought forth this poem.  You begin to feel like you step out of time and see your place within all of time.

 

Poem: Lobby

When you stay in so many hotels, they all seem to blur together.

 

Coming Back To This

I know it's been a long time but I am back, hopefully back to something regular.  It has been a long time since I have been writing for myself.

 

Poem: Slinging

Poem: Glimmers

From December 2017, lost in my notes until now.

Poem: In The Woods be Witches

I'm still here, still writing, just haven't completed much lately.  I've been pretty preoccupied, exhausting myself sifting through all the lies and dross tossed at us each day.  I don't really want to post angry political poems so those mostly get thrown out.  I might still post one if I can do it like an allegory and it comes out all right.  I am trying to focus on other better things in life and get back into my old groove.  I miss street poetry.  This is an old poem I found on my ipod and realized I had not shared.  

Street Poems During COVID-19

My partners and I are offering a special poem service at this time, and you can get a poem from any one of us -you get to choose.  Here is the website.

Poem: Ancient

Schrödinger's Goddess

This was written a few months back and is finally being posted now.

Poem: Wrapper (cityscape)

I was in hotel during a work trip I wasn't thrilled to be on, and feeling trapped, so I went for a walk downtown and it was cold.  I stopped in a diner I like and banged out two pages on my Hermes Rocket.  There didn't seem to be much order to them, but when I reread them later I liked some of the pieces.  I tried to rewrite them minimally, but organized them into a cohesive poem I quite like, that I feel captures the emotion of my little walk. 

Writing the original brain dump at the 3rd Street Diner in Richmond, Virginia. 

Editing and typing the final version at a laundromat back home.

Poem: Notebook Pages

  

I love this new QDL!

The missing pages in one of my pocket notebooks which inspired this poem. 

Poem: Soil

Hebrew uses a lot of words which build on themselves.  A commonly shown example are three words I chose for this poem.  דם (dam) means blood, adding a letter to the beginning (remember Hebrew reads right to left) makes אדם (adam) which means human, and adding yet one more letter to the end makes אדמה (adamha)(the M looks different when not at the end of the word) which means soil.  In Jewish scripture man is made from soil, so these three words are related and their relationship a reminder of our mortality.

Poem: Astral

Poem: September

Repair Trick: Easy and Reversible Solution for War-time Olympia Paper Supports

Annoyingly my paper support on my Robust used to lay flat, and I would find myself repeatedly propping it back up while typing. 

The key to the repair lies in the relationship between the machine and the support, I needed to limit the movement.

The green arrow shows a perfect gap I could stop up, and have the support perfectly at the desired angle.  At the coffee shop I used some string, because that is what I had, but it looked awful and was obvious (see the white speck in the photo on the blogpost before this one!)

After getting home I cut a small rubber grommet in half to make it skinny enough and threaded it onto the support (which pulls right out from the machine) and slid it to where the sweet spot is.

Perfect!  I only have one of these Olympias, so there may be a bead or something there originally; I am not sure.  But this is easily undo-able and with no harm whatsoever to the machine.  If the grommet gradually wears or gets crushed it will be easy to try something else in the same place.

Poem: Dear Reader

 

The massive case draws more looks than the typewriter.  My choice this day was my 1943 Olympia Robust.

Poem: Cafe 10 and Sycamore Deli

I have been chewing on this one since May.  My favorite place to right, Cafe 10 in Richmond, has closed and I did not know until it was gone. Around the same time Sycamore Deli in Blacksburg, VA which used to be one of my favorite places to write also closed.