Sometimes, there is hardly time to slow down and notice the workings of earth, the little blue globe floating in space.

I used to draw like this. Hundreds and hundreds of pen and inks. I have no idea where I found the time to do it.

Yes, I do. No family, no car, no job, no money, no friends, no TV, no radio, no computer. I didn't have anything else to do.

Maybe I should rethink things.

Sometimes it is hard to find beauty anywhere in the bustle of the suburban world I live in. So, I try to stop and smell the shopping carts.

People

Early in the morning, ah, the New York Times before me and a thermos of coffee. I live in a kind of heaven. Don't you?

Sure you do.

If you don't, why not?

If you can't see the poem before you, put the pen away.

TJ

Artwork

The kind of artwork in a house
expresses coded values on the walls.
If garish paintings show a hasty prowess,
and every slap-dash scribble begs applause,
a guest intuits trendy fashion laws.
If coffee table magazines sell treasure-
official replicas complete with tacky flaws-
the clods will never note a crucial measure
and rather pay for sport and dumb-downed pleasure.

So, who will skip the small-talk trough,
avoid the icky raves of passing leisure
and pull the abject, jerky abstracts off
presumptive walls, art not worth a dime,
and speak an honest face to worthwhile time?

Always a vision on the dashboard of life. Full tank, ready to go. Look where others are not. Watch where you are going. Zero miles an hour. Get ready. Set. Go!

What else is there to do while in traffic?

I've been thinking about something, old and new, which I could hardly bring up beforehand to people I know, peers in the poetry fields. I guess it is better just to do something than talk about it, whether or not it works or not.

A Poem

The Digital Clock

The digital clock is in the fireplace.
Electronic works keep steady time;
the overlapped numbers drain the hours,
count down minutes, blip the seconds.

To put the clock in a proper place,
an empty wall or a clear shelf,
between dire projects and burning goals,
is too much trouble to trouble time.

The back wall of a Starbucks

So many things look great in the early morning light.

I think this is a scene from a movie. Everyone knows who this is, and my point is that there are thousands of faces I have looked at and somehow this face is memorable. I don't know the politics of Che, and I haven't read anything about him. Your face, your art? The Greeks say you make your face by forty.

Think I'll let my hair grow long.

Until next year.

Christmas is over.

Two fatties working off the lard.

Everything is where you look, what direction. I heard this once: sit next to a friend; speak out loud what you see for a minute or two, then the other person does the same.

Today is an odd sad day. I had asked someone to be a partner in an experimental business model and today they said, "oh, I'll be able to get around to something next week." That is the end of that.

At the Office

Well, sometimes I don't read it. I take a picture of it and read the paper later. When you read the newspaper a week or so later, you already know what is going to happen with current events, so it is a form of time travel. It also saves time.

This is the scene of people driving to work. I don't actually have a job, but I often drive down to Starbucks and read the New York Times. On rare occasions, there is something interesting in the paper.