knowing who you don't know

it's a cyber awareness thing
aware that people are out there
they do exist
people of whom you could say
i had some cognitive interchanges with
this or that person
you get to know a style of writing
a style of argument

but
do i know anyone?

i have never met ron silliman
kirby olson if that's his real name
remains a complete mystery
the name itself conjures up surreal apprehension of the world
stu tells me he's studying to be a servant
at the altar of the lord but how do i know
JADL and his missus as far as i have been able to surmise
run a legitimate banking assessmet scheme whereby riches
fall onto their table often and they ride the rails of canada
i presume
brett says he's making films in LA what a scheme
who could believe that
but there it is
craig has a metawife in the philipines
somewhere he plays golf and climbs rocks
that's all i know i know nothing more
he traces odd connections of family history
and sends zingers
curtis deals in books i've been able to locate his stash
and when the deal comes down
i know where i'll go for a few essential items

sally
i am pretty sure exists
as does her husband john
i have eaten at her table
i have seen her husband stare gloomily
across the table like i'm some sort of
alien whose mathematical make-up could be discerned
and unravelled in a matter of minutes
i've played sally's guitars that is perhaps
the best way to know i've played with her
i've walked and prayed
and sung with john and sally
so i have tangible evidence of their existence
they've even flown me down to their home
and had me play music for their friends
so i know they are there

bill borneman claims to be a painter
in fairview montana
he has told me that he has a trailertractor
business on the side and that he owns a bar
halfway to ryegate
i believe him
he sold me a book once
that's enough for me

j is a mystery
he likes it that way
we're all rather mysterious to one another
are we not
he pans in with slick overarching assessments
of the way things are

something tells me he's actaully a robot that
the blogspot people are using to keep a watch
on me

various other words have appeared on my blog
but most of these voices i know from kirbyeez blog

blogging this summer has become rather tedious
i think
i'm going to give it up

let the record stand

this shall be the last post on this particular blog

thanks to everyone for chipping in

knowing structure and space

not such an odd proposal
i needn't consider the seemingly evident
strangeness of two protestants
escorting a catholic to a place of worship
taking the pains to go to the city and see there
an edifice conceived as a means of stating
a very involved sequence of meanings

you can do things to prepare for such a journey
you can leave even the departure sort of ambiguous
you can hinge the possibilities on factors
no one seems to be able to control

but then one finds oneself on a train
rolling down the track to a bigger city

we came to the station called union
i was in a strange place
even though i'd been there before
i did not know this place
it seemed to me that i had been someone else
at a different time with people who appeared
in my mind more like angels than anything else

it takes a meal to make people friends
to share food and thoughts is the only thing
worth doing socially everything else is just talk
and a meal amid the commercial joy of
hispanic innocence and the flow of people
walking through the market with summery outdoor
intentions is one way of locating ones status
in the universal pilgrimage

whenever i walk out onto busy streets that i do not know
i have the feeling of dreaming like somehow
this is not taking place in real time with real people
it is all somehow the development of a state of mind
which is more like dreaming
this is enhanced by the fact that all of a sudden
i see thousands of people whom i will never know

but i will deem to walk through their streets
i will deem to eat at their restaurants
i will walk up a steep hill
like a pilgrim urging himself onward

there i stood in the generous welcome space
the plaza outside the immense stylized steel re-enforced
concrete structure dedicated to what?

the name should be more disturbing than it is
to presume that there is such a thing as a lady
who is a queen and reigns above an immense consort of
winged insubstantial but somehow intelligent beings

but since los angeles is a city that is successful to some degree
it has managed to stay there and grow
for well over 200 years and that it was initially
consecrated as a place where angels could have some sway
who will mind if i insert my being into the ethereal presence of the city

big cities have a catholic presence
big cities more or less ask for
cathedral presence

how do catholics arrange places of worship?

well if you want to say something with a building
you build something big and spacious
you permit an architect to use methods that while
betraying something of modern engineering technique
suggest at the same time a primitive encounter
a place where a memory of human tumult comes into play
and the resolution that somehow the playing out of a series
of events which impinge upon everyone takes on some sort
of visual expression

at the door of the cathedral of our lady of the angels
the sign welcomes the pilgrim
-welcome to your cathedral- it says
that's the only claim it makes
there is nothing to suggest that because of your
ethnic religious or intellectual background you may not
be welcome here
all are welcome

this is sort of difficult to arrange isn't it
i mean to say this is a house of god
and we ask only that you recognize it as such
is a matter which requires some attention
deliberation strategy and implementation skills

to walk through the door is to actualize the welcome
you are in and there is nothing to suggest
that it is not alright to be there
you can be there no matter who you are

you can walk in walk up some stairs and walk into an immense
open hallway that leads somewhat mysteriously
to some internal entry ways which pull the observor
into an even larger space that can be misconstrued for nothing else
this is a place of worship
even the sanctuary stands in open invitation
in a way that would not be quite so evident
were actual liturgies taking place at the time

one enters such a place in a cloud of quiet
one does not presume to make noise
the walls are lined with elegant tapestries
the faces of catholic heroes made from the actual photographed faces of local catholic men and women and children
faithful people or perhaps if possible a likeness from a previous representation
of a saint
all of these visages face the altar in the sanctuary and
thus
so i should too
and the pews sit there with humble receptivity
for you to sit
for you to kneel for you to bend in prayer
if you desire
if you must

perhaps because the concrete forms
are tinted with the color of soil
found in southern california
one feels like one is destined somehow
to be this color or one could even hold ones arm to the
cool concrete wall and see a closeness
this earthtone is a sort of fleshtone

i walked around i glided slowly from front to back i sat for long moments
i gazed into side spaces where elegant and interesting artwork stood
some of it beyond the scope of moneyed value
some of it innocent and worthless but a testimony to
innocent religious motivation

can i make a claim for being at home in such a place
i who live more than 1000 miles from such a place
how is it that one upon entering into such a place
desires then to participate in the liturgy of such a place
and to make oneself at home

there is a place amid the mayhem of a rather crass urban layout
a vast demeaning of the local geography that is a city
a place where one can escape into the necessary all important
escapes of momentary recognition of power in the world
heaped up and spread out liberally from the image
of a man impaled on a cross

amber light
and shards of white peer through
windows near the high ceiling
the natural light is always muted
but always sufficient

love wisdom
walk humbly with your god

that is imperative the message conveyed
by the rectangular and formed edifice
the presumption of the cathedral
and all it entails speaking confidently
in a land of ethereal considerations
(for who believes in angels anyway)
a place set apart for honest acknowledgement
a place of prayerful security in a world of
continual disenfranchisement

a protestant couple walks up the big hill
in the middle of a big city on a pretty hot
southern california day
and they even open the door for a straggling catholic to go in

as i walked away i was conscious of an architectural insult
as i looked back against the sky and saw the cathedral
poised there above the mayhem of the city
i noticed (as i had upon ascending the hill)
a way of some other thinking set of principles
to offer a gesture of dismissal and even one might say
deliberate hatred for the earthtone place of sober inebriation
an edifice built for no purpose
a big involved piece of tinkertoyed effort
which offers nothing more than a remark of resistance and doubt
from across the busy highway 101 below
a sort of middle finger of selfabsorbed intractable social conduct
an architectural deviation from an older way of knowing
a piece that offers a counter to the tower with the cross
a piece that says no
we can build a circular walkway but it is nothing
and we can encase a web of steel angles in a glass
and concrete structure and claim nothing whatsoever
in terms of necessity or natural curiosity
a building that claims its existence is enough
and what it proposes to contrast is doubtful in
whatever merit it might claim for itself

be that as it may
i can say
the thought and care and manual effort
that went into
our lady of the angels cathedral
touched me very deeply

and being accompanied there by
my noncatholic friends
makes it ever more memorable

it is always more than just the geography
or the technology

later that night i was awash in humility
afflicted somehow
but eventually cleansed
and it may have had more to do with sitting
in the blessed sacrament chapel
than the mexican food of the afternoon

go there yourself
don't trust my word

ask yourself upon walking into the cathedral
is this for me?

amen

premonition blues

en route to saskatoon

crow most often dines in groups of two or three -
i've seen no discord at his roadside table
set with bones and hide and flesh.
he finds community and sustenance
where some see nothing but decay and waste.

because the wrecks of commerce are his daily fare,
he strays not far from the road we share.

he prefers to live where life meets death.

a glamourous creature he is not
he is perhaps the model for a charitable monk
all clad in black
he flies no higher than need be to save himself from harm.

his course remains subject to change
and oft steers him against the flow.

he welcomes for the rest of us
the stench of life no longer fresh and new.

crow dives into it shoulder deep: he knows that
scavenging and salvage jobs
can be no less God's work
than cleaner and more glorious trades.

Justin Doyle
February 11 2011

this poet is still alive
i saw him just the other day
i don't know what he'll think
about me publishing his poem without his
explicit permission
but to hell with all that
i mean he sent the poem to me
i think i can do whatever in hell i care to do with it

i appreciate the poem
because it sounds like something the poet would just say

i apologize for the editing that was necessary
in order to find the line breaks
and the disregard for capital letters

summer rain

i awoke dreaming i had dreamed
before waking and long after i awoke
i perceived the world in the manner
of dreaming when i looked out at rain

it has not changed much
one hour later i still am
more or less convinced
this is a form of dreaming

if robert pete williams has anything
to say about it this sort of loneliness
is the inescapable reality of all of us
it behooves us to sing

everything is fitting into surreal settings
i am torn upside down and thrown around
twisted tumbled and tormented
with the unspeakable beauty of the sky

you face a certain sadness when it rains
you do i do
the long drizzling splash of water
feeds the heart with tears

everyone must have cryin' in the rain days
welcome one and all to rain town

by way of explanation

last week i attended a baseball game with the wife of my friend greg
and i was moved to consider a number of things so let me begin with the overall impression of the ballpark it was such a glitzy noisy place it sits there in all it's charm minnesota fans getting back to playing on grass such a sweet idea but it is an experience of constant discomfort what is it to go to a baseball game what is it to sit there and try to watch a game amid the mayhem of erratic human activity all contained in a stadium

while i must acknowledge the free seats it was painful to sit where i sat i sat in an aisleseat right within visual range of right field and first base i sat next to a lady who i feel was decidedly indifferent about the game and indifferent to the fact that i was intent on really watching the game and because we sat on the aisle it was almost impossible to watch the game with consistent attention because of the constant stream of hungry distracted nervous thirsty desperate people who wove by and the venders who yelled and sold worthless crap for a high price i was not able to focus on the game and this was a terrible feeling

between each inning the whole ballpark was flooded with loud heavy bass affect rock noise from the loudspeakers this fact alone has moved me to state that i will never go to another twins game it's over for me i will not go again plus there is this constant visual blitzkrieg taking place the digitized screens and there are groups a raging drunken goofy women having a night out being all gaga before some camera singing karaoke

my contention that they let the girls in is this
and while i have my difficulties with the fair sex
these days i do not wish to condemn in judgement
all that i see and experience in femininity these days
it is simply that between the visual distraction all the hyped up food and drink concessions which by right should be taken care of largely at home and the women should be there to prepare it now it is hoisted into the social atmosphere in the form of money grubbing sweating desperadoes who want to sell you things you should not eat anyway
and then there are young women there who sit and talk about babble that they babble
when it's time to babble they pay what 40 bucks to come to a place where they just babble to one another while a guy like me might be trying to concentrate on the game which is a foolish proposition anyway because everything around him militates against the possibility of concentrating on the game they even remove all the stats from visual access between innings so you can't size up who is doing what how many errors on the field how many strikes thrown
etc until the inning begins again

there was a time and i was there and i saw it with my eyes when
a ball game was by and large a male phenomenon and men
sat around a very concentrated effort on the part of two teams to
outwit and out play one another and it was sort of sacred
and we attended to that with vigilance and rapt attention and we
moved with the possibilities and the air the day or night had brought about

it is in ruins
it has become a spattering array of visual
audible and gastric distraction

the only remedy is for women to say
OK guys that gets to be your sacred ritual
we don't have to attend that
it is a place where you work out what you need
and there can be a few women poets around like marianne moore
who bestow sacred encouragement upon the rite
but there can be no more of the girl zaneyness
and screaming
the ballpark is a guy place
and girls can only make a mess of it
i'm sorry
that's the way it is
the girls who play baseball are mocking everything

so this is my summer discontent
i have had to make a lifestand judgement on a game
and the judgement is
i will never attend another probaseball game as long as i live
as long as the visuals and the audibles persist
as long as it is only a pathetic distraction
in a commercialized sea of grease sweat and
human pathos

once we acknowledge the intense social failure
everything else will fall into place
but having killed baseball
is to have rendered the male gathering ritual
into an almost shameful display of ineptitude
into a pathetic distracted aimless perpetual
listlessness of meaninglessness abject and foul devastations

and i'll have nothing more to do with it
if in any way baseball is an expression of free market capitalism it is an expression of the most hideous attributes known to mankind
and i'll have nothing more to do with it

cognitive lamentations

watched the devastation
afflicted with ennui

bereft now of meaning
a game we played with zeal

a thinking man's game
now a blitz of distraction

noise and visual trash
heaped at the eyes

with all the nonchalance
of a volcanic eruption

once we were proper heroes
once long ago we knew the stats

cards we traded - innocence
and determination were everything

we let the girls in
it's all ridiculous now

it's all nonsense it's all over
we may as well call it quits

grab our mitts and go home

like so many other good ideas
someone maybe many

decided to phuq it up
make the spectacle expensive

and empty
now devoid of heroes

now a pathetic showcase
for overpaid pretenders

what else
if i hang around

will they take and destroy
before my very eyes

i am sorely troubled
baseball is in ruins

amen