Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 12:05:57 -0400
Subject: Re: the most desireable thing


Kenneth Johnson wrote:
 
> when i look around at some of the architectural marvels that horizon todays
> landscapes i see the animal man has, thru stark ingenuity and a wild daring
> harnessed to greed (and simultaneously and certainly sans brains) (or that
> is to say; an animal force that has no future beyond things (i.e. beyond
> the flypaper stickiness of "the things themselves")), although and
> nevertheless and always he is a thingless force that is certainly loaded
> with all the circuitry which, but for the lack of a reprogrammable trojan
> horse, could get beyond this)
> 
> jan? have you passed out oer your print of "The Potato Eaters"?
 
> j. cash writ/sung:
> 
> Well I woke up sunday morning
> With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt,
> and the beer i had for breakfast wasn't bad,
> so i had one more for dessert
Ken,

Cash-ing in again:
You ask me if I'll get along
I guess I will some way
I don't like it but I guess things happen that way

all true all to true tho HOW tackle the "It" that
ain't a WOT - tho maybe (as may be) a day by day
THAT, and dark nights of simple be-ing:

she had a few days to live. out of the blue, i asked,
"what will you miss most?" "everything," she said.

night scene: the Harbor Light Bar facing the
Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge. in this
panorama of objects, three images(?) thoughts(?)
happenings(?) pop up - as must on occasion with
everyman:

1. quote by Stanley Kunitz (in my backpack):					
"More recently I expressed a desire to write poems
'so transparent that one can look through and see the world.' 
I recognize that there is a great area of unknowing within me.
Such existential concerns tend to make me rather impatient with the
particulars of the day. At the same time I am aware that it is out of
the dailiness of life that one is driven into the deepest recesses of
the self. There is a transportation, to and fro, between these two
worlds. The moment that flow stops, one stops being a poet."

2. a possible painting:
apply ivory black to the canvas. place random sparkling
white or bright colored dots strewn over the surface. 
connect the dots with straight and/or curved lines. add two.
thicker, intersecting arcs that touch the perimeters of the
canvas edges. 

3. a poem for Pete that i read at his memorial exhibition,
July 19 - Aug 10 at the Greene Naftali gallery, NYC:

Peter knew what the poets meant 
when they said that poems 
give you eternal enigmas 
rather than daily news. 
As a matter of fact, 
I saw Pete last night 
at the Harbor Light Bar. 
He was sipping wine 
and  gazing at the 
tangled colors 
of the Manhattan skyline 
and Brooklyn Bridge. 
"The brick and steel 
are not really there 
until you paint them", he said, 
"or maybe write a poem".

Ed 
ps: here's to all the "Potato Eaters."


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