A D Journal 2012

   Two months after the last time we’ve had any contact, she apparently is still looking over her shoulder for an ogre that isn’t me. Although the poem feels as if it is aimed at me or at some other poor fool that has mistakenly flown into her web and has graduated from creepy-crawly to a full-blown stalker. As in some of her other poems, there seems to be three characters involved, one who is warning another about a third – that illusive stalker-like character who prowls around, but whom the speaker just can’t nail down, a sullen, moody, even cantankerous little boy, who get annoyed for no good reason. But it is easy to overlook the real meaning of this poem by assuming the obvious and mistaking her metaphor as the essence of the poem, when she means something completely different. On the surface, the poem seems to depict a stalker, and the speaker cautioning herself against him. In this aspect, the speaker sounds utterly reasonable, but needs to remind herself th...

   The title of her latest posted poem is a play of the old metaphor “food for thought,” and a back handed tribute to French philosopher Rene Descartes, who is perhaps best known for his maxim, “Cogito, Ergo, Sum,” (I think there for I am) – one of the most controversial claims in philosophic history. Many more modern philosophers tend to rephrase it as “I doubt, therefore I am,” meaning if you are consciousness enough to doubt, you have consciousness Still, others in the age of AI believe it is possible to have thought without existence. Many accept that our existence is the only absolute truth, and that doubt is a firm foundation for knowledge. In this poem, she moves further away from the idea she expressed only a few weeks ago when she talked about lulls in her life, possibly generated by the increase doubt about where her life is headed. She has returned to the hamster wheel in her head and the parade of “manic ideas” spinning and knocking around in her brain, bashi...

  We knew this was coming, this move from a building of our own to a cramped little store front down at the other end of town, a panic move by two incompetent owners, who figured out if they sell the wreck of the building, they can stave off shutting down the business – at least for a while. This may explain why the owner wouldn’t give her a raise – or fired other people even for asking for one, they are squeezing every penny then can from this dying business and don’t want to share what little wealth there is. The move isn’t the end of the world. I’m still in exile regardless of which place I work out of. Truth be told the old off is a disaster zone, something left over from another era, leaking pipes, poor heat, worse air conditioning, so it’s frigid in winter, scalding in summer, and dripping like crazy whenever it rains or anybody in the apartments upstairs flushes a toilet. Yet for some reason, I still like the place, even when I’ve plotted to get out of it, something ...

  Dickens said it best when he said it was the best of times and the worst of times. This being the 40th anniversary of the worst and most painful year of my life, until now. Although comparing this year to that year doesn’t quite work either, I was young and foolish then, just back from three years on the run from the police, a confused boy with almost no notion of where I was going only where I had been. I saw my wife take off with my daughter who I’d not see again (except for one night) for another decade. Forty years later, I should have been wiser, but I’m not. I never felt so lost as I did then, the chill of Thanksgiving coming upon me with the threat of winter, dead leaves still clinging to the trees. I always loved autumn, yet always felt its sting when the last of the leaves fell, before the snow, bare limbs exposed. I thought I would never feel so lost again as I did then. This year came close, and I’m grateful finally to see the year end. I ache inside th...

   The operative line in the poem she posted today is about selling yourself, “as we all do, as best we can.” A startling comment inserted deep into the body, something utterly obvious, yet surprising at the same time. This is not a new concept for her, since she has spent a life time selling herself well enough to get in the front door. But in this case, she may have overstepped a little, seeking to graduate from our pissant little world into perhaps the most prestigious publication in the world. After all of her boasting about our office being a stepping stone, her applying for a job at The New York Times should not have come as a surprise. The poem depicts her journey to The New York Times building, although the opening details the largely defunct former Times headquarters at One Times Square, taken over by numerous corporate entities after the Times abandoned it, only for it become a largely vacant shell of what it had once been, the exterior turned into a bill...

  Word is on the street that she’s been making calls around the county looking for dirt on the Virgin Mayor’s political enemies. And it may not be RR that’s pulling her strings – or at least not him alone. You have to wonder if maybe she feels a little trapped. I always got the feeling that she uses her poetry to say things she can’t otherwise openly say even to herself, perhaps assuming that those like RR and perhaps the others wouldn’t catch on. Perhaps she assumes that some people might be clever enough to read between the lines of her poetry, even someone she has come to hate such as me. How she came to be where she is at this point and who she is answerable to remains a mystery to me. I’m not sure which side she is on, paid by the same people who pay the Private Eye to keep tabs on the Virgin Mayor perhaps? Or is she as loyal to him as she claims – with the brief blip on the radar when she sided with RR against the Virgin Mayor. Or is she completely out of her le...

  The Private Eye grew up with the Neighboring Mayor, kids from the same hood, who did everything together, legal and illegal, best of friends through the rough years, including the Neighboring Mayor’s rise to power. The Private Eye was in the Neighboring Mayor’s inner circle, along with another hood buddy named Woodchuck Phil, who were privy to all the mayor’s dirty little secrets, helping him to get and keep power. The three of them made a tight little circle into which nobody else was welcome. The mayor loved the private detective, but merely felt sorry for Phil, yet kept both of them close – perhaps, too close. Not everybody felt comfortable around Phil or dealing with the mayor while Phil was around. Phil was bossy and tended to take over things when the mayor was not around, and insisting people go through him to get to the mayor. As loyal as Phil was, he alienated some of the other mayor’s key people, many of whom urged the mayor to sever ties with him. Phil te...