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Edges of Knowledge


Wednesday 2004-05-05 9:49pm
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In a manilla folder I entitled "SAPLINGS"
is a year-ordered list of my early poems,
quite a number of which I--unhappily--
long ago lost.

Thursday 2004-05-06 5:42pm
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Since my self-confidence is often weak,
relying on my willingness to learn and my
need to persist (is)are the best I can do.
Since the words I use and the order I use
them in are often not for me alone, the best
I can do in that regard is all that can be/
expected of me: A, B, C, D, F, Z.

Tuesday 2004-06-01 5:08pm
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Brian, do not keep rehearsing/ in your tetched mind how you
screwed up when you failed to support that Ben Jonson poem
in that Iowa literature class where the professor's testing put-
down of it was so well voiced not a single student could properly
voice a counter.  It does not matter that the counter--which he
himself in the end presented--was in your head.  You
simply lacked the "guts" to reveal it.  That is the way you had
always been, and that is the way you would likely be now, and
that is the way you will be in the future, probably.  Personalities
stronger than yours (and there are many such) consistently         
intimidate you, and your knowing this is one of the root reasons
you often feel you do not belong/ in this world.
*
As a sister-in-law of your used to say:
      "Throw him a fish."

Friday 2004-06-04 5:35pm
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Excerpt from 6-3-04 of Capricorn Journal:
"The final doze seemed the longest/ and I did wake
from it with my forehead in my food; and I thought:
Oh no! I wonder what time it is: 9:41pm wc Aeh!!!
One thing, though: the buzzing outside the door had
stopt.
   Back in the den  I hit 10:11pm.
   At 10:41pm dc I powered up.  There's no use in
fighting it anymore.  All these events are unintentional,
consciously."
*
Today has not been--we had our hard rains at noon,
and it didn't help my body any.  Nonetheless, about
4:50pm I decided to try going to Publix at noon 
tomorrow.

Thursday 2004-06-10 7:38pm
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Competition: As many times as I have embraced it,
[it] has nearly always been a bane to me.  I prefer to
avoid it.  Stop!  Modulation, intonation, poetic risk.
If I do not compete openly, I nonetheless do compete:
against my priors, against present preferences, &
(most importantly) against myself.

Saturday 2004-07-17 2:07pm
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COPD.  Since I do not quite know where to start
passing on to you--.  I had some snail mail to get out.
About 10am I did that.  I also picked up another full
box of mail, and another book.  Returning home, a
weakness flowed through my body, a weakness like none
I had--COPD(?).  On the way over there, a young girl
with a much younger boy and their chips in their bags
happened behind me, and she asked--as I was about to
head up the mail station frontage--me if I was okay,
if I needed help.  Told her I had several diseases, and
that because of one of them I was no longer able to
stand straight.  She said I almost fell over that bump
(that bump being a yellow speed bump) back there.
I told her I would be okay, and thanked her.  She said
I was welcome.
*
Spiders.  (Thuncer, Rain, Lightning . . . 2:48pm cc)
When I got to my door there was a thin longish unplain
spider coursing up to the right of my door.  As there
are 1000+ species of USA spiders, and as there are
moltings which sometimes involve color changes, and
as I am not schooled in spider identification, I found
a small but sustantial item of mail, and smashed it.
   For whatever reasons, I have been having more
spider problems recently in and around this place than
ever before.  I am getting help controlling them, and 
that help appears to have actually helped/ especially 
by poisoning what spiders feed on.
*
Shortly after I was back in, I began feeling better.
(It is cooler--a little--and drier; and, I suspect, a
lot less polluted in here.  I am using good filters
with my heat pump.)  So, I only partially sorted
my mail.  What did I do--or perhaps I should say
what I found myself doing--was a sweep-through
of the main bedroom and bathroom, the hallway
connecting them to the kitchen, and the kitchen.
I did see 2 spiders, maybe 3, along the way, but
I didn't go after them.  They seemed to be like ones
I'd seen many times before in this place/ and had 
never had trouble from.  They are usually on the floor
near where they can hide.  So far as I know, they do
not make webs, at least not (if they do make webs)
inconvenient ones.

2004-07-23 Friday 8:54pm
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7 bananas I had purchased, and now I was going to eat
one; but when I turned I immediately saw/ one had acquired
a black band on its cover.  I went to my silverware box and
pulled out--even though I knew I shouldn't be using it--
my paring knife (the one with wooden handle we had had
for unknown sentimental years).  An inch near beyond the
band I severed that banana after I had with unusual difficulty
separated it from its bunch.  I found the skin supremely tough/
while the fruit within--while it seemed fine--lacked firmness.
I thought I ought to check another, but with my spirit mate's
paring knife (the longer sharper one with the red plastic handle
we had had for fewer unknown sentimental years).  I found it
too did not fare well.  So 7 bananas and 2 knives I wrapped
together and sealed in a plastic storage bag, and placed in the
kitchen garbage container.

2004-08-24 Tuesday 3:29pm dc
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...In the quiet of the Lord/
...one is open to/
...the wisdom in/
...persistence.
...In the quiet of the Lord.

2004-08-31 Tuesday 8:50pm
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In my early 30's I officially came out,
but during the course of the public years of it
I did things I had told myself I would never do,
and in so doing/ fiercely mocked my profession.
I would tell you what they were, but I do not believe
you would care to know them.  Just let it be said I
have often found it difficult to supress my emotions;
and now my house is rotting away.  And Frances is coming.
And a rabid rat is gnawing at me.







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Brian A. J. Salchert    2008-07-06    ekua16