ALONG MANY PATHS

Back from the war, my Uncle

Norman was ill prepared to endure

the peace.  To see a hero like that

weeping was torture for this child.

Asked what the worst mistake

he had ever made was, George Bush

replied that there had been none. Perhaps

he forgot all about Shock and Awe.

My parents worked for years before

realizing they were planting weeds,

not the flowers they prayed for.  Later

there were even bigger disappointments.

Our ancestors should have known what

was coming, back when all the ants

went underground, although they had no

media to warn them about global warming.

“Nobody wants war,” they all say, yet surely

someone must have a yen for this gamble

that always has losers, but seldom, if ever,

winners.  Both sides bet with lives of pawns.

Anonymous is the champion author of all time, master

of all genres, yet to this day no researcher has managed

to discover his, or her, gender for certain.  Speculation

usually gives credit to royalty of some ilk or other.

“In today already walks tomorrow,”

wrote Shakespeare, before he was yesterday.

Spinoza later advised us to take along all

we can, for nothing can be added or altered later.

Obey the wisdom you had as a toddler,

not the gross ignorance you adopted later.

Although it is not likely we will be remembered,

let us work to be worthy of being quoted anonymously.

Orphans always recall someone who gave them

an apple, banana, or a few words of unearned praise.

Skulls in ocean or deserts have little to say, unless

Hamlet comes across one and delivers a monologue.

In the battle between pride and self-contempt, choose

pride every time, lest you later regret your choice.

Some children pray to get kidnapped in order to prove

they are lovable and, if lucky, they live to regret it.

Memories are almost always full of holes, therefore

exchange them only with strangers, who rarely listen.

Remember that the most probable account of an event

is sure to be the least truthful, so long as it is designed well.

True enemies are never satisfied to kill you, for they want

you never to have existed, and you refuse to apologize for that.

The dead seldom stand up and salute their commanders

or correct the mistaken spellings on their little white crosses.

REFLECTIONS ON THE ART OF WRITING

Novels are rarely novels.  Poetry is rarely poetry.  Plays are rarely  drama.

Automatic writing may be good discipline, but only God knows what might turn up.

One single acceptance trumps five hundred rejections.

Only then do you know that at least one editor has good judgment.

Many have taken up the art of writing because they have been sure they could write a better novel than Proust, Tolstoy, or James Fenimore Cooper.   Poets are universally sure their stuff's better than T.S. Eliot's, and right up there with Shakespeare's.  As Henry James showed in fiction, it is cruel to enlighten artists regarding lack of talent.

Stop writing when you get to the point where it feels like your head might burst.  Hemingway's was often about to burst.  It probably did.

Never compare the joy of writing with the joy of making love.  It is unfair to both.

John Cheever once wrote (in a letter to me) that we should write as if the devil is at our backs.  (I've done that ever since.)   The pretentious are sure that they write with God at their backs, and if they're lucky She may be.

People don't like to be written about, although they may not know that until they hear about what you have written about them, in which case they sue you.

Gossip is a writer's gold, and newspapers are open mines with countless nuggets.

In good literature, the irrelevant becomes the relevant.

All writing and speech is more or less political, mostly more.

Using literature as guide to life can be dangerous to your health.  You may wind up being chased by a headless horseman or lynched in the Wild West. Kafka almost killed himself because he took his writing too seriously, and felt obliged to be paranoid and suicidal.

Those who dream and write about Heaven are usually fugitives from Purgatory.

Feel free to use Obscenity.  Only Mothers object to it, and few of them read anything inside the covers. They invariably complain that jacket portraits never do justice to you.

Aspire to be a terrible writer -- it's your best chance for fame and fortune.

Stephen King's writer's blocks (usually about 3 minutes long) are not as long as those afflicting Joyce Carol Oates (up to 5). Melville's lasted for months between whales.

Word Processing by computer betrays you ten times more often than a Big Chief Tablet and Number 2 pencil.  And why should you entertain the FBI and CIA por nada?

Nine times out of ten you might as well write on water.

Eat rejection letters if you must, anything but reading them a second time.  Read them once, though, for it could be an acceptance you assume is the usual form letter.

When inspired, adopt the posture of Rodin's “The Thinker”, but only with the bathroom door closed.

Don't laugh, but it's perfectly true that much great writing has been written on toilet paper, usually in prisons. I edited a book called From the Hungarian Revolution (of 1956) of fine poems written by patriotic prisoners.

The gentleman from Porlock has a thousand clones.  If you don't have Caller ID you have only yourself to blame if one of them comes calling.

Some phones are programmed to ring only when you are making love or in the middle of the best stuff you ever wrote, the magically inspired flow of words that can vaporize instantly.  If you are fool enough to answer the phone or doorbell, you'll regret it for life.

Don't read anything you've published, lest you begin to revise it in the margins.

Two angels quarreling, or two devils fighting. No matter which you are, you've been distracted and may never get over it.

Flushed down rivers of forgetfulness are dreams, ambitions, hopes, wit and wisdom, pride, dignity, and royalties of silenced writers.

It is far easier to imagine the end of the earth than the end of your talent.

Hannah Arendt wrote that "one man will always be left alive to tell the story."  Imagine yourself as having that opportunity.  

A house full of fragments -- a writer's despair.  Beware of note-taking!

ENDEARMENTS

The lower domains

     of pettiness engage our minds,

          destroy ambitions.

Between Holiness

     and Callous Indifference,

          choose the middle course!

There's Life in the Light

     and Despair in Darkness, and

          you alone must choose.

Love can be exhausted

      in one night of pleasure, or

          a hundred years of solitude.

The time that is left

     is a race to the finish,

         enshrined in my haiku.

We never let go

     of a loved one, though we tell

          ourselves otherwise.

Crickets who know me

     never abandon me when

     I most need their love.

And you, my darling,

     how often are you tempted

               to flee, yet do not?

EGAD

Nursing on park bench!

Whatever can this world be

coming to, pray tell!

Just before parting

we found the perfect embrace

we had been seeking.

It was far too late,

but gave us a moment or

two to remember.

In dreams we make love,

but not as ourselves, thus it's

all been with strangers.

The world empties out,

sugar leaking out of sieves,

but keep your tongues out.

Travel with your Joys,

lest Sorrows catch up before

you touch ground again.

Friendships should never

have expire dates, although quite

a few of them do.

They warned me it would

be this way -- the world emptied

of all the pretty horses.

Pick out the crazy

is always the way to choose

women and horses.