I recently finished up with my grad school applications, so my mental space is beginning to free up and is allowing me to read for pleasure again, which is always an enjoyable transition to make. I've been reading one smaller book a day while I'm teaching (Old Man & The Sea, various poets) while working on larger works. While checking out my bookshelf, I pulled out an old journal and found some writing I hadn't come across in quite a while, which is often both entertaining and embarrassing at the same time, but in the holiday spirit of giving, I figured I'd share one. This piece was written during my senior year at Santa Cruz when I was really looking into the thematic correlations between Coppolla's epic film "Apocalypse Now" and Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness. Just wanted to make that clear so you don't get the impression I'm some closet Doors groupie . . . I get enough dirty looks as it is.
Jim Morrison
oracle voice
splashing dark waters
in the jungles shadow
the mind
circumfenced in
ruins of child-
like grass walls
blurred edge
redefining shade
without color
as home
as a transient
in the trash
ass end of
jet engine
Hermes proud wings
wax empire
sparkles, slithering
in bloody mud
that shit
don't fly
round here
