Because There is no Time

A Floor Designed and Constructed by Peter Genovese to Resemble Car Racing Caution Flags
I did not post to this blog two nights ago, because I grew tired too early in the night. I did not post to this blog last night, because I was in West Park, New York, talking into hours of the night and early morning that even I don't usually venture into. And tonight I won't be writing a proper posting, since my busy day ended just about at 11 o'clock, leaving too little time for detail.

So here's what made my weekend a good one.

I bought some fantastic teas in Millerton, New York, and, while eating lunch at Harney & Sons, I heard the voice of the State Archivist Chris Ward (a Connecticut native) behind me, so I turned around and said, loudly across the restaurant, "Chris, this isn't quite Connecticut, but it's about as close as you can get without it being so." Then I met her 89-year-old mother celebrating her birthday (she looked great), as well as other members of the family.

I relaxed beneath life masks of women's breasts in the Flow Lounge in Kingston, New York, enjoying a beer and a shot of Tullamore Dew whiskey.

I saw an exceptional exhibition of text-based art at R&F Paints in Kingston, saw my friends Anne Gorrick and Scott Helmes (the latter, visiting from Minnesota) and enjoyed their many collaborative visual poems on exhibition.

I bought, with help from Nancy, two pieces of visual poetry by Anne and Scott, one of them consisting of four individual pieces. (I was the only person, so far as I had noticed, who had bought anything that night.) I meant to buy only one piece, but I couldn't resist the four.

I will soon be the owner of the piece used in the advertising card for this exhibition.

I inadvertently left Scott alone at R&F Paints, with no way to find us at the restaurant, and had to return to retrieve him.

I had a good dinner, with a glass of montepulciano (which is a good word to say), sharing a pizza with porcini cream sauce with Nancy.

I rode in a car with Anne back to her house, and we beat Peter, Scott and Scott's partner Kay, who had started, in a separate car, ahead of us.


I spent the night at Anne and Peter's house, along with Scott and Kay. (Nancy returned to the house, and the dogs, after dinner.)

I talked poetry and cars and all manner of other topics with these folks until a little after midnight, when Scott and Kay retired to bed, followed soon by Peter on a couch.

I drank, along with Anne, five different strange alcoholic beverages, in tiny amounts throughout the night.

I watched Peter, completely asleep, hold a tiny snifter of alcohol in his hand, without spilling it, for over an hour, and I was sure he would not spill it.

I talked to Anne on all manner of topics (but mostly _____, and _____, and especially _____) until four in the morning.

I awoke at 8:30 in the morning and wasn't the least bit tired all day.

I had a great breakfast of French toast, bacon, and one of my teas.

I toured Peter's garage and Anne's artist's studio, which are different floors of the same building.

I collected deer fur, completely separated from the body of the recently hit deer, from the front yard of Peter and Anne's house.

I rode with Scott and Kay back to my house, where we had a big lunch with Nancy and toured the Scott Helmes Museum of Art (mostly, the living room).

I said a sad goodbye to Scott and Kay.

I created an object poem out of a glass bottle, a cork, a lead band from a bottle of wine, manual typewriting and deer fur.

I prepared packages I have meant, for months to send out to friends of mine.

I ate for dinner a reprise of lunch.

I shopped for food and other provisions and unpacked everything I'd been carrying around with me this weekend.

I wrote a little, including this.

I took many many pictures of these activities.

Ron Silliman says that poetry is a social practice, that poets come together to make sense of poetry, and I did that this weekend. But I wonder if this is truly so. Right now, I am typing from the darkness, and I've been alone for hours. Poetry is a solitary practice, broken up, when poets are fortunate enough, by that smaller component that is the social practice.

As Helen said to Nancy in me in Manchester, England, one evening last year: We are not real, we are just characters in a story I am writing. We are not supposed to corporealize before her. When she returns home, we will once again become the fictional characters we are, and things will be right.

But not just yet. A little more time, please. Not yet.


ecr. l'inf.