Dear Heartbeat, v. 6

[From the envelope…]

Dear Heartbeat,

See enclosed, if you will, the

final installment in what turned

out to be a slice or four

longer than I maybe

intended.

Goes to show

what intentions are worth.

This one isn’t meant to close

a conversation I’ve had with an absent you

but to begin

a conversation with a present you.

What can I say? I work

better as a pear*

than not.

M---

* - pair

Hiya, Heartbeat,

It may be no secret

that I see no. 6 as the finale

to the series of missives I’ve penned

in your absence at

your request.

Well, okay, it may be unknown,

at least as you’ve no idea

that you are returning to these;

doesn’t make it a secret necessarily,

more an unknown.

A path, for you to unravel.

Because, yes, I gamed it a bit.

Code here, code there,

the whole, if not a puzzle,

at least a maze.

Amaze, astonish, astound:

what you do.

Abject, abnegate, abstain:

what you also do.

Arm’s length, these sub-

conscious reactions, or conscious

at times, even, but keep

at arm’s length.

Who doesn’t enjoy a healthy

time spent noodling

about noodling?  You can turn

it into a dish of linguini, to be

traced to the sauce, and I,

I can turn it into a maze of codes,

of weighted words and phrases,

of inner demands that you do not know

in me, and that will prohibit a complete

reading for you.

It’s all context, it’s all

subtext.

Without going too far down a bunny trail,

post-structuralism killed the author

in the 60’s in France.

Barthes,

Foucault,

Lacan – said there is only text,

that all texts should be read

without the context of the author.

It was a dramatic move away

from authorial intention; yes,

but what did the author mean

when s/he said blah

blahblahblah.

Done away with.

The words, the letters, all there is to read,

and they will stand alone or fail on their own.

Every writer somewhere

knows this in their heart.

Fail.

Fail better.

I can’t go on,

I’ll go on.

Fail.

Fail again.

Fail better.

There was once a baby

platypus named Hal.

Wouldn’t it be neat, tidy,

if I had a story about a Hal-named

baby platypus who spent his days

racing time,

working out the intricacies of the

time-space continuum, preferably

w/o driving himself

bonkers in the meantime.

I don’t think

I have that story yet.

You will return and we’ll be

at a square at a maze.  Square

one, four?  Don’t know.

I hope your trip helped you

decide.  I’ve purposely avoided

outright emotion in these texts –

authorial intention only muddying

clear water.

Or already muddy waters, as the case

may be.  I know, it goes

w/o saying – my past(s)

scare(s) me, too.

So, no big confession here at the end,

no declaration of intention.  You will

wonder, when you’re through reading,

if indeed read this far you do,

what you’ve read.  You’ll ask

if you’re the new path, if wondering

leads naturally to wandering,

if time in a maze is time wasted

or well-spent, if the sum

of letters are words

that you can/should believe,

and how does one settle on an answer,

w/r/t all that time that

is/has passed.  Heartbeat,

you are aptly named.

I await your return with my guard

down.

Til anon---

M---

Dear Heartbeat, v. 5

[From the envelope…]

Dear Heartbeat,

I’m sure you had the fifth

jokes in mind when you thought

about the fourth.  To not

disappoint, enclosed

you’ll find your fifth.

Have another, on me.

If not, with me, at least.

Call this one the poetry edition.

Every voice finds,

eventually,

its own medium.

M---

Heartbeat,

It is said that one should be careful

re: what one seeks.  Or asks for.

Or grasps for.  W/r/t

grasping, one instantly

thinks straws, but of course

one can also grasp for a ledge,

a manatee, a sliver

of information, a slice

of communication, a port

in a storm.

“Why am I so afraid of loneliness?

My soul is a baby wolf.”

“I cannot bring a world quite round,

Although I patch it as I can.”

Two poets – the former Young,

Stevens the latter – saying the same thing,

60 years apart.  I think you know

this but all poets are thieves.  They steal

from every source they can find

to steal from, but mainly? they steal

from other poets.  The art of

appropriation, or recklessness,

if you will.

The world of belles lettres is such

an ugly place.

One would be right (writing)

to wonder, where will this lead,

this amalgamation polka of letters,

paths, manatees, platypi, paths,

seeking, wondering, wandering,

appropriation, recklessness, “the vivid

transparence that you bring

is peace.”  (Stevens,

again.)

If I could say,

I would.

Tell me what

you think, you say.

You first, I’m

inclined to say.

Inclined, maybe, but I recline

instead to my normal stance of

how much can I say how fast?

Guard yourself, you say,

and I – infantile in my emotions,

feeble, forlorn – immediately

joke it in my head to

Gird thy loins!

Which is, of course, vaguely different. 

Too much Vonnegut, not

enough Tolstoy, most

likely to blame.

“That I may reduce the monster to

Myself, and then may be myself

In face of the monster, be more than part

Of it, …

Being the lion in the lute

Before the lion locked in stone.”

You will always know what I think,

what I feel, a thing,

of things as they are.

The most beautiful sea

Our most beautiful days

And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you…

Again, the vivid, if overly so,

transparence that you bring to me

is a peaceful, building, waxing,

waning, a tide, the flow of the beat

of the heart.

It is easy to feel safe around you,

to continue to want to wander

your halls and chambers,

considering each a new path, each

its own A B C of being.

Letters keep working their way in,

it seems.  Seemingly…

Til anon---

M---

Dear Heartbeat, v. 4

[From the envelope…]

Dear Heartbeat,

See enclosed for a fourth

in the now by no doubt

grueling ongoing installment

of what was a simple request –

no doubt innocent – for a

single loooooooooong letter.

So there’s this story

about a lonely baby platypus,

but that a story

for a separate time,

an other space.

M---

Heartbeat,

I have a new dictionary.

The Oxford Shorter.

It is terribly intimidating.

Why in the world I need

a dictionary

with the internet

is beyond me.  Has

something to do with the

tactile, with the being able

to touch, as it were, the words –

it’s not the etymological beast

that the 20 volume set is,

it doesn’t trace the words

through their variations to their

Scottish-Cherokee roots:

shame, that.

But don’t think I’m going

to let that stop me from attempting

to read the thing.

This will be done in the service

of passing time.

I can’t be sure

what the phrase

passing time

is really supposed to mean.

It makes you want to believe

that time is stationary

and that

one is leaving it behind.

And yet, of course,

that is absolutely the ironical

last thing it feels like, as it feels

as though you’re not moving at all,

and you have to watch

a clock

to know that time is moving

in the least.  You alphabetize things,

you move something a centimeter,

you move it back,

an hour is gone.

How it went, where it went,

so many more moments of a short

life – no matter how long

you live – gone with centimeters.

Not as poetic

as the wind,

exactly.

If I were convinced that you were

going to read this, I would

at some point work on injecting

some humor, these all seem

so droll and removed from how

I am normally.

Around you.

I would at some point add

something to let you know my

cherries are still rung by you, and not make

you wade through a bunch of

pseudo-quasi-existwhereamiherealist

(as opposed to the

existwhyamiherealist stuff).

But I’m not

convinced.

You said to tell

you what I think.

You will have by now come to the quite

correct conclusion that it is so much

better when I don’t think.

Sooooooo much.

Megaton better just to go

forward, to try to pass time

without stopping to wander

around the racepoint, wondering

what time was doing exactly

while you passed it.

I mean, what does time pass –

what is it racing against?

This may be a question for either

the time-space continuum

hiding in the closet,

or for a separate and later

letter.

All this metaphor,

all this parable.

Til anon ---

M---

Dear Heartbeat, v. 3

[From the envelope...]

Dear Heartbeat,
See enclosed for a third scrambling
of ink along
the lines of a loooooooong letter
that you requested.

To capitalize on what is to come
I sometimes have to go back-
wards; to capitalize is sometimes
to name, to term, to make more
than a descriptive adjective
or
a prescriptive feeling.

M---


Heartbeat,
It's vaguely early
in the morning, the dew, the do,
and I should, I'm
certain, be drinking.  Holiday
weekend, and all that,
whatwhat.
A little in the way
of an amusing entrendre:
bought a tone of canned food
yesterday, didn't buy a
can opener.
Ah, the life of my story.

This is another disjecta
that I wonder if you'll read,
id est, that I wonder
if I'll actually pass
along for you to read.
Here I am.  Sharing,
sharing, sharing.
I am in here.  Here,
turns out,
is more difficult to define
than it should be.
And but here, turns out,
by rote of - if not difficulty
to define then at least
the absence of presence -
defines the I that is in here.
I could noodle this for days.
It's the extend the metaphor game.
Like any good semantic-based
deconstructive existentialist
I wonder at the nature of being
more than I wander
at the nature of doing.
(Says JRRT, Not all
who wander are lost; says
the Buddha, To always seek
is not to search.)
Says the good continental
post-structuralist in me, the
dichotomatic opposite of wander
is settle.
I'll hold that thought for a moment
as I am woefully aware
of the disfavorable connotations
even the faintest hint of settling
brings:  ah, the fetid whiff of the sores
one gets on both the haunches by sitting
too long, and on the psyche by notching
down, by settling.  Hard
to tell in my woeful block script,
but settling there is in italics.

To the notion of settling as opposite,
I, in settling, mean finding, and in finding,
I imply contentment with what
has been found.  Imagine the search
that never finds.  And
then
but
so
the disconsolation that would come
from that sort of non-fulfillment.
This is in no way to say
that every search - every wandering -
has it's object in sight
upon debarkation.  The notion,
to me, is to not necessarily
know what you're seeking
but to know it when you find it.
Because
but
the purpose isn't really the find
but the sense of contentment
with the find.

I will dryly note that if what you
seek is canned food
it will be enabling to your contentment
that you have a way with which to open
the can without destroying it, that you
have the tools with which to
enjoy your find.

Am I concerned that I'm always
without a can opener?  That
my words miss the occasional
leter,
that my letters      the occasional
word(s)?  Oh, aren't I though.
The accidental flash of cleverness
only plays so far before it wears
itself out on the empathic digression.
Sound familiar?
Fits me to a missing
t.

Til anon ---

M---

Dear Heartbeat, v. 2

[From the envelope...]


Dear Heartbeat,
See inside for the second
in the series of the loooooooong
letter that you requested.
More ink you may never see.
Disregard the above, obviously,
if you're reading this now.
These sad efforts in semantics will
end in your exquisite boredom,
if not calamity,
if I'm not careful.


M---


Dear Heartbeat,
I realize that I wasted my first opportunity
in the first "letter."
So, yes, sure,
it's chock full of metaphor
and analogy that are simulacrums
to why I find myself
at pen, but it shouldn't
be that complicated, should it.


I spend a lot of time
wondering why I spend so
much time spending time
wondering.
I'd rather spend time
with you.  I do not wonder
when I'm with you.  Wonder,
as a word,
is, by the way,
extraordinarily close to wander.
They are basically an accent
apart in meaning.


You said you want to know
what I'm thinking.  I don't know
that you do; my thoughts spread,
divert, digress,
converge, merge -
as do everyone else's,
as I'm sure you know -
but I spend too much time
putting aside the distractions
of a depressive.
Black dog.
Eeyore.
I have many names for that side
of me - here lately,
I've taken to calling him
Hal.
Yes, it's a DFW joke, but then
yes, it's an inside joke, too,
as I had a childhood friend named Harvey whose older brother was named Hal who was fabulous before fabulous was cool and who suffered for his fabulosity.


I don't think I'm making this up,
but I have nothing to prove
that I'm not.  You're going to
have to take my word for it:  I
cannot prove that I'm not making
this up as I go along.  I know
this:  I've never made it up before.
You don't know that either so
you'll have to take
my word for it.


More the pity
for you.  I get it.


When you already do not believe,
it's difficult to all of a sudden-
like become to believe.
I grow concerned that I am,
ultimately, only feeding
your very personal insecurities.
By feeding mine.  I should
be more demonstrative
of my affection, I should
be more secure
in my position so I can better
answer your questions re:
my position, I've already
some so far - you don't know -
I've so far to go.


Two missives gone, so many
tiny letters, each in their own right,
a symbol of a bigger story,
and yet,
and yet - so much
still to go.  This is,
technically? only day half
of your removal, however
we look at that, and
I am no closer to you
now than I was
when you left.


Til anon ---


M---

Dear Heartbeat, v. 1

[From the Envelope...]

Dear Heartbeat,
This is the first of the looooooong letter
you requested.
As this is truly more a prelude than a letter, 
I will leave it to you
to determine if it merits
the requirements you might have (un)
intentionally set forth for
your requested letter.

M---

Heartbeat,
Write you a letter, you said, a looooong letter,
you said.  About what I think.
It goes without saying (he says)
that how I write, what I write,
lends itself not that well
to the form of a letter.  Letters
are, I'm sure you're aware, a lost
art-form; there was a time -
prior to instant communication -
when letters were relied upon
to convey all of the weight
of the distance and the absence
between the writer and the receiver.
It does not go unnoticed that to have
a letter one must have words
comprised of letters; it's like when
the woodsman walks into a forest
with an axe and the trees look
at the handle and say, "Look!
He's one of us!"

The 'about what I think' is problematic
a bit, isn't it? Because it wants
solidity of thought, it wants a non-
fluid but linear movement from A
to B to maybe A again
but then maybe to C.
Digression
is frowned upon; it is, of course
however, my modus operandi.  It is
that which creates new paths.

This is a brill point to discuss new paths, a
phrase I've used ad nauseum for a while
now.  One does not always take
or seek new paths - they are not part
of my m.o.  Digression,
yes; new paths, no.  Explore
all the intricacies of the path
you're on, I say.  They are
endless, and if you're on the right path,
they will last you a lifetime and
beyond.  Not every path
is the right path, the path
throws up enough tangles and vines
that you know you can,
should go no further.  And
so you are forced from the path
you were on, or you want to
leave the path you're on - you
know it's not right, or it's empty,
or you're tired of walking along
this path together, or for what
ever the reason, you know...
You know that the path does
not hold you in the same
regard as you hold the path -
that's when

[break]

Right.  Sorry.  Took a break.
Was saying.
That's when, etc.
This isn't really about paths, anyway;
or letters, for that matter.
Give a pen (or a pin)
enough rope and you can hear
a pin drop - no, no, he can -
the pen - spend a lifetime looking
for a big enough eraser.  Always
something to be re-said, or said
better.
Fail.
Fail
better.

This is part one of I don't know
how many missives this will stretch to.
A loooooong letter, you
requested.
I don't know that you meant
in serial form, but
tah-dah!!
Serial letter.
If you're reading this base, vapid
preamble, all
is well.

Til anon ---

M---