notebook: 8/21/90

1. The work to be built out of what's
occurring to me at the moment.

2. All of the material connects. The fact that
I constantly choose to write something now
rather than assemble (re-assemble)
what came before is what makes this
poetry. The greatest push is towards
the future. Writing poetry is tidal.
It is this sense that the words
are the producers and the poets
are the transcribers. Writing poetry is like
listening to a pulse- sometimes to see if
life is still alive- sometimes
to diagnose its
current condition.

3. Don't believe in stories. Life does
not occur this way. It utters
itself like the Delphic oracle. This
is why oracles sound so familiar. It's
all the other daily stuff that
sounds so strange.

4. How gingerly we created this
apparently real dailiness and then
coated it (with dreams) to look
like granite. We then exuberantly
(or sulleny, as the case may be)
ride our inventions like a see-saw.

5. Try to remember never to put the
numbers down *before* something
occurs to you. Get ahead of yourself
and you spit in two.

6. Hope are remembering are linked
together, just as understanding and
anticipating are.

7. The dark waters of the imagination
are cold at first and the tides
and winds are unpredictable.