solitude is a bee keeper.
a beekeeper who drinks
too much. he rises
at dawn, but it
doesn't matter, he still
drinks too much.
even the bees admonish him
saying "mr. beekeeper, bob,
you drink too much." or so he
imagines them admonishing,
in his delirium.
but does it stop him?
of course not: he is their
master! their
keeper! and perhaps
he doesn't drink too
much; perhaps it is just
something he imagines
in his delirium. oh,
to return to the days
of the ancient roman
empire, and to keep
bees there, who spoke
so very little, and
admonished even less
so I began the
new century by
reading an
article on
albert einstein
brilliant physicists
agree:
he is really
brilliant! he
is a lot more
brilliant than
newton, tons
more brilliant
than galileo,
and much, much
more brilliant
than
the kindly cleaning
lady 1 who always
washed his socks
and dirty sweatshirts
on tuesdays
in princeton, new jersey
in the twilight of
his career. he
tried to do them
by himself on
fridays, but
he always failed
"separate der colors
from der vhites!" she
would say, "colors
en der cold vater--
vites in de varm
und de hott"
she commanded.
but alas,
he never did.
what on earth
did she mean?
albert einstein
wondered, nibbling
on those irresitable
pastrami sandwiches
that she so expertly
made, as little bits
of pastrami scattered
upon his notes
like beautiful cherry
blossoms and lotus
mentioned so frequently
in the poems of li po.
thank god for frieda
göttelhammer,
I always say.
**
the piano at thrift world played like an old friend. it reminded me of a man who plays
games like five card stud and wears yellow shirts with black ties with polka dots that are
blood red. he doesnıt wear boots but he does wear moccasins. his heavy wool coat has his
initials embroidered on the lapel. he enjoyed listening to art pepper play ³somewhere
over the rainbow.² his hair is combed down flat and is the color of a french bathing suit
from the 50ıs. too bad about his girlfriend. and
when he lied about his hand and tried to palm a king of spades, he was almost an identical
match to the A flat below middle C on the piano at thrift world that stuck everytime you
played it, as if it were lying down on the railroad tracks with blood trickling down its
chin, unconscious, robbed, now penniless and doomed to die--he really shouldnıt have
cheated at cards and especially shouldnıt have palmed that king.
**
I am looking not at a sweater today and amy bought this sweater
for 10˘ for me at a yard sale. as I sit in the yard, wearing the sweater, I also decided
not to look at a dog which could be neutered soon, amy tells me, and perhaps will be.
instead, I am looking at a lovely girl made of stone kneeling in a bed of weeds near a dog
eating canned dog food before he gets neutered. it will cost about $40 tops to neuter him.
he is very playful today; very frisky. my heart is filled with sorrow: not for the girl of
stone, and perhaps only in part for the dog who is eating with gusto. will afternoons
always be as beautiful as this? I ask myself. it's almost sunset. my gaze turns from the
cold stone of girl to the playful dog. he scoots his dish towards the grass, and then
flips the bowl over, licking his chops, jumping about hither and thither as if to say:
"in all likelihood: no."
I love when you ask a
question of someone and they
respond immediately, without
hesitation.
it is an almost supernatural
experience and I think probably
hindi in origin.
"jake," I asked in the grocery store,
"what do you think would be
a good name for our baby?"
"thelnt," said jake.
jake and his wife cathy once worked
very hard on a crossword puzzle.
after a real long time, it was finally
complete. "whatıs the last word?"
asked jake.
"thelnt," said cathy. "it canıt be,"
said jake. "youıre right," said
cathy. and so they went back to
work to see what they had done
wrong.
years later, I ran into jake quite
by accident.
"since that day, many years ago,"
jake told me, "I have met two
thelnts. one is my neighbor, and they
other is a rather unpleasant
bodyguard/chauffeur of bul
garian extraction."
"thelnt," jake said with authority,
"would be the perfect name for
your child."
part 2
today I am leaning towards "shin."
months ago I saw a wonderful
commercial for northwest airlines
and inside an airplane was a very
handsome japanese architect
who said: "everything I see inspires
me..."
I used to ask all my friends: "who is
that japanese architect who is inspired
all the time?" and no one seemed to
know.
I asked everybody. perhaps I should
have flown northwest airlines.
I did start to take a sketch pad
everywhere, though, just like
whoever he was. I think I felt
more inspired, but I am not sure
that I it was by everything.
2 days ago your mama and I
waited in the doctorıs office in
order to speak with a nutrion
alist. we didnıt know at the time,
but she was about to pull a
plastic glass with plastic milk in
it out of a steel case and say:
"this is how much milk you
should be drinking."
she also would do it with 2
pieces of plastic chicken & 1 cup
of plastic green beans. yet before
any of this happened, we were
in the waiting room, and I opened
up a very old TIME magazine. it
spoke a great deal in this particular
issue about computers
and princesses. on pg. 24, though,
there was an ad for northwestern
airlines. there was a picture
of a man with his eyes closed with a
watermark of geometrical shapes behind
him and in front of him, too. "everything
I see inspires me," said shin takamatsu,
architect. "everything."
Taking the cap off of a pen is almost precisely the same as taking the cap off of a syringe.
In dreams, you can “access” ability. It’s always the same sensation: suddenly you can speak French, you can fly, or you can play the guitar like Andre Segovia did before he died.
All dreams have water in the if you look hard enough.
There are “good” composers and “bad” composers. Good composers have names that are beautiful to hear: Elgar, Chopin, Fauré, etc. And it is just the opposite with bad composers in that you want to jump through a glass rooftop (as in a poorly-made action-adventure movie) when you hear their names: Schostakovich, etc.
In dreams, anyone can play any instrument but everyone should play the flute. It’s easy to carry, and it’s silver.
Most men, eventually, find a tube of lipstick in their bed before they die, regardless of whether or not they die in bed. I think it’s called a tube.
If you can’t fall asleep, try saying the word Krypton. While making love, say the word kryptonite.
The reason that everyone has nightmares in the 20th century is that, at some point, they watched and listened as Shine On Harvest Moon played on a player piano.
In dreams, bourbon is nectar. When, in the Bible, they speak of manna, they actually mean bourbon. The last word to escape Pandora was bourbon. When, in France, they say Je t’aime it actually means I love bourbon. Charles Foster Kane’s last words were: I think I could go for a bourbon and then Rosebud.
There isn’t a man alive who would take a bus ride and walk a mile or more in order to see the handwriting of James Joyce, as I did in my dream.
Love letters, I discovered in a dream, burn at the same temperature as standard notarized documents or legal statements or even notarized love letters, of which there are a few, although they tend to be rare.
Marching music should never be played at all, not even loudly. Soldiers are fine, though, and do a very good job.
At some point. everyone quits their jobs in their dreams.
There will come a time when you, the reader, will cover your mouth in surprise as you read the paper and say: But he was so young! and think of all the dreams that you have lived through in your life. Exactly half of them were beautiful, exactly half of them were not.
a letter
from a distant
saint
a velvet rose in
her hat
she can’t sleep
at night
and so
she takes
long walks
“they’re
not
to
nowhere”
she
says
nobody stares
at her
even when it
is winter
and
snowing
and she is
looking
for
cloudberries
but not too
hard
touching the
snow with
goatskin
gloves
as her lips confess
and
she sleeps
in a
big
wooden
box
she always
dreamed
of being
a painter
and of
wearing
perfume
chanel, I
think
she once
said
frankincense
tabac
sage
cardomom
too
and other
things
although
she noted
almost
fainting
“when you’re a painter”
you can think
of other
things not
like when
you’re
a writer
and
a big
spot
of ink
appears
on the
page as
you sit
wondering
the pen
carelessly
touching
the sheet. you
wonder
“were those my words
that I
lost
in a pool...?”
she says it
is that way
too
with god
“never forget”
she writes
and at
night
the bees come
and find rest
on her
body
you are large and easy to read
I am happy that you are sky-blue
It seems that you are gaining weight
lately
and inventive? yes, you are. I like
for example, that you say nothing when I say the word “today.”
I like the look in your eye, or eyes, when I say “tomorrow,”
and you say,
still,
nothing.
you are challenging, you are a
masterpiece,
and you are toleran. infinitely?
sometimes I wonder:
are you sexy, too? well, look at this puff of smoke.
why yes,
you are at that.
once, while feeling bad, I took a good look at my life. I noticed that I
owned a pair of headphones and that they rested on the top of
the complete works of shakespeare. I spoke with a friend and she told
me that religion can be found in the rocks, and in the trees, and in
fruit baskets but not old
garlic, which beckons fruit flies. I listened to "beautiful music in the
night," and it was Mozart, preceeded by Debussy; it conjured the image
of a chocolate mint; it did. I ate a
chocolate mint, then a raspberry-infused chocolate, then a praline laced
with chocolate, then a creme de cacao chocolate piece and then I looked
but didn't touch one book called
THE DARK AGES. I counted my friends. I had: THE DARK AGES, LITERATURE OF
THE WESTERN WORLD, REAL
FLORIDA. I reflected on the mist: it smells, I thought, of both heaven
and the craggy coast of maine. I took pictures. one was of a lamp:
the light bulb
was soft and
bald. it re-
minded me of
the roman
empire
another was of a chest of drawers:
filled with flowers
where creatures
die horrible deaths
I threw away my camera. I put it in a pile of food that included
carrots, lentils, potato chips, more and more chocolate. the camera was
not filled
with film. I considered the words I liked:
100% CHANCE OF RAIN
A SHORT HISTORY OF OPERA
ODI ET AMO
PLAIN NAIL POLISH REMOVER.
in remembering basic things, I realized that I owned a
typewriter. it is black and gold. it is my imaginary friend. it wants
repair and a new ribbon, and perhaps, a word to type. how about--
"fustalarian?" although it wants a new ribbon, and it shall have a new
ribbon, after it is repaired. when I thought hard, I thought (also) of
all those places that I would like to be:
* on a smooth-stoned beach at sunset
* in a delicate garden "where all sweets are sown"
* in a busy furnace, or perhaps kitchen, savoring a minty broth
* john donne has a dark moustache
as for my typewriter, I am only borrowing it from earth. like my
fusebox, it illuminates my life with a certain gossamer smoothness. and,
yet, like the fusebox, it is fragile, delicate, and can be thrown on the
ground or through the window or down the stairs and will
break: all light would cease abruptly. another thought I had: if you
don't want to lose things, like, say, a bicycle, or a friend, chain it
or him to your bed when you go to work. make certain that it is tied
snuggly and securely. make certain, also, that you pack a good,
nutritious lunch and eat slowly. when you have done all of this, write
in your notebook:
THINGS THAT I HAVE to do TODAY:
1) read john donne
2) remove headphones from shakespeare
3) learn to be more tolerant of others
4) unchain bicycle from bed
5) unchain friend from bed
and lastly:
6) don't laugh when people say:
"I want to visit Iceland."
because they are probably sincere, and they probably just don't know.
Bio
Ricky Garni is a wine merchant, teacher, and bicycle collector
living with his sons Linus and Dashiell in Carrboro, North Carolina. His work has
been published in PIF, THE QUARTERLY, NO EXIT, THE POETRY PROJECT, BIG BRIDGE, and other
venues including SALVO. His latest work, WARDROBE, is available through the mail if you
want to write him and ask him for it. He will pay the postage if he as he feeling a little
ritzy at the moment.
For more information contact: Ricky Garni