Steve Halle (Illinois, USA): "yao"

dear Jackson Pollock's memory,

oh well i tend to agree with the crying/passion/exhaustion argument but
you've put me in a tough spot yet again. living with the enemy of our
undefined yet common belief sys. don't worry abt being defensive and btw
it's molehills but n e ways. what r u signing my year book or something?
and this faculty meeting day makes me want to quit my job idealistically like
student in Updike short story "A&P" and are we going to just become
vagrants? & is that all of "what's left" to do? and and and listen to Brahms
4th like I kno what tha fuck he means? and listen to jazz like I kno wtf? and
read like I no wtf? and write things so obscure even me the transparent
eyeballed creator doesn't know wtf it all means? I guess the point was
I'm tired right now tired like not go to sleep tired but tired in other ways
and ways I can't defend or argue abt but it might just be time to lay low &
there are no readily avail. times on any foreseen horizons for such lazy
nonsensical endeavors. On the floor I am more at ease, I feel nearer. I'm
better at buying books than reading them but they don't and I don't
understand why not they don't pay you for that more likely the opp. and i
know what's-his-name sd steal this book and all that but i don't feel like
being cooped up ether. I mn either. an epic struggle between man and
material might unfold. lots of luck, honey.

love, not chaos,
s

This poem originally appeared in issue 11 of the print journal Ocho, guest edited by Adam Fieled, in 2007.