Once again, I am sitting in O’Hare, waiting for my new flight home.

And once again, it’s already delayed, although this time it’s only behind by 15 minutes. Right now, that is.

At least I finally found a HotSpot to blog from.

Only Two hours to go! I’m going to get food…back later. Keep your fingers crossed for me, k?

drizzle. cigarette.
letters gone dark
on a hotel sign.
sports bar closing
across the street.

i’ve got no wings, i’ve got
no prayer that will give me
flight. i’ve got an untucked shirt
and no socks. too wired
to sleep, too tired
for anything else. all i want
is to go home, get out
of rosemont.

i know this late i look like hell here,
not that i’m any prize
when i’m home, but
when i’m home i’m not
alone

and for me, 2 AM in rosemont,
whatever else it is about,
is all about being
alone.

First, a clarification on the last post.

The first two lines of it were pretty explicit (I thought) in making the point that I was NOT necessarily interested in getting more comments on my poems — that the feelings of fear and concern about getting fewer comments were ego-driven. Comments are welcome, of course, but I’m not going to lose my mind over this.

The overall point of the post is that I’m far more interested these days in writing STRICTLY for me — operative word “strictly” — not thinking of it necessarily as any sort of communication, but more a form of seeing how far I can take what I do. It’s a time for me to write STRICTLY for myself.

For every poem you see here, there are three or four more that I don’t post. I tend to post stuff here because I want to try it out, see what people say, as part of the writing process. I find I need that less right now.

Thanks for your comments, all of you. I feel like I came off as a whiner, and that was not my intent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

now then:

Right now, I’m wired although I’m exhausted. I’ve spent my day in meetings, running a training session, and (most of all) hanging out at O’Hare Airport waiting to get home. Weather around the Midwest has produced a clusterfuck; the end result being that I’m sitting here in a hotel in Rosemont waiting for the next flight home, which will be at 4:20 tomorrow afternoon. (Yes, 4:20. I’ll leave it to all of you to have fun with that.)

My flight was delayed several times before being cancelled at around 7:45. Along with a lot of other people, I found myself sitting at the gate watching other people sitting at their gates.

As I sat, I saw a group of men approaching the gate across from me. All three were dragging rolling suitcases. Two were tall, young black men in fairly conservative sweatsuits.

The third was a short black guy wearing:

— a black tracksuit with gold trim
— a leather NASCAR jacket (Mark Martin, number 6, with the logo of his old sponsor — Viagra — on the back)
— honkin’ big rings on every finger
— one gold chain
— white sunglasses
— a yellow do-rag and a bigass gold crown

And yes, a big white clock around his neck.

My first thought was, “who’s this joker trying to look like Flavor Flav?” And then I heard him talk…

Yup, it was Flav. He was catching a flight to Evansville Indiana to visit a cousin (the two guys with him were also cousins).

His flight was also delayed, so for the next several hours I got to watch the man work the crowd.

He’s obviously in love with his celebrity, but I have to say he seemed genuinely nice and friendly. As people realized who he was and that he was the real thing, kids and adults of all ages — and TONS of women — lined up to have their pictures taken with him. He signed autographs left and right and generally talked willingly and at length to any one who approached him.

I have to say that I was really impressed that he was schlepping his own luggage, and his cousins were also really cool; I ended up talking a bit about the weather and the flight delays with one of them.

At one point, I was hunting for a plug for my laptop and Flav was next to me on the phone talking to someone named “Delicious.” I heard him saying, “…baby, you know I’ll be down for you for the rest of my life, no matter what shit happens, you my girl no matter what.” I think she’s the woman he chose on the show, yes? I’ve only seen it once or twice.

I have a rule about not bugging celebrities in airports, so I didn’t speak to him myself, although I did wave hi and smile as I left the place where he was talking on the phone and got a smile and nod in return. In retrospect, I should have said something to him about how much I loved Public Enemy, but I’m not sure how it would have gone over, so it’s probably for the best.

They eventually moved his flight to another gate, and the gate attendant broke the news by saying over the intercom, “All those travelling with Flavor Flav to Evansville, your flight will now be leaving from…”

And off everyone went, with Flav and his cousins in the middle of the throng, yakking it up with everyone.

The one bit I did contribute to the fun: people kept asking him what time it was (of course). One of them said it near me and I couldn’t help it — I said, “He wears the clock so YOU know what time it is…” I don’t think he got it.

Based on what I heard in the crowd, most everyone knew him from the show, and I don’t think many folks knew anything about PE.

Kinda sad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I need to sleep, but i’m still pretty wired, even after a shower. All I want is to get home.

I get upset sometimes when no one comments on a poem I’ve posted. It’s happened with more regularity lately.

I realize that’s my ego talking. Damn ego!

But I also have begun to realize that I’m finally starting not to care if people like a given poem. I’m starting to think that I’m writing these poems strictly for me, and if people don’t want to go along, that’s not the end of things.

I’m not even all that interested anymore if they’re “good” poems or not. After completing “Jim’s Fall” I’ve kind of moved to a point where I’m experimenting for me, looking for the next thing, looking at ways to change what I do.

I’m certainly not giving two shits about whether they “slam well;” I gave that up years ago, although there are times when it still raises its head for me. I do think of the performance aspects, of course; that will not go away ever, I think.

But I’m tired of easy poems. I’m tired of writing for the broadest possible audience. I want those who read and appreciate my work to be intelligent and thoughtful and willing to dig a bit. I’m tired of feeling a need to be populist.

If the work I’m doing now doesn’t work the way it used to, maybe it’s getting to where I need it to be.

I’m hearing from the grapevine that Francis “Woody” Woodbridge has passed.

For those of you from out of town who have been to the Hut, you may recall Woody as the blind man with the voice of God who read so frequently in our open mikes.

Woody was a true survivor of the Sixties and a heck of a character. I know stories about him from his youth that would frighten and amaze you, some of which can’t be told even now.

This hurts.

Heading to Chicago to do some training and make a little money. Back Thursday night. Will update more later…

is currently sleeping here at my apartment.

Which means you should come see her at Gotpoetry tonight, because she’ll be well-rested.

Who’s coming?

In the midst of a period of writing, in the midst of a poem, I find myself completely caught up in the struggle and the detective work needed to do the job.

When I am done with that period of writing, whether or not I have more work to do to the poem at a future time, I find myself blank, erased; I find that memory of the creation is gone in all but the most superficial way (that is, I know it happened and no more), and I’m at rest, almost as if I was exhausted after a physical effort.

It’s as if the poem engenders in me something quite different from the meditative state, and the peace and Zen detachment come after.

What’s it like for you?

because it appears I have nothing valid to say anymore.

nothing valid, or of interest.

that is most definitely all.

are the worst.

I swear I’d rather have almost any other minor illness — headache, flu, etc. A head cold leaves me feeling useless. A head cold makes me feel like I ought to be able to rise above it and do something, but I can’t. It’s doubly frustrating — I’m sick and ticked off at myself for being sick.

Add in the difficulties it causes me with my sleep apnea (makes it difficult to use the CPAP device at night because my nose is stuffed), and the fact that I have to be extremely careful as to what meds I take because of cross interactions with some cold medicines and my psychiatric drugs, and a head cold becomes just a miserable experience with no real choice except to ride it out.

Today I missed Simone Beaubien’s feature at the Zodiac Cafe, an afternoon practice session with myainsel, and an evening practice session with farosfall. Grrrrr…

I’d better be relatively OK tomorrow, is all I have to say. I’m going to take Ambien now and some cold meds and pass out till the AM.

Again…Grr, I say, Grrrr.

Because it delivers unto me a mix such as the one I’ve been listening to:

U2 into Solas into Mike Doughty into Weezer into Don Omar (reggaeton for those unfamiliar) into Pink Floyd into Charlie Parker into Prince into Kris Delmhorst into Ani DiFranco into Ry Cooder/Manuel Galaban (mambo) into the Audio Bully’s remix of Nancy Sinatra doing “Bang Bang I Shot You Down” into the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy.”

Weird and wonderful in so many twisted ways.

is, as always, the thing that sucks.

It would be different if I was ultra productive, going through a manic phase and writing my heart out. Instead, I’m just awake.

I’ve started to think that I’ve got very few poems left in me. Times like this when I’m blank as blank will do that.

Of course, I’ll keep writing anyway. Of course, I’ll keep striving to be better at what I do.

But times like this…they hurt.