NOT A POEM

1. Today, the first of many without crutches! So: Into the mouth of the wolf...!

2. This afternoon decaf and Kora in Hell.

3. 2666--loving this, but dreaming horribly ever after, so woke up this morning and read a bear. If it isn't clear, I'm reading and reading--writing some too with a windmill to amaze me.

4. Or Buck Owens' guitar... And now I have a blue one of my own, and silver round the sound hole, though more a ukelele than a full-throttle six-string. Played "Enoch Arden's Yard" and "Antisceptic" and the aforementioned "Windmill." And the wind swept in and the wind swept in.

5. In New York last week reading all my new poems felt great, and the people were terrific. Everywhere the snow covered everywhere, and the stillness covered everything, and all the meanness froze a little--that of the hyenas and briefcases and gunners...

6. The only question left (in poetry) (since the question of what a poem is--how we define "poem"--is no longer of interest): And given that X is a poem, why does it matter? One answer: It matters in all the ways it reminds us of not-a-poem and in the wobble between that and its poem-ness (all the ways it reminds of other poems we've read/seen/heard).

7. Have I mentioned Debacle Debacle? I am making drawings, and nobody's singing.

8. Back again to Storm & Stress.

9. The prayerfulness of Donald Revel.

10. I wish everybody everything: may the wolf die.