March 7, 2019

Last preparations for the Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I needed another day, so I gave myself a preview of retirement.

What did I want? I wanted to work with Blue Raincoat. I wanted to have a show at Project Arts. So let’s get on to something else.

Excited almost to the point of sickness over my trip. This is a good thing. A sweetly childish thing. Did not leave the country in 2018. My new passport is a virgin.

March 6, 2019

Sang and received the imposition of ashes. Hunkered down against the bright-eyed blade of cold.

March 5, 2019

I believe I sold Whitman to my 8 o'clock.

Read “Ash Wednesday” to my poetry class.

“Se Vuol Cantare” is a view into my past, exorcising Mr Fillmore and all that. Once in that country, I had a look around.

I remembered the first day of first grade when we kids from Goodview walked to school together. Our parents had set it up so we could go in a protective mob. Once we got to Newton Street, the kids ran away from me into the Park. It was not an accident, not an incident. They turned and shouted at me “You can’t run. You can’t keep up.”   They had contrived together to mock me and leave me behind. I said, “Of course I can keep up,” and I ran across the street to them, but my heart burned inside me. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die. I knew I had a “bad heart,” but I’d found ways of avoiding crises until that day. From then on I walked to school alone, or with one or two who had not gone in the group that day.

I remembered being on the great ballfield in Maytree, the first time I ever played baseball. I watched carefully to get the rules. When I got up to bat, there was a cry of “easy out! Easy out!” and all the fielders ran in close. I had never had a bat in my hand in my hand before. How did they know I was an easy out? I was so mortified I set the bat down and walked away. Unless forced or coerced, I never played baseball again.

These things are as clear as if they happened yesterday. That is a gift to a poet, and a curse to the man.

March 4, 2019

Oral reports in class. Finished “Se Vuol Cantare.” Downtown in the evening to hear Bruce and GGD read from their new books at Malaprop’s. In a generation I may not need to say “It takes more than being gay to make a story.” GGD was so used to being a beautiful young man adored by the whole Los Angeles scene that it never wore off. That’s what his poems are about, whatever the ostensible subject. Stopped a Zambras for a couple of cocktails. Felt very downtown citylife.

March 3, 2019

Phone call as I wrote in the darkening evening. The voice asked for me and then said, “I’m from the National Republican Committee. Do you think President Trump is doing a better job than President Obama?”

“Oh dear God no. Somebody gave you the wrong number.”

Pause. . . “OK, we’ll update our records. . . .”

Todd preaches against the “blood sacrifice” theme of Christianity, which have always hated with sanctified hatred.

March 2, 2019

Excellent dawn at High 5 followed by an excellent morning at the studio. Lots of people were on the street, but no one came upstairs. It was OK. I was happy. Cocktails later to see if we could get DJ situated. I saw where I had gone wrong with Sam-Sam. It is two books rather than one.

March 1, 2019

Saint David’s Day

Recent days have been turbulent–muddied waters– so who knows what will end up being remembered? The significant thing is that my statement on Facebook about the Trans community elicited a huge, unexpected, humbling response, overwhelmingly, astonishingly positive. My presence in the Asheville community is more public and far more positive than I anticipated. My anxiety about Miss M and her dirty-minded calumnies has, for the moment, gone. Maybe gone away forever, if I can remember the lessons as they come. Small people make you small to fit into their cages. You must recall your true dimensions.

Taking down Perimeters from the library was far less labor than anticipated. I had in fact anticipated not being able to do it, rather sitting exhausted at the roadside with rain pelting down on a pick-up full of ruined paintings. But everything was accomplished by noon and the rain didn’t start until 1. I’d expected that to be the worst event of the week. Perhaps it was, but it wasn’t so bad. At least this show garnered some comment. 

Finally in good voice for rehearsals.

Checked on my travel plans, and all seems to be in order. Warsaw will be a new addition.

Working on Jason the Ape Man.

A discussion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the myth of the happy slave led my American Lit class far afield, and we ended with footage from A Band of Brothers about the discovery by American soldiers of the Nazi death camps. They were stricken. Looking out upon those faces I thought THIS is education. Tears ran down my face. As time goes by, the number of things I can’t get through without sobbing grows; it’s time to retire.

I’ve never been better as a teacher. It’s time to retire.

Nephew Jonathan has finally a profession, in Memphis.