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and listening for the echo, that's what it's like to publish a book of poetry," said Don Marquis.
of course, i should have listened to him, BUT when my income cut 12% by the forest service, it sparked my gumption and i've published 44 books on Amazon. not all poetry, certainly, the works to fill up the shelves between those slim volumes 21 plays, a couple novels, a book of fire season letters, dance photos, pics taken of antiques. a lot of detritus compared to what i enjoy in the poems!
and people will probably read and like everything but the poems. so be it, i did get up at 5 a.m. for years and stumble to the typewriter. in fact most of it written on a mechanical contraption with no electric chords to it. luckily, with the advent of trigger-fingers and operations on my palms, i am long past those primitive days. i did fill dozens of notebooks. in fact several years ago i tossed 125 diaries, feeling them to be simply boring rambles searching for something to say.
that said, i've still got a dozen boxes of photos, spiral-notebooks, and manuscripts in storage, though mice have been shredding them. i figure i shouldn't burden the future with more than a few fragments. and besides, i am nervous. what will the reception for the published stuff be? the silence of the infinite spaces, as don Marquis surmised? or it could be worse! the fame of a jack kerouac who came off his mountain tower to accolades for On The Road. the attention basically finished him, turned him into a real drunk and a crazed catholic drawing crosses and devils all over the house.
beware of what you ask for. those words have reverberated in my skull for a lifetime. and usually when i've gotten misery i didn't ask for, it all turned out for the best. it's as if i have a mis-apprehension of my fate. if i were dictating it i'd be a rich and famous playwright, going on drunken tv rambles like truman capote. i knew early on i didn't have the strength to resist the blandishments of the world, so i hid myself away. it's only from approaching 80 and the final fall i can give up being so careful. everybody might have thought i was a nice guy, but give me a microphone and i'll blab any kind of nonsense.
no, i was a wise child who knew his overblown ego would say many words it would regret. as others have said, BEWARE OF THE SEND BUTTON. it is bete noir, the dark beast who will devour you. and yet, as oscar wilde said, i can resist everything but temptation. i'm embarrassed by my feeble attempts to impress.
