Today’s Feelings

39. Fermenting my fears/
In the twisted still of doubt/
Creates a poison/
#haiku

40. We like to relax/
But respite causes us guilt/
So we criticize/
#haiku

41. I wrote a reply/
To postal correspondence/
Slower than email/
#haiku

42. My fears keep rising/
Inadequacy looms large/
(At least in my head!)/
#haiku

43. She apologized:/
A problematic pattern/
(I never minded)/
#haiku

Be the change you want

World begins anew/
Every time you want it/
Be the change you want/
#haiku

Ending at the Start

I want to take a break from FB & Instagram (& Twitter?). Starting next year, tomorrow, I will not be a FaceBook presence. I want to be less present in all my digital social media. I really want to be looking at my iPhone less. However, I like to hear what others are thinking, saying, seeing, and doing. Strangely, I do consider my FB friends, “friends.” So what I hear of you, whether the LaGuardia student from years ago, friends from Copley Square HS, the decade I spent at Hunter College and my California Graduate School sojourn, I really do want to hear what you’re up to. But I can’t seem to keep this “right sized:” I look too often, and I don’t think I can rein it in any other way than taking a hiatus from Facebook.
I find the process of being a Facebook Citizen (which is to say digital citizen: Twitter, Instagram and Twitpics all belong here) fragmenting. I think my mania with haiku is a perfect sign of it.

Haiku are poems/
In A.D.H.D. Format:/
Quickly completed/
#haiku

In this digital format I get the germ of the poems and ideas down but I never return to savor the thoughts as long as the desire to check and publish so instantly. (HMMMM, I think I just talked myself out of keeping twitter, which I was hoping to just post with, along with my blogs todayeye and wqueens7 [which publish on FB].)

   Instead of immediately posting everything I think I would like to write on paper and think about what I’ve written a bit longer before I share them with the world.
The other thing is that I want to spend more time looking at books and the world. I realize that I have probably spent an entire day or more waiting for things to load while I was trying to see how you were doing, where you were, or what you saw (your pictures, poems and check-ins [Foursquare is another one to drop!]). I walked into a room over the holidays and I was confronted with a number of people looking down at their phones, some were still talking to the people closest to them, but I was struck by the oracular nature of the smartphones. People were looking into them like Narcissus into the pond.
So I think I will try to spend the first weeks of the year off of Facebook and Instigram and Twitter and post on my blog when I really need to say something. This is just my first cry for help, let’s see how it works.

-Finally, I want to spend less time looking at my phone, even though you are hidden in the digital folds and I AM INTERESTED in you.
-I want to spend less time trying to capture my moments in haiku to share with you instantly, you’ll do fine without my constant barrage of “poems.”^[1]
-I want to hear from people in a more personal form. So I will be trying to write more letters and postcards to those of you whom I do contact. The act of sitting down with paper and pen pleases me to no end. You are worth it. I would love to get a letter from you. You can write me at work if you don’t know my postal address:
Stafford Gregoire
LaGuardia Community College
31-10 Thomson Ave., E103
Long Island City, N.Y.
11101

 

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^[1] I still don’t consider haiku “real” poems. I like their efficiency, but they don’t rise to the level of Emily Dickinson and Theodore Geisel.

Election Morning Haikus

What a nice surprise/
Awake to re-election/
And Obama’s HOPE/
#haiku

America wins/
Digging itself out from cash/
Of election fight/
#haiku

He* tolerated/
Sins and Bigots for a win/
God will remember/
#haiku *Romney

We are one country/
We Hope for better future/
Will we work for peace?/
#haiku

Celebrations start/
Super-pac Money #wasted/
Democracy wins/
#haiku

Equality &/
Freedom seem victorious/
To this liberal/
#haiku

Mega-business holds/
On capitalist system/
Will begin to end/
#haiku

Obstructionist pols/
Will admit the strategy/
Hurt #America/
#haiku

#GOP #nonsense/
Soundly #Repudiated:/
#America #hopes/
#haiku

Time for soul searching/
America asks itself/
Why do I fear Blacks?/
#haiku

We can’t celebrate/
When lies define policy/
As socialism/
#haiku

Hope springs eternal/
Austerity’s avarice/
Motivates some men/
#haiku

Greed’s austerity/
Financed by the billionaires:/
Repudiated/
#haiku

Unity triumphs/
Behind both healthcare & peace/
Keeping life sacred/
#haiku

Today’s (Not-So) Ruthless Evaluation

1. Contemplating life/
Easy when comfortable/
Still needs to be done/
#haiku

2. I’m taking account/
Of the person that I am/
Fairly ruthlessly/
#haiku

3. Generosity/
With money just a “low B”/
Of the spirit “A”/
#haiku

4. Alas, “high C” for/
Self-improvement Diligence/
I only start strong/
#haiku

5. Socially I get/
High marks because I’m friendly/
“Works well with others”/
#haiku

6. Improving my marks/
In “tolerance:” difficult/
I’m too judgemental/
#haiku

7. I failed “Religion”/
I don’t believe “Man*” knows G_d/
Through ANY set text/
#haiku *huMAN, woMAN: language, like society, is sexist

8. I’m a good teacher/
“Organization” is where/
I could best improve/
#haiku

9. Accepting students/
Is how I’d like to improve/
Those afraid to work/
#haiku

10. Like most people, I’m/
Cursed with Ego and false Pride/
Thinking of myself/
#haiku

11. Other people’s acts/
Don’t reflect on Stafford, though/
Ego says: “they do!”/
#haiku

12. Students fail sometimes/
No matter how hard you try/
Acceptance is key/
#haiku

13. I am powerless/
Over students’ “best” efforts/
Some do fear “trying”/
#haiku

14. I’ll work to finish/
More of my projects today/
Then I will improve/
#haiku

15. I will listen more/
Trying to understand more/
Not “be understood”/
#haiku

16. I’ll accept people/
Who disagree with my thoughts/
& understand why/
#haiku

17. Thank you for thinking/
About who you are today:/
Contemplating life/
#haiku

Spring Growth

May Day
Today I will notice people working/
And ignore advertising/

I will celebrate students learning/
& smile at loud cries for attention/

I will do my very best to help/
& not judge those who don’t/

I will satisfy only my needs/
& observe the “wants” needy cries/

I will do my job diligently/
So I can help the world improve/

I will not notice when I find others’ faults/
& try to see assets & motives/

If my outlook changes anything/
It is the entire world that will improve/

You may not notice it out-there in the world/
But you can transform the world in your HEART/

~Stafford

Happy New Year

12-31-11 8:04PM

Every year is made up
Of those seemingly endless
Trivial little minutes.
Each and every second
And thought that visit us are
Uncontrolled, wild and feral.
They come like last winter’s snows,
The stars of the summer sky:
Leaves from Autumn’s evictions.

If I was lucky enough
To sit with you and talk some
I’m eternally grateful
For those brief precious moments,
Those fleeting meaningful words,
Those thoughts that we thought we shared
And problems we thought we solved
Became golden memories
That eternalize this year

The brief moments of a year
Are all that remain to us
The narrative arc is lost:
Each moment a bright tile
In the mosaic portrait
That the wider world observes.

Each of these random moments
Bright and unique together
Created this special year
That we were able to share.
I wish I could collect them
In a mix-tape of our year
To remember you by.

 

Journaling Myself Forward

4-8-11 11:47am

I dropped Lennox off and there was way less drama this morning.  She got herself ready and all I did was prepare breakfast.  I went straight to the Y afterwards and did my “regular” workout (3rd time this week) 10 minutes rowing, 20 minutes precor and 20 minutes on the spinning bike.  I’ve tweeted my numbers and at some point I hope I’ll digest them and collect them.  Linda’s been gone since Tuesday and everyone is still alive and hasn’t eaten out every meal.  Today will be different because I have to get Lennox early and Take mason to Williamsburg for soccer this evening.  Chandler will babysit Lennox for some crepes, so tonight should be alright.

Wednesday was the read-a-thon and that was lots of fun.  Some good, some bad and some weird.  I was really disappointed that literary LaGuardia didn’t read at all.  SMH.  The reason I mention this is that it reminds me that I actually want to write more.  I think part of the desire to lose the crackberry is to get back in touch with my writerly-self.  I read Kiko’s story and I do like it, but reading it aloud made me think about it in a different way: it is worthy, but not yet good.

segue

I think this is why I want to get rid of the phone is because it inhibits contemplation.  Having a publishing platform in my pocket at all times rushes me to drop incomplete thoughts and writing.  I actually like my haikus and a lot of them have merit in both the instant sense (that was a perfectly described moment) and in the more philosophical sense (that is a good truth well told).

I am suddenly so tired that I want to go put laundry in the wash and clean the house rather than sit here for the 45 minutes I told myself I would.  I am so tired from the gym yesterday, the lack of sleep of the week and the gym this morning.  I could definitely take a nap, but I think what I really want to do is avoid writing.

Here’s what I SHOULD be writing:

1. Jacobs chapter to send to NCTE (?)
2. the Twitter paper (there is a big problem to solve, how did tweeting haikus actually help them to write better papers at the argument, sentence and organizational levels?
3. Kiko’s story or something creative.
IV. I should also re-read all of my volumes of Haikus and tweets.  I think that there is much gold there and if I don’t pan for it it will not be discovered until the next ice age (to torture a metaphor).
E.  I want to work on longer poetic writing. I think of my haikus in 4. as place-holders for longer poems, but I never get back to them and expand them, they’re just an archive of my pointless thoughts.  I have to believe that there is something to them, not just a waste of three years of free time.
6. I want to start painting or drawing more.

TO accomplish these goals I should:

i.  Print out and read the Jacobs Chapter
ii. Print out and read the Twitter piece
iii. Start writing for a fixed amount of time on Kiko
iv. Print out the first volume of tweets at work and start reading it for a fixed amount of time each day and enter the changes at night.
v. Revise and-or write one poem a day, [preferably long-hand in my graph paper book.
vi. Find my illuminated journal from ‘87 and re-read and scan it.
vii. Start posting on wQueens7 more regularly. I think I’ll put this there as a way to publicly nudge myself forward.

Wow, that is only 30 minutes of writing.  I got a lot done.  I also have to say that thinking is also kind of refreshing.  My problems seem less un-doable when I just write out the steps I need to take.  I have to say that I think going to the gym has helped me a lot.  It seems to focus me.  (I should also work on my spiritual health.)

Class, yesterday, became fairly religious.  It is interesting that my confession that I had outgrown my “anti-church”  reading of “Soaphead Church” in The Bluest Eye brought on such an interest in religion on the classes’ part (and on mine). I was working on teaching them how there could be competing readings of of a book, passage, character or  detail that revolved around the particular mood or experience of a reader on a particular day. I was using my experience to detail how each of their readings actually enriched and enlivened the text.  Interestingly the church-goers (observant religious students) seemed to better understand the fluidity of text.  We think that a book is a done deal, forgetting that the meaning is always refracted through an evolving series of minds.

Thoughts On Doepfiends 1

Union Square park still has tons of junkies.  It always shocks me when I see them because in Woodside, Sunnyside and L.I.C. I rarely see them.  It brings back memories from when I lived in Manhattan in the 80s and when I lived more on the edge.  They, dopefiends,  were such a big part of my life.  It is funny because even as a baby, before we moved into the projects on Avenue D, when we lived on 18th street between Broadway and 5th, the Junkies in Union Sq. Park were a part of my “general memory.”  They used to buy my brother and I candy as a way of sucking up to my mom who’d watch us in the playground at the north end of the park.

Union Square Park is different than, say 108th and Lex, because there are lots of new junkies trying out the dopefiend lifestyle.  College kids who have yet to be seasoned in rehab or detox.  “Kids” for whom the game is still an adventure.  They go through it with the grizzled determination of someone who wants to learn to like the taste of bourbon, or wheatgrass-juice or tofu.  In the young junkie you can still see the remnants of who they wanted to be before they just wanted to stay high (or avoid withdrawal).  Tattoos,  Zen philosophy, Punk Rebellion, Be-Bop Jazz all register on the surface of their existence, as addiction eats away at the core of their beings.  (again, I wrote some Haikus, we’ll see if I can put them here).

In Union Sq. Park/
Watch addiction’s infancy/
Capture some more souls/
#haiku
http://twitpic.com/3lpuqv

I remember “Harvey the Junkie” who used to hang out at Tom’s loft.  He was really pretty far down the swirl of Dopefiend existence, but he had also been at it for at least a couple of decades when I met him in ’80.  He had philosophies and theories about how to exist as an addict (not his term).  I hope to someday have the focus and  patience to type them into a story or essay.

Harvey was an expert at dereliction.  He always knew how to make himself and his contacts matter to the rookie addict.  If he could cop for you he’d get a taste.  If he could cop for someone who had more money, or a better set of circumstances he’s be off doing their bidding.  There was always a “dopefiend-cost-benefit-analysis” that he could do instantaneously.  Harvey always knew which side his bread was buttered on and how to monetize the lipid, bread, heat and labor.  There was a poetic beauty to his “groveling self-interest.”  Groveling self-interest isn’t quite right: he had an alien in him that was perfectly adapted to surviving.  His addiction was like the acid spitting monster in Alien: it knew how to make the host do everything that was in his best interest.  So when someone needed, say, methamphetamine he was immediately calculating their desire, need, addiction, level of experience, possible suppliers, amount of time to cop, possible extenders (cuts), and places to cut.

Once I was inside his tent and I watched these operations and calculations deployed on others I was amazed.  It was like watching the cheetah stalk an ibex: there was a chance of escape, but it diminished at each move.  Each request or demand of the money holding prey became a fulcrum for the lever that would move him into position to supply Harvey’s addiction.  The more sensible the demand, the more untenable the purchaser’s position became.  It was so counter-intuitive that looking out for one’s self and one’s interests could become liabilities, but what the rookie dopefiend forgets is that he is leaving the world of rational cause and effect and entering the “Junky-Zone.”

This is a place where the usual rules that we grew up believing (never “knowing”) don’t apply.  Becoming a dopefiend is like traveling through the looking glass where everything is reversed.  Not simply 180˚  like a physical mirror, the angles could change to a fairly predictable 90˚ or any variation of  < 180˚.  I guess there is a calculus of addiction.  There is a  mathematical formula for all of those souls scampering or gyrating around Union Square Park in the snow.
For the most part they feed on each other.  There is no way to cheat someone who doesn’t want anything from the addicts that exist in the agar of the Union Square Petri Dish.  However if the desire for anything illicit intrigues a “taxpayer” down into the agar the chemical looking-glass is activated and all angles change and all desires are bent and there is opportunity for a creative “desire chemist” like Harvey to experiment with incentive, need, desire, opportunity, legitimacy, and lust.

Now Harvey was a past-master of all of these equations, he was a pure genius, a Karl Rove of self-interest and “bending desire.”  More often than not the people with these skills look like what they are, long-term-dope-fiends, whom few of us would deign to speak with.

But they are training the next generation of dopefiends who might just look like a grad-student with a hangover.  Now in a decade “Pierre” will either be clean or look like the geniuses like Harvey on the periphery, but right now he will take you for everything you extend in your desire to secure your illicit wants.  Some pot, Some Porn, A Hipster Tattooed Whore (either gender) might be the rabbit that leads you through the looking glass.  But once you’re there, their rules apply.

It is like looking up through the surface of a calm pool, you can never just reach up and grab the poolside glass because you are in the warped perspective of liquid reality: weightless, but unable to gauge distance, perspective, value, or finally reality.

So if you go to Union Square Park, and you know how to watch, you can see these dramas playing out.  You can watch the strata of addicts and addiction.  You can watch the masters and their pawns.  You can see it all right before your eyes if you know how to look.  But remember you have to choose their reality.  You have to ask for it.

Next time we’ll talk about the “honest” dopefiend, who simply goes and cops and you will never see in “needle park.”

Happy New Year (Rat)