Harm and Boon in the Meetings

by Jack Gilbert

Morning Song

Gilbert trumps Garren and I am thinking about the rain and wondering if it’s really about the water. Maybe it’s about the window. Maybe it’s about the soul.

Biopersistent Vocabulary

(Concordance 1)

Accident
Accumulation
Acute
Alkylate
Animal
Appleton
Aroclor
Atmospheric
Aware
Basin
Benzene
Biodegradable
Biopersistent
Biphenyl
Bird
Birth
Blood
Business
Capacity
Capsule
Capture
Carbonless
Cheaper
Chemicals
Chlorinated
Circumstances
Clay
Cleanup
Coacervation
Coated
Collecting
Commercialize
Compatible
Compound
Concern
Confidential
Consequences
Constituents
Consumption
Contamination
Controversy
Coreactant
Danger
Data
Deaths
Degeneration
Degradable
Deposited
Detected
Detergent
Diligence
Discharge
Disintegrate
Dissolve
Disturbances
Dyes
Eagle
Ecological
Eggs
Employment
Emulsified
Environment
Experimental
Exposure
Expires
Fish
Flowing
Food
Formaldehyde
Fox River
Garden
Gelatin
Government
Grams
Gravity
Health
Human
Hydrogenated
Industry
Institute
Isopropyl
Jobs
Life
Limbo
Liver
Magnaflux
Mammal
Manufacture
Mead
Methanol
Miami River
MIPB
Molecule
Monsanto
Nature
NCR
Non-biodegradable
Odor
Oxygen
Paper
PCBs
Peregrine falcon
Permeability
Phenolic
Pigmentation
Plant
Pollutants
Polychlorinated
Pulp
Resin
Rhesus monkey
Rupture
Scientist
Sediments
Self-contained
Sickening
Skin
Solvent
Spilling
Spring
Survive
Tanks
Terphenyl
Toxic
Trenches
Vapors
Water

Biokinematics

I don’t want to misspeak.

The humanoid starts out in a normal driving position.

The occupant wants to continue going along at the speed and the trajectory that he was going until he gets redirected somehow by the structures of the vehicle.

The ejection is certainly a process. It's not an instantaneous, you're all the way in and then you're all the way out.

Okay. There's no teleporation that we know of, right?

Right. Moving in this up and out kind of scenario.

Once he separates from the vehicle, he's going to travel in a trajectory that's well defined.

The launch angle that he gets and the initial velocity and then the force – the acceleration due to gravity.

He's going to follow an arc?

He will follow a parabolic trajectory and it will be tangent to the path of travel of the vehicle.

The fact that he was able to observe the ejection certainly suggests that there was a launching going on.

Somewhere between two‑and‑one‑quarter and a two‑and‑a‑half there's a separation between the passenger and the vehicle and he goes on this trajectory.

The door was still there during that time of the roll sequence.

Did you see dicing injuries, injuries consistent with glass, consistent with him leaving through the window portal?

Evidence of a likely partial ejection kind of phenomenon, injuries sort of immediately prior to the complete ejection.

There were some attempts at respiration going on. It doesn't appear that he actually expired inside the vehicle.

His heart was still pumping?

I do not know.

You would expect to see blood somewhere.

There's nothing that I would point to in a photograph and say, look, right there, that's his ribs or something like that.

A body can certainly leave a deformation.

The place where I would expect to see the marks is going to be at the belt line.

His body has an inertia that wants to resist the rolling of this vehicle, and the thing that's going to make him roll with the vehicle and ultimately launch him out is that he's hung up on that belt line area.

He's not restrained, correct?

That's correct.

Okay. So he's up against the door in your opinion, correct?

Code Blue

Dang it, it's probably too late, but maybe not. Tonight you can experience a blue moon! Read all about it at Space Weather. Jupiter, too! It's warm, it's gorgeous. Get out there!!!! Yes, the moon is passe in poetry. I don't care. If the clouds part it will be cool.

Birds

Okay. She's a robin. I'm easily amused. David has kinda, sorta started a bird watching thing, which unfortunately excludes my robin friend, but I'm starting with her anyway. I figure if she was nice enough to nest above my nose, she deserves some notice. I looked up incubation times, two weeks. I'm not sure who LL is either, but it doesn't matter. This bird I know, in a birdy sorta way.

June Writers' Picnic

Is that title right? I'm not sure. Does the picnic belong to the writers? Maybe. Would the picnic exist if the writers did not will it into existence? Who knows? I never know where things come from. They just show up and I smile and say, Good morning. Would you like a cup of coffee? Maybe you prefer tea. Regardless, the winds of creation have blown over the waters and a light has shown, and it was good, and the June Writers' Picnic is now set for: Friday, June 22nd, at 11:30 a.m., at the Nature Center picnic area at Potato Creek. More details will be forthcoming, but the gist of the story is: I'll bring paper products and charcoal and some food to share. You bring some stuff to share, too. Food is good, but writers do not live on bread alone, but words... Definitely bring words, even if you don't bring food. The words do not have to be captured on pieces of paper. You can just carry them around in your mouth and spit them out when the time comes, as you see fit. You may, however, bring captured words if you wish. What else may you bring? Other writers, loved ones, small living things. Also, it would probably be a good idea to wear comfortable hiking/walking shoes. So, to sum up: food, friends, words, comfortable shoes. That pretty much does it, but if it doesn't, I know you will tell me... I have a feeling Talia is going to say something about sunblock.

Slowly

Life is starting to move. Gene has an interview in Texas next week for a job in his company which won’t require any move. He is doing massive prep reading and has trimmed his beard, although before he leaves I might help him fine-tune. He’s heading down to Texas early Saturday to spend a few days with his good, hard-drinking buddy in Austin, so he can look and feel his very best (in the words of Arlo Guthrie) for the interview. I’m sending vitamins.

The Garren books came. Among the Monarchs was devoured last night. So good. So close, or at least a way of expression that I can understand. The Piercing is for tonight. I can't wait.

I’m trying to order stuff every week from Amazon to keep the wheels turning. I’m with Talia, writing is hard right now. But the reason is not a mystery to me. Swarms of people keep pulling me to the surface with questions like “Do we have buttermilk?” “May I borrow your car?” “Have you seen my shoes?” and statements like “My girlfriend is spending the night.” “Mine, too.” There is a double bass in my spare bathroom named Lauren, that I have to step over if I want to pee, which I do. I can’t use the main bathroom because of a line of girls standing at the mirror straightening their hair. Lauren’s neck makes it impossible to shut the spare bathroom door. But finally, this morning, they have all gone away. Lauren is back sleeping on Tom’s bed, I can pee anywhere I like. I have two days before they swarm back. I’m dreaming of a trip to Isle Royale…

Tagged Again

Attorneys always begin the questioning with certain admonishments, like, if you don’t know the answer to a question, the appropriate response is “I don’t know.” Then they’ll say something like, “Please don’t guess, but you may estimate. That is fine.” English majors, who sometimes go on to become lawyers, are never admonished in this way. I’ve even been told, by one professor, you’re an English major, you should always have something to say. Thank God he is retiring soon. Perhaps if he would stop saying things – but that is another story, another day. All this is a long way of saying I’ve been tagged by Talia to hold forth on the subject of quotes about poetry. The appropriate response is “I don’t know.” I’m still sifting it out, trying to come to terms with what I believe. But since I’m trying, so hard, to lean into poetry, I will tell you what I’m reading, I'll estimate and try to get close to the subject, I'll tell you what struck a chord with me recently, as I’m waiting for works by Christine Garren and Jack Gilbert to arrive.

The Wound - by Franz Wright
for Denis Johnson

Memorial Day 2007

Four young deer walking through the dawn
across my road. One garter snake
in the strawberries, thankfully not close
to one fat toad underneath the bed
of purple sage tended by a bumble bee
complacent enough to let the musician
stroke his back. Various rabbits,
Numerous birds. One dead mole.

And you?