Monday, May 28, 2018

Open Letter to Brandon Graham


Time slips by or maybe
I’m slipping as time goes by me?
Not every day is a drag
But it seems the ones
That involve passing by the TV
When the news is on
Can really bring me down
I’d much rather walk outside
Stroll down the path with my friends of the woods
Like a raccoon named Sugar
She’s so large
So big
I believe from
Eating out of the ice cream store’s dumpster
Down the street from my home
She waddles from the weeds and peers at me with
Dark curious eyes
Then slowly makes her way back into the brush
There’s also a deer I’ve named Brownie
Her husband Buck Owens and their child Jane Fawn-Da
Also come to say hello
A turkey named Loner
For
He is always alone
And a rabbit named Tag
For
It runs to me then back away
Then back to me then away it runs
They all seem to be so much more entertaining
Than anything on the tube…
And Brandon
I still wonder how your writing is going from time to time?
I wonder about all of my friends
Who practice the craft of words
Along with my own thoughts of what next to write?
Lizzy Worth is still doing her thing above us
In that far away land called Canada
I’m sure she still scribbles words
Her cat Plumb
Most likely meowing in circles around her
As she pulls words from the air like magic
And arranges them on paper
Illian Rain is up there too
Her cat’s named Leroy
I’m sure he meows
I’m just not sure how much it affects her writing
Whatever the case
Illian and Lizzy are such strong voices
From the land of Canada
And Brandon
I still talk to Lizzie Woodham from across the sea
Emailing words through wires way over there
She’s patient with me and my questions
About her writing
About the places and things that make up Europe
From Scottish Snow Flakes
To
The Irish Sea
To
The smells and sounds of the streets of Soho
But most of all she listens to me and my wandering mind
What a friend I have in her!!!
And Brandon
Mallory Smart is still out there somewhere
The windy city I believe
Or maybe the city of wind?
She loves coffee, you know?
She writes and publishes
Publishes and writes
Words swirl around her mind
Like a cyclone
At least that’s what I believe they do!
When I met Mallory
Another person that loves “The Beats”
It gave me hope for the future
And Brandon
I still think of your encounter with Burroughs
It still makes me smile
And Brandon
I still wonder if we, us, and our friends in writing
Will ever have a name associated with our work?
With our lives?
Like “The Beats” or “The Lost Generation”
I’ve pondered this question for years?
So, I will now take it upon myself to name us
“The Holding Generation”
There! I’ve coined it!!!
For
I feel we are holding onto hope
Holding onto anything
That tomorrow will be better than today
That moms and dads will be able to hold
Their children after a day at school
That the kids will carry books
Instead of bulletproof jackets
Holding onto the thought
That maybe just maybe
People will stop killing each other
Holding onto the idea that society
Will somehow someway get their act together…
But most of all
Holding on
While we continue to write and create art
That’s all I can do anymore

1 comment:

  1. Jason- Did you know I used to be a potter. Sometimes I’d strive for elaborate and artistically powerful scultuaral pieces that addressed social issues. But some days, I’d lose faith in the gallery system, in critics and professors and other artists and people in general. Depression over the fraught relationship between the arts and commerce in a free-market would undo me. On those days it was reasssuring to sit at a wheel and throw a mug, pull a handle, and know that at least I’d created something of practical use A thing to hold warm between two hands on a cold morning.

    Still, making a mug or a social manefesto both require a creative act. ultimately that’s all I know: That to make is better than to tear down, to build is better than to surrender.

    Thanks for the poem. I love it. It moves me. I’m honored.

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