Ideas
Poetry by Craig Cotter
'
It's raining out.
It's raining hard.
This is Los Angeles.
It's cold.
It's 52 degrees out.
I just broke page 4000
of Proust's In Search of Lost Time.
I'm sleepy.
Don't want to sleep.
I paid my bills.
If I got liver cancer tomorrow
I gave it to myself.
Lots of abuse.
*
I forgot to shave.
Had my head shaved.
There's not an ounce
of poetry in me tonight.
Probably no prose either.
Art is a lobster shell.
*
At least I'm not an athlete
with my identity over at age 30.
Defining myself by negation
makes the most sense.
My niece Caitlin is in Peru.
There are a lot of hot Peruvian guys in Peru.
*
My mouth tastes like metal
due to vitamin D3 pills.
I'm supposed to have more energy
when I get my vitamin D up.
Like insomnia?
*
When you make the little star
you can move on to the next fascinating subject.
Diane Wakoski said most people
never have an idea.
That "idea" is an over-used word.
She said Thomas Edison had ideas.
Statements such as that
made it very hard to write poetry.
*
"Why is that a play?" someone asked
Frank O'Hara.
I don't remember his quote, but the paraphrase is:
"It’s a play because you call it a play.”
*
Bernie I'm drowning here
what the fuck.
*
On 94.7 FM today at 1:04 p.m.
they played a song by a woman I liked.
Davin is confused about the subject of those last 2 lines.
So to clarify, I did not like
the woman, I liked the song. Maybe
I like her singing.
If she wrote it, I would then like her writing.
If she played any of the musical instruments
in the song, I would appreciate her ability to play an instrument.
So then in these ways I would like her too
although I have never "liked" her.
We've never dated.
*
Because I'd much rather date a twink.
They always work their ways
into my life.
Like just going to the restroom at Sanamluang,
a hot Thai twink kissed me
and gave me some tongue.
It was very sweet, we never spoke,
I never saw him again,
that was about a year ago.
*
The rain has lightened up.
When I first moved to California
I kept thinking, What the fuck's up
with the roofs.
They looked so shittily made.
So flimsy.
Then I realized they don't have to hold snow.
So you hear the rain much more in California
than in Michigan if you're inside a house.
I suppose that means we are "closer to nature"
in California.
And I also wondered
what the fuck was up with all the conservatives in California,
I thought I was moving to a liberal haven.
Many of my dumb-ass neighbors keep voting down gay rights,
and they vote down legalizing pot,
even one of my acquaintances, who's the lead singer in a rock band,
and likes to drink, voted against legalizing pot.
But still I love California, and have now lived here 25 years.
I also love Michigan.
And Little Falls, New York.
I am not a big fan of Rochester, New York.
I don't think you could give me enough money to live in Rochester, New York.
Although every man has his price.
*
The rain is hitting not only my roof
but a skylight carved into my roof.
The lens is not clear it's opaque.
And it's in my hallway with the cathedral ceiling.
Is that for privacy?
I would prefer the lens to be clear.
Sometimes one does want to see what is going on in the sky.
*
After reading 3975 pages of Proust
I wrote a story.
I think it's a fine story.
Davin thinks it should be called, "Brokeback Mountain: The Clover Pool Years."
Davin is quite the kidder.
I'm calling it "Story 1."
He is not amused.
*
I started a novel also.
I figure what did 30 years of poetry get me,
let's try to rake in some bucks with fiction
and movie rights.
Already my first story would make a fabulous movie.
And I'm in Hollywood too.
Well, 10 miles away from it.
*
The older I get—I'm 50 now—
the less I want to be around people.
I see the benefit Proust got locking himself away
the last 15 years of his life.
Partially that was not by choice—it was because of asthma
before there were good drugs for asthma.
But even with the good drugs
people still die of asthma.
*
I forgot to take my mouthful of chemo
yesterday but no problem, I just made up for it.
I have the heat on.
A colleague at "work" told me today
it will snow in Pasadena.
I had 25 years of winter in Rochester, New York
and in Drayton Plains, Michigan.
Really, I do not think it will be snowing in Pasadena any time soon.
It's 50 degrees right now in Pasadena
at 12:39 a.m.
and some of the locals think this might lead to snow.
And we can't really
blame this on the public schools.
I do think they taught repeatedly about the freezing temperature of water.
There are simple parts of life
that leave me confused every day too.
I'm not saying I'm above it.
But—I guess I'm an elitist and a snob—
I would just suspect there would be a little basic knowledge
about states of matter, the First Amendment.
But so many Americans today
don't understand that equality and freedom are for everyone.
*
It has been raining steady for 10 hours.
The snow pack in the Sierras was 195% of normal before this storm.
So we will have no drought this summer.
Well, no drought concerning water.
We do seem to have some drought of common sense,
basic knowledge and equality.
*
This poem
is an example of how to turn
a really shitty idea
into great art.
--for Davin Malasarn
BIO: Craig Cotter was born in 1960 in New York, grew-up in Michigan, and has lived in California since 1986. His poems have appeared in hundreds of journals in the U.S., France, Italy, the Czech Republic, the U.K., Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, India, and Ireland. Books include The Aroma of Toast, Chopstix Numbers, and After Lunch with Frank O’Hara. Mr. Cotter’s manuscripts have been finalists for The National Poetry Series, the Tampa Review Poetry Prize, The Word Works Washington Prize, the Southern Missouri State University Press’s Cowles Prize and several others. www.craigcotter.com