Sparks and Flares

Not to get all Stevie Nicks on you, but a NYT review of the new Robert Hass selected poems throws in the "Randall Jarrell[’s] definition of a poet as someone 'who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.'"

Despite predictions, no lightning struck this weekend; no poetry struck me either, not even a filthy limerick. But I might have opened up a whole new level of reality, which is nothing to sneeze at, especially when your nose is poised over the corner of a credit card on a breezy summer's day. Not that I'd know anything about that.

ATTENTION X-MEN and comics in general fans, a special announcement of a new publication: I once wrote a comic with this guy, about a pharmaceutical factory/prison colony on Mars. Good times. This is what he's up to now--creating a new series of The Futurians.

So, to give thanks this weekend on what appeared to me to be not only the best but the biggest PDF ever, in so many ways, not in any order: the giant popping and unfolding wavy fan thing by Quentin; Sparkle Pony memento mori; Idea Dome for letting us worship the mind and use the LED hoops; Ludo O'Dillo's Pub and Celtic Cinema for providing a bench out front for me to lie down on in an "anemic" crise (some young women passing by asked my friends watching over me: "Is she real?" and crept forward to investigate; I mumbled something about a performance art piece evoking my Irish heritage, but no one ever hears me); the woman in the white bikini under the black light; Dan Van for the birthday cake; the black snake I almost stepped on while out running Saturday morning; the DC Burner Choir for giving me a chance to play; Elvis for the water; and all the people who grow things and understand the ley of the land.

Photo: Luna moth, pre-flame, University of Maryland.