The Spitting Tree

[rowens]

                                   The Spitting Tree

Some mornings it seemed

I pissed for hours

even after the dream

and the toilet was

surely solid. Once I

sat for an hour

pouring out, stuck

between two pronunciations

of 'interesting' and not

striking on either.

Those spring and fall mornings

I can smell forever.

Can almost see the brown dirt

of every place I've ever been.

It was just the other day

I saw and recognized that

little bus that takes us

to practiced stupidity.

Eating silent lunches

inside ourselves, the painted

windows looking out on

an obsolete green,

the forest depicted

by leaves.

The cafeteria was in the basement

and let us out to the driveway

round back. Right there

at the trees to the south

T. C. and P. T. stood blowing

frothy spit on the foamy

fruit or flowers, really

accomplishing something

to me, and Alton Carter's

mind like a pinata

felt thorns in his

etherized ego,

something insulting so easily

can run down the inside skull

and his suprasensitive brain.

I saw a butterfly once provoke him.

He punched and kicked like a retard

deceived by his imaginary friend.

For all our ignorance, some

had girls easy. She saw ants

in my desk, and for all we joked

W. J. and T. C. had her serious,

while I fought Alton, and R. T.

showed me the adopted godmother

under his bed.

And I remember spitting on the tree,

a living legend we invented ourselves.

Like all the quaintest stories,

it started a gag thought of

to mock impressionable

and slow-minded kids.

For some the trees were faster than the girls,

I could never get the spit to stick.

[billy]

i read this a few times rowens and each time it's poem that gets better. some of the images/revelations are excellent and the last line ties it up just so. how you got from hard to piss to spit not sticking on trees is a feat in and of itself and i will read this one again later.

[rowens]

I've been writing my second real book of poetry called In the Deep Woods since last March. Last year. It took me almost ten years to make my first real one. Now I'm in a hurry. I've been told that In the Deep Woods is a cliche, I've also been told how it seems to be my exodus book: 40 years in the wilderness. And I'm not 40 yet. All I know is that I can't see past writing. So, even though I don't know anyone in real life who likes my writing, me and The Spitting Tree are glad you at least read it, billy. Also I'm, personally, glad, because it's a feat to have someone who I thought disliked me so much at least like my children, which is what my writing is. And it seems to me, a lot of my writing is me as a children. Like Jesus hoped we'd be like.

[billy]

i think sometimes we're not sure how to reply to a good poem, not that all poems are good if they don't get feedback if i think of it, i see this poem as above my capability to write. if that be the case, then how can i critique it; but i think i could. the thing is i'm not sure i could do it fairly or give it the justice it deserves. often we [me] nit-pics in order to find some negative point. my paradox is i see nothing wrong with that, anything negative pointed out can help the writer see their own poem better [i believe] but picky is picky and i'm not too keen on picky. i find that if i genuinely enjoy a poem, i should stay away from picky and just enjoy it. anyway back to your reply
the deep woods.

for me and from what i've seen of your writing; i'd have to say i'd read it as a metaphor.

[rowens]

I have more than ever before been writing nonstop. I never go anywhere with out a notepad of a notebook. And mostly it's novels I'm trying to write. But there is something lacking in my writing. There's something not good enough. I think of art as a religion. My art is my religion. So I find it, and I'm serious, when I fail in something I wrote, it's like if you were to tell a religious person that they were praying wrong, or praying to the wrong god, or that you're loving incorrectly, or you failed to make love to your girlfriend properly. And I know that sounds silly, but that's the way I experience writing.

---

typos typos they get me too, like a lightning bolt to the testicles.

[billy]

i think the newb writer often sees themselves as great writers and the more seasoned ones wish they were better writers. i think it's what drives the second type of writer. that need to be the best they can be. i see art and religion as two distinct entities, though it objective of course. anything can be one's religion and i suppose art is as good as anything. for me there is no failing to make love to my partner properly. partners need to care for each other in all aspects of their lives, sex is no different. i think if deem ourselves to fail we often will. a sort of self fulfilling prophecy.

[rowens]

Partners is something. I want to but. And sometimes a woman wants you to be doing something, but you'd rather be doing something else. Writing for instance. Other times you'd rather just spend the rest of your life feeling the woman grow older in your arms; every little new wrinkle is a new pleasure. And she wants to get away from that. I think partnership is something too gentile for my jewish point of view. Which is excruciated by how I'm not a jew. If you know what I mean.