working (title)

you just sing
or hum
i'll narrate. no, it doesn't matter
what you sing
except it has to be original
and not derivative at all. i will not
tolerate your usual mode of cutting
and pasting mashups
of the famous...
or obscure. okay, that's a start...
good, now me:

it was the worst of times
and it steadily declined
after that. all the mix-tapes
in the world wouldn't change that. there was
absolutely no more dancing
and if there were any movement at all
it was strictly confined to
hand gestures inside the cubicle
we were scared of getting caught

reverie was forbidden
on the job site and i can certainly
understand protocol in a manufacturing
environment. occasionally i would circle
'round the water cooler and fill
a coffee carafe the way mick jagger would
if he were on stage and suddenly was inspired
to 'go interpretive on our asses.'

while moving
this way and that i pictured the flavor bins
as being bill wyman and charlie watts. brian jones
would've been something that fell behind the
'fridge, long forgotten and abandoned like rotting fruit.

good. keep going. you're doing fine. i like what
you've done with that nasally whiny voice of yours
what you're singing finally fits the meaning of
the words. wait, now you're getting a bit cavalier
with the melody. it should dip and swoop that way. you've
already sent the notes soaring and suddenly you want to ground them?
i don't understand. no, it's alright. i'm fine with it. just keep going. i can't
riff over silence. thanks:

continuing, i stepped over the line or pushed the envelope too hard on
that one. these folks should know that genius is among them. that's all.
their pleading looks say i should back off. you bring a weapon to work you'd best use it, yes. anyway, a crowd is gathering with that last shriek. several of my so-called colleagues are on their cells, likely dialing directory assistance for 9-1-1 ha ha. this is not going to end well, i know that now. it looks like it's gone too far and even though i'm mostly kidding i can tell that others don't understand what they're watching. it's only 10 o'clock and already
the hunger is welling up inside them they are eyeing the snack machine for something to take their minds off what is transpiring. janet should NOT be looking for coins in her pleated khakis right now!! "janet, you KNOW the rules!!"

okay, i've got to continue with this. there are security folks at the windows now and the chair under the door will not keep them out for long.


©jim hill - 12-24-2012

untitled (for May)

Do my best to believe

But what can I do

If the space is empty

And the light is out?

I hate ending a line with

Something so dubious

And full of abstract nouns

(I hear that’s a turn-off

For geriatrics).

There should be some

Quantifiable thing to

Which I can attach significance;

Short of that I’ll settle for a

Large salad and carrot juice.

                                 -jim hill (05-09-2013)

untitled (for june)

As the child moves out

And in grooves dug

By the humans and their incessant

Ways of heritage and entitlement

These little ditches get deeper

And deeper

They suffer from collapse during

The torrents coming in the spring

Then summer

Late winter.  Often there is no way out;

Infrequently, self-help motives act

As enablers and there seem to be reasons

For everything: you meet miss perfect

In the bread-line, for example. 

Persistent POWs

Wage war with the elements for years unknown,

Forgotten and abandoned – so much refuse in a

Barrage of cast-off older models – of national service,

Patriotism, and mannish ideals.  Yet no one is saved.

And the soldier drones on.

                                                ©jim hill 06-27-2013

3 fans

he had three fans

basically:

one of his daughter's friends,

a guy he met at a swap-meet,

and a homeless woman who

had one of his postcards in

her shopping cart. if he could

he would gather the three together

and scold them for liking something

of his that some would call a gift

and others would say robbed the creator

of the time it took to produce someone

so lacking in other "talents."

all he knew is that,

when looking at one of his paintings or another,

something was missing -

the something that defined genius

or facility or a deeply perceptive

way of organizing the world. he wanted

what he lacked. he was thinking that,

if he could just focus on - let's say

the foreground of a landscape so that others

could see that he really "got it" that he understood

all the layering and foreshortening and all the other

artistic tools it would take to render space in a coherent

fashion and to fool the eye if you will - he could

die happy and know he wasn't a charlatan

at least for the three that liked what he did.

things became fuzzy for a time and it was probably some

synaptic shorting-out that disabled his reason and his memory

to recall the lessons taught by the masters of his youth -

the guy that ran the scout-house, or the guy that

conducted the baseball team, or how about the one-legged

man who coached ball AND taught school. they didn't really

know that he could do anything but pitch badly and run slowly. they

thought he was just a kid looking like all the others - concerned

with the snow cones at the concession stand or the razzing from opposing

players with whom he attended classes. there were foreign things at work

in this world of suburban experimentation with housing and schooling - there was

the sense that the elders of the previous generation knew that they had

somewhow spoiled a whole generation of misfits who couldn't do

anything and never really wanted for anything. there was a generational

remove from the land and from agrarian reform and a connection with the dust from

which one came and to which one returned.

pictures became important - more so than the printed word. the flickering pictures

holding a whole generation in a spell - hostage with no ransom set nor expected. this artist guy (with the three fans) - he knew how little he really knew. he knew that he lived inside a vast grid and that one move in any direction and he would be hurled from the grid, never to be seen again. he so wanted to leave the grid and live on his own, but connectivity was his craving

and everything he touched he demanded to know intimately - like being close to something would salvage the remainder of his tattered inner-workings (won't stoop to use the word soul).

at the end - after many intervening years, when one-by-one all the he believed, felt, and loved had been snuffed out or exposed as a lie - he was shrunken down into the footprint of his own cadaver - starving for meaning, resolution, and love. he took his only possession at the end and, unfolding it carefully, plunged it deep deep

into his chest.

(c)jim hill (4-12-2012)

defang

i was a worker

of that you could be

proud

and not wonder

like those ladies whose

husbands drive

in different states

sitting all day behind a wheel

with mythologizing songwriters

raising their cache. i was unfortunate

amongst the ethic gatherers who

bled from the fingers and the brow.

i could've befriended someone like whitman

who would love the salty taste of my skin

but would write instead about something

that would take the suspicion away

and raise his own cache amongst those

craving the methodical evocation

of working stiffs and their dirty-skirted

mothers wiping up the filth of the working

class poor.

(c)jim hill (4-6-2012)

complex

i can't like him

anymore

because of his stature. he

is short

and wears a curiously

anachronistic waistcoat

with hand tucked inside. is

he pulling a pistol

perpetually? is

he channeling a great

leader, and at

the proper moment,

offer victory,

surrender?

(c)jim hill 12-09-2011

myth fire

One could say we were
All like that: violating
The sun and its
Perfect light. Dead branches
Indicating defeat at the hands of a merciless
And punishing fire.

I say that, in the face of such
Tragic ends, we seek a different fortune. Become
Glad in the shadows ; delight in the dark of
A dense and muffled beat of a heart
Pouring out its purity in healthy doses
In little acts that all people do:

According to the hint of a plan
An execution of an ideal, not content to scratch and
Forage, but to establish histories so rich
One would have to believe the mythology,
Mistaking it for fact.

(c)Jim hill (11-10-2011)