rushing to the end of the year

There is life after blogging too. Or perhaps, instead of blogging. Instead of capturing every second of one's life on some electronic devise or another. Not standing on every platform available. Not screaming in every direction at once.

I meant to write more about chapbooks this year but was overwhelmed BY the year. Too much happened, and blogging fell off the radar screen. Keep collecting, I did a good amount but writing about the treasures I did not do in the measure I meant to do.

I see them like snowflakes falling on ebay, some big fishnet in Minnesota pulling up entire schools of chapbooks posted there. Then put up individually with some odd priced numbers. I see these illuminated little fish from the deep forgotten unknown flashing across my momentary awareness; names and titles I never heard of. Like old signs along route 66 in the desert night. Surrounded by the hollow darkness of obscurity. Never remembered. Pages never opened. Poems never read.

And unlike the masked poster from Minnesota whose only in it for the quick buck, I try to uncurl the twisted logic of best intentions and the scrubbing away of time. Chapbooks, authors, presses. Swept clean from our morning brains like forgotten dreams.