How to Play on Deck

In retrospect it all makes sense. Of course. It is almost always a surprise how these MSS come together and this one is too.

I assembled all new work and all un[self]published poems, going back a couple years or more. Waiting for the right time I put together a 70-odd page MS. It will be titled "How to Play." My 23rd MS.

But really this is a weird one. It has loose range and/ or focus. There is some ironing out to do with some lines but the arrangement is very close. It allows me to burn the stuff that was in abeyance knowing it will not go anywhere, so, my desk will be clean. Surprisingly clean.

So odd. I was lost and now I am clear. I do not have theories. Except that it's interesting in that my focus is writing in a particular form, publishing what I write...and that is all. I mean, the process seems to revolve on  those twin axes with only whispering interference from other considerations. If two axes, really. Poetic form is a kind of form or procedure as is publishing, self or otherwise - as I suppose are the other considerations of which I am mainly exempt.

But like I said, there is ironing out to do, and the cover art, which should be a snap as usual. After that, who knows. I certainly do not. I am older than I was. I should know more, and maybe I do. Not that I am eager to remember myself as I am now or will be. So, the MSS surprise me. This is not a complaint. It is a shoulder shrug and an open question.