watchtower drive

I haven't been sleeping well. Even with my sleeping pills, I just can't sleep. I guess because my schedule is so tight this summer, I don't want to sleep because I have things to do. My classes at the community college are all early, starting at 7am, so I have to start getting ready at 5 to get there on time. After classes are over, three days a week I have to run into the city for my writing workshops. Then it's either off to one of the evening lectures then out or Lotus. Either way, I'm pulling into my driveway at 3-4am, only to wake up an hour or so later to start the madness all over again. When I'm home, I'm either cleaning (is it bad that vacumning is now relaxing for me?), doing school stuff or writing. Not that I mind it, but not having my "me" time is starting to bother me. I think that's where the not sleeping thing comes back in. I really just need not even an hour to do some yoga, do my nails and play with Zen.

It's actually kind of crazy how little sleep I need. I mean, I'm no more scattered and neurotic with no sleep than I am after a full 8 hours. But I'm not going to complain, if it works for me then I'm just going to roll with it.

I'm so excited right now...my writing program brings in established authors to workshop and lecture and so James Tate is with us next Monday. And he's running the poetry workshop I'm in during the day...there's only seven of us in the workshop so **maybe** I might actually get one of my pieces read by him. Sigh. One can only hope.

Of Tate's work, The Lost Pilot is one of my favorite:

Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him

yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare

as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot

like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their

distinction. If I could cajole
you to come back for an evening,
down from your compulsive

orbiting, I would touch you,
read your face as Dallas,
your hoodlum gunner, now,

with the blistered eyes, reads
his braille editions. I would
touch your face as a disinterested

scholar touches an original page.
However frightening, I would
discover you, and I would not

turn you in; I would not make
you face your wife, or Dallas,
or the co-pilot, Jim. You

could return to your crazy
orbiting, and I would not try
to fully understand what

it means to you. All I know
is this: when I see you,
as I have seen you at least

once every year of my life,
spin across the wilds of the sky
like a tiny, African god,

I feel dead. I feel as if I were
the residue of a stranger's life,
that I should pursue you.

My head cocked toward the sky,
I cannot get off the ground,
and, you, passing over again,

fast, perfect, and unwilling
to tell me that you are doing
well, or that it was mistake

that placed you in that world,
and me in this; or that misfortune
placed these worlds in us.

He is brilliant. I'm so happy to have the opportunity to hear him. Maybe...maybe some of his talent will rub off on me. Because seriously, I'm not that good. My writing is just that, a scattered reflection of my psyche. Nothing special. It is what it is. And I know it's not about it being good, it's about being real. But my real is much more fluid and not always apparant at first glance. Which I think makes it harder for me to appreciate what I've written. I don't know. Whatever.