WALKING ON THIN ICE

I feel I should write more of my own stuff, at least an hour every day. It’s good writing practice–actually, the best–to keep a journal. & I’m craving writing more poems.

But I’m working full time on CRIMINAL. Every time I write something for myself I feel guilty that I’m not more working on *our* project. I figure I can finish editing it in less than a week, and then we can send it out to potential agents. (Anyone know a good agent?)

I’m also a little reluctant to let go of the manuscript and send it out into the world. It is my baby bird. I’ve gotta see if it can fly on its own. I know if I look at it again I can find more to edit; there’s always an infinite amount of work I can do on any piece of writing. (Well, no, is that actually true? Some poems seem to stand on their own in an irreducible way. They take on their own life outside of my authorship. They are my children, but they are willful about their identities.)

I have a full range of projects coming up. I plan to publish a collection of Cleveland poet Wendy Shaffer’s poetry under some kinda thing associated with “The City Poetry.” This won’t be a quick “grab & publish & push.” We’re really gonna work hard on the book…

I might do a collaboration with New York poet George Wallace, illustrating some of his more fairy-tale like poems…

I plan to make all back issues of The City available in print…

I’m going to do a large comic book of Smith conversations…

Want to do some comic books of some fantastic poems by other poets…

I want to finish a project I’d started last year, a book based on my childhood experiences. My target audience is teenage girls.

Non-writing projects too. I might have a photography show here in Oaxaca. Also exploring exporting Oaxacan coffee & jewelry. If it’s possible, I’m gonna make a couple websites to promote these products & sell online. Gotta find out the rules.

Want to take a class at the university here, probably in philosophy or history. I need to keep practicing Spanish now that my language teacher’s going away. I figure a class will maintain & build on the skills I’ve already acquired. Plus a class will give me a chance to connect with young people here. (Most of the gringo community is over 60.)

* * *

Here’s a little taste of CRIMINAL:

The first six months, I was in the tiers. A tier is five two man cells and a shower, all enclosed in bars. Each night, we were locked in our cells, each morning let out to wander the six by fifty foot communal area. Our tier had Ringo. Ringo was big, black, brutal, and did not like me. Not because I was white, but because I wouldn’t get out of his way when he walked. And he walked all day, in a continuous oval, with a short detour each loop around me. He was working towards hurting me, and said so. He scared the shit out of me. But I scared me more because I wouldn’t give in. When I’m that afraid, I seem to go out of my way to piss off what I’m afraid of even more. And what I was afraid of was bigger, stronger, faster, meaner, and an admitted fatal fighter. I felt ill.
       Then the odd backhand of salvation. I smuggled one too many letters out of prison. Unfortunately this letter described a psycho guard. The warden called me down. Showed me the letter. “Smuggling is eighteen months. I wonder if you have anything to say about your charges against the guard?”
       “What I’ve written is not only true,” I said, “but I haven’t even scratched the surface of Sarge’s verbal and physical abuse of visiting wives.” (Like everyone else in jail on both sides of the bars the guard had a cliché name, Sarge.)
       Warden told Sarge to return me to my cell, and for me to think about eighteen months and we’d finish tomorrow. I go to my cage and I worry. I worry about tomorrow. I worry about Sarge’s retaliation. I worry about the eighteen months. I worry about my wife who’s sleeping with an ex-con who’s not me. And I really worry about Ringo.
       Next day, the warden calls me into his office and casually tells me, “You’re moving downstairs to the dorm and I’m making you head cook.” No mention of the letter, Sarge, or eighteen months. The one thing every prisoner wanted was a job that got you to the dorm with its one locked gate, its radio, TV, eating what you wanted when you wanted where you wanted. And of all the jobs, cook was cockerel’s walk. Switching so quickly from such certain sorrow to overwhelming wealth fucks your mind, sending too many simultaneous threads in different directions. Yet I instantly flash: I’m free from Ringo.
       One of the dorm trustees ratted Ringo, who in punishment was in a locked cell in a locked tier three floors up. We’re watching TV, and in he walks, taller, stronger, larger than any of us. Rat was Woody Allen’s size.
       Ringo says, “You ratted me out.”
       Rat says no.
       Ringo repeats, “You ratted me out.”
       Rat really did rat Ringo, and we knew it. He also ratted my letter. Rat starts to explain but Ringo hits him hard, knocking him to the concrete floor, then stomps five times on his head with his work boot. With each stomp, Rat’s head bangs against the concrete and bounces up to meet the down coming boot which smacks his head even harder into the concrete as Ringo says (one word per stomp): “You. . shouldn’t. . have. . done. . that.”
       None of us moved, or spoke, not once. Ringo turned and looked at us to see if he had a problem, decided he didn’t, and left. Rat got up, stemming the blood, his head swelled to thrice its size.
      That’s when I knew I was not the me I thought was me, the me I needed to be. It’s not my only lesson, but it is the one that worked. Had I said or done something, two things could have happened. I’d be dead, or the others would have rallied, and we would have stopped him. But had that second happy Hollywood scene occurred, at some time, at some place, Ringo would have found me, and hurt me. A lot. I know now I did the right thing for me, but it did cost me my mirror mirror on the wall who’s the hero here of all view of myself. Love the can do. Hate the do do.