Diary scraps

5 February 2000

I'm at my own desk for once and the light is good--sun, although weak, through the

geraniums.  I'm wearing two sweaters because it's February and mildly cold in

here.  I realize I don't give a damn about much but writing and I want to

inform myself of all else through this act.  Trying to "put together" my poem

about Louise Bourgeois, I have a line-up of dashing exercises to write all

over her sculpture.  Hands, scraps, Memory.  In my conversation

with Dave Griffith @ Beehive I said that we all have a preoccupation with

Memory and it is hard to assert our experience without self-trivializing.

That contradiction is always with me, the fever burning through me.  I

cannot "pin down" the poem because I haven't written it yet.  Perhaps I just

want to write only essays and diaries.  The word "diary" makes me want to

write.  I love the thought of my diaries all lined up, frayed and damaging,

telling my truth in the midst of great self-deception.