Burden My Hand
Traveling to Baltimore, Gambling on currents, and the Friday Mixed-Tape
I’m going by bus because that’s my general mode of cross-country transit. That or the train. I’ve got nothing against flying. I like flying, actually, once I’m in the air. But traveling by ground is really the only way to reckon distance, and to get a sense of what that distance means. … And I like being reminded that the country is a beautiful one…
I’m on my second cup of coffee and my first smoke of the day. I just finished my apple. A remastered version of “White Room” (1968) by Cream is the soundtrack of the moment. I’m finishing up a long revision of a new manuscript today and over the weekend. Monday morning, I’m boarding a bus for Baltimore. The song has moved on to The Animals “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” (1965), a digitized but not obviously remastered version. Baltimore, other than being where Edgar Allen Poe is buried and is home territory for John Waters, is where the American’ Writing Programs’ Annual Conference is being held this year. I’m going with more ambition than I have ever mustered about anything in my entire life.
It’s not that I don’t have ambitions; but I’ve never been especially ambitious, in the capitalist sense of the word that most people educated in the United States use to define the term. Money outside what I need to get by and power have never interested me. The music has moved on from Sound Garden’s “Burden In My Hand” to Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way,” both of which carry a certain mythic resonance for me this morning. I’m nervous about going to Baltimore.I will know a few people there, though my tendency to not maintain relationships well in the midst of a deep dive means I will have to spend time catching up and re-establishing contact with people. Relationships and understanding the competitive nature of the machine are key points I’ve been rolling over in my head. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with folks I haven’t seen in a few years. I’m also excited about being able to talk in more detail about the book I’ve been working on in tandem with my new poetry collection, The Call Sign is Jonah. I’ve had nothing but time to write, and I have plenty of notes and substack entries to pull from. The nervousness comes from the fact that it’s a massive gamble. I’m spending money we don’t really have to go and forage for publication in an arena that I haven’t really entered since 2019.
“Mr Blue Sky” by ELO is playing now. “Mister blue sky please tell us why / You had to hide away for so long (so long)\ Where did we go wrong?” Before that, it was Guns-n-Roses’ cover of “Live and Let Die.” The fact is, no one in frame did anything wrong, Jeff Lynne. And no, Paul (and Axel), I don’t think my heart is less of an open book. I don’t know that my heart has ever been that open to begin with; my heart is more like one of those forgotten volumes in the reference section of the library that very few people read. And at some point, I put it in a locked case so I could give the key to people who were really interested. But that’s not the point. Going to Baltimore isn’t so much about opening my heart book, as much as it is about standing in a crowd and reading out long passages with a bullhorn and a tin can for tips.
There are a few folks I’m looking forward to seeing, and a couple I’m going to miss because they won’t be there. I’m going to stretch myself as much as I can, because my ambitions, such as they are, have been swept up like driftwood in a flood and deposited on my fucking head.
But, as Rumi says, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.1” The currents don’t sweep me away. I ride them the way a riverman does.
“The lunatic is in my head,” Roger. And he’s knocking around, trying to find the door. That’s actually not accurate. The lunatic jumped out the window in October and has been lumber free ever since. “There must be some kind of way out of here,” Jimi. The joker and the thief are the same person. He’s a nice guy, really. A fine poet. Good with words. Not always good with people, but he tries. Which is why he’s boarding a bus to Baltimore Monday morning, from his home city that tore down the bus station so LDG, consortium construction company that our mayor has given the green light to rebuild the city in the image of some lesser corporate centers with his blessing and tax abatements that the rest of us are paying for, I’m sure.
I’m going by bus because that’s my general mode of cross-country transit. That or the train. I’ve got nothing against flying. I like flying, actually, once I’m in the air. But traveling by ground is really the only way to reckon distance, and to get a sense of what that distance means. If I had time to travel by train, I would because trains will take you through parts of the country you don’t see on the interstate. And I like being reminded that the country is a beautiful one, even if the people running it wouldn’t know beauty unless a lobbyist told them it was first. And even then, they’d need someone else to confirm it for them. When I get to Baltimore, I’ll be staying in the sort of place my current economic situation allows; which means I will not be staying in a conference hotel. I’ll be staying walking distance to the convention, in a Motel 6 that is not badly rated and looks like the sort of place John Waters might film a movie. The last time I went through Baltimore was more than a decade ago, and I remember thinking the mass transit there was pretty decent.
No, Chris (RIP), I don’t think I Fell on Black Days. When I say my ambitions have been deposited on my fucking head, what I mean is this: I’m not afraid. A little nervous, but only because I’ve been placed in a situation where I’d rather not spend money I don’t really have. But risk is… risk. And maybe more than nervousness, I feel something akin to a gambler’s itch. If I am to be placed in the uncomfortable situation of having to lay a bet for my family’s future, then by god it will be a bet I believe in.
And so, into the Big Empty, I go. “Time to catch a ride, it leaves today.2”
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We lost Coleman Barks recently, the main reason anyone still reads Rumi. I didn’t know him, but I owe his work a debt, in any case.
Big Empty” by Stone Temple Pilots. Purple. 1994
It's been over 40 years since I've visited Baltimore, my hometown. Lexington Market is on the edge of downtown. You might try there for crabcakes. Best wishes.
May the time you spend at AWP serve you well. I have a friend en route there now. At least it's a good food city. Recommended is the Cross Street Public Market just a few short blocks south of the convention center in Federal Hill.