OLD DOG; NEW TRICKS; DO THE MATH

My wife, again, has suggested that, since I have so much stuff on this page, I should figure out a design and compartmentalize the stuff. Granted, my wife is a webmistress (as she likes to put it,) but I have more compelling reasons than that to reject the notion:

Figuring a logical arrangement would defeat the spirit of the thing: The poems on the page are in a random-ish order. Although there is a kind of "proximity factor," at work, there is no real or formal logic at work there. They are mixed both chronologically and formalistically, not grouped by subject (except in a couple of specific and mostly unconsidered cases which are wholly self-explanatory), and that's deliberate. I don't know why. Don't ask me.

Compartmentalization, farther than already exists on the page, would lead to some exclusivity: Which is to say: recognizing that I'm lucky if people read my poetry in the first place, I know that there would be folks out there who would succumb to the old homework malady: OK; I'm done! I read as much as I might be asked about, so I don't have to click on that other file over there. It's just human nature.

I'd end up with a file with 3 poems and a file with 30, and that would look dumb: It just would.

I'm practicing Voodoo: like sports players do. Some have that special bat; other chew two sticks of gum, not one, not three, but two, on the grounds that it'll make them play better or catch better breaks. I've seen a whole lot of heavily tricked out web sites that haven't been updated since 1998.

I'm clinging to my amatuer status: I don't want it to look like I spend more time on the website than on the poetry, although clearly that is the case, this current bit of writing, ironically, serving as evidence of same.

The form of the thing has been serendipitous: There are many ways in which the form has influenced the content The jump from the black background to the blue sky and clouds is, to me, mordantly funny in a very subtle and inexplicable way, so any time you see the clouds, friends, you can expect some sarcasm from ol' Uncle Jim. (But when is that not the case . . ?)

Of course, this is all by way of building up to yet more evidence that I am, like all poets and most writers, just another goddamned liar.