… But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. …

That’s from the poem “Why I Am Not A Painter,” by Frank O’Hara. One of those brilliant little poems that keeps making itself useful as metaphor in my life.

So I sat down and ate my peaches and watched the closing disc of bonus features in the Deadwood series. I ate my peaches without weeping, but I have not escaped the gnawing sensation of having been denied closure. (Incidentally, if you Google Deadwood Peaches, you’ll find that I didn’t make that up; canned peaches are indeed served on the show. In fact, one episode is titled “Unauthorized Cinnamon,” concerning someone’s ill-considered idea to add cinnamon to the peaches.)

In comments by Deadwood creator and lead writer David Milch I heard this:

“Any good poem, any good human being, and any good story spins against the way it drives.”

Huzzah! That’s absolutely right, Mr. Milch. We are dissonance seeking harmony, just as we are estrangement seeking atonement. And the ultimate fruition of life is death. Well, maybe I just went a little too far; it’s what we do while we’re alive that matters.

Speaking of things that matter and things that don’t, is anyone reading this blog? I’ve not had a comment since 12/22. My stats say 6 hits a day this week, but somehow the tracker has been counting my own visits when I proof posts, so maybe it’s zero. If you’re out there, could you Please Leave A Comment? Can I get just a smidgen of external validation? Sheesh.