Christmas in July has passed again. A fresh load of dried, zip-locked, preserved, canned, and powdered foods stuffed into this tiny wooden cabin, surrounded by hungry ground squirrels. I went a hitch without writing, the mail brought new literature by request, by plane. I never thought I'd be so happy to hear a plane overhead, our only link to outside civilization. Even in July my feet are cracked and cold, calloused like winters in Chicago. The wind's whipping around my face. It's a good day to stay inside and read, weighed down by a mixture of Dostoevsky and Poe, reading similarities between them, inspirations and connections whether dreamt, invented, or legitimate. While my beard grows steadily my head drifts to thoughts of axes, dirt, and guilt, and the line between the words in a book and real actions becomes undefined. The trail brings everything out of you, sweats it out, opens wounds and traps your mind into thinking, dwelling, with the same idea all day. Looking at the blade of a Pulaski I wonder if I could actually bury it in someone's skull, or at least carve out the part of the brain that thinks about it all day. Carve it out, hold it in my hand, and throw it on the side of the trail, in the dirt, next to the songs, fantasies, sticks, and pine needles. Memorize! Of course. It keeps the minds focused on something, a defense against myself. But now I just want to rhyme everything, get back to practicing, a slave to it, like I quit cigarettes by starting up coke. dozing off and waking up to thoughts of Lenore, the bust of Pallas. My cold feet like the bleak December, and each separate burning ember wrought its ghost upon my floor. Warm up. See what the guys are up to, think like a beard, slow and steady.
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