Next volume starts with date, 22:V:71, and the death of our photo retoucher’s death in newsroom on a Saturday night. He was in a pool of yellow on the floor. A medical history of diabetes. He died of and in fear. He was a lousy retouch artist.

We did get his pulse going before the ambulance arrived, but they lost it on the way to the hospital.

The fear, the shaking, the anger: what is death and why?

He had just told copy courier Roxie how to make a million. Showed her which stocks he had just bought for his son.

Purple face and gurgling
piss on the floor
no way to go out

with elegance
even from a crowded cubicle.

Remembering Gran, white as ice a few blue veins thrashing her arms against bed rails and moaning her bald head and sunken face unconscious did she even know I was there?

In her case, there was nothing I could do, but this?

We tried and failed.

~*~

Situated halfway between New York City and Buffalo and points west from there, Binghamton was long an important station and switchyards for the Erie Railroad (shown here in a circa 1910 image via Wikimedia Commons); the Delaware and Hudson Railway with its connections to Albany and New England; and especially the Delaware, Lakawanna, and Western Railroad of Phobe Snow fame, with its superior route via Scranton and then Elmira along the Susquehanna River.

The Lakawanna station on Chenango Street is shown below in this 2009 Harrishhu Wikimedia Commons photo. Scranton connected to points south, such as Philadelphia and Baltimore, as well as west to Pittsburgh and the Midwest, as well as the Pennsylvania anthracite coal mines that fueled industry, trains, and even homes..

In Binghamton, the abundance of single men working the rails and businessmen on layovers or overnight stops was rumored to have sustained a seedy scene of prostitution and more. There were stories regarding the Victorian apartment building where I lived, which had definitely had more fashionable days. Some of them show up in my novel, Daffodil Uprising.

~*~

In my journal, notes of my acid trip, D-Man and Helene’s: “things like Odyssey album covers and Peter Max, only better.” Reading Rilke at dawn while Rochelle brushes her hair. Seeing my police pass press photo, said I look better with short hair, “makes your features stand out more, especially your nose”

She was living with Willie but not sleeping with him, “It’s a bad arrangement,” but I wasn’t getting anywhere with her, either

When heard stoned, Mozart’s music is too beautiful, powerful, perfect to be believed. His orchestration so fantastic, original, ethereal: like Berlioz.

Line from an English opera: the spider combs the air.

Driving stoned, impossible to remember the next curve or the last

Chocolate chips and milk: Pebble and Marj.

Damn Marj: dirties all the dishes, cleans out my paper and paper clips, devours my broccoli and Familia, and moves the milk around so I drink the sour … and lets the garbage (hers) pile up …

Tari, good-looking tomboyish friend of hers, stopped by … with Eileen downstairs.

In the middle of my nap, Steve and Joyce phoned.

Memorial Day, returned key to Vera, she said Coen would mail my security deposit, we’ll see. [He didn’t.]

Both D-Man and Helene said I’m one their few friends they both like.

“D-Man, how the hell could you and Thor stand me last summer?”

“Oh, you were OK, a little fucked up, but I feel things for people and don’t know why I like a person or not. Sometimes Thor and I would want to be alone, away from you. A friend, you can tell him you’re pissed off with him or want to be alone, and it doesn’t offend him. You can’t do that with Danny.”

Helene said she couldn’t live in the disarray of the ranch. She confirmed my impression that both D-Man and Thor are essentially straight after all.

Gave Rainbow my blue denim Dutch boy cap, the one Fay must have returned.

I’m a frikkin’ prince living in a frikkin’ zoo.

In a later entry: O shit! Rainbow, the Lolita of Eggs Ackley, is 15!!! If we ever get raided??? [Fact: she was 16.]

Later additions: She’s from Colombia. Freaked out to learn Esperanza and Eileen from P.R.

Eileen was Esperanza’s roommate … on Exchange Street?

Rainbow’ Speedo is 20, worked in city as a messenger driving a bicycle in Manhattan professionally, maniac!

~*~

On back of Lenox String Quartet program of June 5, my handwritten notes of upcoming films on campus: Marx Bros and Buster Keaton; Max Ophul; Orson Wells; Joseph von Sternberg. Which explains earlier entries about attending films with female friends and neighbors: less weight than a “date” in a commercial movie house. If only any of those had progressed further? I felt very alone and lost.

~*~

From Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.

The titling on the next spiralbound notebook cover reminds me that I was probably able to do some journaling in the newsroom, especially late Saturday nights, the part I used to call the Presidential Death Watch. Everything was wrapped up and running, unless a STOP THE PRESSES kind of news story interrupted. I’m now recalling that I managed to do some letter writing there, maybe even on late afternoons or during lunch breaks as well, probably on the end-rolls of that long yellow teletype paper. I think there was some white, too. Was the yellow the carbon copy?

The spiralbound volume is largely stabs at poetry, much of which has been mined for publication already, especially Susquehanna.

Let’s shift to entries.

I read Hemingway yesterday, and then Virginia Woolf.

A lot of verse – bad verse! Though moving away from the socio-economic vein.

First explorations with the teletype outbursts during solar storms, too. Some of that shows up in my concrete poems series.

Toward the end, a few items have dates, more or less Snyder style

Volume includes my first Shayna G experiences, along with the first visits to Eggs Ackley, plus early yoga notes.

Mention, in pencil, of Nikki’s father offering to lend me the money to return to school (law school, most likely), then conceding, “We send you out to change her mind, and it turns out she changes yours and ours.”

They said she’s never looked better, more confident. They were all going to Israel that summer, and she would then go for six weeks to a Sufi camp in the Alps. Doris would go to the Aegean Isles to paint, and Gene and L-Boy to see cattle. I feel much more at ease, affectionate, around them. They were natural, doing what they’d do anyway. They’re open, honest.

Gene said I’m not aggressive. (I used to be; what happened?)

WHAT IS LIFE IF YOU’RE AFRAID TO DIE?

(Is that the same as “if you’re afraid you’ll die?”)

~*~

English once had more figures in the alphabet. Here are some that have been lost.

~*~

Introduced to Shayna. The encounter, and the trips to Rochester that followed, have been extrapolated into Pit-a-Pat High Jinks and its predecessors, Hippie Drum and Hippie Love. Note that I’m now dating my entries, and in the manner of Gary Snyder.

At the farm: Andy, “really together at 27,” also a “skin man … does it hold her together?” Was born the same day as Shayna. Story of a suicide attempt – slashed neck – he lends much, if he has it. He attended Corning Community College in ’67 and dated the redhaired Maria who had thrown me for a loop: said she used to be super straight, had dogs in her apartment, and her rug was soaked in dog piss, smelled awful. In retrospect? Bullet, dodged it.

See I also had a mishap on the Vestal Parkway that tore a chrome strip off my Buick.

Andy found Shayna’s glasses (sunglasses?), gave them to Hana. Where are they now?

Riding as passenger on his motorcycle, 70 mph: fucking scary, “You were really nervous.” Yeah. My eyes also teared up, I wasn’t comfortable, thrown forward, then back. Kept leaning against the turn. Got hit by a bug. Yet later, had to admit some really excited energy.

Annie at the farm: “Don’t let him live here! He’s a narc!” Fuck her.

With the old circle, a newbie was quite jittery and chattery. I asked Molly if I used to be like that, ‘Fraid so, said she.

Jack needs $70 by Monday, my share of the rent.

Final page has a phone number and address, “a fine place.”

Shayna’s second-floor apartment? Yup.

[Incinerated]

~*~

From Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.

Judith seemed very happy to see me today. Very warm, smiling, affectionate but once her eyes tightened, like those in Children of the Damned, her voice turned shrill, terrifying. So strange, she.

I’m smiling easier, more naturally than back in January. Am more on personal salvation than on social action as I was a year ago.

Want someone but see how birdy the girls I’ve met are: seek strength/entertainment for their man.

Marj’s sister Hana talks-talks-talks, of her problems, her shrink, anything and nothing, she won’t shut up. She runs to new things, won’t finish. [And yet, I must confess decades later, I really desired to fuck her. Jail bait notwithstanding.]

My first trip into Susquehanna PA.

Marj’s stuff litters the kitchen: typewriter, textbooks, notebooks; sink filled with dishes from Monday, at the least

Ran into Judith on my way to swim (which then didn’t happen). Did take her through the car wash, “I haven’t had so much fun in years,” and then to Ross Park, where the animals looked shaggy, sad, bored – awaiting children. Repeated the Susquehanna route, with the barren tree hillsides resembling female pheasants. The river was sparkling turquoise aflame.

Judith insisted on picking ferns, “I’m such a naturalist. They look so sick with these spoors.” And she nearly fell in the river.

Back at my apartment, she climbed into my bed. Skin feels so nice, and sex on a friendship-only basis isn’t so bad – not enough, but better than none.

Running into Judith on campus again, she’s tense. Wants to get involved with Carl. That’s her trip. Read Springhill Mine Disaster, which Judith dislikes. She’s really afraid to feel, keeps cutting me off. Bad noos!

~*~

I was investigating some pretty arcane sides of English language and literature:

 

~*~

With another Tuesday off, I stayed up till 1:30 or 2 – reading Snyder. Very peaceful, like nights at IU.

Picked up a hitchhiker, it was Judith, so crunched uptight. [Am surprised she would stick her thumb out, big city girl that she was.]

This reaction of not writing: a reaction to five years of primarily writing?

Swam a length in butterfly, a must stroke now: great for back muscles and arms.

T.J. said I’m an ascetic. At first, it pissed me, but as his sister insisted, it’s an honor.

Feeling much better, free from hassles, but still miss a woman.

But then Hana showed up, yakking about her neuroses but doing nothing …

Leaving lights on and cleaning up nothing. Small pride?

Ajax got a job at the Chinese restaurant.

Molly/Polly/and him: talky, talky.

Hana, Marj’s sister, wants to know if I’m keeping the apartment over the summer, she’s hoping to stay but drives me up the wall. “Yesterday was the first time in three days I’d been outdoors,” “What was the weather like?,” “I dunno.” She’s like a three-year-old, needs to be led by the hand; offered to help me take the garbage down but left it at the first landing. Makes messes, doesn’t clean up. Flipped out because this guy she liked danced with every girl at the party but her.

She enjoys the sick little girl role. The simplest yoga poses are beyond her concentration.

Esperanza was really beautiful and sexy at the Latino concert, but she and Len are arguing too much.

Somewhere by now, Polly had remarked on how schizoid my life was, torn between the demands of journalism and what she thought should be grad-school for me. I was living as a grad student, essentially, hanging out on campus and among a college crowd.

[Incinerated]

~*~

From Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.

St. Pat’s Day, everybody in Binghamton turns Celtic. Just look at the high school marching band.

Pebble’s staying: too many dishes pile up, and trashy living room

After I went to bed, Pebble and Marj began whispering in the living room, just outside my door. Pebble’s so loud anyway, and then they started giggling and I heard cloth rustling, snaps, and a zipper, followed by heavy breathing, oohs, and aahs. When I awoke, they were sleeping in Marj’s room.

Pebble’s stuff is strewn all over the place, and the dishes are piling up very high. They have been leaving them for me.

~*~

As for my typing, a la Kerouac, on long strips of teletype paper, which I had in abundance from the newsroom. It served me for both correspondence and my own drafts at literature.

~*~

Last day of winter: 2 inches new snow.

First day of spring: sunny and warm.

Getting my knee to touch the ground, closer to lotus. My body is a joy; it does some things I want now, like playing, standing on one foot and “flying.” My balance is improving. This trip started out on a downer.

~*~

From Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.

By this point, I was getting addicted to the weekly hatha yoga sessions and had even visited Swami’s ashram in the Poconos. I’ll save those details for a more focused presentation later. Or you can read my novel, Yoga Bootcamp.

For now, here are some more mundane activities and thoughts from that period.

~*~

From Borges’ “Anxieties”: “Now that I have the secret, I could explain it a hundred different and even contradictory ways … Compared to it, science – our science – seems not so much more than a trifle … The secret, I should tell you, is not as valuable as the steps that brought me to it. Those steps have to be taken, not told.”

In my readings of the Inca: “In 440 years we have failed to eliminate the savage in music of language: Spanish remains the secondary tongue: the West has been defeated: the flute solo sounds strangely like jazz or Xanakis: there is hope for u.”

[Esperanza was originally from Ecuador!]

~*~

Headline writer
Poet of gossip
[Robert Katzman]

~*~

Meditation revelation: I was trained and conditioned to be a technician: me, the artist, a technician! Frightening thought! A technician knows the surface, not the heart or subjective substance

Swami: “Do not do the exercises on your own. You destroy your cells, they don’t have time to regenerate. Once a week will be much stronger.”

Two I may do, though:

• Contemplate a candle flame.
• Prepare for lotus.

~*~

Snow follows me wherever I go these days: here in the Poconos, also Staten and Long islands trips.

~*~

Surprised to get a letter from Fay and wrote a reply. Noted mine “sound manic but it’s not. How does one write about happiness? Or yoga, the Protestant atheist discovering God within himself, and Spinoza and a Quaker?” The latter item comes out of the blue, considering how little I knew of Friends. Once again …

Also wrote to Nicki.

Blue jeans, desert boots.

And Betty Ann said something like, “Hey, that’s a tough outfit you’re wearing,” and I answered, “Yeah,” She’s been mostly pouting, probably because I haven’t asked her out yet. She was dressing in a brown bibbed pantsuit.

With all the yoga, am going through such mind changes, perhaps the biggest in my life.

~*~

From Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.