The Big Fire...

I have no idea who this crazy woman is, nor the context. I bought a crappy digital camera at the Salvation Army the other day for $4.50. It still had photos on the memory card! Are these the "found photos" of the future...? Or, maybe today, really? Instead of digging through boxes, we'll be scouring flea markets for hard drvies, flash cards and cameras? So, this is vernacular photography...from the digital age.

As is typical these last few months, I’ve let my entries slip a bit. We’ve been busy with events, and building new booths. We’ve also been refurbishing some old chemical machines that just came in. They’re scummy, but I’ll shine them up! With respect to my last visits with Benson., it was left to repeat scans 4 months and continue the shots. I spoke with Dr. Warner, for whom I rescheduled with for July 28th. He suggested more stains on my biopsy slides followed by an X-ray serried of the small bowel. This X-Ray can take up to 2 hours, and of course, there’s no eating / shit your brains out prep, but otherwise it is harmless. Warner noted that if my stains are positive for CDX-2, then we can confirm that the primary tumor is in the GI / small bowel region. If a primary is discovered in that region, he said that we would try to remove it, no questions asked! He also suggested doubling my dosage of Sandostatin. He’s suggestions are very close to that of Dr. Woltering. Warner has over 40 years of experience with NET. So, we’ll see where this next set of tests puts us.

An old friend found me on Facebook the other day… they noted they were glad to see that I’m still quoting Bukowski. Well, I like to think I’ve expanded my life, ideas, and reading in the last 10 years… however, there’s always a place in my heart for Charles. He was extremely prolific, and with that, came a TON of bad writing. –But he did it anyway and didn’t care… So, wading through his words, every once in a while you find a spectacular gem, and you begin to understand why he was such an important writer for his time… of all time, maybe?

The Big Fire
(Mocking Bird Wish Me Luck - 1972)
-Charles Bukowski

I'm on fire like the cactus in the desert
I'm on fire like the palms of an acrobat
I'm on fire like the fangs of the spider

I'm on fire with you and me

I'm on fire walking into a drugstore
I'm on fire I'm on fire
the girl hands me my change and
laughs at me

I'm on fire in my bed alone
I'm on fire with you

I'm on fire reading a book
about Trotsky, Hitler, Alexander the Great,
anybody at all, any walking living dead
human once upon the
earth

I'm on fire looking at the grass
I'm on fire looking at birds sitting on telephone wires
I'm on fire answering the phone---
I leap straight up when it rings
I am burning

I'm on fire looking at velvet
I'm on fire looking at a sleeping cat

I am a helpless burning thing
among other helpless burning things

I lay on my left side and look at the tombstones
then I lay on my right side and look at the tombstones---
they are all
burning

I'm on fire putting a stamp on an envelope
I'm on fire wrapping garbage into a newspaper
I'm on fire with heroes and dwarfs and poverty and hope
I'm on fire with love and anger

I'm on fire like a bat hanging upsidedown
like a bellboy hating the rich and smiling at their tips

I'm on fire in a supermarket
watching a most womanly woman
bend over to pick up some potato salad

I'm on fire like a scissors cutting the eyes out of the sky
I'm on fire like onehundredthousand monkeys boiled into one heart
and sobbing through centuries of
hopelessness

I'm on fire like a clean sharp knife in a kitchen drawer

I'm on fire like a beggar in India
a beggar in New York
a beggar in Los Angeles ...
the smoke and burning rises
and the ash is crushed under ...

I'm on fire like the circus that went away
the champion who quit on one knee
all burning
all alone
all one
ash

I'm on fire like a dirty bathtub in a lonely roominghouse
I'm on fire like the roach I kill with my shoe

I'm on fire with men and woman and animals
who are being tortured and mutilated in dark and
isolated places

I'm on fire with the armies and anti-armies
I'm on fire with the man I hate most in the world

I'm on fire without a chance

the fat is in the fire, the lamb is over it
the sacrifice seems forever
the enduring seems forever

the sun is on fire ..

and the glazed horizon is red
and the weeping
and the weeping
and you and me

the sun is burning everything:
the dogs, the clouds, the icecream
the end

the end of the stairway
the end of the ocean
the last scream

the bug in the jar
spouts into flame
and the inside of the skull
gives up
at last

the smoke blows
away.