Rhythms are the Best for Working
Rhythms are the best for working
Rhythms are the best for working.
Break the rhythm and it’s like
starting cold: creak and puff and
grind away, write reams of garbage
until the garbage becomes
a lubricant. Lift that dead
arm you’ve been sleeping on. See
it sway and flop: half corpse you
are. The arm is useless. Paralyzed
for life. Can’t do it. Won’t work.
Imagine yourself dead: this
is it, kid. Body won’t work.
Feel it dissolve into the
sheets. It’s noon. Last time I looked
it was nine. I don’t remember
sleeping. The rhythms of the
world have gone awry. Who can
trust a clock
now?
That’s the first stanza of a poem I wrote, first draft, some time around 1976 or so. More than 44 years later I still have trouble establishing a rhythm for working.
There was a time, back when my daughter was an infant, that I did manage to do that for, oh, about 6 months, starting in…
