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March 14, 1968 Thursday. How's school? Well, English is O.K.; Religion is boring since Fr. Gerry left; Sociology will be eternally simple; Matrix algebra, maybe I can squeeze a C out of it. U.S. History is very demanding, and gym asks nothing. that's all. There is no more, unless you want to count lunch and study hall. But you really don't. How's work? I'd rather you didn't ask. I haven't been doing much, just entering and exiting all over the place, accomplishing little and confirming everyone's opinion that I am a fool. It would be nice to be an actor, because I hear that in real life their trade has taught them to be sincere and "themselves". goodnight. March 15, 1968 This is to be the shortest of them all. I just can't hack it tonight. The Ides of March are upon me. Upon me? hell, they're killing me. goodnight. March 16, 1968 I think I'll buy a new pen one of these days. It will be a bright color, maybe red or orange. Real extroverted, if you know what I mean. Boy, am I a live wire. If pen buying is my only way to get kicks. I'd better hang up my hat right now. A B C...yes C. that's a noble letter without a trace of obsenity or apathy. For some reason it stands over all the others. the lord of phonics, it mixes well with the breathless H's and scurilous T's. (What do scurilous mean? I don't know, but it sounds totally gruesome doesn't it?) I've had enough. Saturday is rough all the way round. goodnight. March 17, 1968 Green Sunday, green as the grass-dyed sea. There's something in "Ulysses" about a green nose-rag. A repulsive thought. St. Patrick and the snakes. Erin go bragh a go go. with a green-green brrrogue. There isn't much to say; went to church did homework and here I am. Absolutely nothing. goodnight. March 18, 1968 What can I do for tonight's assignment? Relate the day's adventures, or float off into an obscure trance? Maybe I'll tell a lie or make a pun; I really don't care what I say. Is self-revelation the key? perhaps. All my bloody thoughts make pretty poor reading. Perfect honesty. I got up, growled around a little, got dressed and shaved in a mirror with my eyes on me all times. What a damned fool. Does he look like this to everyone he meets? How can he possibly be serious about anything? "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" They've become cold cold ice water on a face that isn't too real. To school. Behold the suppressed shout of love. Four years have done their binding well. All are together but none will admit it. Many aren't even aware of it. People, friends, enemies, and "couldn't-care-less's" all stumbling and striding, crawling and standing. And the shadow boys watching and waiting, wondering. I love them all. Yes, even "the fellas". I'd do the same to them if I could. It's a very common love-hate thing that makes everybody think. Bells. To work. Seen from the inside this institution of the world's wisdom becomes a chaotic maze of 97 year old paper and smooth plastic book covers. But nobody seems to mind. In fact, between periodic explosions, everyone is content to let things pass into the words on a page. Damn order! A library can only be a tremendous jumble of fantastic and totally unbelievable parts for a carousel. Round and round. Bells. To home. A squabble over dinner to insure the digestive tract a good workout. To glance through the lesson and scribble a few lines of homework. To open a moire-faced notebook and wonder where. goodnight. the assignment is complete. March 19, 1968 Tuesday. Bought a new pen. Isn't it something? blood red. the blood of the soul? No, more likely from a cut on my hand. I don't really know what to say. I'm watching TV, moving from Marlborough Country to Salem Bay. What's to say? there isn't a thing. I'd like to write some more with my flashy new pen, but I'm not very inspired. goodnight. March 20, 1968 I went to school today; I went to work today. Everything is empty. Everything but the refrigerator, that is. I'm sitting here scribbling a few words and chomping a few olives. I love olives, brown, green, black, orange, chartreuse; just so they're olives. Guess who's coming to dinner? That question is going to have a great impact on me in the coming months. Everybody's going to make such a big deal about it. My friend in England, Hopeton Gray, is planning a visit to Joliet this summer. I think I've mentioned before that he's a Negro. If the trip comes about, it's going to be a very interesting summer. The thing that bothers me is that we don't know much about each other. I think he's in school, but I'm not sure. He could be anything from a charming English schoolboy to a "rocker". His letters indicate the former. He sounds like the greatest kind of person. It all brings up the question; Am I prejudiced? I don't know, but I have a feeling I'm going to find out. goodnight. March 21, 1968 Thursday. Last day of school for the week. There's a teacher's conference or something tommorrow. So I get to sleep. We didn't have our reading class today. Now we'll probably have to go another week. It will be a supreme sacrifice because good weather will be setting in soon. What am I saying? I never go out anyway. I think for some reason that this summer will be different. Maybe I'll take up baseball or something. I'm not bad at it. I've got to have something to fill up my extra time other than reading. There's nothing else to gab about. goodnight. March 22, 1968 Another wasted day. Sat around doing nothing then I went downtown, bought some shoes and pants, and went to work. that's it. Everything is so useless. I don't feel like saying much. You know I get like that when there's nothing to talk about. goodnight. March 23, 1968 Saturday. I work until it wants to make me vomit. eight hours worked today; with an hour out for lunch and ninety-five cents an hour, I figure I made less than $7.60 not counting taxes. Is it worth it? Probably not. It's good for a few laughs, but not much else. I'm re-reading "Tiny Alice" for the fourth time. It gets better with every reading. People call it mystical, but I don't think so. they also call it obscure, but only at first glance. It's a modern tragedy; it's not structured like something out of Sophocles or Shakespeare, it's got its own rules to follow without worrying about anything else. It's pretty deep. goodnight. March 24, 1968 Of course, I went to church today, but I didn't sing. I never do. It's 1 part inhibition and ten parts lack of motivation. I just can't get with it I guess. The priest usually gives me a reprimandingly pious look which is equivalently dirty. It's very late and I can't say much more. I feel very blasphemous tonight and had better watch my tongue. goodnight. March 25, 1968 The dentist happened today. My mouth is still numb. He had to drill out the whole inside of my tooth. But thanks to the miracles of modern dental technology, the drilling didn't hurt a bit. It was the five inch needle through my gums that killed me. To suffer pain to feel no pain. It's what they call a vicious circle. I am suffering. goodnight. March 26, 1968 Tuesday. I'm trying to pretend that Monday didn't happen. Maybe I'd better forget today too. It's been painful. Not from my mouth, from my back. I pulled a muscle lifting weights in gym. I'm getting to sound like a hypochondriac. I got a reply from Mt. Carmel about a week ago. Everything's O.K. I've just got to have a physical and fill in the forms. I've been thinking about me lately and its pretty discouraging. What's the most important thing or things in my life? It's hard to answer. Right now I couldn't care less about school, or my job. It's the future. I guess that's got everybody worrying. Humanity is going to pot; at least that's the general impression. The social conscience of America is just beginning to wake up. Two generations ago they couldn't give a damn. One generation ago they saw the need. This generation is talking about the need. Maybe in the next ten or twenty years somebody will do something. "but then it will be too late." goodnight. March 27, 1968 Oh the Wednesdays roll around. The waste land of the week wishing the life away down the drain. Nothing today. Total grey. I've got a question. What is this? [a drawn circle] Most people would say it's a circle or a ball or a ring or something. But it really isn't. It's a hole. How cool it would be to walk through that hole or through a mirror just to see what kind of death is on the other side. goodnight. March 28, 1968 The day is Thursday, not much different from the other four. Bonnie & Clyde returns tommorrow to the Hillcrest theater. I think I'll go see it again. This time with fresh insights into the process of creation on film. Or some garbage like that. My back is still bothering me. It doesn't really hurt, it just reminds me every now and then that it hasn't gone away. Like whenever I move. Mary Kay's birthday is on Tuesday. I don't know what I'm going to get her. We have a free day Wednesday because Monsignor Vonesh is being molded into a bishop, consecrated. I can use that day. Nothing else. groovy gravy in the hellpot boils to a simmer. March 29, 1968 Friday sweet friday. Friday is the end of bells. No more bells for to days straight. Paradise. The only problem with Friday is that I work all night, which kind of taints the freedom-sense. I wish I was an actor. I guess I'm not the first person to be frustrated along those lines. They call it "stagestruck", but that's not what I've got. I realize my limitations. I'm eager. I want to be something that I'm really not. To slip into and out of a character. I'd like to play evil people, I think. I could really let myself sink into another man's creation. They call it total emersion, don't they? To rant and rave to really feel it all, that's what I want. To get involved and let people know that their way may not be the best, but it will probably get them where they want to go. What do you know, it's the bottom of the page. Nice to meet you again. goodnight. March 30,1968 It's Saturday. What more can I say? the word is the day; the day is the word. I worked. That's it. Today, a quote from an old man who knew them all and no one came to the funeral.
I don't really understand it, but there is no friction between the words. It's marvelous to just sit back and watch the poem slide "to a citron shore". goodnight. March 31, 1968 Went to church, as usual. Nothing. I can't say anything because I don't know anything today. I did homework and watched television. Everybody went swimming but I didn't feel like it. So here. I don't know a thing. Its not too late but it might as well be. goodnight. April 1, 1968 I spent most of the night looking for a stuffed animal to get Mary Kay for her birthday. It's a huge pink rabbit. We gave it to her tonight. Her birthday's tomorrow. I haven't felt like much lately, I just want to get by with no waves. Free day Wednesday. I'll probably work all day. I'll make money but what the hell. I don't care. Everything is making no sense. goodnight. April 2, 1968 Tuesday. I don't feel very well. I think I'm getting sick. the flu or something. You know how it is, in every inch of flesh and bone. Anyhow I worked all night, even when I felt lousy. goodnight. April 3, 1968 Wednesday. Bought another Judy Collins record. "Wildflowers". It developes the orchestral side of her voice. I worked all day, 10 to 6. Rainy and cold. The place is here. Nothing is worth much today. Streets dripping with a shiverous noise, the hanging air of Spring is no where to be found. A lonely call through people in the rain, the ghosts of desperation. Crying for things outside in the warm shops. April 4, 1968 "Martin Luther King is dead. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was shot this evening on the balcony of his apartment in Memphis." They say he "bled profusely". Why should it bother me; the closest thing to a WASP without actually being one? "He was just a traitor and communist, with black skin." "We shouldn't be happy to hear that anyone's shot, but I said somebody'd be out to get him." "The cops had better keep an extra eye on Patterson Road tonight." "Maybe we should buy a few fire extinguishers for this summer." He was a man of flesh and blood and bones, and black skin. Only a man. The rifleman was also human, because isn't murder human? however perverted? This is a night for sighs and laughs and groans and "he got what he deserved". We all should. We all need martyrs, we all are martyrs. This is a night, yes this is a night. goodnight, all you humans. 4/9 A Note on Scharmel Iris: In August 2005 a brief correspondence with Craig Abbott, Professor Emeritus, Northern Illinois University brought to light the following information. Dr. Abbott wrote: Years ago I wrote an article exposing some of Iris's plagiarism, forgery, and so on. It appeared in 1983, in the quarterly Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. Since then, I've gotten access to Iris's papers at Lewis University (where he lived for many years) and have discovered much more. But your memory is not so out of whack as you might suppose. He did hang out at the Printer's Ink. The purple book was the Judgment Seat (1965). It did have a dust jacket blurb attributed (falsely) to Pound. It was published with the help of Joliet-area "sponsors." Its introduction, although attributed to Dame Edith Sitwell, is at least in part Iris's work--just as was the Yeats preface to his Bread Out of Stone (1954). But Iris (born Federico Scaramella in Italy in 1889) did have a bit of contact with some great modernists. He did hang out at the offices of Harriet Monroe's Poetry magazine at about the time of its founding in 1912. He attended, in Chicago, the magazine's banquet for Yeats. He corresponded (often under false pretenses and under several names) with Pound and others. His portrait was drawn by Augustus John and by Diego Rivera. He also told tall tales about his life and contacts. He also manipulated Bishop Sheil and Archbishop Stritch, who evidently got him the money for a trip to Europe and for publication of some religious verse (Seven Hills of the Dove). Sheil got him the place to stay at Lewis. He had some talent as a poet. Most of his work, though, seems written in imitation of others. In fact, some is plagiarized. Dr. Abbott is working on a biography of Scharmel Iris. |