—I HOPE THAT YOU STILL LOVE ME
…I hope you’re not crossing your fingers behind your back. That would be a shame.
…Sometimes it’s good to believe in the myth, if that’s all you have to hold on to.
…It’s amazing how many products don’t work, or don’t do what they’re supposed to. Like M&M’s actually do melt in your hand.
…There’s symbolism everywhere.
…Here are two happy pieces I had published last week at Literary Underground:
https://theliteraryunderground.org/blog/2025/07/06/the-dogs-were-good-again-help-by-len-kuntz/
…And just when I think that can’t possibly happen anymore, it does.
…“To tell you the truth, the first ten or so years when I was writing, I never paid attention to line breaks at all. I’d just write a line and when I got to the end, I’d start another line.” Greg Kosmicki
...Some days it lets you, some days not so much.
…Don’t you think coincidences are kind of spooky? They always make me second guess what I think I believe.
…I’m not sure what would be worse—for people to stop reading poetry, or for people to stop living altogether.
...Yesterday I had anxiety I haven't since Covid. I could barely handle driving on the freeway. I saw every overpass I drove under collapsing on top of me. I saw myself being crushed by every Semi nearby. So yeah, it wasn't the great day you thought.
…How was your 4th? I spent mine wishing we were all still oppressed and ruled by England, or any country at all, for that matter.
…How do you even respond, now, when someone wishes you a “Happy 4th!”
…It really helps if you don’t care. But then why even show up?
…I know I cite AB a lot here, but he was a hero of mine from afar. I wish I could have had a beer with him, or two:
“I work really hard to not ever think about my place in the world.
I'm aware of my good fortune. I'm very aware of it, and I'm very aware that, because of it, people offer me things. Opportunities to do extraordinary things. The ones that are interesting to me are collaborations. I get to work with people who 10 years ago I wouldn't have dreamed to have been able to work with. And that's a big change professionally, and it's something that I think about a lot. How can I creatively have fun, do some interesting stuff, not repeat myself? Have fun. Play in a creative way. I like making things.” Anthony Bourdain
… You’re going to worry about what your friends worry about, or else you’re not really friends, so what’s the point of that?
…Sometimes I tell myself: Just stay with that, that’ll get you there.
…It’s amazing what goes on here. And a lot of it is shameful.
…Greif is a motherfucker. But the thing is, the very most important thing is, it reminds you that you’re alive, and that there was something or someone you cared about so much that their absence could do this—break your heart over and over and over again, without even knowing they have.
…I know I’m not very clever, and I don't really want to be clever.
...When you stand up, it looks very different.
…I really try not to go back to the well, but it’s always there, lurking under my skin, so I have a hard time not visiting, which means I repeat myself, so I’m sorry.
…It sounds blunt and brutal, but it takes effort if you really want it.
…We’ve all had a lot of bad haircuts, but some of mine are unforgiveable.
…You just don’t meet that many authentically kind people. So, when you do, you take notice and try to befriend them.
…“I can have ten versions of one line … The word I chose is perfectly good, but for some reason, it’s rarely good enough … It’s mystifying, the thing that keeps you going forward, ripping up, ripping up, ripping up.
What are you looking for?” —Fanny Howe
…“With John and George not here, I think we realize nothing lasts forever,” McCartney said. “So, we grasp onto what we have now because we realize that it’s very special. It’s something hardly anyone else has. In fact, in our case, it’s something no one else has. There’s only me and Ringo, and we’re the only people who can share those memories.”
…Even the word patriot seems warped now. How the fuck did they pull that one off? You have to give them credit.
…“Just turn it over to God.” Okay, sure, if you say so.
…She’s a brick, and I’m drowning slowly.
…“It blows me away. I look in the mirror and I’m 24. I never got older than 24. But guess what? You did.” Ringo Starr, who just turned 85
…Headline in the Seattle Times, 7/5/25:
Pride in America is cratering. But that’s not the same as giving up
…The hard part when people ask you about writing, and ask for help to get better at it, is that they don’t really want to write, they just want to be able to call themselves a writer.
…The world is sleeping and I am numb.
…As I’ve said here previously, I think it’s very difficult to make rhyming poetry happen, or work, but this one, from so long ago, does for me…
I’d Have You Think of Me
Djuna Barnes 1892 –1982
As one who, leaning on the wall, once drew
Thick blossoms down, and hearkened to the hum
Of heavy bees slow rounding the wet plum,
And heard across the fields the patient coo
Of restless birds bewildered with the dew.
As one whose thoughts were mad in painful May,
With melancholy eyes turned toward her love,
And toward the troubled earth whereunder throve
The chilly rye and coming hawthorn spray—
With one lean, pacing hound, for company.