Today I actually went to class. Yay me! Gotta go to work at five. This
is the last week of training so next week I’ll be on my new schedule
1pm – 9pm T-F and 9am-6pm on Saturday. Sundays and Mondays off. I’mma
be working like a freed slave that just got her mule and 40 acres. My
first couple of checks though are gonna be spent on grown up stuff.
Bills, Bills, Car, Car, Bills. I actually was thinking about trying to
finance another car at the end of this year, cuz the one I have now is
about to be a project. Just bought some new brake pads that have yet to
be put on, and will probably will be having to get some more engine
work done soon. Who knows how much that will cost. I was reading some
Jack Kerouac for class today and he inspired me. He’s one of those
writers from the beat generation and I think I was the only one in the
class who really liked him or got him everybody else was like, “oh he’s
not that great” and “I really liked Ginsberg better.” Uhm, have you
tried reading Howl? It’s one of those epic beat poems better taken in
aloud. But I can follow Kerouac, draw from him even. I even liked
“American Hobo”. Lately I have been lagging on my writing. I used to be
at the point where I could see a raindrop and all of a sudden some
lines start to form in my head, then a stanza then a meter and voila!
some poem about something important to me would materialize.
Lately…nada. So reading “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” (an
oxymoron within itself) renewed my muse’s expiration date.  I’m going
to post this above my headboard:

1. Scribble secret notebooks and wild typewritten pages for your own joy.

4. Be in love with your life

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

8. Write what you want bottomless from the bottom of the mind

15. Tell the true story of the world in interior monolouge

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life.

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language and knowledge.

23. Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it

29. Your a genius all the time

30. Be theWriter-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored and Angeled in Heaven

Of course I skipped around to my most favorite essentials, but you get
the picture. This prompted me to scribble something in class about
class and one “annoying english major stereotype” in particular.

Untitled (for now)

Sitting between pretentious and audacious tap, tapping my pen to the rhythm of my sanctified ushers voice,

Kerouac, no

Ginsberg, yes

May I suggest a little quiet reminder that I live Monty Python,

And don’t forget I’m authorized to repeat “nigger” because Countee wrote it
My B.A. will certify me in all that steeped in the language and culture
of  everyone from sea to shining sea I forgot what’s after that,
But don’t forget, I can say “nigger” because Hughes wrote it,

Skip, skip over the renaissance in Hell’s Kitchen in four days and choke on the fried fish smoke in the air,

The grease might pop you if you get too close,

so we speed on past,

we learn to quote names with letters no greater than our own,

but more powerful when printed on pages,

next to numbers,

under anthologies,

and the legacies attached to them pour president’s blood into publishing companies,

When my legacy is branded next to the list of those writers I respect,

Make sure you remember to say “cracker” because I wrote it. – T. Lockett (c) 2005