passacaglia for the new year

last nite I went to bed before the 10 o'clock news. so I was asleep when 2005 began.

I startd the morning by listening to the recording Benjamin Britten made in 1958 of highlights from his 1st opera "Peter Grimes" featurning his partner Peter Pears. it seems as if several Britten operas are being producd across the land this year. so I've made this my Britten year.

breakfast was french toast & Kona coffee in my Elysium Resort mug. then the slow dance of the mundane (laundry   litter box   & the endless et ceteras that compose a day). a shower with oatmeal soap from Quaker Square before slipping into my Marsden Hartley tee from Kansas City & Bob Barnes' cargo shorts. then I hit the bookshelves. in the process I sustaind a paper cut. the blood on my finger brought me back to a distant New Year's Day in Venice when I began a year by bleeding. I settld into poems by Maggie Anderson & Thomas Meyer.

lunch was split pea soup (bowl had been Julia Waida's  '   spoon was purchasd in Vienna) & a frangipane tart from Desert Desserts with green tea. this afternoon I tried to read on the couch with Melina snoring on my chest. my mind wanderd into a memory forest. because of some recent writing I conjurd an image of the linoleum floor in my undergraduate room at Stopher Hall which Kent State University destroyd last year. then I rememberd a brief meeting with Jeffry Milton Sills but I can no longer bring back his face.

& so another year begins . . .