Category Archives: the no-scape

2026, Day Book, Ohio River Valley Literature, Poet's Life, poetry, prose, the no-scape

Daybook 2026 // Winter 2.5.26

I call out to the universe for certain objets nostalgiques, certain elements of memory, on a regular basis: a mimeograph machine and a VCR. My mind palace has an entire wing dedicated to abandoned technologies and to technologies that have almost disappeared. It is possible to find the VCR, but I am unwilling to pay 1980 prices in 2026 just because digital wisps of movies and music are easier to change, to edit, to take away when they get added to the invisible List of Naughty Items,  or the List of Watched Objects of True Desire.

These lists
are not
what
small town
church 
taught
us
they
are

I call out to the universe for certain objects. I teach my granddaughter that magic is real by letting her hold this pink magic wand that was gifted to me by a true-hearted witch. The girl wished for dark chocolate and for more books, both of which arrived, quite naturally, before the end of her visit and through no direct action on my part. We are true, I tell her, the real deal. It is, I think, a necessary way to introduce her to the natural world of dreaming.

These worlds
are not
what
history books
taught 
us
they 
should
be

I call out.

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2026, Day Book, Ohio River Valley Literature, Poet's Life, poetry, prose, the no-scape, winter

Daybook 2026 // Winter 2.3.26

“Footprints” Doodle by Mick Parsons

She looks out the window and spits out the word ‘melt,’ the worst curse she can think of against a layer of ice and snow that will not relent. In milder winters, it was that the mosquitoes didn’t die and the backyard mud carried in by the dogs. We have dug out of this mild inconvenience as best we can. I put my faith in her curses more than the snow plow that never touches our street. There are tales of an old International Harvester with a snow plow and an engine that does not die, but code enforcement actively silences these rumors. But waiting for spring is still considered a carnal act of rebellion.

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2026, Day Book, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, prose, the no-scape, winter, Working Class Literature

Daybook 2026 // Winter 2.2.26

from: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/feb/07/

“I’m betting he’s gonna swerve first.” – Phil Connors, Groundhog’s Day (1993)

Listening to my brother talk about major and minor keys in music, Seattle grunge, and the Beach Boys Death Cult (my term). What made the Beach Boys songs work wasn’t so much the song writing but the compositions around their voices. The actual songs, most of them, were dark, sad songs. What we’re living now is the decline of a Post-War Death Cult fueled by Beach Boys-style nostalgia. I was always fond of “Sloop John B,” a cute little ditty about a terrible boat ride. Then there’s the existential angst of “God Only Knows,” which, in a different key and composition, could sound like a Nirvana cover band. “I may not always love you / but as long as there are stars above you / you never need to doubt it” is a proclamation of love wrapped in the belief that there’s nothing after we die and if the speaker were to die in some war or a drag race or something, the beloved would then have to find some other starry-eyed lover who could write a different song in the same key about the temporary nature of love in the nuclear age.

Today, of course, is Groundhog Day, when the small cult that protects the inheritor rodent of Punxsutawney Phil gets all gussied up and prognosticates the entrance of Spring; I think of the movie, with Bill Murray and Andi McDowell and someone asks Phil Connor, Murray’s character about whether it will be six more weeks of winter and he says something about March 20… which is generally the Spring Equinox. People act like The Big Lebowski (1998) is a super zen movie, but if I had to think of a movie that might be an extended koan, it would be Groundhog’s Day.


When you wake up to the same day, day after day, written by the same death cult that gave us “Barbara Ann,” the only possible reaction is to eat as many pancakes as you can, kidnap a sacred rat, and drive headlong into the long light at the end of a tunnel. Embracing the fun may be the most zen moment you will ever have, over and over again.

re
peat
rep
eat
sew
so 
show
shovel
snow
go
sail
ing
go
leave
go
re
peat


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