38 Comments
User's avatar
Weston Parker's avatar

Four years working a picture in disappearing ink. That is a good metaphor for pissing away time.

Expand full comment
Layne's avatar

Beautiful. Although I must say I prefer all kings dead!

Expand full comment
Kert Lenseigne 🌱's avatar

Including would-be kings.

Please, please include would-be kings.

Expand full comment
Dillon Jay's avatar

Is it weird that every poem I've read from poetic outlaws has resonated with my life? Describing both myself and relationships with others and how I feel almost perfectly.. It's almost scary and feels like a message

Expand full comment
Kert Lenseigne 🌱's avatar

There is a depth to synchronicity, for certain.

Expand full comment
Carlos's avatar

I had to laugh, wonderful. Are our perceptions not just illusions of what we want to see?

Expand full comment
Ken Paul Rosenthal's avatar

Kathleen Wood was a striking presence in San Francisco's Cafe Babar scene. I remember her well from the moment I arrived in 1986. She will be briefly acknowledged in the Cafe Babar chapter of my Julia Vinograd documentary. www.betweenspiritandstonethefilm.com

Expand full comment
Adita del Rosario's avatar

Let me count the many reasons I love this poem...

Expand full comment
Kert Lenseigne 🌱's avatar

Just use invisible ink to tally!

Expand full comment
Richbee's avatar

Lemon juice. Disappearing ink.Refreshment on a hot day. Brown rice goes down slow, white rice gets stuck In throat. Meditation is medication not a pill or snow snort that rots the brain. Mark’s in Passaic or Palisades. No matter, not important. Poetry is the king on the chess set -- check mate. Every word wages, sets a price, tugs, inhales a new breath whether fresh air or a toke that brings the movement full round with the sun rising to shine light on a dark night enlightened by your ink.

Expand full comment
Kevan Christiaens's avatar

‘Brown rice terrifies me’

This has more gravity for me than I’d like but, made me smile.

Expand full comment
"The Major"'s avatar

So filling I can't eat to much or I'll miss all the good stuff

Expand full comment
Kevan Christiaens's avatar

Duly noted as I bought some within hours of reading this piece as an odd aversion therapy... maybe? I’ll make room for the good stuff.

Expand full comment
David's avatar

incredible

Expand full comment
Jamie Millard's avatar

Oooh! I feel that one. A threnody of time. Wasted? Or a gift that points the way? Thanks for sharing.

Expand full comment
Dian Parker's avatar

I can relate. Seeking enlightenment and men, the folly behind the illusion.

Expand full comment
Charles Taylor's avatar

Great to hear a woman's voice and point of view. A fine poem. As Corso said to me, "there were no beat women. The life is too hard." He was wrong. There are anthologies of beat women writers. Is the outlaw life harder for women.? One friend said, well, they can alway hook and have a place to stay the night. Yeah, but they have to worry about rape.

Expand full comment
Elagabalus's avatar

Or rape of the soul

Expand full comment
Zuu - Radio Free Amerika's avatar

Ha! Never forget that on the way to enlightenment you lose ecerything....

Expand full comment
Sloan Bashinsky's avatar

I wonder, is she mad at Mark, or at herself, for spending 4 years drawing a picture in disappearing ink, which still seems to haunt her greatly?

Expand full comment
Cecil Touchon's avatar

Yeah. Where is Mark anyway?

Expand full comment
Shannon McCloud Johnson's avatar

Wow Kathleen this is Poetry is an ART. I hadn't thought about Sandy Bull in so very long. Thank you so very much.

Expand full comment