Backbone > Quarter to Three
Ode to Mark Savage
by Sparrow; Illustration by Thomas McDonough

Dadaji,

Today I read some of Thoreau's journal (from March 22, 1856). He writes that his woods have been denuded of most wildlife: wolf, bear, deer, cougar, moose, beaver, turkey, lynx, panther, wolverine. (This is Walden Pond.) He goes on to compare these lands to an alphabet missing letters or a painting with holes torn in it.

This surprised me, although New England had been inhabited by Europeans for 240 years by then-certainly enough time to eradicate wolves. And in the agricultural world Thoreau knew, farmers had reason to kill competing animals.

Is it possible that there is more wildlife in Massachusetts now than in Thoreau's age?

Today I went to the Phoenicia Library and noticed nine tiny strawberries on the book-return desk. They looked like they had been drawn by Beatrix Potter, so precise, Victorian, merry they were.

"A girl brought them in for us. Have one," Debbie, the librarian, offered. They were wild strawberries, just in season.

I ate one. It was very sweet, almost like candy-but wetter than candy.

Love,
Sparrow

Portrait On A Stamp

She appeared on a stamp in 1935-
staring out,
one hand on a book;
she was tinted orange.
Her lower body was missing.

(Hint: She was the first woman dentist.)

Emmy,

Yesterday I went to the 42nd Street library (I got a ride into the city). I studied Witter Bynner, a minor American poet (in the Dictionary of Literary Biography). In 1916 he and Arthur Davison Ficke perpetrated the Spectra Hoax. They created two fictitious poets, Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish, who wrote a new poetry, from the Spectra School. They indited these poems in 10 days, published them, and received all sorts of praise (and some disdain). Edgar Lee Masters, for example, one of the most valued poets of the era, wrote: "Imagism is the skin, but Spectrism is the core."

But Bynner was a victim of his own hoax, in a sense. The poems he wrote as Emanuel Morgan were freer and more well-imagined than his usual poems, and in fact, Bynner continued to write as Morgan once the hoax was revealed (somewhat in the manner that I continue to write as Sparrow).

Randi told me about her old friend Mark Savage. She knew him in San Francisco. He always wore flip-flops, and had no apartment. He stayed at the houses of friends. He would keep a suitcase in a room, containing some coins, flip-flops, small bags of herbs. He never smoked pot or drank. But he wasn't a vegan; he would eat anything. He spoke very little, but what he said was profound. He often stayed in the woods, outside San Francisco.

When Randi would cook big meals, he would visit. Also he was a "dumpster diver"-he found food in the garbage. He always carried around a gallon of water. He would never use more than a gallon of water a day, for all purposes, including washing. He was rumored to have castrated himself.

"Was he dirty? Did he smell?" I asked.

"No, he was always clean," Randi said.

He had tattoos, but only on his legs. The tattoos were of large bugs.

"Did he have long hair?" I asked.

"I never really noticed his hair," Randi said. "Yeah, I guess it was long."

"Did he have a beard?"

"No."
"Whenever I thought of Mark Savage, he would appear," Randi said. One day she went to Tucson, Arizona, and remembered him. (She knew he visited Tucson sometimes.) Soon after that, she met a friend. "Did you hear about Mark Savage?" the friend asked. "He drowned in a stream."

Mark's body had been found near a stream outside Tucson, a few days before. It was uncertain if his death was intentional. No one identified his body, and he was cremated and placed in a pauper's grave.

Later, a group of Mark's friends gathered at a memorial service for him. They tried to piece together his true story. He was rumored to have come from a wealthy family in Los Angeles. Apparently, his last name was not Savage. Several people who had his suitcases spoke. None of them contained books. No one knew of him having sex with anyone.

He remains still essentially unknown.

Poem "O"

feese

Definition

Solar fireman:
extinguishes fires set by the sun

Dream (12/23)

I am writing a poem which contains the line "marriages are inter-irrelevant": in other words, if you are married it doesn't matter if anyone else is.

Eel

An eel ran for President. He spent millions of dollars of his own personal fortune, plus millions he received in contributions. Finally, on Election Day, his friend Bert told him: "An eel cannot be President. It says in the Constitution only a human can be President."

The eel was so angry, he took all his clothing-including valuable vests, hats, and belts-into the center of town, and lit it on fire. Children danced around the fire, singing: "Burn the eelclothes! Burn the eelclothes!"

Question

Why do basketballs
look like pumpkins?