The Office of Jim Trainer
1024 Lamb Road
AUSTIN TX
Lovely U.
48603 Highway One
BIG SUR CA 93920
9/14/21, 9:25A.M.
…the dead burn alone toward dawn.
—Saint Philip Levine
Dear Miss U.
It is my great pleasure to have you with me, in this liminal place between tomcats and lizards in the court, and the filth of a life on the fringe in my apartment behind me. It’s quiet, which can be suspect, especially in these last throes of the Final Century. I write you of sound mind and quiet heart, mostly. The skies have gone pewter and this city’s endless fucking construction becomes distant and soon fades. The sun breaks through as I write this sentence and it gives me joy. Or whatever it is the sun gives, for me, namely a reason to go on. The number of times I have thought of ending it followed by the sun on my neck telling me something else is profound and I took notice. It’s what we do. We feel it. We write it down. Contextualize and frame it and nail it to the wall. The writing life is a courageous life and even now as mountains tumble and the seas burn we can tell it and so be relieved. It isn’t just my great pleasure having you here, it is the pleasure of you that starts and piques me, and suddenly in a flash of auburn light you are conjured. A curious rustling, a molecular alignment of kundalini and curiosity-of-other (you). You know how I feel. I won’t try to smooth you. Or seduce you or any other thing Bob Dylan has, like most things, already said better. I will write you though, and instead of getting heavy with you via text I’ll just get plenty heavy where it’s good, on the page where I till my land and anyway simply visit with you on this warm, numbered morning of the Anthropocene. Cholo Proud Boy Siamese paid visit earlier and by grabbing him by the scruff of his neck I was able to scrape away eye gunk from what once were scars. From the corner of his eye on down the length of his nose I could not access as he’d scabbed over there from mites and scratching. When I let go he stood there. He paused, really, as did I. He felt better and so did I and it is in this spirit I offer you some time together for the length of this letter and however long it pleases you, to either carry around with you or pull out in quiet hammocked moments of exquisite and nameless solitude.
Wherever two of you shall meet…are you familiar with this passage from the Book Of Matthew? It is my credo as an artist and simply a way to be. Yearning for the ether and space between us and anything really to escape my own mind. An impure impulse with wonderful result. I feel that way ON THE AIR and at the mic and I feel that way writing these letters to friends and would-be lover(s). I scale the void with my voice and come across the divide with my body. Why don’t you meet me there? In caring hands leaving the self can be blissful, and limitless, with our eyes fully-open.
I wondered if I came on too strong or that I scared you away but ultimately I know these aren’t things to be flippant or casual about. I don’t wonder how you’ll feel about this letter as we are together in my moment of writing and of yours reading me. In that regard my work is done. I forego the heavy and get right to the heavy, but really it’s not that heavy at all. I took a shine to you pretty early on my friend, but couldn’t do anything about it and was mindful of your space, i.e. that you are living your life. As we all are. This letter is to break out of the faux-now of online living and truly be together, and apart, as we all are. I know I’ve said several things to you that upon reflection are curious if I let my mind go, and it will if I feel our focus shift from each other. I’d like to put you at ease with all that and gladly do so here and now. When I told you I’d like to be friends with you it was in the spirit of respect and that perhaps I should tread lightly. But I also told you I want to be with you in physical time, that you have captured my imagination and that I find you to be incredibly, off-the-charts and smoking, hot. Bet, but it’s all good my lady friend, as you are living your life and too licking your wounds. I came through these questioning thoughts feeling the same. I’m glad I was honest with you, and it’s new, at least in the way I handled it with you. My cards are truly on the table. But also I am cycling through grief, if better each time through, and—should we be an anchor for each other I don’t want to sully it, it’s true. I’m stepping back with open hands as the Buddhists say but there will be no difference in our relations. I might not wait to hear from you but I’ve got you in my sights and on the fringe of my daily life and living. You have captured my imagination and are so very much my type indeed.
There is desire, as stated, and the discussions of that desire. There is a shared pain and respect between two who have and will continue to see the truth and write it down; or at least admit when we’re throwing up our hands and shine our intention through an audience as other. There is our lives being led and the general fuckarounds and what-abouts we can drive ourselves nuts with. And then there are the conversations…I want you to know that I dig your voice, Lovely. So much. It tells me so much about you and I like what it is telling me. You’re pert but grounded and are a slow wisdom. You don’t miss things and you listen and also you’ve such a seductive langor to you. When I think of you I think of an auburn fire, burning low and steady on the beach in early September. And the sea and the sea.
10:58A.M.
I suppose the most salient point of this unsane and devotional letter is that the sun is on my back now. It burns through my black sleeveless tee, and on, searing up my neck and arms. Sure feels good and warm in that Texas sun. This line from an old song written right around when I got down here has become a way to be. A devotional in itself which is simply a call to prayer. I hope my biblical quotes don’t worry you. I assure you I am a pagan raised Catholic in the township and as far as quotes and lines—Philip Levine’s is more important and always with me. Speaking on his mother and the every-Detroit morning—the ever-present past if you will. He masterfully leaves us there and we now have a reason to burn on or get up before dawn. Smoke cigarettes and drink water, eat watermelon and come to prayer. I approach you in this spirit, Lovely, and I not-so-subtly hint at an altar of you, standing tall like a statue, a buxom beauty fit to devote and to be devoted to. I honor you in all these ways. In lives that are going on, wounded and wondering why but going on. In casual late night conversations with your sultry voice on the line, luminous and cold as milk in the dark. In ways of craft, during one of our last summer’s fading—the craft rising from the claw of the past, putting us here in ourselves and reaching out across the divide for connection and something earthly yet other-wordly. So above so below. All I have ever said to you was true. But speaking of craft, it’s so much better this way, where my reverie and mystique rise from filtered Norwegian Shag in the tray, and the sun shines through me though I am at this time ultimately lit up with you.
Live your life, Poet, and have coffee with me in Philly. It’s not as heavy as this letter would suggest but it is. The truth is never or but and. And the truth is I’ll be in Sellersville and Souderton at some point between 10/25-10/27 and should like to make it easy for us to see each other. When you suggested coffee I didn’t know where I’d be, honestly, but I have a much better idea now. It would be an absolute charm.
Fondly,
Jim Trainer
AUSTIN TX
P.S.
HAIKU HI
4:44P.M. HAT
Aloha. You’ve the benefit of just reading this letter. I’m going to spare myself that, because I know my intentions were good at the time. It’s all these days later and I am riveted by your visage, commenting on Facebook when I said I wouldn’t. It’s a beautiful thing. Since I wrote this letter, you’ve offered to have coffee as friends, and I didn’t care for it, though not b/c it could very well be your wish. To which I say no problem, except that you were on my mind for many days on end and left me thinking about you on my own until you were worried about me. As friends, you should know that I don’t view social media as anything real. I draw from my life, of course, and I am branded as me. Enough about that. I will leave it to you to settle the contradiction you offer and add that I was as direct with you as I could be. I don’t know what you think is going on in coffee shops but what else, Lovely? Also, maybe you’re confused. I am too and don’t look at the pictures you’ve sent anymore and anyway I won’t be confused for very long. As soon as I send this letter off, finally, I will know that I have called out and told it and left it to you to respond, or not, which isn’t my favorite but would certainly be clear if protracted. From paradise I say to you that we’ll do whatever you wish but get around it, or make it frustrating, or all the heavy things you and I just untangled ourselves from. I would’ve just texted you but, idk, seems kind of flippant. xojt
Going for the Throat 