When I hear your name,
I break out in a cold, cold sweat.
Clearly I’m not over you yet.
I didn’t think no one would blame me,
I had a bad excuse.
But if you think you’ve won
Remember it’s not a game, dear;
It’s a search for the truth.
Late last night I googled your name.
I read your blog and saw that you’d done the same
For me.
You wouldn’t know the truth if it spit in your eye
There’s convention in movies where a story that begins as an oral anecdote, after two or three introductory statements, transitions into the movie itself. And so all of a sudden, details are available that would never be included in the oral version, such as what kind of clothes the protagonist is wearing or some distraction occurring in the background. Even the slightest gesture is captured on film. But if this is all the manifestation of an oral retelling, aren’t all these details inherently suspect and unreliable?
Wonder how one might capture that same effect on the page.
My grandmother and some other ladies from the church have a committee that delivers poinsettias to the shut-ins every Christmas. It appears that this is some sort of program that lots of churches take up. Some of them also deliver Easter Lilies to the shut-ins at Easter time. Need to find out more about this.
I know a number of open-minded and intelligent people who claim to “hate poetry.” I think most of this group would make some exceptions for a handful of poets or at least individual poems, but their derision for the art form is nonetheless prominently pronounced.
I feel some empathy for these people, but I never considered myself one of them, even though my appreciation of poetry seems to be more and more theoretical as time goes on. Fiction is more my game. But it seems to me that if prose, esp. that prose that purports to be “literary” doesn’t contain some elements of what we’d call “poetic language,” then it’s hard to find much about it that is more rewarding than your average episode of [fill in your favorite soap-y television series here]. If we’re to admire (and practice) “poetic language” there must be some good that can come of reading (and writing) poetry itself.
Anyway, in my efforts to develop some sort of literary track record of my own, I occasionally buy a copy of some or other “literary journal,” usually one that has published or is edited by a writer whose work I already admire, in order to familiarize myself with the type of fiction that journal generally likes to publish and decide whether it would be worth the effort to send them some of my own work. In some of those journals, and one in particular that I’m thinking of, I found that said journal also published poetry in addition to fiction. I always attempt to read it, but in the great majority of cases, I can’t make heads or tails out of what the poet means to say, if anything at all, and I naturally find this frustrating.
If I had a point I was making, I’ve forgotten it now. Damn.
Man is increasingly aware of his part in some greater drama. Not a new idea, certainly, but in an age where reality is manufactured for television audiences as easily as bread is baked, individuals are hyper-conscious of the traits that make up their public persona. And for some, there’s a greater desire than ever to be someone else.
Shannon Johnson told me in ninth grade, entering high school, that this was our moment to define whatever we wanted to be. I wonder what made him so wise at that age. I ran into him a couple of years ago when I was passing through Dothan, and he seemed no different than in high school.
Another image that keeps popping up when I think about this idea of “identity” is William S. Burroughs, curled up in some Greenwich Village hovel with a frightened and naked fifteen-year old boy, telling him how to relax, that he doesn’t have to be himself, he can be anybody at that moment.
The footpath to the river starts with a pedestrian bridge over the Northbound side of the parkway, takes a wide and steep arc to a tunnel beneath the Southbound. Every time I pass through this tunnel, I get the feeling it is nothing short of miraculous. In an instant, the traffic seems distant, even as I come out on the other side and cars are passing just a few feet over my shoulder. Everything I can see is suddenly serene and bucolic. There is still the rumble of the G Washington Bridge, but it is not unlike that of the ocean, and it makes the river seem bigger, makes New Jersey across the way seem like a distant continent somehow still visible despite the breadth of the ocean.
With uncertain footing, I climb down a short embankment to the edge of the rocks. I try to sit next to a duck, but it flies away, makes me remember that I am not stealth like a Ninja, the way I sometimes think I am. The duck also reminds me that I am not small. It is actually the red lighthouse a few yards away that is small.
But soon there is nothing in my thoughts except the moving water and the still rocks, makes me feel like I’ve re-arrived at some primary stage of development, unable to conjure any words. How many times, how many ways have moving water and still rocks been described by writers? This must be one of the most basic things there is. I soak it in. I hope that it somehow renews and recharges me. I could sit here for hours not thinking anything.
Materials:
Burlap
Twine
Gauze
Particle Board
Laminate
Wool
Granite
Canola Oil
Canvas
Jute
Organza
Brocade
Pongee
Cardboard
Cork
Brick
Marble
Cement
Suede
This may be a perverse way of looking at things, but I think in many cases the pain of the injured heals faster than the shame of the injurer.
M had a funny idea that I should write St. Paul’s Letters to Penthouse. Add that to the list of things I’ll get around to one of these days.
Hours and hours
In the clutch of your tantric powers
Circe, Circe
Don’t let me go.
Show me no mercy.
I’m a pig, I know.
M. David Hornbuckle 