I don’t think about writing. I am not consciously typing out these words. They flow out of me and the best I can do is channel them.
But they don’t always flow. And I need them to flow.
When I’m done forcing out a paper, it feels like I’ve poured all of myself out. I feel exhausted. I feel used. At least I feel accomplished.
Well subtract the ‘s’ from girls. But then it doesn’t have a nice sound aesthetic. And I’m all about that sound aesthetic.
There’s a conversation about duality somewhere in there, but I don’t have time to write for myself. Four essays this week. Four. So fuck you sleep, I guess. Whatever.
Get ready for some bitching. I’m going to bitch all this week.
And it’s just the tick tick tick of the clock—
And it’s just the tick tick tick of the clock—
And it’s just the tick tick tick of the clock—
And it’s just me standing here in this brown wall.
I should not be here.
I am.
Get over it. Get over it. Get over—
My face is pressed sideways against the wood grain. The wood grain is pressed sideways against my back. My back keeps bitching to my nerves and they keep bitching to my brain, but it’s just the tick tick tick of the clock here. Because I can’t be here. So I can’t move.
There’s a black spider above me. He’s been catching all the dust in this place in his neat and organized web. He’s been catching all the bugs unlucky enough to scuttle into his neat and organized world. My hair has caught on the web. I am shirtless. I am pantless. My clothing huddles in my arms. The spider keeps on creeping down its one string, long and invisible except for the thousand worthless gems that glimmer in the light of the crack on the wall. Through that crack is a blue eyed girl with matching tracery that clutches to her curves. Through that crack I hear the tick tick—
You think that I don’t know? Know what? You really think that I don’t know? Jonathon. What are you talking about? Amy. You know goddamn well what I am talking about. Stop this. Stop what? Calling you out on Just on the stop truth? it. What exactly Jon—am I Jon—stoJonppingathon. Jonathon. What? Amy. WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY HAVE TO SAY RIGHT NOW? Jonathon. Yes Amy, that is Jonmyanamethan. FuJonckayouthan. WhereThereisishe?no reason for you to be mad. Really? Yes. Where is he? There is no You he are a lying bitch. Why would say that JonStopasaythaning my name. You don’t have a right to my name. You do Jonnotahavethan. a right to that name. IT IS MINE. It is mine. Johnath—
And then he hit her.
And then he sat down, staring at the stranger at the end of his arm.
And then he started to cry.
And now it’s just the tick tick tick of the clock.
I like criticism when I ask for it.
It’s the only way to grow as a writer. I need to know which parts good but more importantly, which parts are bad. Praise is nice, but harsh words are far more helpful.
I only hate advice when it’s unsolicited. When something is in the roughest of stages, I don’t want input. I don’t need input. I know there is room for improvement.
I want your input for anything I post here.
I want you to point out anything that sounds awkward, doesn’t make sense, or is just plain bad.
I want to grow.
By the time the sun is tall enough to cast shadows, we’re inside and hiding from it. There is one great rectangular opening on the east wall. It is obscured by thick and faded blinds. A single slit of dull dust runs illuminated down the center of the courtroom. The Bench is on that side of the line. It is a monument of fake wood finish. There was polish. There is dust. All around there is a lulling purr. A gentle fan rattles like smiling death. It clinks and clacks and whirs softly. It is a kind sound that fades into the air. And then there is a sputter. And then there is a cough. And then there is a screech. And then there is silence.
The air is quiet and chalky and hot and full. Juror number three arrives in brown wool suit. He has a brown tie. He has a brown pair of shoes. He has a brown belt, a brown head of hair, and two faded brown eyes. He sits down, closes his hands together, and does not move from his brown chair.
The jury box is on the west wall. There are sixteen seats, I counted. Nine are on that side of the light. Eight are on mine. Our tables are folded out like props. They have metal legs that are cool to the touch. I run my finger across the top. The tip becomes grey and fuzzy. In the dust someone has drawn an adolescent holding a bong. He is cartoonish. His head is ridiculously big with eyes that are wide and bloodshot and happy. They are so happy. I go to erase it, but can’t. There is no one else that happy here. I look over Gale. He is pale faced and cuffed. The jaw line is smooth and jagged against stale air. He reeks of cheap cologne. Bushes of eyebrow bunch up. Crevices run across his face. Most are wrinkles. Two are old scars from the fighting. He is in a white button down shirt with a blue tie and a matching blue jacket. There is already sweat on the back of his neck. Pools of it are drawn out by the heat. In whispers I tell him to leave his suit coat on. He tries to whisper back, but he has a deep and urgent kind of voice that resonates within these yellow walls. All of his answer is in one word of agreement. All of the benches behind us stop rustling. Then they start again. There is a chair between us. It is pulled out and turned slightly sideways.
The carpet is tan and speckled and short and it rejects the light of the overheard fluorescents. Jurors Four, Five, Six, Eleven, and Fifteen are a herd of middle aged men with varying degrees of grey hair. They are barrel chested and thick legged working men. They suffocate in their collars. They try to take their seats, but grit their teeth as they realize the seats are too small. Carefully each one lowers himself down.
The buzzing is here. In this heat the flies are out. The little beast sits in the air next to my right ear. He stalls by flipping his wings. He moves away from me and over to Mr. Gerald, the prosecutor in black slacks. Accompanying the dark pants is a dark belt, dark shoes, dark hair, and unlit eyes. He has wide glasses over those milky eyes. He stands up and has to support himself on the table. His face is pruned by time. He has a thick file in front of him and two paralegals behind him.
Juror Eight is gold. She’s in her sixties and chains herself with heavy jewelry. She hides in weighted make up. She is bean thin. Jurors Nine, One, and Three are all keeping a distance from Juror Sixteen. Jurors Nine, One, and Three are young and healthy women. They are formal and fashionable and chic. Juror Sixteen is a fire haired imp. He is about five foot six and grubby. His face is speckled with red and orange —and so is his shirt. As walks up to the box he throws out an oozing hot dog rapper. Red ketchup splats on the floor. The rest of them file into this place together. They move at the pace of the air. They are an anxious bunch. Several keep fidgeting with their hair while others rap their fingers. One keeps brushing dust off of his pants.
Behind me there are four rows of benches. Sharp dressed sharks are testing their pens with sharp taps on their clean pads. The air is still and silent. The air is frantic. The air is dusty. We are called to stand. We all stand up together. We all stand up slowly. A half-broken man with a brittle beard and black drapes creeps up to the bench. BANG—clean and bony, the gavel. The trial has begun.
[edit: all those annoying line breaks disappear on my tumblr page.]
There’s a fire on the mountain.
It’s mid October and each step is a decision. I put my left foot out, feel the
sole of my boot catch a grip and lurch my body up. I do the same with my right
foot. And again with the left. I haven’t broken into a pattern yet, so each step
takes more effort than the last. These are the things working against me: a forty
pound pack, a steep section, and the damn water on these rocks that makes my
boot slip every five minutes. It’s mostly peaceful here except for the noise. Hiking
is not as serene as advertised. Rocks and sticks and soil and trees are beautiful
and silent, but we are not. We are red faced and sweaty and there’s the constant
scraping of boot on rock, the snapping of boot on stick, and thumping of boot on
soil. My pack has sandals and a metal pot strapped to the back that like to clatter
together even after I wrap the pot in a fleece.
I am wearing shorts and a poly-cotton blend t-shirt. I can see my breath,
but I am not cold. I move forward as I think about everything but moving forward.
I think about everything but my legs, and the way the left one hurts more than
right. I think about everything but the way my shoulder straps cut into me. I don’t
really think about anything at all. I am working for the top, for the view. I am
working to stop working, but I can’t stop yet. My legs hur— whumpwhumpcrackrustlewhump. The sounds crowd each other and crowd my
mind and I have found my pattern.
The trail spindles its way through these trees. It is frail and thin and
everyday it is absorbed back into the mountain a little more. Today a quiet
stream moves dirt off the path and into the woods. Our staircase is sliding and
shifting and these great stones are sinking back where they belong. I tear the
skin of a clementine and watch this place erode. I am sitting on a rock on a trail
on Mount Washington. I am sitting on rock on a trail on Mount Lafayette. Or it
could be Garfield. Or Galehead. If I really focus I can separate each unique trail.
They are all different.
There’s a fire on the mountain.
I am at the top. All around me great mountains burn autumn as their
leaves drain of life. It is a place of harrowing beauty. I am tiny and insignificant.
But I am at the top. A wind picks up and the fire sways with it. The wind pushes
against me, so I stand up and turn to face it. I am knocked, so I stand up –wider
now. I lean into the wind and feel it press against me. This whole place is in
decay, but I close my eyes and for one fleeting moment I am suspended.
You should read the original poem. It’s very good.
I hate writing these types of poems. I hate imitating. But I kind of got into this one, so I’m going to post it. The structure is not mine at all mine. Most of the words are. I left Eliot’s language intact either because:
a) it served the tone/meaning of my poem
b) I changed the meaning of the language by modifying the context.
The Rural Life
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Where to go, you and I,
When the evening has blotched out the sky
Like Pollock with his paints that cry?
Where to go, through certain dead-deserted streets?
Oh so quiet retreats
Of peaceful nights in green-grass box houses
And garages, perfect for aged spouses:
Streets that sleep in this here tedious moment
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Where to go and make our visit?
Around the fire we all just stare,
Wondering what we’re doing there.
The heavy air that hangs thick and empty outside the car-window,
The silent air that bangs mute and empty against the car-window,
Pushed its way into the corners of our evening,
Lingered upon our thoughts that stand alone,
Let fall upon our backs the thick and empty nothing,
Let fall upon our ears the mute and empty nothing,
And fully seeing and perceiving my desperate cry for truth,
Thick and mute and empty, it hung my desperate fleeting youth.
And indeed there will be time
For the heavy air that puts to rest all those weary,
Rubbing its safe nothing upon old eyelids;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a future, kind and sweet for elder faces that you meet;
There will be time to order and to procreate,
And time for all the work and all the babble
That lifts and drops a question on your plate;
Time for us to sit and putter and play Scrabble
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the watching of television.
Around the fire we all just stare,
Wondering what we’re doing there.
No! No! No! There is no time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
No time! Don’t turn back and reverse the car,
We must, we must, keep going somewhere—
[They will say: “There is no place to stop in!”]
My still-clear eyes, my claws gripped around unopened gin,
My vision pure not blurring, so I demand: “I want some sin”—
[They will say: “But how? Where will we begin?”]
I do dare
Disturb the universe.
In this minute there is no time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have built my whole and hollow self out of careful lattices,
I have measured out my life with these Facebook statuses;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath clicking from an empty room.
Are we wasting our youth?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that stare not really looking anywhere,
And when I move to lock us in, they act as if they are sprawling on a pin,
If they feel pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out anything authentic, anything at all?
Are we wasting our youth?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Wild arms that swing the beat and pump the air
[But in the lamplight, drunk with sweaty hair!]
It is something from that glass
That makes my voice so loud and crass?
Arms that give out hugs unstable, and then steady on a table.
Am I wasting my youth?
But how could I begin?
Shall I say, “let us talk of T.S. Eliot”
While watching smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely kids in shirt-sleeves, sitting around a fire?…
I am a black and rusted derrick.
I am so very claustrophobic.
And the evening sleeps so peacefully!
Smothered by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Wrapped around the car, around you and me.
Should I, before drinks and pills and vices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
I have forseen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have forseen that eternal Cancer work my bones, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
No. I am not Good Apollo, nor was meant to be;
Am just some stupid kid, one that will do
To throw a bonfire, start a scene or two,
provide the place; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Contrived and anxious, but zealous;
Full of potential, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, King Midas.
I decay… I decay …
Shall I regret my life when my hair turns gray?
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
We have lingered under empty night of stars
With vacant eyes, minds, and souls in this glade
Till adult voices shake us, and we fade.
I’m mostly going to post my writing. I will probably be rather infrequent and inconsistent with my updates.
This will also be quite personal: awkward and uncomfortable truths, things that frustrate me, etc. All the stuff no one really cares about.
But this is for me.
Because I need a constant stream of attention to be happy.
Because I am deeply insecure.
Because I don’t really know much of anything but who I want to be.
There are a lot of authentic things in the world. There are a lot more inauthentic things. This is one of those authentic things.
Nothing digital will ever fade. I don’t care. I will make something real.
I am willing and I’ll stand before you and I’ll raise my arms and give you my chest and throat and wait.
