2:39 a.m.
The artist laments again.
An affected line has worked it's way
into the paragraph.
It is not his own.
2:43 a.m.
The blinds are bent apart,
snaking across the window.
He imagines the stopped traffic,
the passers-by;
He fears they can peek in and observe
the open-heart surgery.
2:53 a.m.
The artist laments again.
He should really call her, but he doesn't.
She is asleep and each time he picks up
the phone he imagines someone else in her bed.
He can only put it back down.
2:57 a.m.
The artist laments again
The picture she gave him was taken
on a Thursday and it is only
the two of them.
The picture is bright and smiling
and full of hurtful lies.
3:01 a.m.
The surgeons, fatigued,
have been working far too long.
Keeping the beat going
like a drawn out encore
when we all just want to go home.
3:10 a.m.
The artist laments again.
What seemed a brilliant start
did not even finish,
but instead poured out in so many
incoherent directions;
a silk sheet to a frayed rag.
3:12 a.m.
The artist erases
He was not sure anymore
what mattered and what did not.
or what
or whom
he was even writing about.
3:13 a.m.
The surgeons have left the ventricles,
the valves.
These noble cardiologists;
clearly having slept through
pulmonology,
are taking a cigarette break
in the lungs.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
On Hangovers and Robert Plant
My head and my lower back
have treacherously conspired
to form
one of the most formidable "fuck yous" I've experienced.
But I suppose it's only retaliation.
At least my stomach has decided against
unleashing it's arsenal
of guerrilla warfare techniques.
Worse yet --
I am involuntarily subjected to
Robert Plant screaming into my ear
like an air-raid siren
with the frequency shape of: a dagger
drenched in cyanide
buried in an elephant;
an elephant who is on fire.
This elephant escaped from the zoo of hell, apparently
(He did not enjoy the flame exhibit)
And is instead quite ironically riding atop
a fire truck painted in the most offensive
neon orange I have seen.
The fire truck is running over my head
and reversing repeatedly.
And how unfair is it that
even if I manage to escape
this inconsiderate truck,
I still have a fucking elephant in flames
to deal with?
And that is the shape
of Robert Plant's voice.
I can only hope that
he dies after nuclear winter when
all the radios are gone
and no one can commemorate him
like they did MJ.
have treacherously conspired
to form
one of the most formidable "fuck yous" I've experienced.
But I suppose it's only retaliation.
At least my stomach has decided against
unleashing it's arsenal
of guerrilla warfare techniques.
Worse yet --
I am involuntarily subjected to
Robert Plant screaming into my ear
like an air-raid siren
with the frequency shape of: a dagger
drenched in cyanide
buried in an elephant;
an elephant who is on fire.
This elephant escaped from the zoo of hell, apparently
(He did not enjoy the flame exhibit)
And is instead quite ironically riding atop
a fire truck painted in the most offensive
neon orange I have seen.
The fire truck is running over my head
and reversing repeatedly.
And how unfair is it that
even if I manage to escape
this inconsiderate truck,
I still have a fucking elephant in flames
to deal with?
And that is the shape
of Robert Plant's voice.
I can only hope that
he dies after nuclear winter when
all the radios are gone
and no one can commemorate him
like they did MJ.
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Only thing Beyond the Little Green Hill
Note: This was written quite some time ago, and even I am surprised at how different it seems to me compared to the way I approach 'writing' now! After considering whether or not to revise it, I decided to leave it mostly unedited, as I still very much like the idea behind it.
--
"Wake up, Samuel."
Samuel rose immediately and looked upwards.
The sky was gray. Samuel stared in wonder at the color, never having seen such a glowing manifestation that landed on the tips of the intensely green grass. He moved his eyes, following the growing texture to its end, noticing it rose through and around the toes of his feet, and all the way down a hill, to a river that ran softly. He looked to his side and saw the one who had called his name.
"Good morning, Catherine."
"Good morning to you. Did you sleep well?"
Samuel thought for a moment.
"Yes, I did, thanks."
"I've gathered some blueberries from down by where the grass ends. There were so many," Catherine said innocently.
"Blueberries? Let me see them," Samuel asked with his voice still filled with curiosity.
Catherine opened the small cloth she clasped enough for Samuel to reach in and remove a single blueberry. And, holding it up to his wide eyes, he turned it over and over again in his palm before putting it slowly in his mouth. He liked the taste of blueberries.
He turned to Catherine and smiled as they together opened the cloth and set it across the ground, each of them filling their hands with blueberries. They ate quietly and looked around; taking in the little green hill they sat on, the sky above them, and the worn path down towards the stream which now caught Samuel's attention.
"Catherine, will you come down with me to the water? I want to see it."
"Sure, Samuel. Are you finished?"
"Yes, I --"
Samuel cut himself off upon noticing that the remainder of the blueberries they hadn't eaten, along with the blue-stained cloth, had vanished from the ground. This seemed inherently strange to him.
"Did you take them away?" He asked of Catherine.
"No. I don't know where they went. But let's go down to the river like you wanted to."
Samuel smiled sheepishly as for the first time, he noticed her eyes looking at his own, and an unknown, instant flutter went through his chest.
"You have eyes like the grass. They are the same pretty color. Did you know that?"
She thought for a moment, squinting in the morning light, reaching up to feel the area around her eyes.
"Yes, I guess they are. Thank you."
They walked down to the river together, noticing the steep decline of the hill and how it affected their legs as they went.
They stopped at the edge of the streaming water, and watched their reflections together silently. They looked for a moment, then laughed together at their rippling and distorted faces. Catherine bent down towards the surface of the water and splashed it softly with her fingertip.
"It feels wonderful. I think I'd like to drink. Are you thirsty, Sam?"
She pulled back her hair and lowered her head to the surface, letting the cool water into her mouth. When she finished, Samuel followed with a similar motion. Then, with a suppressed giggle, Catherine pushed him forward and into the calm river.
Samuel's initial reaction was one of shock, as the water enveloped his entire body, slowing his limbs and saturating his hair. But as he rose to the surface and inhaled from the sky, he realized the beauty of the feeling that was now all around him. He moved back and forth, swaying and paddling and feeling the water all around him. He smiled at Catherine, silently thanking her for this new sensation.
"Catherine! Come in! It's lovely, I promise."
She hesitated for a second, and then jumped into it a short distance downstream from him. As he watched her rise to the surface and open her eyes, the fluttering feeling that he had felt earlier came to his chest again with a more intense return.
They swam together and around each other, splashing and laughing and paddling against the flow of the water.
Samuel's foot touched something of a harder substance beneath him. As curiosity came over him, he instinctively inhaled sharply and dove beneath the surface, heading down to find what had struck him.
Catherine watched for him cautiously until he returned again with a handful of dirt and debris. He shook his hand a bit, and soon a small pink object lay half buried in the remainder of the dirt. Recognizing it as a shell, he pulled it out with his other hand and held it up to her with a grin. She stared with great interest.
"That's beautiful. Can you pass it to me?"
Samuel quickly thrust out his hand, but in his enthusiasm let go of the little shell and the current quickly grabbed it away from him, depositing it somewhere along the river bottom. Sam looked at her with sudden disappointment, and immediately dove under the blue water to retrieve the stolen shell. He arose with a handful of dirt, and then quickly sank a second and third time. But he couldn't find it.
"It's fine, I'm sure we'll find another one soon," Catherine said.
"I'm sorry I lost it."
She smiled, dismissing his disappointment and reached for his hand.
He reached out similarly, but both were alarmed when their touch never happened. Her hand simply slipped through his, as easy as the water that held them, and she recoiled in shock. They stared at each other, not knowing why, but staring and wondering.
They were quiet a moment.
"Maybe we should get out?" Catherine suggested with a forced smile.
"Yes. Let's go."
Sam was lost in thought for a moment.
"She must have just gotten close, and missed...that's all," he rationalized.
They climbed back onto the river bank, and stood together, neither of them acknowledging the incident in the river. Samuel at that moment noticed a rough wooden bench next to him that looked big enough for the both of them. Catherine
broke the silence.
"I like the bench you made us, Samuel. That was sweet of you. It gets tiring
standing here."
"I guess I did make that, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did."
The conversation soon turned quiet again immediately after they seated themselves. Sam lightly ran his feet in circles along the grass below him, quickly racing to think of something to change the atmosphere.
"Why don't we go see what's on the other side of the hill?"
"Good idea, but let's dry off first."
But Samuel and Catherine were already dry. Their clothes were without wrinkles or dampness, and they clung loosely to their bodies as they had before entering the river. Glaringly apparent as it was, neither addressed it aloud.
"I guess that part is done!" Sam said with a nervous attempt at humor.
Catherine smiled politely, and then genuinely.
"Let's go then."
They scaled the hill again together, and nearing the top a few minutes later, bent over in mild fatigue.
"Hey, I bet I can beat you there!" Catherine suddenly called from a few feet ahead of him. She had taken off running. Sam smiled and immediately followed suit.
They ran together at even pace down the other side of the hill, both half laughing and half balancing, hoping not to fall. Catherine threw out her arm in front of Samuel as if to scare him, but he only answered it by running closer, pretending he might push her over.
He was in bliss, enjoying the company of the beautiful girl next to him as all of a sudden the hill's decline ended, the mountains in the distance were moved backward again, and he was on top of the hill next to Catherine.
"...What?"
She looked terrified. Samuel spun around in circles.
"What just happened? Why are we back here? What's going on, Catherine?"
"I don't know!"
He immediately began the descent down the hill, at a quicker pace this time, only to find himself at its top once again.
Samuel sank to his knees and plunged his hands into the soil. He ripped a patch of grass upward, bringing the roots to the air and feeling the dirt beneath them. He looked, and saw blackness without form. New grass quickly sprouted over the dark hole of nothingness he had just gazed into seconds before. It was green as ever, soft and angled, reflecting the magnificent rays of the gray sky.
Catherine was watching him, but hadn't seen what he had.
Sam rose to his feet, lost in his own head.
With quick and rash thought, he made up his mind, burying his fears. He turned to the girl next to him. That flutter ran through his chest a third time, competing with the fear of the unknown forming knots in his stomach.
"Catherine, kiss me."
"What, Sam?"
"Kiss me. I want to know what it feels like to be kissed."
She now seemed more surprised by his request than the strange situation that faced them. A soft redness formed at the base of her cheeks and spread throughout her face. She smiled with her lips and her eyes at him, and moved closer.
"Okay."
They stopped inches away from one another.
Both now had smiles, temporarily forgetting the rest of the world. Sam moved in, bringing his face to hers and closing his eyes. He waited for her, to feel her, to have that sensation again.
He felt nothing.
They stood, two on a hill, but they were nothing but a 1 and a 0 in a line of code, somewhere pulsing through electronic signals and pieces that fired together to form an image.
Somewhere, the sky was being sucked up into the same blackness that Samuel had glimpsed beneath the grass. The river lost its shape, and the grass turned a dull brown. The mountains in the distance became a formless mass, and the whole world was turning into blackness at the edges of a monitor screen.
Samuel, losing his vision, thrust his arms out for Catherine, as her face dissolved into fearful tears, and she cried out for him. He tried to call back for her and fought to reach her, but he found had no voice, and now his fingertips were disintegrating before his eyes, bursting into fragments that rose upward into the great black hole in the world.
Catherine was gone and the little green hill was now a flat plane that shrank by the instant. Samuel felt himself become the hole in the sky, and then he knew no more.
Somewhere, on a messy desk in a cold room, a computer shut down for the day.
-----
"Wake up, Samuel."
Samuel rose to his feet and trained his eyes with wonder towards the gray sky above him. He had never seen anything like it.
--
"Wake up, Samuel."
Samuel rose immediately and looked upwards.
The sky was gray. Samuel stared in wonder at the color, never having seen such a glowing manifestation that landed on the tips of the intensely green grass. He moved his eyes, following the growing texture to its end, noticing it rose through and around the toes of his feet, and all the way down a hill, to a river that ran softly. He looked to his side and saw the one who had called his name.
"Good morning, Catherine."
"Good morning to you. Did you sleep well?"
Samuel thought for a moment.
"Yes, I did, thanks."
"I've gathered some blueberries from down by where the grass ends. There were so many," Catherine said innocently.
"Blueberries? Let me see them," Samuel asked with his voice still filled with curiosity.
Catherine opened the small cloth she clasped enough for Samuel to reach in and remove a single blueberry. And, holding it up to his wide eyes, he turned it over and over again in his palm before putting it slowly in his mouth. He liked the taste of blueberries.
He turned to Catherine and smiled as they together opened the cloth and set it across the ground, each of them filling their hands with blueberries. They ate quietly and looked around; taking in the little green hill they sat on, the sky above them, and the worn path down towards the stream which now caught Samuel's attention.
"Catherine, will you come down with me to the water? I want to see it."
"Sure, Samuel. Are you finished?"
"Yes, I --"
Samuel cut himself off upon noticing that the remainder of the blueberries they hadn't eaten, along with the blue-stained cloth, had vanished from the ground. This seemed inherently strange to him.
"Did you take them away?" He asked of Catherine.
"No. I don't know where they went. But let's go down to the river like you wanted to."
Samuel smiled sheepishly as for the first time, he noticed her eyes looking at his own, and an unknown, instant flutter went through his chest.
"You have eyes like the grass. They are the same pretty color. Did you know that?"
She thought for a moment, squinting in the morning light, reaching up to feel the area around her eyes.
"Yes, I guess they are. Thank you."
They walked down to the river together, noticing the steep decline of the hill and how it affected their legs as they went.
They stopped at the edge of the streaming water, and watched their reflections together silently. They looked for a moment, then laughed together at their rippling and distorted faces. Catherine bent down towards the surface of the water and splashed it softly with her fingertip.
"It feels wonderful. I think I'd like to drink. Are you thirsty, Sam?"
She pulled back her hair and lowered her head to the surface, letting the cool water into her mouth. When she finished, Samuel followed with a similar motion. Then, with a suppressed giggle, Catherine pushed him forward and into the calm river.
Samuel's initial reaction was one of shock, as the water enveloped his entire body, slowing his limbs and saturating his hair. But as he rose to the surface and inhaled from the sky, he realized the beauty of the feeling that was now all around him. He moved back and forth, swaying and paddling and feeling the water all around him. He smiled at Catherine, silently thanking her for this new sensation.
"Catherine! Come in! It's lovely, I promise."
She hesitated for a second, and then jumped into it a short distance downstream from him. As he watched her rise to the surface and open her eyes, the fluttering feeling that he had felt earlier came to his chest again with a more intense return.
They swam together and around each other, splashing and laughing and paddling against the flow of the water.
Samuel's foot touched something of a harder substance beneath him. As curiosity came over him, he instinctively inhaled sharply and dove beneath the surface, heading down to find what had struck him.
Catherine watched for him cautiously until he returned again with a handful of dirt and debris. He shook his hand a bit, and soon a small pink object lay half buried in the remainder of the dirt. Recognizing it as a shell, he pulled it out with his other hand and held it up to her with a grin. She stared with great interest.
"That's beautiful. Can you pass it to me?"
Samuel quickly thrust out his hand, but in his enthusiasm let go of the little shell and the current quickly grabbed it away from him, depositing it somewhere along the river bottom. Sam looked at her with sudden disappointment, and immediately dove under the blue water to retrieve the stolen shell. He arose with a handful of dirt, and then quickly sank a second and third time. But he couldn't find it.
"It's fine, I'm sure we'll find another one soon," Catherine said.
"I'm sorry I lost it."
She smiled, dismissing his disappointment and reached for his hand.
He reached out similarly, but both were alarmed when their touch never happened. Her hand simply slipped through his, as easy as the water that held them, and she recoiled in shock. They stared at each other, not knowing why, but staring and wondering.
They were quiet a moment.
"Maybe we should get out?" Catherine suggested with a forced smile.
"Yes. Let's go."
Sam was lost in thought for a moment.
"She must have just gotten close, and missed...that's all," he rationalized.
They climbed back onto the river bank, and stood together, neither of them acknowledging the incident in the river. Samuel at that moment noticed a rough wooden bench next to him that looked big enough for the both of them. Catherine
broke the silence.
"I like the bench you made us, Samuel. That was sweet of you. It gets tiring
standing here."
"I guess I did make that, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did."
The conversation soon turned quiet again immediately after they seated themselves. Sam lightly ran his feet in circles along the grass below him, quickly racing to think of something to change the atmosphere.
"Why don't we go see what's on the other side of the hill?"
"Good idea, but let's dry off first."
But Samuel and Catherine were already dry. Their clothes were without wrinkles or dampness, and they clung loosely to their bodies as they had before entering the river. Glaringly apparent as it was, neither addressed it aloud.
"I guess that part is done!" Sam said with a nervous attempt at humor.
Catherine smiled politely, and then genuinely.
"Let's go then."
They scaled the hill again together, and nearing the top a few minutes later, bent over in mild fatigue.
"Hey, I bet I can beat you there!" Catherine suddenly called from a few feet ahead of him. She had taken off running. Sam smiled and immediately followed suit.
They ran together at even pace down the other side of the hill, both half laughing and half balancing, hoping not to fall. Catherine threw out her arm in front of Samuel as if to scare him, but he only answered it by running closer, pretending he might push her over.
He was in bliss, enjoying the company of the beautiful girl next to him as all of a sudden the hill's decline ended, the mountains in the distance were moved backward again, and he was on top of the hill next to Catherine.
"...What?"
She looked terrified. Samuel spun around in circles.
"What just happened? Why are we back here? What's going on, Catherine?"
"I don't know!"
He immediately began the descent down the hill, at a quicker pace this time, only to find himself at its top once again.
Samuel sank to his knees and plunged his hands into the soil. He ripped a patch of grass upward, bringing the roots to the air and feeling the dirt beneath them. He looked, and saw blackness without form. New grass quickly sprouted over the dark hole of nothingness he had just gazed into seconds before. It was green as ever, soft and angled, reflecting the magnificent rays of the gray sky.
Catherine was watching him, but hadn't seen what he had.
Sam rose to his feet, lost in his own head.
With quick and rash thought, he made up his mind, burying his fears. He turned to the girl next to him. That flutter ran through his chest a third time, competing with the fear of the unknown forming knots in his stomach.
"Catherine, kiss me."
"What, Sam?"
"Kiss me. I want to know what it feels like to be kissed."
She now seemed more surprised by his request than the strange situation that faced them. A soft redness formed at the base of her cheeks and spread throughout her face. She smiled with her lips and her eyes at him, and moved closer.
"Okay."
They stopped inches away from one another.
Both now had smiles, temporarily forgetting the rest of the world. Sam moved in, bringing his face to hers and closing his eyes. He waited for her, to feel her, to have that sensation again.
He felt nothing.
They stood, two on a hill, but they were nothing but a 1 and a 0 in a line of code, somewhere pulsing through electronic signals and pieces that fired together to form an image.
Somewhere, the sky was being sucked up into the same blackness that Samuel had glimpsed beneath the grass. The river lost its shape, and the grass turned a dull brown. The mountains in the distance became a formless mass, and the whole world was turning into blackness at the edges of a monitor screen.
Samuel, losing his vision, thrust his arms out for Catherine, as her face dissolved into fearful tears, and she cried out for him. He tried to call back for her and fought to reach her, but he found had no voice, and now his fingertips were disintegrating before his eyes, bursting into fragments that rose upward into the great black hole in the world.
Catherine was gone and the little green hill was now a flat plane that shrank by the instant. Samuel felt himself become the hole in the sky, and then he knew no more.
Somewhere, on a messy desk in a cold room, a computer shut down for the day.
-----
"Wake up, Samuel."
Samuel rose to his feet and trained his eyes with wonder towards the gray sky above him. He had never seen anything like it.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
An unexceptional scene from the narrative of the end at 4 AM.
A young lady sitting on the corner of a bed. Her bed. A lamp she had bought one day with him at a thrift store illuminated half of her face and a fraction of his. The light from it is dim and warm. A young man lying on the very edge of the mattress. Used, crumpled tissues on the comforter and the floor. A bottle of empty nail polish remover in the corner near the silver-yellow trash can. More tissues discarded in the trash can; some are mostly tissue, others are mostly tears. Paper shapes hanging from the ceiling in decoration. They make shadows on her face and on the wall as they revolve in the soft light. Mostly packed luggage near the closet with mirrors for doors. His jacket draped across her back. Her tears wet on his shoulder. Hands clasped halfway together. Three shoes on the floor, a fourth hiding beneath the dresser. The sound of the bath running from down the hall. A soundless TV screen behind her. A wall, and a nightstand behind him. The wall full of pictures of everything he had missed before meeting her. A half-torn box near the door containing a camera and a maroon book without a title. The book is thicker than its spine can support. It is missing some pages but none of the important ones.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
I was going to write something today
It floated perfectly across my mind last night as I was drifting off. It made sense, and it was flawless, and I was quite certain of its tangibility and urgency. But it seems now that it existed only in that state, and the matter has completely left me. Some things can't be expressed, much less actually written or recorded. You fight them anyway and try to wrestle them into words and pin them down on paper, but they fight back and they always win. They are moments of clarity, maybe even "the holy moment," but they are still only moments that have so little to do with all the stumbling and rotary motions of every day life. They are over as soon as you realize that they ever happened.
And the more I write about writing, the worse it gets.
And the more I write about writing, the worse it gets.
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