a home for homeless literature
do we make each other this way
Published Tuesday, November 29, 2005 by Anonymous.
poem follows (stupid blogger post limitations, the form is almost entirely lost. I will have to figure out some way around this.):
do we make each other this way
i met allusions on the subway train last night after dark, though after dark is meaningless under ground when dark has no after and no before.
pop
engine
tired from concerted escapism my efforts have gone home. their refrains aren’t the same way i’m thinking about them. but how else to say them.
broken
physics of fracture
equations of evasions
ppo
eengin
can you flail more clearly? can you drown better next time? the next time you can’t take anymore, would you please just take some more?
all good questions, but the OC isn’t answering anymore fan mail.
opp
neengi
timeless dark was mentioned before. it has since found a watch, so forget it. the engineering is swiss.
do we make each other this way
i met allusions on the subway train last night after dark, though after dark is meaningless under ground when dark has no after and no before.
pop
engine
tired from concerted escapism my efforts have gone home. their refrains aren’t the same way i’m thinking about them. but how else to say them.
• REMEMBER NOT TO ASK QUESTIONS WITH NO ANSWERS IN MINDcircles and policies havealwaysbeen exercises in
(can this be avoided through punctuation)
broken
physics of fracture
equations of evasions
ppo
eengin
can you flail more clearly? can you drown better next time? the next time you can’t take anymore, would you please just take some more?
all good questions, but the OC isn’t answering anymore fan mail.
opp
neengi
timeless dark was mentioned before. it has since found a watch, so forget it. the engineering is swiss.
• REMEMBER THAT IN RECANTING YOU SHOW YOUR ARE WEAK
(try to frown with dignity the cameras are rolling)
The Future is Prisms and Math
Published Friday, November 25, 2005 by Anonymous.
Here's a little thing I wrote for the Thornburg website. Some guy called me a jerk and told me to post it on slapdash. So that's what I did. The title I stole from a Low lyric that goes like this: "The future is prisms and math." The song is called "Death of a Salesman." It's on one of Low's worst albums, "The Great Destroyer." Anyway, here's my thing. I'm not sure exactly what to call it.
These designs are of a sinister nature. We've calculated the distance of a single point of reference on the earth to the farthest possible reaches of space. We now know the exact dimensions of the smallest living organism. Our lives have been catalogued extensively on microchips smaller than a baby's thumb. We've transplanted nature with formulas, graphs, read-outs, charts, schedules, guides, maps, satellite imagery, chemical compositions, chronology, manuals, manifestos, crossword puzzles, product codes, lasers, radios. Deforestation is just an emblem of our dissatisfaction with the answers we've received. Somewhere there's a stationwagon full of spliced wires and explosive devices. An underground league of half-wits is planning the destruction of the earth from the urinal stalls of your favourite pub. Anagrams and alphabet soup. Secret radio frequencies intercepted in the stratosphere. Decipher the code. Punch-drunk and falling in the streets. Who can blame them? Me, I carry a small transistor radio in my back pocket. I listen to the top ten and complain constantly about the weather. I'm always late for the bus and I blame it on the bus. I listen to my radio and catch the latest news, as filtered through whichever filter happens to be working that day. I speak loudly in public places. I decipher codes. Secret radio frequencies in the stratosphere. That's the sound that energy makes. Cosmic disturbances. You can actually listen to the sun flaring. Decipher the code. I carry a small transistor radio in my back pocket. It nightlights as a bomb and will detonate on my command. These designs are of a sinister nature. The future is prisms and math.
These designs are of a sinister nature. We've calculated the distance of a single point of reference on the earth to the farthest possible reaches of space. We now know the exact dimensions of the smallest living organism. Our lives have been catalogued extensively on microchips smaller than a baby's thumb. We've transplanted nature with formulas, graphs, read-outs, charts, schedules, guides, maps, satellite imagery, chemical compositions, chronology, manuals, manifestos, crossword puzzles, product codes, lasers, radios. Deforestation is just an emblem of our dissatisfaction with the answers we've received. Somewhere there's a stationwagon full of spliced wires and explosive devices. An underground league of half-wits is planning the destruction of the earth from the urinal stalls of your favourite pub. Anagrams and alphabet soup. Secret radio frequencies intercepted in the stratosphere. Decipher the code. Punch-drunk and falling in the streets. Who can blame them? Me, I carry a small transistor radio in my back pocket. I listen to the top ten and complain constantly about the weather. I'm always late for the bus and I blame it on the bus. I listen to my radio and catch the latest news, as filtered through whichever filter happens to be working that day. I speak loudly in public places. I decipher codes. Secret radio frequencies in the stratosphere. That's the sound that energy makes. Cosmic disturbances. You can actually listen to the sun flaring. Decipher the code. I carry a small transistor radio in my back pocket. It nightlights as a bomb and will detonate on my command. These designs are of a sinister nature. The future is prisms and math.
Crust
Published by Jenny Sampirisi.
Part of a suite of poems called "The Shift" about travelling the 401
i am pulling my bodies from you. tin scales flaking. the coddled effort of your skin still on me. still flapping between fingers. patching joints and hollows. cracks elbows. webs us to evening. a sleeping hand occasionally between my shoulders. the vanishing. point. of my skin and your shadow body. between copper salted fingers. tell me
i am pulling my bodies from you. tin scales flaking. the coddled effort of your skin still on me. still flapping between fingers. patching joints and hollows. cracks elbows. webs us to evening. a sleeping hand occasionally between my shoulders. the vanishing. point. of my skin and your shadow body. between copper salted fingers. tell me
what if
i find a stone to rub against. slough you off. these water broken rocks. revised. by the rub rub of my limbs rawing. smoothing cool mineral. clip aloe for the ooze of it and paint over the missing skin. leave. you still sucking milk from limestone. ripped of sweated flesh. you are cut out. the tender incision of a key through a key hole. until
this lifting
thickens our heals. we are sideways walkers. among the shale of highways. pinching our skin to other bodies. knitted now. to other pores. leaking over suckled blemishes. scraping one from one. until the pumice snows our shavings to neat piles. water scented ash. you or me. forever flaying the layers. looking for the drop of blood that
unravels us
Pantoum!
Published by Tucker.
i think i wrote this about four five years ago so I'm not claiming brilliance but I do like the idea of the structure. Any suggestions for titles?
Unititled Pantoum
The orange berries on the mountain ash tree
Are picked clean by the inky birds outside my window
Reminding me of sandboxes and tree forts
Memories that are whole forests away
Picked clean by inky birds outside my window
My clumsy kid feet step backwards
Memories that are whole forests away
A familiar taste of rhubarb
My clumsy kid feet step backwards
How long has it been since I saw the sunrise through tree limbs
With the familiar taste of rhubarb
And my eyes wide
How long has it been since I saw the sunrise through tree limbs
Reminding me of sandboxes and tree forts
And my wide eyes
And the orange berries on the ground.
Unititled Pantoum
The orange berries on the mountain ash tree
Are picked clean by the inky birds outside my window
Reminding me of sandboxes and tree forts
Memories that are whole forests away
Picked clean by inky birds outside my window
My clumsy kid feet step backwards
Memories that are whole forests away
A familiar taste of rhubarb
My clumsy kid feet step backwards
How long has it been since I saw the sunrise through tree limbs
With the familiar taste of rhubarb
And my eyes wide
How long has it been since I saw the sunrise through tree limbs
Reminding me of sandboxes and tree forts
And my wide eyes
And the orange berries on the ground.
Amir Ode with Subtext Included
Published Thursday, November 24, 2005 by Anonymous.
Me giving Amir's poetry a minor working over. Notice the lack of concern for formal constraints. I have however, left parts unchanged, so the molestation is not total.
Gentle mattress,
holding my piece to facilitate dreams of half-clothed lies.
Sanctuary from bourgeois schemes--O, Serta!
Fresh sheets, but crisper crumbs dot covers by the by.
Curl up
my doziness content beneath your coziness,
lamp illuminates my pornography,
How often have I foolishly mistook
The creak in dark for father's footsteps?
Companion to my rigid solitude,
engaged in solitary enterprising pleasure, heated lust
redeemed with stolid measure
-ahhh-
Tamed, in sacred crucible, life's plenitude.
Exhausted in the darkness counting sheep,
I turn to thee for aid in silent sleep.
Gentle mattress,
holding my piece to facilitate dreams of half-clothed lies.
Sanctuary from bourgeois schemes--O, Serta!
Fresh sheets, but crisper crumbs dot covers by the by.
Curl up
my doziness content beneath your coziness,
lamp illuminates my pornography,
How often have I foolishly mistook
The creak in dark for father's footsteps?
Companion to my rigid solitude,
engaged in solitary enterprising pleasure, heated lust
redeemed with stolid measure
-ahhh-
Tamed, in sacred crucible, life's plenitude.
Exhausted in the darkness counting sheep,
I turn to thee for aid in silent sleep.
Ode to Bed
Published Wednesday, November 23, 2005 by Amir.
Well here's some more archaic voice...since this is probably the only forum in which i can hope to publish verse like this, you might see a lot more of this sort of thing. Hahaha! Anyhow, i wrote this a while back when I was depressed and all i wanted to do was sleep alldayeveryday...
Gentle mattress, wherein my peace doth lie,
Facilitator of halfhearted dreams,
My sanctuary from bourgeois schemes--with
Fresh sheets and crispened covers by the by.
Curled up content beneath your coziness,
The bent light of lamp covers cradled book,
How often have I foolishly mistook
The call of lark in bright morn's haziness?
Companion to my rigid solitude,
Unkempt herein with enterprising pleasure,
Heated lust redeemed with stolid measure,
Tamed, in sacred crucible, life's plenitude.
Exhausted in the darkness counting sheep,
I turn to thee for aid in silent sleep.
Gentle mattress, wherein my peace doth lie,
Facilitator of halfhearted dreams,
My sanctuary from bourgeois schemes--with
Fresh sheets and crispened covers by the by.
Curled up content beneath your coziness,
The bent light of lamp covers cradled book,
How often have I foolishly mistook
The call of lark in bright morn's haziness?
Companion to my rigid solitude,
Unkempt herein with enterprising pleasure,
Heated lust redeemed with stolid measure,
Tamed, in sacred crucible, life's plenitude.
Exhausted in the darkness counting sheep,
I turn to thee for aid in silent sleep.
Chapter 5: The Shard
Published Tuesday, November 22, 2005 by Jenny Sampirisi.
5.
It is two a.m. and Brooklyn’s hand is bleeding. The splintered glass is in the sink except for a small piece that is lodged in her palm. How easily the glass slipped from her hand beneath the sudden flow of water. The jagged edge peaking from the slit looks as though it has been tinted red on purpose; a piece of jewelry shining in the dim light. Brooklyn is shaking but she doesn’t make any noise. The shattering should have waked Roland or the kids. She strains to hear a footstep or a door creak. She hears only the leaves’ constant flapping.
Brooklyn sits down at the table with a tea cloth on her lap. If she had tweezers this would be easy. There is not enough glass protruding from the wound for her to pull it out with just her fingers. Still shaking she walks to the nearest drawer, takes out a rounded butter knife and sits back at the table.
With her palm flattened out, a fresh stream of blood slips over the edge of her hand onto the towel. She holds the thickest part of the knife between her thumb and fist. Slowly. The silver tip against one side of the cut. A light push. Then she dips the knife down until she feels the click as it slides under the glass. Her hand is searing with heat and a high-pitched sting. She reminds herself, this doesn’t make a sound. Her ears feel packed and hot. One breath in, then she flicks her wrist and the glass slides upward and out. It drops lightly on the towel.
She can see the blood as it rushes to fill in the space left behind by the glass. It is black at the center when finally it spills over. Brooklyn puts the shard on the table then wraps her wounded hand tightly in the cloth. The shard, she notices, is very small. Much smaller than she thought when it was in her hand. The wound still feels occupied.
She relaxes into the chair and looks around. Death is cluttered, she thinks. Mugs surround her. There is one on each side of her like points on a compass. The closest mug is brown; it blends into the table. The tea has gotten weaker, she thinks, or perhaps she is losing her taste for it.
She has forgotten what it’s like to sleep through the night. At two a.m. Brooklyn is always here in the kitchen, surrounded by last swallows of tea and her reflection in the blackened window. Roland is asleep upstairs. Time rolls over itself and fills the crevices of the morning until she no longer remembers single nights, single reflections. She looks down at the blood soaked cloth and then at the speckled shard. This picture of blood seems to soak away the static memory of a hundred teacups under dim light. She shifts the cloth and it sticks to the wound then tears away and she feels new blood.
Brooklyn wonders if it will scar. She has so many now that age along her skin, shrinking, shifting, fading until they no longer resemble the once torn, the once sliced.
It is two a.m. and Brooklyn’s hand is bleeding. The splintered glass is in the sink except for a small piece that is lodged in her palm. How easily the glass slipped from her hand beneath the sudden flow of water. The jagged edge peaking from the slit looks as though it has been tinted red on purpose; a piece of jewelry shining in the dim light. Brooklyn is shaking but she doesn’t make any noise. The shattering should have waked Roland or the kids. She strains to hear a footstep or a door creak. She hears only the leaves’ constant flapping.
Brooklyn sits down at the table with a tea cloth on her lap. If she had tweezers this would be easy. There is not enough glass protruding from the wound for her to pull it out with just her fingers. Still shaking she walks to the nearest drawer, takes out a rounded butter knife and sits back at the table.
With her palm flattened out, a fresh stream of blood slips over the edge of her hand onto the towel. She holds the thickest part of the knife between her thumb and fist. Slowly. The silver tip against one side of the cut. A light push. Then she dips the knife down until she feels the click as it slides under the glass. Her hand is searing with heat and a high-pitched sting. She reminds herself, this doesn’t make a sound. Her ears feel packed and hot. One breath in, then she flicks her wrist and the glass slides upward and out. It drops lightly on the towel.
She can see the blood as it rushes to fill in the space left behind by the glass. It is black at the center when finally it spills over. Brooklyn puts the shard on the table then wraps her wounded hand tightly in the cloth. The shard, she notices, is very small. Much smaller than she thought when it was in her hand. The wound still feels occupied.
She relaxes into the chair and looks around. Death is cluttered, she thinks. Mugs surround her. There is one on each side of her like points on a compass. The closest mug is brown; it blends into the table. The tea has gotten weaker, she thinks, or perhaps she is losing her taste for it.
She has forgotten what it’s like to sleep through the night. At two a.m. Brooklyn is always here in the kitchen, surrounded by last swallows of tea and her reflection in the blackened window. Roland is asleep upstairs. Time rolls over itself and fills the crevices of the morning until she no longer remembers single nights, single reflections. She looks down at the blood soaked cloth and then at the speckled shard. This picture of blood seems to soak away the static memory of a hundred teacups under dim light. She shifts the cloth and it sticks to the wound then tears away and she feels new blood.
Brooklyn wonders if it will scar. She has so many now that age along her skin, shrinking, shifting, fading until they no longer resemble the once torn, the once sliced.
unloading the corpses
Published by Anonymous.
Here's a piece that died long ago, but which perhaps might find new life in this context:
Everyday, without fail, I smell what the city has eaten. My regular commute winds its way past the region’s sewage treatment facility, and though disgusting, the stench is also weirdly soothing. There exists a unity in that smell that isn’t present anywhere else among the people in this city. This morning’s dominant odour was asparagus. The implication, for me, is clear: the city shared asparagus today.
I’m not stupid. I know the city didn’t sit down at a massive community table, each contributing to an impossibly big cornucopia filled to brimming with asparagus located centrally between them all. I just can’t help picturing exactly that kind of scene every time I smell the city’s collective shit. Maybe this makes me weird. Maybe you should stop being so judgmental.
I don’t mean to be defensive. I’m a returns counter clerk. It’s just my job. It was always my dream to be a returns counter clerk, and now I’m doing it. When the other kids at school were wearing home made space suits and stethoscopes and race car driver helmets I was reciting that most holy of mantras: “Do you have your receipt with you today?” I would make my sister play the role of the disgruntled customer over and over again, changing the product or source of concern that was or seemed deficient, and varying the degree of authenticity of the complaint. My favourite scenarios had to do with customers who had broken whatever they were returning themselves, and were trying to hide their guilt. I never let them get away with it. I knew their tricks.
That might shed a little light on why I look for harmony in shit; I can’t find it at work.
What I can find at work is evidence. Evidence, that is, of the duplicity of people. My first customer today, for instance, wanted to return a case of bottled water. Two bottles were already opened and half-empty. She maintained that the water was “funny.” When asked to elaborate, she said it wasn’t something she could specify, that it was just a general feeling she got from the water. I explained that we couldn’t possibly refund her for a case of water from which two bottles were already opened and partly consumed. I thought that was reasonably understandable, but she seemed not to agree. She even tried to convince me that we could combine the contents of the two half-empty bottles, and then subtract from her refund the cost of one bottle.
(Oh, and on another note, if you guys have links you want to suggest for the sidebar, just let me know)
Everyday, without fail, I smell what the city has eaten. My regular commute winds its way past the region’s sewage treatment facility, and though disgusting, the stench is also weirdly soothing. There exists a unity in that smell that isn’t present anywhere else among the people in this city. This morning’s dominant odour was asparagus. The implication, for me, is clear: the city shared asparagus today.
I’m not stupid. I know the city didn’t sit down at a massive community table, each contributing to an impossibly big cornucopia filled to brimming with asparagus located centrally between them all. I just can’t help picturing exactly that kind of scene every time I smell the city’s collective shit. Maybe this makes me weird. Maybe you should stop being so judgmental.
I don’t mean to be defensive. I’m a returns counter clerk. It’s just my job. It was always my dream to be a returns counter clerk, and now I’m doing it. When the other kids at school were wearing home made space suits and stethoscopes and race car driver helmets I was reciting that most holy of mantras: “Do you have your receipt with you today?” I would make my sister play the role of the disgruntled customer over and over again, changing the product or source of concern that was or seemed deficient, and varying the degree of authenticity of the complaint. My favourite scenarios had to do with customers who had broken whatever they were returning themselves, and were trying to hide their guilt. I never let them get away with it. I knew their tricks.
That might shed a little light on why I look for harmony in shit; I can’t find it at work.
What I can find at work is evidence. Evidence, that is, of the duplicity of people. My first customer today, for instance, wanted to return a case of bottled water. Two bottles were already opened and half-empty. She maintained that the water was “funny.” When asked to elaborate, she said it wasn’t something she could specify, that it was just a general feeling she got from the water. I explained that we couldn’t possibly refund her for a case of water from which two bottles were already opened and partly consumed. I thought that was reasonably understandable, but she seemed not to agree. She even tried to convince me that we could combine the contents of the two half-empty bottles, and then subtract from her refund the cost of one bottle.
(Oh, and on another note, if you guys have links you want to suggest for the sidebar, just let me know)
Section Seven of Untitled "Novel"
Published Monday, November 21, 2005 by Jenny Sampirisi.
I think the formatting was lost when I cut and pasted so sometimes there's stuff that should be in italics because it's people's (Roland's) thoughts. Also, this is raw...or as raw as I get (written tonight, an exercise in tying down my editor for a day or two).
7.
The morning light presses hard into the dusted glass of the shop windows. By eight am the feed has been stocked, the tack polished, the till counted up and recorded. The co-op next door stinks of dog food. Twice a year there is the pungent waft. Roland has lost the smell of it in his nostrils by nine. He cleans the glass that Brooklyn insisted he place over the rotted gray wood of the counter. When she was a child she had run her hands along the edge of the counter, then cried out and sucked her finger with thick tears basting her cheeks. The splinter had been too deep for Roland’s father to pull out so he’d sent her home with a hard candy and promised to fix the countertop. Though his father never fixed it. It wasn’t until Brooklyn was pregnant with Andrew that the wood was covered, and even then it had been her doing.
The bing of the cowbell against the door precedes Earl, whose feet stomp heavily on the wood floor, a swallowed thud with each step. Earl puts three mousetraps and a bag of finishing nails on the counter. He leans in ready to tell a secret, one elbow pressed against the counter.
“So it smells like shit again. Sometimes I think if there weren’t that smell to this town you could close your eyes and forget where you were. This could be fuckin BC or something for all the trees. But then you got that smell catching on the breeze every spring and fall. Just in time to mix with the goddamned manure eh. Well I tell you, that doggy chow is some stink. How’s about you put that on my tab Roland? I forgot my cash at home. It’s the damn smell. It’s disorienting.” He grins.
Roland bags the items then holds them up. Earl leans in further, ignoring Roland’s offerings of the now free goods. “Did you hear about that girl going missing? Damn shame. Been two days now.” Roland places Earl’s bag back on the counter.
“Brooklyn mentioned it. She seems worried.” Roland feels like he shouldn’t have said the word “worried”, it begs explanation. “You gonna need any firewood? Stock up now for the winter hey? I could send Andrew over.”
Earl squints, slides his tongue to the corner of his mouth, bites on it. “Yeah. Okay, send him on over. I guess I’ll be needing some.” A slight pause, a slitting of the eyes and the wiry gray brows collapse. “The little woman doing okay. The surgery go well?”
“Yeah Earl. She’s doing just fine. I’ll send Andrew over later today. God knows he needs something to keep him busy.” Earl nods, takes his bag, and leaves, the door slamming too hard behind him, the bell slapping loudly against it. Roland feels the cool breeze enter the room and settle silently among the polished saddles and spilled seed.
The smell of the dog food comes in waves of recognition then detachment. At once he can feel the chunked liver, the pureed lamb, the gelatinous gravy fold over his tongue and then nothing, not a scent except those he knows well. He wonders if he’ll carry the smell on him when he sees Linda. Though he knows that he won’t see her soon enough to hold the smell. Wednesday is far enough away that the molecules of scent will dissolve in his sweat and in all the smells that he carries on his body, buried under flakes of skin and in thick patches of black and gray hair, How many shirt changes? How many showers until…
He remembers Brooklyn.
This happens often, the sudden memory of his current life. Current memory? He says it out loud to the grayed wood door with its silent cowbell. His eyebrows sit low under the weight of the conflicting words. But he can’t think of a better way to put it. He forgets his wife often. Not cruelly. Not with intention or resolve. In his mind he sits at the table with Andrew and Isabel. He can see them clearly, Andrew chewing and cutting at the same time, his eyes fixed on the edge of his plate, on the butter, on the napkin, on the knife and fork passing each other methodically like scissor blades through thick cloth. And Isabel babbling happily, pushing green beans, focused on no one and everyone, eating only the odd chunk of steak, she plays with everything. Roland can’t see Brooklyn but she must be there because he didn’t cut up Isabel’s meat and he only cooked half of dinner. Brooklyn is absent from this memory that is a string of memories. Sometimes she is present but only peripherally: a hand, a gesture, a glass placed on the table. Even when he tries to focus on her within an actual moment, to memorize her clothing, her expressions, he can only hold her briefly and then she flutters into all other clothes and all other expressions.
It is only when he’s off somewhere else in his mind, as he is now – in the long sequence of showers that will lead him to Linda – that he remembers Brooklyn. This time he sees her standing in the tub, shivering and calling him. Her voice is clear and low Roland, I need a towel, I’m freezing. Hurry. And then he is there, standing in their bathroom: chipped tiles, stained sink, and burnt-out bulbs. Brooklyn is shivering. He knows this because he sees it as clearly as the cowbell on the door in front of him. Roland takes in the slopes and creaks of his wife’s body, her shoulders slumped forward in an attempt to be warm, to protect her breasts from freezing and her stomach from trembling. Long streaks of water roll along her hips, legs, thighs, then pause to bloat, then roll again. It is in these moments of memory that Roland is sure he’s never forgotten Brooklyn; only that he’s been somewhere else for a while, his mind cloudy and locked on Linda, or not Linda, but on his body / her body. He’s been caught in the merging of Wednesday bodies and the time that swells and rolls and pauses in between their brief meetings.
The morning light presses hard into the dusted glass of the shop windows. By eight am the feed has been stocked, the tack polished, the till counted up and recorded. The co-op next door stinks of dog food. Twice a year there is the pungent waft. Roland has lost the smell of it in his nostrils by nine. He cleans the glass that Brooklyn insisted he place over the rotted gray wood of the counter. When she was a child she had run her hands along the edge of the counter, then cried out and sucked her finger with thick tears basting her cheeks. The splinter had been too deep for Roland’s father to pull out so he’d sent her home with a hard candy and promised to fix the countertop. Though his father never fixed it. It wasn’t until Brooklyn was pregnant with Andrew that the wood was covered, and even then it had been her doing.
The bing of the cowbell against the door precedes Earl, whose feet stomp heavily on the wood floor, a swallowed thud with each step. Earl puts three mousetraps and a bag of finishing nails on the counter. He leans in ready to tell a secret, one elbow pressed against the counter.
“So it smells like shit again. Sometimes I think if there weren’t that smell to this town you could close your eyes and forget where you were. This could be fuckin BC or something for all the trees. But then you got that smell catching on the breeze every spring and fall. Just in time to mix with the goddamned manure eh. Well I tell you, that doggy chow is some stink. How’s about you put that on my tab Roland? I forgot my cash at home. It’s the damn smell. It’s disorienting.” He grins.
Roland bags the items then holds them up. Earl leans in further, ignoring Roland’s offerings of the now free goods. “Did you hear about that girl going missing? Damn shame. Been two days now.” Roland places Earl’s bag back on the counter.
“Brooklyn mentioned it. She seems worried.” Roland feels like he shouldn’t have said the word “worried”, it begs explanation. “You gonna need any firewood? Stock up now for the winter hey? I could send Andrew over.”
Earl squints, slides his tongue to the corner of his mouth, bites on it. “Yeah. Okay, send him on over. I guess I’ll be needing some.” A slight pause, a slitting of the eyes and the wiry gray brows collapse. “The little woman doing okay. The surgery go well?”
“Yeah Earl. She’s doing just fine. I’ll send Andrew over later today. God knows he needs something to keep him busy.” Earl nods, takes his bag, and leaves, the door slamming too hard behind him, the bell slapping loudly against it. Roland feels the cool breeze enter the room and settle silently among the polished saddles and spilled seed.
The smell of the dog food comes in waves of recognition then detachment. At once he can feel the chunked liver, the pureed lamb, the gelatinous gravy fold over his tongue and then nothing, not a scent except those he knows well. He wonders if he’ll carry the smell on him when he sees Linda. Though he knows that he won’t see her soon enough to hold the smell. Wednesday is far enough away that the molecules of scent will dissolve in his sweat and in all the smells that he carries on his body, buried under flakes of skin and in thick patches of black and gray hair, How many shirt changes? How many showers until…
He remembers Brooklyn.
This happens often, the sudden memory of his current life. Current memory? He says it out loud to the grayed wood door with its silent cowbell. His eyebrows sit low under the weight of the conflicting words. But he can’t think of a better way to put it. He forgets his wife often. Not cruelly. Not with intention or resolve. In his mind he sits at the table with Andrew and Isabel. He can see them clearly, Andrew chewing and cutting at the same time, his eyes fixed on the edge of his plate, on the butter, on the napkin, on the knife and fork passing each other methodically like scissor blades through thick cloth. And Isabel babbling happily, pushing green beans, focused on no one and everyone, eating only the odd chunk of steak, she plays with everything. Roland can’t see Brooklyn but she must be there because he didn’t cut up Isabel’s meat and he only cooked half of dinner. Brooklyn is absent from this memory that is a string of memories. Sometimes she is present but only peripherally: a hand, a gesture, a glass placed on the table. Even when he tries to focus on her within an actual moment, to memorize her clothing, her expressions, he can only hold her briefly and then she flutters into all other clothes and all other expressions.
It is only when he’s off somewhere else in his mind, as he is now – in the long sequence of showers that will lead him to Linda – that he remembers Brooklyn. This time he sees her standing in the tub, shivering and calling him. Her voice is clear and low Roland, I need a towel, I’m freezing. Hurry. And then he is there, standing in their bathroom: chipped tiles, stained sink, and burnt-out bulbs. Brooklyn is shivering. He knows this because he sees it as clearly as the cowbell on the door in front of him. Roland takes in the slopes and creaks of his wife’s body, her shoulders slumped forward in an attempt to be warm, to protect her breasts from freezing and her stomach from trembling. Long streaks of water roll along her hips, legs, thighs, then pause to bloat, then roll again. It is in these moments of memory that Roland is sure he’s never forgotten Brooklyn; only that he’s been somewhere else for a while, his mind cloudy and locked on Linda, or not Linda, but on his body / her body. He’s been caught in the merging of Wednesday bodies and the time that swells and rolls and pauses in between their brief meetings.
I think this is going to be the intro to the thesis, the wonderous Genealogy of Taste. I'm trying to write poems for inbetween the chapters but I actually have to write them. more posts later i guess.
Chapter 1 – Introducing the Band
The Rule:
1) I will lie to entertain. I’ll try not to lie to make myself look better.
What is the proper guitar playing position? Could it be feet spread and parallel like railroad tracks on a one way ticket to Rocknrollville? Is it sitting, guitar nestled on the lap, mesmerizing the audience not through ridiculous chops, but instead through snaking lyrics and meticulous attention to injustice? Maybe it’s standing, hunched over while slinging the guitar back and forth while staring at the floor. Well if you witnessed a ten year old me and my exhibition of killer air guitar skills you might have been convinced that the correct position was on your back, rolling around like a beetle doing its best to dodge lumbering steps, legs squiggling in the air. Keep in mind I had no artists to imitate for this move, no Kurt Cobain or Stevie Ray Vaughn (we didn’t have cable TV so no music videos) to show me how to squirm on the carpet; it was like I instinctively understood that guitar was best played on the back (I was most likely kicking and airguitaring to the solo in “Hotel California” basically the only half way rock song I can remember liking and listening to alone in my room. I would never EVER do this beetle act in front of another person). I was not a musical savant; I couldn’t play guitar any better than I could swim (if you ever needed to kill me, throw me in the middle of a lake; I swim like a burlap sack full of rocks). Yet I understood, on a very basic level, that the base of rock was rolling around playing a loud guitar. Guitar players didn’t need school to validate their existence; they just needed some floor.
But now, alas, I’ve grown up. Sorta. It is the start of the summer of my 22nd year and I’ve freshly gone and done graduated with the classic ambling English degree and I did the only reasonable thing I could think of when I graduated: I came back home to live with my parents, in the sunny and wonderfully tedious Lavington B.C. and reclaimed my old job at the grocery store, stocking shelves and running the cash register. I sit I nhte sunroom my parent’s added to the house two years ago, big windows facing the tiny quiet road on a computer pecking at the keys without any real focus. There’s really only one thing in my head, that large million dollar question: what exactly am I supposed to do with my life now?
(a small side question: what exactly is a English degree good for anyways? I mean, I can introduce myself at parties and say “Well I have a BA in English” and correct people’s grammar as they speak; I can go home and intimidate my family by using polysyllabic diction and referencing Milton in relation to every night’s dinner (“Better to eat on the porch than serve in the kitchen”). An English degree sounds like it might be something spectacular but really it’s only slightly above basket weaving. Not to criticize basket weavers).
So what do I do now?
To my credit I’m only working part time; I’ve decided to try and play the role of starving artist, more specifically the writer. In the fine tradition of the wandering, graduated soul I’m trying to find direction and weasel my way into some sort of answer to the large “what now?” hanging over my head. I guess it is only natural that I’ve run to the consistent immediate comfort I have: music.
Ever since I got home (exactly 2 days 5 hours and 14 minutes ago) I’ve been insanely depressed. I thought I had made a clean break from this place. No more bedroom packed with early 90’s basketball posters and left over pictures from my 15 year old obsession with Sarah Michelle Gellar. No more borrowing my parent’s car when I want to go into town (I sold my 90 Honda Civic to pay for my third year of schooling). No more living with my parents. I’m like a very poor man’s Odysseus, only I don’t like Ithaca, there’s no Penelope and the Circes and Cyclopes were relatively few and far between (almost to the point of non existence. There was however a few Calypsos but I won’t tip my hand too early). In order to escape, or at least block out, my return and the consequences (i.e. back where I started) I delved into my music collection and have remained there, headphones fastened to my head, with breaks only to pee and eat.
Chapter 1 – Introducing the Band
The Rule:
1) I will lie to entertain. I’ll try not to lie to make myself look better.
What is the proper guitar playing position? Could it be feet spread and parallel like railroad tracks on a one way ticket to Rocknrollville? Is it sitting, guitar nestled on the lap, mesmerizing the audience not through ridiculous chops, but instead through snaking lyrics and meticulous attention to injustice? Maybe it’s standing, hunched over while slinging the guitar back and forth while staring at the floor. Well if you witnessed a ten year old me and my exhibition of killer air guitar skills you might have been convinced that the correct position was on your back, rolling around like a beetle doing its best to dodge lumbering steps, legs squiggling in the air. Keep in mind I had no artists to imitate for this move, no Kurt Cobain or Stevie Ray Vaughn (we didn’t have cable TV so no music videos) to show me how to squirm on the carpet; it was like I instinctively understood that guitar was best played on the back (I was most likely kicking and airguitaring to the solo in “Hotel California” basically the only half way rock song I can remember liking and listening to alone in my room. I would never EVER do this beetle act in front of another person). I was not a musical savant; I couldn’t play guitar any better than I could swim (if you ever needed to kill me, throw me in the middle of a lake; I swim like a burlap sack full of rocks). Yet I understood, on a very basic level, that the base of rock was rolling around playing a loud guitar. Guitar players didn’t need school to validate their existence; they just needed some floor.
But now, alas, I’ve grown up. Sorta. It is the start of the summer of my 22nd year and I’ve freshly gone and done graduated with the classic ambling English degree and I did the only reasonable thing I could think of when I graduated: I came back home to live with my parents, in the sunny and wonderfully tedious Lavington B.C. and reclaimed my old job at the grocery store, stocking shelves and running the cash register. I sit I nhte sunroom my parent’s added to the house two years ago, big windows facing the tiny quiet road on a computer pecking at the keys without any real focus. There’s really only one thing in my head, that large million dollar question: what exactly am I supposed to do with my life now?
(a small side question: what exactly is a English degree good for anyways? I mean, I can introduce myself at parties and say “Well I have a BA in English” and correct people’s grammar as they speak; I can go home and intimidate my family by using polysyllabic diction and referencing Milton in relation to every night’s dinner (“Better to eat on the porch than serve in the kitchen”). An English degree sounds like it might be something spectacular but really it’s only slightly above basket weaving. Not to criticize basket weavers).
So what do I do now?
To my credit I’m only working part time; I’ve decided to try and play the role of starving artist, more specifically the writer. In the fine tradition of the wandering, graduated soul I’m trying to find direction and weasel my way into some sort of answer to the large “what now?” hanging over my head. I guess it is only natural that I’ve run to the consistent immediate comfort I have: music.
Ever since I got home (exactly 2 days 5 hours and 14 minutes ago) I’ve been insanely depressed. I thought I had made a clean break from this place. No more bedroom packed with early 90’s basketball posters and left over pictures from my 15 year old obsession with Sarah Michelle Gellar. No more borrowing my parent’s car when I want to go into town (I sold my 90 Honda Civic to pay for my third year of schooling). No more living with my parents. I’m like a very poor man’s Odysseus, only I don’t like Ithaca, there’s no Penelope and the Circes and Cyclopes were relatively few and far between (almost to the point of non existence. There was however a few Calypsos but I won’t tip my hand too early). In order to escape, or at least block out, my return and the consequences (i.e. back where I started) I delved into my music collection and have remained there, headphones fastened to my head, with breaks only to pee and eat.
Found poetry
Published by Anonymous.
Culled from my sister's class notes. Hope she doesn't need them:
Borg Scale Effort
Borg Scale Effort
hands idle
most of the
time; no
regular
exertions
consistent,
conspicuous,
long pauses
OR very slow
motions
slow steady
motions/
exertion;
frequent brief
pauses
steady
motion/
exertion;
infrequent
pauses
rapid steady
motion/
exertion; no
regular
pauses
rapid steady
motion/
exertion;
difficulty
keeping up
The Parenthetical Dialogue: Foucault meets CBC
Published Saturday, November 19, 2005 by Jenny Sampirisi.
The Idea: This is a set of quotations found in parenthesis, lifted from Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge and the headline news of CBC (during the labour strike). I alternated between the two. I highly recommend just lifting paranthetical quotes out of their contexts in everything you come across. It's a certain kind of fun.
According to whether the imaginary world to which it refers does or does not authorize such a geological and geographical fantasy
Canada
As in the example: colourless green ideas sleep furiously
To send the DART team to the disaster zone
And these correlations concern a level of reality in which ideas are invisible, and in which colours can be seen, etc.
The heroin and opium trade
And these correlations concern the level of the language, with its laws and properties.
About 1,200 men had been recruited for the regiment. After Passchendaele, 600 had been killed or wounded.
In the example chosen, this would be the spatial inclusion of a particular mountain in a particular region.
It also served in a peacekeeping mission in Cyprus.
Even if they have a certain consistency and a certain coherence
Climate change will not happen uniformly
Face to face, as it were.
Or has not
Or no one
Dialogue
According to whether the imaginary world to which it refers does or does not authorize such a geological and geographical fantasy
Canada
As in the example: colourless green ideas sleep furiously
To send the DART team to the disaster zone
And these correlations concern a level of reality in which ideas are invisible, and in which colours can be seen, etc.
The heroin and opium trade
And these correlations concern the level of the language, with its laws and properties.
About 1,200 men had been recruited for the regiment. After Passchendaele, 600 had been killed or wounded.
In the example chosen, this would be the spatial inclusion of a particular mountain in a particular region.
It also served in a peacekeeping mission in Cyprus.
Even if they have a certain consistency and a certain coherence
Climate change will not happen uniformly
Face to face, as it were.
Or has not
Or no one
More marginal poetry
Published by Anonymous.
All from Louis' class:
kill two birds with one stoneand:
birds of a feather flock together
a bird in hand is worth two in the bush
_______________________________________
stone the flock of bush birds and take one in hand
poetry makeover
this colour is so you, poem.
that dress hides your hips,
your gut disappears
in that sweater,
this is the you you
always wanted to be
but couldn't.
see?
SEE!
Ode to William Shakespeare
Published Friday, November 18, 2005 by Amir.
Here is my love on paper (screen, whatever...). O how I adore William Shakespeare...let me count the ways....
Fancy's warbler, thou dost indeed delight
Eternal fancy for eloquent verse.
Esteemèd rival whom I cannot fight,
Yet I am blessed by this propitious curse.
My art is weak, to this add fleeting scope:
The heaven's muse with you I long to hear,
That with righteous truth I too may elope,
Enchanted by the music of the spheres.
Thou who came undisguised in prophet's cloak,
With n'er crown nor birth nor sagacious sign.
They came and to the multitudes they spoke,
But thy words shall endure the test of time.
In thou the gods did perfect ear create,
But lo! From them thou has't dislodged thy fate.
Fancy's warbler, thou dost indeed delight
Eternal fancy for eloquent verse.
Esteemèd rival whom I cannot fight,
Yet I am blessed by this propitious curse.
My art is weak, to this add fleeting scope:
The heaven's muse with you I long to hear,
That with righteous truth I too may elope,
Enchanted by the music of the spheres.
Thou who came undisguised in prophet's cloak,
With n'er crown nor birth nor sagacious sign.
They came and to the multitudes they spoke,
But thy words shall endure the test of time.
In thou the gods did perfect ear create,
But lo! From them thou has't dislodged thy fate.
A Tough Case
Published by Anonymous.
It was a weak trail, but a trail nonetheless. It was the best lead I'd had since this investigation began. Detecting is not an easy job. There are lots of cigarettes and small revolvers involved. And trenchcoats. No one ever considers the trenchcoats.
This particular case was full of trenchcoats. The kind with deep thigh pockets; perfect hiding places for memories. You ever reach into one of those pockets? Like trying to get to the bottom of a crime that never happened. An easy place for a memory to get good and lost, anyways. Which is just what happened. And not just one lost memory, either. That's kid stuff. One memory here and there gets misplaced, nobody bats an eye. What I was dealing with was a crime wave. Memories dropping like flies, some lost before they even got a chance to be remembered. Poor bastards.
But this was a real lead. If I played my cards right, the case would crack. And I was good at cards. Cards, booze, and dames. I think I'm good at all three. I'm supposed to be. The glass on the door reads "Private eye,"and most days I'm inclined to believe it.
Still, the lead was weak. It was just a rumour, really. Trixie, who hangs out by the pier, said she heard some things. Trixie hears a lot of things. Except her conscience. She drowns that out with the sound of fifties sliding out of businessmen's wallets. Can't say I blame her. Those fifties can get pretty noisy. I should know, I handed her one for the tip she gave me. She may be a good talker, that Trixie, but she's coin operated.
So what do I get for my generosity? "The memories been comin' around lately," says Trixie, all red lipstick and blue mascara. "Some of the other girls, they don't like it. Think it cuts in on our business. Me, I know the score. Johns lookin' for tail, they ain't lookin' for memories. Most of the time, in fact, that exactly what they ain't lookin' for. Memories is what got 'em here in the first place. They got plenty enough 'a that." Trixie makes sense. Well, not really, between her five o'clock shadow and her knockout cans, but what she's saying rings true. Still, those memories sure aren't comin' around for the scenery. So what kind of tricks were they turnin'?
I needed answers. Too many question marks for my tastes. I'm a period kinda guy, though once in a while I'll switch it up with a good exclamation point. It depends on whether I have my silencer with me or not.
I decided to take it with me to the pier, just in case. The regular girls were there, standing like dime-store go-go dancers under the off-beat orange strobelight made by the short-circuiting streetlamps. I spotted Trixie, who tipped her head to one side when she saw me, directing my attention to a lamp on the other side of the pier. Squinting, I could make out some dark shapes clustered around the post. I could tell what they were by the way they fidgeted. Memories never stand still.
This was it. I could feel the case closing, even as I crossed the distance between me and the memories. Suddenly, a fedora and a trenchcoat blocked my path. There was something filling them out, but I didn't get a chance to see what before the lights went out.
When I woke up, I was in my office. My head felt like a bar just after last call; bored, confused, and out of booze. My friend Jack could fix at least one of those problems, so I went over to the liquor cabinet to pick him up. I had a feeling that I was forgetting something, but I figured it would come to me if it was important. Chasing down a lost memory was like taking a job from a nice-lookin' dame: you always tended to lose more than you found.
But this was a real lead. If I played my cards right, the case would crack. And I was good at cards. Cards, booze, and dames. I think I'm good at all three. I'm supposed to be. The glass on the door reads "Private eye,"and most days I'm inclined to believe it.
Still, the lead was weak. It was just a rumour, really. Trixie, who hangs out by the pier, said she heard some things. Trixie hears a lot of things. Except her conscience. She drowns that out with the sound of fifties sliding out of businessmen's wallets. Can't say I blame her. Those fifties can get pretty noisy. I should know, I handed her one for the tip she gave me. She may be a good talker, that Trixie, but she's coin operated.
So what do I get for my generosity? "The memories been comin' around lately," says Trixie, all red lipstick and blue mascara. "Some of the other girls, they don't like it. Think it cuts in on our business. Me, I know the score. Johns lookin' for tail, they ain't lookin' for memories. Most of the time, in fact, that exactly what they ain't lookin' for. Memories is what got 'em here in the first place. They got plenty enough 'a that." Trixie makes sense. Well, not really, between her five o'clock shadow and her knockout cans, but what she's saying rings true. Still, those memories sure aren't comin' around for the scenery. So what kind of tricks were they turnin'?
I needed answers. Too many question marks for my tastes. I'm a period kinda guy, though once in a while I'll switch it up with a good exclamation point. It depends on whether I have my silencer with me or not.
I decided to take it with me to the pier, just in case. The regular girls were there, standing like dime-store go-go dancers under the off-beat orange strobelight made by the short-circuiting streetlamps. I spotted Trixie, who tipped her head to one side when she saw me, directing my attention to a lamp on the other side of the pier. Squinting, I could make out some dark shapes clustered around the post. I could tell what they were by the way they fidgeted. Memories never stand still.
This was it. I could feel the case closing, even as I crossed the distance between me and the memories. Suddenly, a fedora and a trenchcoat blocked my path. There was something filling them out, but I didn't get a chance to see what before the lights went out.
When I woke up, I was in my office. My head felt like a bar just after last call; bored, confused, and out of booze. My friend Jack could fix at least one of those problems, so I went over to the liquor cabinet to pick him up. I had a feeling that I was forgetting something, but I figured it would come to me if it was important. Chasing down a lost memory was like taking a job from a nice-lookin' dame: you always tended to lose more than you found.
translation
Published Thursday, November 17, 2005 by Anonymous.
This is a translation from the French of Emilio Francescucci's poem "Il est temps"
It is my first time trying something like this, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Done on the advice offered by George Murray that as writers one of our duties is to translate our contemporaries.
IT IS TIME by Emilio Francescucci
translated by Darrell Etherington
It is time to try love
there where war grinds and kills on the ground
it is time to try peace
before tallying the deaths of war
it is time to bury the rage and the hate
before the guns cross the borders
it is time to embrace the other
before the silence of cemeteries
it is time to see the beauty of the soul
and to consider being before having
it is time to conjugate love
from morning till night and on through till dawn
for humanity could dissappear
if we remain apart from our brothers
if deadly war does away with lives
that ask nothing except to live under the sun
if fear and mourning inhabit Mankind
and drown his heart when the bomb blasts sound
there is still time to quiet the guns
to live the day and hope for the next
there is still time to love his brother
and to look for the acts he cherishes
offer love don't wait for tomorrow
for guns talk faster than man.
It is my first time trying something like this, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Done on the advice offered by George Murray that as writers one of our duties is to translate our contemporaries.
IT IS TIME by Emilio Francescucci
translated by Darrell Etherington
It is time to try love
there where war grinds and kills on the ground
it is time to try peace
before tallying the deaths of war
it is time to bury the rage and the hate
before the guns cross the borders
it is time to embrace the other
before the silence of cemeteries
it is time to see the beauty of the soul
and to consider being before having
it is time to conjugate love
from morning till night and on through till dawn
for humanity could dissappear
if we remain apart from our brothers
if deadly war does away with lives
that ask nothing except to live under the sun
if fear and mourning inhabit Mankind
and drown his heart when the bomb blasts sound
there is still time to quiet the guns
to live the day and hope for the next
there is still time to love his brother
and to look for the acts he cherishes
offer love don't wait for tomorrow
for guns talk faster than man.
poetic fragments from page margins
Published by Anonymous.
A couple things culled from my class notes:
the listing of names is coincidental
but is the listing of names coincidental
name list listing towards namelessness
perfect
prefect
feet
per
e
prefect
feet
per
e
but is the listing of names coincidental
name list listing towards namelessness