p1k3::2003/5

Thursday, May 29

Disambiguate: The silence I feel right now is real. It is the silence of a basement in a town which is sometimes very quiet, despite the sirens and the trains. It is one in the morning basement silence. It is everyone else sleeping.

It is also the quiet after I have read to the end through tears and come back to myself in stillness, still holding the book, feeling its world fade except for what has become part of mine and will last for days, months, years.

It is this, and it's the light from the two bulbs in the ceiling, the tomato plants spreading against the now-dark kitchen window, the yellow couch and the afghan. It's what the skritching of my pen is interrupting, and it's the sleep that's crawling up my bones and waiting for me to give in.

So I will.

2003 May 29 :: write in the margins

Friday, May 23

a dialog with himself

B: I am going to write something.

Self: Ok. What are you going to write?

B: Um. Something.

Self: Such as?

B: I'm not sure, but something kind of long. And full of well constructed sentences which are lucid and full of insight.

Self: That's not terribly useful. And your sentences may have impressive construction, but lucid...

B: You're not being very supportive here.

Self: Lucid they ain't. I mean, take the word "lucid". Who the hell even talks like that?

B: W.S. Merwin talks like that.

Self: Yeah, and we all know he's a regular household name. Why just the other day when we were watching that country music awards show everyone was saying how much Darryl Worley's rousing lyrics put them in mind of a really good line from ol' Merwin...

B: I'm not listening.

Self: I can tell you're not listening, you lanky, wheezing goofball. In fact, I can't remember the last time you paid attention to the first thing I...

B: Stuff it, ego boy. The shit I put up with from you, it's no wonder it took me this long to realize that just maybe life doesn't fundamentally suck.

Long, uncomfortable silence.

Self: Isn't this the kind of pseudo-ironic self-referential hipster-wannabe wanking you specifically promised all of us never to engage in?

I have a point there.

2003 May 23 :: write in the margins

Wednesday, May 21

is this thing still on?

modal thinking
like modal editing
has a great deal of utility

but it might be that neither one
is always the best way of going about things.

long time readers of this space
will note that i have, characteristically,
fallen a touch silent of late
this is in part because i no longer
live a minute's walk from a computer lab

(did i mention that?
i have a basement now
with irregular walls and a low ceiling
a gas stove, an air mattress,
sarah's hideousyellowkindaseventies couch in one corner
and a refrigerator that goes skreeeeeeeeeeeee)

it is also in part because this space
suffers from half-full notebook syndrome

— you know when you've got this notebook
and it started out all fresh and clean
sharpedged and ready for something good
to be spread out smooth across all its
pristine surfaces

but now, you flip back through
and the pages you didn't tear out and crumple
are half finished to-do lists,
bad doodles and abortive three-a.m.
shoulda-known-better essays —

compulsive ink-and-paper types
can probably sympathize.

there's no shortage of things i'd like to tell you about,
whoever you happen to be at the moment

kansas city, thrift shops, driving rain, frisbee,
bicycles, crazy-good guitar players,
russians with giant red basses
and guys in hats with magic pipes
on random sunday nights,
purple hair, beer, sunlight,
not-quite-tea leaves in little gourds,
intellectual pissing contests
and when to know better

but my mind's just about as much a mess as my notebook
although i like its contents better
and i guess there's a lot
that will go unsaid.

2003 May 21 :: write in the margins

Monday, May 18

Look: New Daemonsong. No, really.

2003 May 19 :: read the margins

Wednesday, May 7

Three all-nighters this week and more bleary-eyed incoherent stumbling around than I even want to think about, but I'm done.

For a few months, anyway.

2003 May 7 :: read the margins

Saturday, May 3

It is entirely possible that I have absolutely nothing left to say about anything.

But it's not likely.

2003 May 3 :: write in the margins

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