#69

Friday, May 22, 2015


Georges Perec: thanks, and fuck you

Sometimes you read something that speaks to you so deeply, moves you so tremendously, expresses so perfectly your innermost desires that it's frightening, terrifying, absolutely gutwrenching. You feel inspired to write, but any words that manifest themselves in your mind seem pale, shallow, borderline meaningless in comparison. Your breath sticks in your throat, your heart forgets to beat, your eyes well with saline, and you're left paralyzed, able only to continue turning pages and scanning text, praying that the final paragraphs will offer some insight, some answer; that this other person who has gone through exactly what you're going through, who has dreamt the same obscure dreams of disappearing, who spent agonizing weeks putting his darkest thoughts into bleak, beautiful prose - that this person might bring some clarity, some meaning, to the situation you've both found yourselves in.

Alas, the novel ends and life continues; nothing solved, nothing gained, perpetually ongoing.



It is on a day like this one, a little later, a little earlier, that you discover, without surprise, that something is wrong, that, without mincing words, you don't know how to live, that you will never know.

Something was going to break, something has broken. You no longer feel - how to put it? - held up: it is as if some thing which, it seemed to you, it seems to you, fortified you until then, gave warmth to your heart, something like the feeling of your existence, of your importance almost, the impression of belonging to you or of being in the world, is starting to slip away from you.
...
This is your life. This is yours. You can establish an exact inventory of your meagre fortune, the precise balance sheet of your first quarter-century. You are twenty-five years old, you have twenty-nine teeth, three shirts and eight socks, a few books you no longer read, a few records you no longer play. You do not want to remember anything else, be it your family or your studies, your friends and lovers, or your holidays and plans. You traveled and you brought nothing back from your travels. Here you sit, and you want only to wait, just to wait until there is nothing left to wait for: for night to fall and the passing hours to chime, for the days to slip away and the memories to fade.
...
You are not in the habit of making diagnoses, and you don't want to start now. What is worrying you, what is disturbing you, what is frightening you, but which now and then gives you a thrill, is not the suddenness of your metamorphosis, but precisely the opposite: the vague and heavy feeling that it isn't a metamorphosis at all, that nothing has changed, that you've always been like this, even though you only now realize it fully: that thing, in the cracked mirror, is not your new face, it is just that the masks have slipped, the heat in your room has melted them, your torpor has soaked them off. The masks of unswerving conviction, of the straight and narrow. Did you never have an inkling, not once in twenty-five years, of that which, today, has already become inexorable? Did you never see any cracks in what, for you, takes the place of a history? Times when nothing was happening, times when you were simply ticking over in neutral. The fleeting and poignant desire to hear no more, to see no more, to remain silent and motionless. Crazy dreams of solitude. An amnesiac wandering through the Land of the Blind: wide, empty streets, cold lights, faces without mouths that you would look at without seeing. They would never get to you.

It is as if, beneath the surface of your calm and reassuring history (the good little boy, the model pupil, the dependable pal), as if, running beneath the obvious, too obvious, signs of growth and maturity - scribbled graffiti on toilet doors, certificates, long trousers, the first cigarette, the sting of the first shave, alcohol, the key left under the mat for your Saturday night outings, losing your virginity, the baptism of air, the baptism of fire - as if another thread had always been running, ever present but always held at bay, and which is now weaving the familiar fabric of your rediscovered existence, the bare backdrop of your abandoned life, memories which suddenly resurface, veiled images of this revealed truth, of this resignation so long deferred, of this appeal for calm - hazy and lifeless images, over-exposed snapshots, almost white, almost dead, almost already fossilised: a street in a sleepy provincial town, closed shutters, dull windows, the buzzing of flies in an army post, a lounge draped in grey dustsheets, particles suspended in a ray of sunlight, bare countryside, cemeteries on a Sunday, outings in a car.

Man sitting on a narrow bed, one Thursday afternoon, a book open on his knees, eyes vacant.
...
To want nothing. Just to wait, until there is nothing left to wait for. Just to wander, and to sleep. To let yourself be carried along by the crowds, and the streets. To follow the gutters, the fences, the water’s edge. To walk the length of the embankments, to hug the walls. To waste your time. To have no projects, to feel no impatience. To be without desire, or resentment, or revolt.

#68

c. July 2008


Boxer & Hedges

Sitting outside
I light a cigarette
And I hope it will help me think
Take a long, slow drag
Breathing the smoke into my lungs
Alcohol won't make things better
But I drink anyway
Because I can't find a good reason not to
And I don't know if I should
And I don't know if it's good
I'm thinking about her
Still
Like I've been doing since I met her
I listen to a sad song
And another comes on
So I light another cigarette
Inhale, then breathe out
Watch the smoke until it disappears
Thinking I shouldn't let her do the same
But I don't know if I should
But I don't know if it's good
Take another drink, take another drag
Take another thought
And try and work out its conclusion
I think too much
And don't act enough
I wonder if I can save her
I wonder if I should save her
If it's even my place
I consider my motives
Then consider my motives for considering
Trying to rationalize it all to myself
So I don't feel guilty
But that wouldn't change anything
Because I would still want to help her
Except I don't know if I should
Except I don't know if it's good
I've been transfixed on her
Since she crashed into my life
The way the dawn crashes in after too many drinks
The way she crashes when her high wears off
Three days of not feeling right
Three days of helplessness
Of not being able to change anything
Maybe I know how she feels better than I think I do
A change of songs, a change of cigarettes
But that's all that changes
My mind remains the same
As I wonder where she is
And if she'd even listen to me
And if that would even make a difference
I contemplate my cigarette as it dies
Hoping if I can focus my sight, I can focus my thoughts
Put one final filter to my lips
As the fire burns my eyes
The way the sun will tomorrow morning
The way she burns my brain right now
I think I could change things if I tried
If I did something other than thinking
And I think...
I think I'm going to
Though I don't know if I should
Though I don't know if it's good
I need a decent night's sleep for once



Thursday, May 14, 2015


Misanthropic Humanism

I love all homo sapiens
Each and every individual one

Let us do the proper thing
And all commit suicide

#67

Wednesday, May 6, 2015


Roadblock while Crossing the Jordan

I know a guy
   sweet and enthusiastic
   honorable and kind
   and quite possibly an actual genius
with a family,
depression,
and Crohn's.

...how the fuck can I pity me?

-----

Introverted/Road Trippin'/Trying Too Hard

It's me
It's not any of you, honestly
I need time alone or I'll lose it
But I rarely get it¹

I want to sell my record collection
Fill the trunk of my car with books and cassettes²
And drive until I break down
On some unmapped backroad
Spent and out of gas
To rust out the rest of my days³



¹I don't even have the solitary moments of driving to and from work anymore; home-dubbed punk rock loud on the stereo, cigarette or spliff burning, windows as open as I'd like to be - though truth be told, I don't get this, either

²(and a pound or two of subpar pot
...and maybe a couple handles of whiskey or brandy
something brown, so it lasts a little longer)

³If I had the guts to do anything but write

#66

Wednesday, April 22, 2015


Hardquestioncore

Do I ever say what I mean
Or mean what I say?
Or is everything panic-fueled obfuscation
Masquerading as rage?
Am I honest with myself?
Is my memory selective?
...did any of this even fucking happen?
Or am I simply covering up the fact
That I'm still completely dissastisfied
With who I am?



Saturday, April 25, 2015


Back a Week (in retrospect)

We awoke separately in the early afternoon
She raised a bottle with her tattooed wrist
Took the saddest pull of Irish whiskey I've ever seen
And didn't offer me any
And I don't know if I've ever been more turned on
(or more wrong)



Wednesday, April 29, 2015


fuckthis

It's back
That fucking familiar weight
Deep, deep in my guts
More than two decades old now
Throwing off my center of gravity
Until I can only sit
Then lie down
Eyelids clenched like terrified fingers
Begging the Universe for sleep

#65

Friday, April 17, 2015


In line at a gas station, energy drink in hand
To ease the second legitimate hangover I've had in months
Pressing pleasure-sore teeth marks on my shoulders
Reminders of last night
And a hope for more to come

...yeah, this is pretty great
I just hope next time I can make things conclude

-----

I awoke to her sleeping face
Smiled
And drifted off again

#64

Tuesday, April 14, 2015


Phantom Phonecall from an Italian Restaurant I've Never Been Inside

Jakeeno's rang.
They told me to get over myself.
They said, "What happened is what happened;
and while it influenced you,
it didn't define you -
because that's your job."

So I stepped out for a smoke,
then crawled into my turbulent bed;
alone and hopeful and alone
and hopeful

#63

Sunday, March 1, 2015


a wax disc revolves
crackles,  hisses, pops warmly
sings before the song

-----

i haven't smoked with
anyone but my parents
in more than a year


Monday, March 2, 2015


i can't wait to see
a hawk gliding the thermals
and smile for once