Posts Tagged Art
The Unshakable Infantile Spirit, Part II
So many say they can write, and here I add pink flurries
to the leaning stack, as gargoyles snort snot and
hang from my eyebrows laughing at my twisted,
sick, inadequate brain, and the excuses grab
my knee caps, rip them out, and the man on the corner
snickers. I don’t say I can bake. Why am I compelled
to write? I spy on the snake that guts, rather swallows whole,
all the other writers, and he and I drink grape juice at all the futility,
and the man on the corner hands me Pessoa, tells me
to read this, this that will tell me why I can’t
write, but the ants keep crawling up my
ass, while the gargoyles jump in the man’s pipe, burning
up into little leaves that blow up toward dirty clouds, and I keep
trying like a little baby with nothing to say worth anything.
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Art in Writing
PAD day 13 instructed us to write a comparison poem of some type.
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Art in Writing
Art’s not puerile, but childhood
is fair, not the same old thing,
not dual combinations of words
heard thousands of times, not
preachy but will often teach, will
lighten the world we’re in with
truth, something you might read
twice or more, where art will
say a thousand different things
on a thousand different reads,
where you may need to think
and think hard, but when
not art, you’re expected not
to think, not to question, not to
slow down, so how to enjoy?
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Brahms, Revisited without Tears for Today
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Brahms, Revisited without Tears for Today
Brahms has the twitchy fuse,
lighting me in acidic
flames and the arguments inherited
from old elephants, between piano and orchestra,
are trudging – me, I verses the world,
and I’m losing
but I’m pounding the keyboard
until I get a break, a breath, a sigh,
and I show this grace
that is un-Brahms
but is
Brahms at his greatest,
and when the horns arrive
in red army coats, you know
victory is grasped with dirty,
dry, crisp finger nails, but it
never happens, never consummates.
I am finished, a heaping
pile of slippery dung
when Brahms is done.
And as a practicing drunk, the tears
would wilt tarnished cheeks and create heat
emanating around thorny eye sockets,
but these days are desert dry, pain layered
and hidden and only Brahms, only the
master knows, knows the truth, and now,
at least I rest, I stop, I pray, lost.
.
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p.s. – Embedded below is the referenced piece, performed by my favorite conductor and one of my favorite pianists. The exposition of the first movement lasts 3:45, so patience is needed in waiting for the arguments between piano and orchestra. The climax/recapitulation of the first movement at about 13:20 is one of the most intense sections of music I know along with the ending of the first movement. It is immense music. The third movement is a kick ass jam if you make it that far…
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The Mind’s Empty Darkness
Compelled by absence
from my pen
the poison of a slated trap
of an iPad keyboard,
Shitty one word thoughts,
I read, I stop reading,
I read, I tell others
to read.
I want to learn, become real,
but the grease of a refinery
broken down by deadly fog
has stilled my mind
so I am fearful of the empty notebook.
I order myself to write
an essay on the deleterious
squeeze of a persistent depression,
but I cave to a fear of narcissistic
rage, so how can I help? I hold
out my hand and I should cure
the mud from millions of horses
in a wet November Ohio valley.
I should sweep away the bags
of compost from the surface
of my almost-human construction,
and after all, I need to go read,
to go learn
before I ever write again,
and pray that death will
not stop my project, that
someday I might write.
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Parlaying the Intransigent Tar of my Editor
All the leafs, all of the websites, the tweets, hell,
Facebook posts, commanding, directing, distracting,
but making writing the compelling requirement, and Buk,
my friend, he tells me that if I’m not spitting it out, don’t do it,
but with respect, fuck him, and fuck my editor who sits,
who shits all over my shoulder and tells me I suck.
The directions tell me not to listen to the editor.
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As if I Have a Right to Transform
I want to make people bounce up and down.
Who am I to seek such delight? The light gray
cements laugh at me. I told a joke and it didn’t
fly well, so I feel rather sheepish in front of the punks
and the 90%-tattoo-adorned hippy freak, but I feel
justified somehow in my attempt to brighten this
sullen day, as if I have a right to transform people’s
lives, as if I didn’t make up this landfill overwhelming
my brain with a desire to melt into dirty floor tiles,
sticking to the edges, slithering into that sewer
which keeps begging me to write a story that might
transform people’s lives, but after all, none of the
chuckleheads go to the sewer for illumination. There is
a man in suit and tie even though very few of us work
this day, as though it were not long after the apocalypse,
and we are stupid monkeys, and the gods jerk at our strings,
bellowing all the way in triumphant laughter at all of the
dead who never had a chance to transform much less
get loose from the monkey chains. And the silly bitty lady
J-walks, jiggling her tiny bag of popcorn, feeling delicious.
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Most Days Should be Thanksgiving, Designed for Gratitude
Lessons, strangling the deathly stillness of sobriety,
as we are forced to write our lists, and why the fuck
does it require ten? Because otherwise,
we’d stop at two, and the first is always sobriety.
I’m clean. My breathing does not gurgle in large pools
of muddy water, and my family, and the love, and
this is because vodka was never a match for love,
but it sure beat the pulpy slime out of love for long periods,
as the brain’s diseased mind circled in several strands,
like perverted green sharks, ripping pieces of compulsion,
drilling the hiding games, the dark gardens of shame
covered with ill seaweed craving an unconsciousness.
I can read! I can write! Look at me; I can see,
and today’s mind seeks some sort of warmth or
brightness which seems to bury the mildew of pebbles
rolling from dreary nights spent waiting to die, and though
not one of us knows god, we’re all glad we know
god again, that he holds us in large hands, but mostly,
our gratitude comes loudly knocking every single morning,
caressing those massive gaps in life when we know who we are,
where we are and what we are. We do. We know.
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Fighting Wicked, Trying Not to Quit
Posted by Carl in Essays, Finding Purpose on October 30, 2012
I’m going to try NaNoWriMo again. Last year, miserable failure, so I needed a new strategy. This year, instead of trying to write masterfully, I will simply write. Can I turn off the inner editor for more than three sentences? Who knows, but I will try to turn off the editor for four weeks.
I’ve taken writing courses in both fiction and poetry recently, and I have found that my classmates have uniformly disliked my material. I’m a modernist sinking in a sea of well-trained crafty dime store novelists. I wish I could craft anything well, but I’ll be damned if I’ll write something that’s been written millions of times.
I’m not a writer, but my heart gets sparked when I write, so damn the people who don’t read the shit. I’m going to write the shit and we’ll see where we go from here.
When I left the mental hospital tonight (thankfully having been there as a visitor trying to share hope rather than floating there as an admitted patient), the staff member told me to watch for deer. The full moon was fogged behind deep purple curtains, so I had to use my bright lights a few times. I was resentful of the clouds while others are dealing with horrible winds and floods. I tried to be a blazing trail of alertness. There were no deer encounters, but there was a dead dog. So sadness pervades my evening, not as severe as the pre-visit crater of terrifying depression, but creating doubt that I have any chance at writing 50K words in November, but here on October 30th, I feel determined to plough through.
Every word I write seems to murder one of the parasitic creatures inside my skull, which temporarily alleviates the pain, so on we go – let’s kill some pain.
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Today with the Doctor
I sent her stuff from my hero,
for the example of the truth
of drunks – it’s more authentic
when coming from real drunks,
and I say, It’s always scary looking
at this side from that side – so many stay
on that side.
The elevator smells like fresh diaper.
My brain surfs the grainy side of the home folks art,
art that I wish I could do, especially the green door
with the three windows
reflecting the honest and scary
world, failingly attempting
to block the bad spirits.
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The Red Pants Tightened My Heart
There was a lady
with immaculate black
ponytail. I eagerly looked
but not one hair was
disarranged. And not
simply the ponytail. It was
this soft, slick, shiny, furry,
perfect, oval jewel on her
pate. Society would dub
me creepo if I had chased
her, but her red pants
fit too perfectly and her spicy
white blouse exploded
roars of light too good
for this rotten neighborhood,
so I wanted to tag after
and listen to her tell me
about all of the good things
that have happened to her,
listen with glowing eyes
to her indefatigable beauty,
but I am no creepo, so here
I sit, dead and dumb.
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