Even the mushroom-vultures and cultured cultures steer clear.
I cannot see my face; the swamp bog of words renders, replies nothing - who am I in this?
WHO? Even the owl shrugs and stays not long in this TS Wasteland.
Eckleberg averts his gaze, rubbing his crimson-cream-eyes, tired, so tired, and removing those circular owl rims
Still, no words mirror me in this grog
And these are my words - or yours.
How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?
"The master's words, not mine", the quag belch-spake
My words, your words, I'm in none of these
Emptyeverythings
Your words, my words, ignore my endless pleas
Fen beyond my ken, humor me
everglade, mire mirror, won't you reflect one image, please
Or at least, explain what needs change
afore I sink, before I drink,
the muddy-gummy-grimy-boorish dismay
of bitterfoolish defeat, viscous-morass-sighing dreams.
Is it naught but quicksand goodbyes and rodents of unusual size?
I see.
And this you can know- fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.
~ John Steinbeck - Grapes of Wrath
Bogged down much? Aha! Or perhaps, swamped in life? Time to marsh away! Or marsh-all yourself to peace? Aha Aha! In one of today's many lulls, I read some of my recent writings. I noticed a distinct trend toward short, concise, shoddy sentences in my casual writing that describe ill-defined ideas, and leave the reader with a frustrating staccato of stutter-stepping sentences. They are not eloquent, not clever, and the length rarely varies. Worse still, a hastening leaves pieces behind, like carrying too much laundry and dropping socks; like a leaking vessel at sea, jettisoning the hold; like a bleeding engine, hemorrhaging across the paved and murdered earth; like tree leaves come Autumn, though not beautiful - no, not beautiful.
Then the stories. My missing, mutilated muse: asphyxiated, poisoned, exsanguinated, diminished by degrees like a diaspora of belief, and yet I'm basking in stories as silver and swaddling as a lunar swoon, silken and heavenly. Not without existential quandary, without patient angst leaking into each like crimson ink in crystal water - the stories subtly infiltrated with ideas and poisoned with pulchritudinous emotions. It's your fault, yes it is, I say to the dreamers, the dreaming, sand sifting between his piano-fingers, spindly thin and wily. But it is also hers, and his, and always theirs, the blame shifts as the breeze, resting eventually in the billowing sleeves and the earl-grey-tea eyes of the painter, turning easel lakes into splendid scenery, a majestic, endless, panoramic canvas of subconscious imagery.
I was lent a poetic book, and I've been enjoying every moment of it. The book's writing is quite sensational (aha! pun night!) It is called, "A Natural History of the Senses" by Diane Ackerman. It is poetic, and it is lovely. She breaks each sense into sections in the book and each section into tinier segments that capture a specific detail, a "sense" of each of the 5 senses. In 'smell' she writes a section regarding violets and perfume, and in taste, she describes a grotesque and morbid cuisine invented by the British in the 1800s. Each section is meticulously studied, and, though each is but a brief and poignant essay, she infuses poetry into the fiber and blood of each and every sentence.
It is strange, the assortment of books I've read in the past week: a myth-fantasy with celtic, norse, and tolkein-esque motifs; a russian satire; a book of romantic poetry; a history of the senses; Bible passages; an enormous pamphlet on a proposed super-futuristic evolution of earth; the count of monte cristo; the two towers. What imaginations, what grandeur God has allowed us to dream! I'm thankful every day for creative license, and, more than just the freedom, the encouragement in artistic pursuit by the very creator of the universe. See what God has created? I feel like a young child with playdough who, on twisting and wrangling the dough, produces an indecipherable mess. Proudly, I hold it up in both hands, beaming face angled toward the heavens. "Look! It's a giraffe!"
I was lent a poetic book, and I've been enjoying every moment of it. The book's writing is quite sensational (aha! pun night!) It is called, "A Natural History of the Senses" by Diane Ackerman. It is poetic, and it is lovely. She breaks each sense into sections in the book and each section into tinier segments that capture a specific detail, a "sense" of each of the 5 senses. In 'smell' she writes a section regarding violets and perfume, and in taste, she describes a grotesque and morbid cuisine invented by the British in the 1800s. Each section is meticulously studied, and, though each is but a brief and poignant essay, she infuses poetry into the fiber and blood of each and every sentence.
It is strange, the assortment of books I've read in the past week: a myth-fantasy with celtic, norse, and tolkein-esque motifs; a russian satire; a book of romantic poetry; a history of the senses; Bible passages; an enormous pamphlet on a proposed super-futuristic evolution of earth; the count of monte cristo; the two towers. What imaginations, what grandeur God has allowed us to dream! I'm thankful every day for creative license, and, more than just the freedom, the encouragement in artistic pursuit by the very creator of the universe. See what God has created? I feel like a young child with playdough who, on twisting and wrangling the dough, produces an indecipherable mess. Proudly, I hold it up in both hands, beaming face angled toward the heavens. "Look! It's a giraffe!"
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