Believe it or not, that poem in the previous posting has been quite the comfort to me in the passing days. I finished pressing ten copies of my chapbook tonight and am overcome with a sense of accomplishment. And, I suppose that means that I've officially been able to abandon the poems I've written to move on to the next poems I'm about to write. Something about this is gratifying, but in that gratification that seldom allows you to share it with anyone else. I have come to understand that the only successful time to be an artist is when you are comfortable with the loneliness it brings.
*
I have been locked in my office space for about five or six hours right now, and have lost track of time completely.
*
Craig and Carolyn are coming to my reading on Wednesday night, and I have this overwhelming feeling that something I will say during the reading will be too self-deprecating for my mother's sake, but too revealing for my father's sake. I am incredibly frightened by their ability to crush me into a pile of crackers without really knowing it. I look down the barrel of this week, and hope that I manage to get myself through it. Once I get over the wall, after Wednesday night, I'll be home-free. Another application to Graduate School needs to be sent out this week, too.
Since the semester began, I have yet to have a real couple of days off. As soon as I finish class for the week, it's off to work. Then, after the weekend of work is done, the exact time where I tell myself "You deserve a drink," I am shoved back into the pile of paperwork and syllabi assignments. I am complaining, I know. A real bag-full of complaints, I am.
At some point this week, I look forward to a nice happy hour at a bar five blocks from this soon-to-be-vacant bedroom with Jake, where I am allowed to comment with absurdity and say nothing intelligent. Sometimes, that kind of lack thereof is gratifying in itself. Thursday will see the Drevlow in his purest form, and the drinks will more than likely be paid for by the department. I will be pleased to welcome a dear friend home, and to liquor him up. That will be infinite.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Jim Wright
James Wright
"Saint Judas"
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
a pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
my name, my number, how my day began,
how soldiers milled around the garden stone
and sang amusing songs; how all that day
their javelins measured crows; how I alone
bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
the kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
"Saint Judas"
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
a pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
my name, my number, how my day began,
how soldiers milled around the garden stone
and sang amusing songs; how all that day
their javelins measured crows; how I alone
bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
the kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
Monday, January 19, 2009
What you ought to be doing, but, aren't (Sunday Night)
1. Making fliers for the presentation of your poetry reading.
2. Reading Into the Wild, Monk, and Love's Labours Lost.
3. Writing a poem on the circumstance of winds, east.
4. Telling "the Man" that having a job is getting in the way of your priorities of existence.
5. Listening to "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" by Tom Waits, as an occasion of the season passing.
6. Getting your glasses fixed, so as to have a proper set of lenses to observe the world through.
7. Writing about resignation, in general.
8. Inscribing, somewhere on a part of one of the walls in your bedroom, nonchalantly, a letter written to the next resident to occupy the space.
9. Telling them you're ready for anything else, and not apologizing for it.
10. Finishing poem addressed to Man started on your chalkboard which reads:
"On the absurdity
of masculinity,
I have yet to
figure out who
I am, so I'll
sing my sad
songs loud
enough for us
to drown out
the noise of
one another."
2. Reading Into the Wild, Monk, and Love's Labours Lost.
3. Writing a poem on the circumstance of winds, east.
4. Telling "the Man" that having a job is getting in the way of your priorities of existence.
5. Listening to "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" by Tom Waits, as an occasion of the season passing.
6. Getting your glasses fixed, so as to have a proper set of lenses to observe the world through.
7. Writing about resignation, in general.
8. Inscribing, somewhere on a part of one of the walls in your bedroom, nonchalantly, a letter written to the next resident to occupy the space.
9. Telling them you're ready for anything else, and not apologizing for it.
10. Finishing poem addressed to Man started on your chalkboard which reads:
"On the absurdity
of masculinity,
I have yet to
figure out who
I am, so I'll
sing my sad
songs loud
enough for us
to drown out
the noise of
one another."
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