Monday, March 31, 2014

I Have Been Her



I Have Been Her

I have been her

the belletrist
the poet
the raconteur

walking in kicked up dust
hiding behind dappled masks
truncated by crippling fear

I have been her

lithe and elegant
superbly refined
minor in substance & scope

the chronicler
the storyteller
the nonconformist

I have been her

occupied by aesthetics
operating under the old guise
no intricacy is too exclusive

the graceful danseur
the faithful maiden
the prosperous parallel

I have been her

the permanence of spilt ink
pilfered in such pretty ways
crying loud in a lonesome wail

unlikely parts for a perpetual dreamer


I have been her

**

I have not been able to write a word in days.  Blank pages and blinking cursors have been thwarting me, taunting me but tonight, even after a frustrating Monday at my 9 to 5, I was able to bang out a little poem.  I was so tired when I got home, too beat to cook so I ordered pizza, too bleary to watch TV so I listened to two great installments of 'Play It Forward' - the first with Adam Baldwin and the second with Evan Meisner from Gloryhound.  Listening to both of those guys wax poetic and talk honestly about their craft sparked a little something in me.  I haven't moved from the kitchen table since I got home.  I listened, ate, drank and then broke out the poetics.  Even though my noodle is completely wasted on numbers, I was grateful to tap into my creativity even for only one poem.  I needed words today, desperately.

Oh, I saw 'Wolf Of Wall Street' yesterday.  The lure of course being the Leo factor.  It was bum-numbing long but I did see his bum and Jonah Hill's teeth made me laugh.  What a story.  Excess, greed and gluttony - whatever you want to call it, that guy was a grabber.  Leo's performance was stunning but in the end even his talents didn't make my empathy swell for a scoundrel.  Was it supposed to?  Maybe I was just grumpy from all of this horrid winter weather hanging around.  I'm really looking forward to seeing '12 Years A Slave'.  I am behind on my Oscar fodder.  Terrible film fan I am. 

Take a peek at this incredible song by a most excellent Dartmouth boy, doing the East Coast proud.


You can download is six song EP on iTunes now.  It's worth it and there are some excellent rock songs you can dance to.  Fast and slow.  His songs belong in your ears.

In propinquity,
Nic

Sunday, March 16, 2014

True To Form


True To Form

What is most evident about her is the scent of concealment and mendacities that settle softly on her smooth rounded shoulders.  It is immediate on first meeting, she has that look in her eye, a sparkle that serves as a fair warning you are in the company of a prankster.  There is no gradual slide to her storytelling.  She relishes spinning a quick tale off the cuff just to see how long it takes to resume its proper shape.  It is contradictory to say but it is one of the qualities I love most about my oldest friend.  I am confident her rascally nature is hereditary.  One sticky summer as kids, famished from running in the country fields, full of sweat and dirt, we knelt up on the bench of a rustic picnic table.  Emilia’s mother, Mrs. Wilma Patton she liked to be called, set down juicy slabs of watermelon in front of us.  As we slurped and swallowed hungrily at our seasonal treat she pressed the meat of her knuckles deep into her plump hips, sucked her teeth and said, “And don’t go swallowing the seeds or you’ll grow watermelons in your bellies!”  One other time I recall Mrs. Wilma Patton standing over us, all six feet of her, as we sat on the front porch tying our sneakers up anxious to make the most of the cool morning on the tire swings when she advised us to take heed of an influx of dragonflies, “If you girls insist on going out to those blasted tire swings don’t come running to me when the Devil’s darning needles come after you.  Those little bastards will sew your little mouths right up!”  I suppose those maternal antics is where Emilia got the bright idea to rib her little brother whenever he had the sniffles.  Seth had a habit of wiping his nose upwards with the whole palm of his hand and Emilia would pipe up and say, “If you keep rubbing your nose up like that your nostrils are going to get stuck and next time it rains you’ll drown!”  Seth was frightened to fear of her as a kid and all but sat on his hands each time it flew out of her lying mouth.  The next thing you know the poor kid’s face would be dripping with snot, scared to death of drowning.  He believed everything she said.  I have to admit that for the longest time as a child I truly believed that there were no cartoons on television at night because whenever we asked to watch them before bed, Mrs. Wilma Patton would say, “How many times to I have to tell you, there are no cartoons on the TV at night, that’s when all of the animated characters sleep.”  She just wanted to watch her soaps and eat chips that she would never share with us.

Emilia embellishes, it’s just something she does, not to be malicious but to amuse.  I call her my fabulist friend.  She is a true shyster and I am still amazed I irresponsibly fall for her antics.  The last time I saw her we were in a convenient store, she wanted a package of gum and decided to check her lotto ticket.  I was browsing the vast selection of chocolate bars when she erupted into excitement, “I won!”  She made quite a production and whipped the customers into a fulsome frenzy.  Someone straining behind the crowd that gathered at the counter yelled out, “How much did you win!?”  True to form, Emilia said very matter of factly, “Five bucks!”

There is always that one friend …

**

Another writing exercise done on this lazy Sunday.  I also managed to finish a poem that has been sent for consideration for the next Open Heart Forgery issue. This one was to write off the cuff for a half hour.  This is as much as I got down in my time frame and then I spent five tweaking it with a lukewarm cup of tea I kept meaning to re-heat but I just kept sipping on. Stretching the muscles, it's good.  Creative thinking on the spot can be hard but it's exciting.

I'm sleepy today.  I had a great weekend with friends, out for live music and good times.  Two nights in a row.  Friday night was especially a highlight.  Adam Baldwin played a solo show, heading the bill at the Seahorse with Young River and Sam Cash & The Romantic Dogs opening.  It was excellent to see the underground bar jam packed full of people there to see Adam Baldwin play.  He started out with Gloryhound and also plays with Matt Mays.  He has a humble disposition and you can tell the music is in him.  He was blown away by the response he received, it was effecting and made for such a wonderful vibe.  He owned it, rocked it, killed it with his own excellent songs that so many people were singing their guts out along with.  He's an excellent performer, player and writer.  I wish him all the success he can stand.  If you work hard and believe ...

It's back to the grind tomorrow, St. Patty's Day but I could care less really.  I've had a few good ones in years gone by but I had enough fun over the weekend.  I'll be crunching numbers while the die-hards drink green beer.  I'll be wishing I was writing.

In propinquity,
Nic

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Hellgoing


There’s that old saying that in order to write well you have to read.  I believe that to be 100% true.  If you don’t have time to read you don’t have time to write and if you don’t read chances are your writing will likely suffer.  For me, this is indeed the case.  And since I’ve been knee deep in prose for some time, it is so good for my soul to put the pen down and pick up the stories of other writers.  It gives me a chance to breathe, for the creative well to fill up.  Reading is how I realized I had the gumption to tackle writing, to acknowledge my gift and then share it with others.  All those books my nose was tucked into as a kid excited me, challenged my imagination, my emotions and my way of thinking.  That is still the case now, even more so because being inspired by the words of other writers is exhilarating.  I admire writers, their work, their words and their courage.  I say courage because it takes a good deal of guts to sit down and write.  It’s brave and isolating and at times, really really hard.  But, the rewards far outweigh the struggles.  There is nothing more satisfying than completing a project and feeling earnest enough to let the eyes of another pour over it.  It’s a dream, a goal and an extreme accomplishment to finish something and release it.  Ask any writer. 

I am about to tackle Alice Munro’s short story collection called, ‘Dear Life’ but I just finished a unique and commanding collection by Lynn Coady called ‘Hellgoing’.  It won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and I can tell you that after reading it, it was most deserving.  I read ‘Mean Boy’ some years back, a funny and sharp novel about a small town boy who becomes obsessed with his poetry professor and longs to break free from the confines of conformity.  It drew me in immediately and so did ‘Hellgoing’.  She writes exceptional stories about a vast array of people.  They are exciting and riveting characters in unimaginable situations but they also possess something each of us can relate to.  She is good to her readers, she doesn’t miss a trick.  I have ‘The Antagonist’ to read as well but I love her writing so much I want to savor it.  So, Alice Munro is next, keeping with the rich tradition of outstanding women writers who continually blow my mind with their work, their attention to detail, character, narrative and and their passion for story-telling.

If you haven’t read any of Lynn Coady’s work yet, do yourself a favor and pick something up.  All of it even.  She’s spectacular.

The written word rules. 

In propinquity,
Nic

Sunday, March 9, 2014

All Those Tom Waits Tapes



All Those Tom Waits Tapes

I love him but he is a jealous guy, a bit too sensitive
not exactly attractive but has startling blue eyes
that dance when he plays all those Tom Waits tapes

in his bedroom sitting in a swivel rocking chair
he covers his ears with headphones and disappears
into the burning dark with all those Tom Waits tapes

I don’t exactly know why I am writing this little poem
he tells me I am a terrible writer and I should stop trying
the words I write never compare to all those Tom Waits tapes

I love him but he has creative limitations, a bit too cynical
not wholly present but he has way of walking with adventure
breaking through the noise with of all those Tom Waits tapes

I can’t ask him a question, he possesses one clear cut answer
“nothing beats the drama of a bullhorn”
everything he knows he learned from all those Tom Waits tapes

how to step on the Devil’s tail, how to light a house fire
how to make a hundred dollars, how to look drop dead in a suit
how to ride on a downtown train, all from those Tom Waits tapes

I love him but he is too bemused and moody-eyed, a bit too obsessed
to share a cold pizza, beer, anything else that isn’t a gravelled lyric
anecdote or all the things he feels from all those Tom Waits tapes

anywhere I lay my head I hear the strains of ten thousand songs
anytime I try to hush my love he plays all those Tom Waits tapes

my eyes rain hammers, my heart pauses, orphaned by the sounds
of all the things I can remember and those I long to fully forget

I hate everything about all those Tom Waits tapes, yet I love him

**

In propinquity,
Nic






Saturday, March 8, 2014

Burn


I am sorry to say that the stories you are requesting to read should be kept safe.  Stories about a face I have all but forgotten now.  The words, carefully written in undemanding times, a rash of clandestine sittings, about the ease of lyrical beauty and in the end, inaudibly translated into the language of conflict.  They are ghost stories, still and frightening.  Smoldering in an era that has long since passed.  They are a surreptitious reminder of joyful, aching delights.  Vivid accounts of a different time.  And, because you weren’t there, it will be impossible for you to understand.  But, since you asked, I will to my very best to relay the essence. 

It burned.  It was not a pleasure.  The end.  After we dug the trenches so deep.  Above all, I learned the heart is the most deceitful of all things.  Mine misled.  You know that delicate sweetness that consumes you when love is fresh and ripe, like plump rosy raspberries in rich cream spooned into a hungry mouth with a shiny silver spoon?  That subtle mellifluousness invaded my psyche and settled somewhere in the middle of my chest and opened me up to uncharted wonders.  With the grace of a fairground conjuror, smells and tastes, the sights and sounds heightened.  He entranced.  I could no longer decipher love from anarchy, exactness from indecision, and the aces from the spades.  I advanced.  Grew into my seraphic skin, the stones no longer rolled downhill.  My heart beat vermilion.

He was an illogical step to take.  Alone, I was introverted.  With him, voracious.  For meat, for miles, for everything I could consume, touch, occupy and own.  Without him, barren.  Plagued by the blur of armed guards denying me entrance to Eden.  It burned.  Scorched.  Charred.  Singed.  Bled explicit pigments of uncontrolled fire.  Vivid reddish orange hues. Result, ash.  My engagement with the world expired.  I wrote countless poems to exact the idea that fortune fades even when one has a tendency toward fever.

Trying to pluck a selective memory to share, a valuable account, an inviting snapshot to convey how living was enriched by the presence of lost love, you soon come to admit that all of the moments matter before the exodus.  His features are now altered in my mind’s eye but the first time he presented himself to me remains treasurable.

He was exquisite.  In the fog.  On a sidewalk in the city at dusk.  At first glance, he stripped me of my power.  I can’t tell you if it was the tilt of his head, his damp dark hair haphazardly veiling his deep eyes or the contour of his form leaning lazily against a brick building.  Fussing with his cellphone.  I paused to reconsider my entire purpose.  The next day we met in the park, he sat on the tentative bench next to me slouched forward eating a creamy hunk of cheese with a pocket knife while I sipped on a peppermint tea.  The insouciance, the peacefulness of the twinkling just being there together transferred into an extraordinary succession of tomorrows.  He tried to kiss me, I pulled away.  He said, “You may resist now but you will relent.”  I did.  Foolishly.  Living on borrowed time, its interior, bruised with disenchanted décor.  This I know to be true.  It was my impermanent home.

It burned.  Wounded.  Disfigured.  He shuffled off in dark suit to another.  And since, sidewalks offend.  Fog dismays.  Tea sours.  For a time, I forgot the weight of the world.  For a time.  Perhaps I am being impertinent.  Perhaps it is ambivalence.  Or it could just be you asked this of me and being indolent is far easier than being candid.  The scourge seared.  Nights went from provocative to stifling.  Hot hands replaced with cold pillows.  Mornings went from lazy to lethargic.  Lingering lips replaced with lonely limbs.  Subterfuge, it is an act of derision. 
It burns.  To be pallid.  To be insecure.  To be forsaken.  Denied.  I cannot comprehend how I will ever be able to bend for another.  It burns.  To be left.  To be doubted.  Discarded.  It burns.  To know that all that ever was is nothing more than blithe ignorance, to lose someone who deflated all of your pretentions, someone who fortified you, burns.  I burn.  Smoked out of happiness.  It burns

Now, when I speak I speak in monologues.  Small speeches, tiny tirades.  Now, when I cry it is in spurts and when I write stories I mar lined paper with mess.  Nonsensical pages about contrarian characters and sadness with a precarious new voice, writing about old things I no longer understand.  My stories should be kept safe.  Private.  Reserved.  My with-holding, an act of self-preservation.  A desperate attempt to extinguish the flames.  To cool. 

Because, I burn.  Still.

**

Friends of mine have started doing writing exercises together and so today because I desired to challenge myself to a few new words, I am piggy-backing on their exercise, using the word 'burn' to create from.  I wrote a messy and dull passage above but I enjoyed the writing session.  I had wine, I had music, paper and a new pen, some books, my dictionary close and my comfy clothes to chill in.  It felt good to write despite the fact that what resulted from the exercise was sludge.  

In other writing news, I am also thinking about going back to an unfinished piece I started awhile back and abandoned.  I am considering it as my next project.  I read through it and it really needs to be finished.  I found it hard to write when I first started it because one of the characters is just so careless, inconsiderate and in some ways absolutely cruel and self-involved.  I don't identify with those traits so spending time with her was caustic.  A little bit painful.  Before I tackle Alf Minor's story, I think I really want to finish that one.  It may take some time but that's my plan.  

With that, I am going to retire now to my blankets and pillows for a movie.  I bought a few today for cheap while out shopping, one of which was 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'.  That's a contender. My Philip Seymour Hoffman film festival is still on-going.  I'm waiting for the arrival of 'Love Liza'. So for now, while I wait patiently, I'll dig into some classic cinema.

Tomorrow I have mail to prepare and a long over-due letter/review to get out to Ru.  No numbers this weekend.  It's ll about words and stories and music.

However you spent your Saturday, I hope it made you happy.

In propinquity,
Nic