Swallow your pride? Sure. But if so, up chuck your gullibility. Dispose of depression, anxiety and, while you’re at it (and why not?), disease and pestilence. The era of the voice is not even a toehold down to earth, but when the voice reigns its swollen toes w/o
ever touching the earth wholl carve those dugout human-sized cave holes
It doesn’t matter how much talent you have. Nor how long you’ve worked at it. Nor how successful an
apprenticeship or
the amount of legwork you’ve chalked up doing whatever it is that you do. That you want to do. Well, whether or not you want to be doing it or anything else. Soberly, I rose to the occasion, tipped my hat, twisted an about- face, all but tip toed off the stage and practically fell out the door and into the traffic. Before that big truck hit the bus iness that was me, did I hear – how might I even recol lect? – the sweet sound of the city as it whooped its obligatory cresc endo into that swollen and slightly off- key yet mes merizing chord? Who cares? I whipped my drained and deranged body of business “out of harm’s way,” and skipped toward the bedizened horizon and into an inevitable oblivion.
I try to write a poem. It is a doozy of a downer. Is this all I can be? Perhaps I should do something else. Or, and this seems more important at the moment, maybe I should concentrate, and quite heavily, on not being such a doozy of a downer.
It is all simplicity drained into a medium-sized metallic box. One that you can carry around all day and never know
it’s even with you, until you look down, whether you’re holding it, have it held by a strap over your shoulder, the box dangling at the
side of your butt, or have it rigged to sling over both shoulders, like a backpack. Like the one in which you once would carry at least a
half a dozen books. You don’t really know what it does, nor why you’re compelled to have it with you every second of your
existence. It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when you felt light as air, when you believed in the myth of freedom. You dreamed
you could soar. All the normal stuff. But then there was that box. Did you make it? Was it a gift? Did you find it somewhere, like in a dumpster, or
some executive’s office? Perhaps washed ashore, back when the beach of the deep drain was the only ominous that you knew.
That you felt. And still, as you look out over the vast ocean, and at the setting sun, say. Do you remember what was prom
inent? What was at the forefront? When you could go anywhere, be anything and, most importantly, when you could escape any time
you wanted. You could just leave. For a moment. For a few days. Or to begin again, to start fresh, and this you did on occasion. It was
rare, but it was an option. Yet look at you now, so completely unaware, so devastatingly out of options, with out even the memory of those days,
of that freedom, of those choices that were at your disposal. And that you got to decide. Sometimes a glimpse of the idea of choice, as if deep within,
as of the ashes of what used to be
the coal in the furnace of your skull
is stirred, just enough to whip up an ember. But then. It’s gone. And
you look around as gooseflesh crawls across your skin. Thinking maybe someone.... But there’s no one. Nothing. Except the box,
which you clamp tighter between your arms, hoist its harness up closer to your neck, or tug at the straps across your chest,
bringing what’s behind you closer, tighter, feeling it flush, a square to your back, that gives you, so clueless, the idea that you are
safe, that you are secure, that this world is yours. And with these thoughts, the ember darkens, and you blindly find your comfort, your security, your peace.
...we’re here, we do stuff, and then we’re gone. —Robert Downey, Jr.
It turns out to be about death but “not in a morose way,” he says shortly after his dad passes. They’d been collaborating on a documentary together, featuring his dad, named after him: Sr.
when I watch movies or teevee shows, streamers, as these seem to be called collectively at this
moment, I come away from that experience revivified. I somehow
manage to maintain all of the
big networks (or whatever we call
them anymore), pay the monthly
fees, even as they keep going up
and up. They now make up, by
far, most of the tiny monthly bud get that I have. Sometimes I fail
to remember to watch them, tend
not to pick up the console to turn
on my gargantuan teevee. When I do, I most often do it when I am
feeling down, which, these days,
is too often. I’ve always had to
deal with depression, ever since
I can remember, and this particular
fix has always been a go to. Others
come and go – like going to the
cinema or taking a walk through
the streets of the city in which
I live and love – but these days it’s
watching a series, one of several
I happen to be in the middle at of
at any given moment (unlike in the
past, I now actually finish them!) or,
on a rare occasion I watch an entire
movie, something I used to do with
such regularity that I’d often see five or six a week. Now, it’s almost
never. But I saw two today. Both of
which I loved. One, an adaptation
of the first half of a book I read
several times as a too precocious
child (Dune) and Sr. And I even
caught a couple of episodes of a couple of the series in which
I’m currently in the middle or
near the end. The end. Death
sat vehemently at the fore front of both of these films. But I don’t feel worse than
when I first tuned in to each?
Resoundingly, I feel much
better. I believe I need to
remind myself to do this
more often. The only other
thing I can think of as an
almost sure-fire remedy for a bout with these blues
Dualities are all the rage in here where I supposedly belong. Do I seal my lips with super glue or vent via
screams until my voice col lapses? I have so much to tell you that I don’t want to. I have so much I want to tell
you that I dare not. This con flict has never been a problem for me – it’s stability. But do I let that be my excuse? I talk
the ears off anyone who lets me. Mostly they’re paid professionals or interviewers. But what if some one knew me enough to really want
to listen, to hear my story, my num erous stories, the ones I only hint at, if at all, but never tell completely. Am I just too lazy? The world is so unfair
and yet I’ve been so blessed. If it were going to be so unfair to me, oh how in retrospect I’d rather it have done so when I was young. But maybe that’s
some pretty cheap vanity. Deal with it, I demand of myself. But then, how to get perspective when I’ve no one here who knows me well enough to
know that this wasn’t my lot, speak ing of vanity, speaking of an over- inflated ego. There’s no we where I go. That’s the biggest difference
besides the atrocities that are so much easier for me to see. I have never been one with any desire for empathy so deep that
it drives. Whips around these cliff-laden California curves I haven’t seen in nearly a decade now. I’m not helpless. But I
am unable to pretend these shackles did not bind me by coincidence, were certainly not mere accident. Blame a
system or, more appropriately, its people. No matter, what’ll it do for me to blame? So I play this game, flummoxed
by this lack of inertia, this movement that seems filmed for me to watch as it transpires, and in such slow motion that it
is impossible to tell whether the gradient is an incline or a decline. Or a recline. Idiots who look at the downtrodden thinking, even
saying aloud, how lazy they have to be in order to be in such a sit uation. Bite your tongue off is the situation. Know it before
you burn it. Maybe it’s worse to avoid. Pretend such things, these people, don’t exist. Do it before you eschew it! Switch places for
a day. Or bring that thing, that human being, to work day. What a holiday that would be. A prison’s primary purpose is to be built with
no means to escape. Except by those with keys. They get to decide. What’s the difference between you and me? Who’s
got the key? And who’s pacing the tiny square of concrete try ing to remember what it must have been like to be free?
The oral history of moral authority is not a reality play. It’s called The Yeti Make Spaghetti in Their Yurts. I’ll have a yoghurt with that. Get it? Oh, the door’s right there, see it flapping in the polar wind? But I wouldn’t venture out there if I were you, what with all of the spikes. Which I don’t worry about too much, given how hard it is for one to penetrate this ice.
fill in the blank because i’m unbankable. unless you count, play-doh, duh! so off we go to the shark tank, where i’ve got a bunch of fresh ideas. like ponzi schemes and cracking safes. once i thought i was funny. was brushing my teeth. some where between my ears i heard a loud comment and the toothpaste fell from the sink onto the rat- infested floor. this portion of the page you’re currently reading of the book of my life is brought to you by crest. the moral of the oreo is that i’m not funny after all. never was. or maybe i was but now i wasn’t. who’s to say? a whole bunch of empty space, that’s boo hoo.
Hey, so I woke up late, having stayed awake late, or early, almost until the sun came back up, nothing unusual there, only did I get anything accomplished? Sure, yes, I now have an interview next week, some time either Tuesday, Wed nesday or Thursday. I have recorded a couple new months of poetry for the YouTube side- channel of this very project. My
floors are clean, some laundry (which I now do in the sink) is clean, I have managed to yet stay inside, in my little hotbox, rather than go out and spend any of the last money I have this month, so that’s good, right? I’m concentrating on the good stuff, accent uating it in a perhaps hyper bolic manner, but whatever works to keep my mind off the dead-end bleakness of it all. And nothing’s bleak. My boyfriend is amazing, even though he’s been in the opposite hemi sphere for, what, 100% of the nearly four years since we’ve decided we were a couple (I will never, ever, ever, denigrate the notion of a long-term relationship as I used to – and nope, I
refuse to believe this is karma). So, these are my diatribes, er, or the attempts at mild-mannered catch-ups, or touch-bases, I set out to do – by the time we’re at about here, I realize there’s no turning back, the sarcasm (if we’re lucky), the pessimism, the lack of hope is so overblown despite the attempt to really break through and into the many amazing poss ibilities, the infinite radial paths upon which I could casually stroll or even skip my way out of this spot and into obvious progress and happy endings. I look down and all I see are my bare legs crossed with a pillow above and between the laptop upon which I’m pecking this ridiculous ness and below them is the blanket that acts as a facade atop my badly bro ken bed. It is cooler than it’s been in quite a while. There’s that interview coming up next week.
all know the obvious conclusion. But no, no, no, I’m trying to tell you that I’m act ually in good spirits; or was. Is the act of sending you these updates the problem? They do not help if, by design, this is the best I can do. That much I know, even as I attempt to be upbeat. I’ve got chicken legs in the refrigerator which I can cook now along with some rice, and a rice-cooker within which to cook the rice and a skillet atop a single electric burner upon which to fry the chicken. The room is relatively clean (I’m not mentioning one fact about it that I’m just not going to mention, besides the broken bed, besides the fact that it’s an SRO, and that I reside in this tiny space in the
hood within my favorite city and cannot get into
a new place and therefore cannot see my guy
in the same vicinity as me until I get a job and
move into a new place) – and defeat. Not defeat. Never defeat. Defeat is death. And I’m yet alive. Right now, in fact, I feel very alive, even as I stew over all of the obstacles, and try to calculate, based on history, what might come next. I will get
there. It’s mostly (mostly) silly
for me to think of time as a quickly ticking bomb that counts down to an ever-swiftly nearing zero. Like if I had a real kitchen and were baking something in the oven. The ding ding when the timer hits zero does not mean the end of life or the apocalypse, but that the bread is baked, the pizza is done, your potato is ready, etc., etc. All good stuff. Because I am nothing if not hungry.
When I’ve lost all means of slamming my nose to the grind stone, that’s when it seems easiest to for get. Everything that keeps my thoughts lustrous, keeps my focus secure. And when I’m barely able to get my feet out of bed just to do the simplest of necessities, much less those things that will elevate me, will get me out of the stink in which I am stuck, it’s really hard to muster such a simple thought as this: to get to the grind stone one must go through the rose. Nose to the rose. Nose to the rose. Never give in to the pessimism when, just take a look around, con centrate on what’s deep within, and put your nose to the rose, Del. Wade through the thorns if you must, but breathe in the brew of the blooms and it will get you
The sweatiest of sweat; the downiest of down. Even when the phone rings at 7am with what, on the surface, would seem like fantastic news. The blues won’t dissipate. These feelings tend to even tually evaporate, but what to do when you have to wear them like a pair of cloying t-shirts back in the hot summer state of your humid youth. What if the only thing left is to admit (And to whom? Oneself? Me? What is defeat if there’s no one to whom you might appropriately tell?) defeat? It’s the hopelessness that’s new. And what is there to do but (What?) hope that, like al ways, this, too, will pass. And fast?!
which sounds quite ex pletive and a bit like “sufferin’ succotash!” only i’d imagine it is way worse. though yosemite sam might disagree. did he not at least have a job? it appears that he sometimes did. as a prison guard on occasion, and at others as a police officer, but mostly he was just a cantank erous gunslinger, i’d say. more of an out lying outlaw, right? (there’s a thought, hmm...) i think of my pacifism as some thing of a hallmark, but who even knows me, especially these days? and even those who ever did, well, would they even have a clue about my pacifism? would they think it (another) delusion? i won’t deny that i must’ve surely come across as full of contra dictions at the very least. but therein somewhere lies a value system that harbors a few sturdy truths. surely? that has to be the case, or at least i’d argue (in terminably, at least). maybe this is really just an attempt at an elucidating ditty on mental health issues. i’ve been a bit obsessed of late with comed ians who center their routines so transparently on this subject, like the brilliant maria bamford, whom i’ve spent hours watching this past week, and who has basically built her entire career, it seems, around that subject, as literally wrapped within it as she will quickly point out that she is. i could name numerous others whose routines i’ve watched excessively as well as obsessively over the past couple of years or so that gravitate toward similar themes. like john mulaney, whose late work centers on what i’d argue is at least a sub genre: addiction. also carrying on stage about such things, often in a rofl manner: neal brennan, amy schumer, chelsea handler, etc., and that’s just the list i have at the forefront of my memory to night, but the list goes on and on, to the point that these mental health issues seem to occupy quite a large percentage of modern comedy culture. what about all of this was i getting at? well, to bring it all back, there are two states of undoing for me that seem to bring my motivation to a screeching halt, especially when they appear together in what i’d call a double whammy scenario. they are depression and pennilessness. it’s not as if they don’t already have a codependent relationship with each other, as well as a bit of a chicken/egg conundrum going on, but it’s very clear to me that when either, or espe cially when both rear their ugly heads, there is nothing that i can count on more than finding myself losing my mojo, slowing down to a lethargic creep, if not shutting down entirely. my world becomes one in which all i can do is try to will the time away until they both go away, a counter intuitive tack if ever there was one, but
i am good at it. i live in a swamp of stagnation and pro crastination. i’ve tried seemingly every trick in the book (where, oh where, could such a book be, i do wonder) to stave off these derail ments, the most recent being a simple and sol emn vow to refuse
to enter that swamp,
to veer away, steer
as clear from the quicksand and muck as i can, and have some how convinced myself that this is possible. well, i suppose i will very soon see whether it is. possible, i mean. because i can see those two villains arriving as i type these words to send to you. if you’re kind enough for such simple things, i’d be ever so gracious for a good vibe, a pleasant thought aimed in my general direction, or even a hushed wish of good luck. i am ever so appreciative. and feel free to stay tuned for the next dramatic installment that will reveal how i beat the odds and revel in the amazing results of what a smidge
of remaining confidence will surely deliver to a downtrodden contrarian like me.
cinnamon. Cory doesn’t have a worry in the world this fine morning; he walks to work thinking of his night with Taffeta Loring, with whom, of late, he’s racked up a quite
generous amount of scoring. Nothing at all seems boring in the town of Turnbull, at least until Ms. Trimble finds herself slightly off-center thanks to a mild temblor.
But she’s not fretting. For tonight’s her wedding. After school, like a fool, this regular substitute teacher and her beau, Mr. McFletcher, who’s a
Professor at the University of Northwestern, will head directly to the home of their
pastor (the Reverend Astor), and wow, in wedding attire so stunning that
Reverend Astor’s tick, his nervous humming (you should catch him when he sings, it’s quite the thing when he’s alone at home, his thick baritone
is syrupy slick, and with that comes cunningly imaginative lyrics; Astor was once con sidered a stock but adroit poet back in college, which, wouldn’t you know it, was a
relatively unknown college in Detroit, the name of which
is – oh, I forget, – ). And
yet, you bet that I and all
of the the cool people of Turn bull are giddy for the spectacle
of the town’s most renowned
wedding of the year, there’s no
doom nor gloom here, for the
citizens are astir as they whir about gleefully anticipating the
holy union of Mr. McFletcher and Ms. Trimble. Darlene Decatur, the Astors’ neighbor and local interior decorator has the Rev’s rooms so splendidly abloom that all of Turnbull’ll remember, and
with pride and with splendor, the soon-to-be marriage, in the good Reverend Alister Astor’s flawlessly decorated living room (thematically hued in Ms. Trimble’s favorite blues),
of Turnbull’s beloved betrothed: the Honorable Hector McFletcher and the inimitable Maribel Trimble.
