Category: Wild Card
Oh, there’s power in those dreams
The fantasy of power, of course, invokes control. The freedom to boss others, for one thing – something so alien in my own reality.
What’s the ultimate dream of power? Setting sexuality apart from everyday activity? Especially secret?
(Oh, secrecy! Now there’s a dimension of power.)
As is the appearance of knowing what to say, how to move. The willing response.
The great secret hunger you, alone, can fill. (More to the point: I alone can fill.)
In reality, I have no imagination here, and no language.
I think I’m finally getting the attraction of action-adventure movies for many males. That, along with Triple-X.
Either/or
A separate life, practicing our art?
Or integrated into everything we do?
In passing
“You’re always nervous.”
“I run on nerves.”
A twist in that dream of being discovered
Which part of my work would I most want “discovered”? Note, I didn’t say which part of me. How telling!
Apart from my journaling itself, it’s always hard for me to imagine writing that’s not intended for circulation, either among a small select circle or else a wide public. Anything else could be left as notes to myself. So I’m always surprised to hear otherwise, yet apparently there are many who practice the art purely for their own private pleasure.
On the other hand, I’ve also worked so hard, so long, to be invisible. To be among those sharply objective observers. The dispassionate yogi – even though ultimately, as I’m finding, passion is what counts, in life and in art. Read the Psalms, if you must, for divine confirmation.
For one thing, as I’m finally admitting, I’m finding how liberating and energizing the effort to candidly proclaim “I hate” x, y, or z can be. No more nice face requirement, but the full range of feeling, from noble to disgust.
Face it, there’s no visibility as a poet – and even novelists are surprisingly marginal these days.
So here it is, and there you are, doing whatever we do.
A different take on taking the subway
As you know, I’m fond of subways. So when one of my favorite lifeguards was telling me of her first semester away in the big city, I had to ask.
“Oh, no! I hate them!”
What?
“Everybody’s stinky and pressed together,”
It’s not always like that. She must have been riding at rush hour.
But she continued, “And then one threw up on my shoes.”
Hmmm.
I’m trying to remember if she said she then had to do the same.
I do know she hasn’t read my subways novel, though she did have some input into What’s Left.
Hmmm.
How long have we been together?
“I can’t tell when you’re happy or just being polite.”
Nearly ready for science fiction
As the Highway Department’s electronic billboard warned drivers:
RADAR
LASER
AIRCRAFT.
I was expecting such strange things in the air, you simply can’t picture it. How could they possibly build these? Shimmering overhead, maybe flashing, too. Better than UFOs, most likely.
Worth repeating
Small sign left outside the Amesbury Quaker meetinghouse:
Nothing can be great
Without first being good.
Jnana's Red Barn 