A full fucking hour.” She says, lifting the headphones up and off my ear. Just as suddenly, she falls backwards into her torn armchair, resuming reading her book. I sit forward in my seat, and put my pen down on my desk. It rolls away from my finger tips, falling down to the floor with a clatter. Angrily adjusting my head phones I turn towards her and say ” Jesus!, it’s so close, it’s right there, I just can’t figure out what that idea was. It was so vivid last night. I’m sure I was listening to this song when it came to me.” Clearly, I am irritable, and slightly disheveled, as I gesticulate wildly. The paper in front of me is blank, except for crossed out half thoughts and angry scribbles. Lowering her book down slightly, peering over the top she remarks. “Babe, you fell asleep on the couch last night. You didn’t even make it past Jeopardy.” Sitting stock still with my fingers pinching the bridge of my nose. “Well,… shit. I dreamt that?” Rocking back deeper into her arm chair, it’s hard stripes at odds with the growing shadows of the late afternoon, she laughs. A full throated bark. It echoes in our quiet mid town apartment. Softly, I can hear the neighbours dog yapping in reply. The old plaster walls really don’t dampen much between units here. Standing up from my chair, I grab the sheet of paper, cross the room, haphazardly covered with crumpled pieces of paper, I fold it a couple times and drop it into the recycling. I stop a moment to watch it float soundlessly into the bin. Car horns can be heard outside, a bird chirps and a siren screams in passing. The sun has begun to set, and along the sidewalk street lamps are starting to stir.
Day: January 17, 2020
Very bad, no good, awful poetry : Series 3
The best part about doing this series of early poetry written by myself as a teen, is that it has garnered exactly zero attention, and thus has gained no traction online, so while I have the catharsis of sharing it, I know deep down it will remain just as hidden to the outside world as it would had I left it untouched in my note book, on the shelf in my office, where it has sat since late 2009. Oh the unbridled joy of on line anonymity. Plus I’m a straight, white male, so not a whole lot of flack comes at me, unless I were to go out of my way to be a huge asshole. And I save that sort of thing for snide remarks at a movies expense while at the theater. So Boo.
If you’re just joining us now, or me, now, a few things you’ll come to understand. I’m not a professional writer, though at one point in my formative years I had ambitions for becoming a comic book creator / writer. I did give serious thought to Journalism school at Sheridan College, but did art instead. Probably money well spent given the caliber of the work if you look across the length and breadth of my old written pieces. Yikes. So feel free to curl up and have a good chuckle at my expense. From what I’m seeing as I revisit these old works, is they aren’t terribly offensive, except in that they are just awful. Low grade, faux depth, pretentious gobbledegook. Another three hot, steaming turds for your viewing delight.
1.) The sky at night Circa 1999
A lone ball of flame. Gas from an unknown region. Source of light in an uncaring life. A wonder. All ablaze, separated by nothingness and the cold distance between us. I can see you there, hovering, seemingly still, yet you twinkle. Do I dare dream on you tonight, what a wish, what wish, my wish, my right.
What I think is going on here, is like a version of wish upon a star, but kind of mopey and murky. I don’t think I had started to work nights yet, as a high schooler. I did work one semester for a place called Norkim Distributions in Brampton, a job I got because of a former girlfriends parents. I was lucky enough that they drove me to work and picked me up for the 90% of the time I worked there for a semester out of high school. I remember not being able to talk to anyone for most of the day, then as I got home, tired, I’d just natter away until I made my parents angry and they told me to just shut up. I get it now. I’m not a big fan on inane nattering. It was more as a way of dealing with being virtually silent the whole day, and feeling like I might explode if I didn’t just get a days worth of talking out once I got home. It definitely felt solitary. Doesn’t make the poetry any better though now does it. And they say that pain and sorrow create great art, no!, Talent, talent creates great art. Not merely being a morose mother fucker.
2.) Gripe : Twice daily Circa 1999
Whatever I mean, whatever I’ve said, it won’t matter much if I can’t get out of bed. Whoever I am, whomsoever I was, it doesn’t mean anything, and it didn’t mean much. Wherever I was, wherever I go, I won’t do anything, if I go it alone. With, without, what can I say.
Some of these I remember writing, even if vaguely. But this one eludes me, almost completely. I think I am really absorbing a lot of Temple of the Dog at this point, and trying to skirt the notion of completely ripping of Chris Cornell and the Mother Love Bone guys. It doesn’t flow together at all. The rhythm is off, and it sort of just fades away. Like I was trying to be prophetic, and found pathetic instead. On a second reading I guess, I wanted to be told I had something to say, but there really is no “there” there. It’s just pure, unadulterated cheese, “Fromage” for the old school Much Music Ed the Sock crowd.
3.) The fix is in Circa 2000
Sure, I still feel miserable three months down that road. A long hard journey through the vast unknown. But what’s to worry, because when I’m dead and gone, all those years from then, what will it matter, if I was a little mixed up inside my head. Time off, time alone, time apart. It’s all a healing process taken for a broken heart.
Whoo, that ones a bit of a floater. But I will say this, it follows a through line, and doesn’t get too heady. No major calling cards of a bloated sense of writing skill. Fairly layman in execution. No changing places with the man in the mirror. A break up poem if ever I wrote one. That’s it for this installment of terrible, awful poetry. If this does anything at all for you, feel free to post any of your own, miserable teen angst prone writing. Be free of your poor choice of prose! let the wicked underbelly of flatulent poetry free. Blast it into the ether! Fill the void with your own stinky mass of blind ambition.
Let me off here, I’m good.
I say quietly to the driver, he lets off the gas, eases the car out of traffic and pulls up to the curb. Looking over the head rest of the dirty, sweat stained cab, I can see the driver has a photo of two little children hanging from the meter. They’re young, smiling in a sun dappled park from some unknown portion of god knows where. They are wearing matching dresses, the kind that are ubiquitous at the Gap. It looks like there used to be a third person in the photo, an adult also wearing the same simple sun dress. But her face is obscured by dark tape, looks to have been scratched quite heavily where the face should have been. The driver turns to look at me, eyes turning up slowly. Notices I’m looking at his worn photograph and says “that’ll be $13.75.” He’s not exactly curt, but neither is he asking for any kind of rapport. Fumbling in my back pocket I open my wallet and hand him $15 bucks. “No change, thanks.” I spit out the words. The door locks pop, and I slide across the back seats and step out into a foggy night, it has begun to drizzle. Before I can turn to the driver and retch out another word, he pulls off, closing the door with a practiced impatience a cabbie learns after many years on the job. It slams, and the wheels screech, indistinct words tumble out of the cab. I didn’t even look to see his name. The cold chill of the drizzle has begun bleeding it’s way through my jacket. I turn from the street to realize I mistook the road sign in the loose fog, and am many, many blocks from home. “Fuck.” I say, as I’m pulling up my collar. Turning on my heels I begin sauntering up the tree lined street. The cool wind, and the harsh sounds of traffic fading behind me – FIN.
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