May 7, 2008

• Stuff whose existence I will never acknowledge again

  Well folks, let me tell you… you had better brace yourselves for a literary treat. I have been digging through piles of my writings, pulling out pieces I would like to do something with in the near future (send out for publication, compile into a new chapbook… I’m not sure yet). Here I present to you a load of crap, stuff that most certainly did not make the “keeper” pile, and that never made it out of first draft (or even into first draft). Some of it is funny. Often for very different reasons. These pieces of retardation come from the period between my junior year of high school and my junior year of college. That’s all the background you’re getting.

  There are times when the only
  reason anyone gives a hoot about a subject
  is because it sounds cool.

  How much wood would a woodchuck
  chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

  That is the only time the woodchuck ever
  pops his head out in conversation.

  How much does the average male woodchuck weigh
  doesn’t have the same ring to it.

  Do woodchucks sleep underground
  is missing homophones.
  Where do they give birth, and how many are in a litter
  doesn’t alliterate at all.

  =================

  Haven’t eaten a potato chip in three years,
  never bought a gumball.

  The world knows about gumballs,
  realizes that gumballs are out to get us,
  the reason the machines are always full.

  =================

  Pig
  Food in my belly
  I’m so smelly

  Camel
  The hump on my back
  Is like a water pack

  Tiger
  Prowling through the grass
  With stripes on my @#$!

  =================

  On a scrap of a Post-It note I had scribbled down this literary gem:

  “There was a good deal of the spaniel in him.” That Hideous Strength, pg. 218

  =================

  This is pre-college, but I see it as a salute to Eric:

  I sometimes wish I was passionate
  enough to go to Russia
  and discover the extent of my
  inadequacy–
  I cannot repeal a history of
  Stalin or the reality of an alcoholic
  president (Churchill was a heavy drinker
  though, after all),
  cannot make amends for decades
  of American aggression,
  can’t offer ingenious ways to
  make life better–
  But just to think that maybe
  being there will mean something,
  even if it does nothing.
  Especially if all I got to
  do was stand along a street
  in a village and watch
  doors and windows open and close,
  faces emerging into the light and slipping quietly beyond sight.

  =================

  I lay there on the pull-out sofa bed in the beachfront
  motel room after the rest of my family had gone
  to sleep, listening to the ocean and thinking
  about this mysterious woman who had entered my life.

  That was three months ago. Now
  we’ve said goodbye; she’s gone and will
  one day make movies.

  Perhaps it’s fitting then that this all
  seems so much like a film. The plots
  flowed smoothly, had something captivating
  to tell. But this is the part where
  the soundtrack stops, the camera reveals
  empty or lonely landscapes and rooms: a vacant
  cafeteria with stars shining through the skylights,
  two golden retrievers with no one to pounce,
  a passenger seat in a beat-up Volkswagen piled
  with books. Then comes my voiceover, steady
  but obviously inadequate: These were the days
  we shared, a sort of gift we gave each other. Now the world
  awaits, requiring us, and our parting. That was always
  our story.

  =================

  I’m just so scared of turning out fake

  But knowing what is real is far more
  frightening, she tells me.

  A squirrel darts among branches
  above us, where chlorophyll
  counts its days.

  A new record. Something about
  global tilt and SUV exhaust.
  Bees will soon sit chattering in
  their hives–honeycombed like
  catalytic converters, taking all this
  junk and making it at least
  neutral.

  Into Drive. Straight through the
  tenth red light in a row. I’m
  in such a hurry. Things to
  do, things to do, things to do.

  Still haven’t written that note
  that I keep putting off.

  Golf tourney this weekend, odds
  against me. Evens are still
  undecided. A whole nation
  of fence sitters.

  Not sure which party I’ll find
  myself mixed up with come
  this weekend–might try to
  stay sober for once.

  Wouldn’t be hard to get me
  to swing my vote though–
  a few agreeable sentences and
  I’ll agree to a little booze.

  No booze you snooze you lose.
  Untied shoes. Too drunk to
  remember which way the string
  wraps around my wiry thumb.

  Like walking northward with just
  the clothes on my back and
  a couple bucks, hoping for
  some blessed humanist assured
  that I’m not packing heat.

  Who knows where I’ll find myself
  tomorrow.

  The squirrel grabs an acorn; she stands
  to go.

  =================

  I have taken great inspiration from a horse.

  Let me elaborate. Not too long ago, sometime last year, two years ago, I was driving to my friend’s house in Minnesota. Cow-towns don’t breed many good stories, and the ones they do are easy to tell. They all start out with, “Yeah, this one time I saw…”

  Three cows getting it on. (The only way that makes sense is if one was gay and the one in the middle was bi.)

  Two roosters pecking open each other’s necks.

  A goat run headlong into a fence.

  A dead deer slowly getting singed on an electric fence.

  So, I’m bored, and bored or not I’m keeping my eyes open as I pass farm after farm. All I saw were the calmest, least feisty beasts mankind has ever known. There is a Minnesota law against use of hormones; or something.

  Then, in a small pasture is a group of horses. A herd. Or a pod, school, flock, whatever.

  It only registers as I’m passing–my foot doesn’t hit the break, I don’t slow down.

  I think about turning around–the road’s empty–but decide against. I’ve seen it.

  All the horses were standing perfectly still, not a hoof was prancing. They weren’t even swishing their tails, though I’m not sure if horses do that, or just cows.

  And this one perfectly still horse is staring at this other horse’s ass, a death stare, a nearly psychokinetic gaze. The ass is about six inches from his nose. Muzzle. Snout. Whatever.

  And I shake my head and say out loud, “Attaboy. Atta boy.“

  Now, when I say attaboy, I mean, that’s something I’d be damn proud of it I did myself. Something that takes a little guts, a little pizazz.

  When I say attaboy, someone else (if the story is being retold, not in the midst of happening) is already making a point in the air. It’s the same idea.

  Okay, so this friend I was going to see was a girl, my love interest. We’ve been together two years, and I’m still weird talking about her. My family likes her, my friends like her, and still I never call her my girlfriend right up front. I never even refer to her by her name. It’s usually just “my one friend,” or sometimes “my friend from Minnesota.”

  The thing is, I have this great job in Illinois, tech research shit, and she has a fantastic job with this broadcasting company. She has a fantastic ass, too.

  Which brings me back to the horses inspiring me. I see this girl once, twice a month. I stare at her ass like nobody’s business. I don’t grab it in public, and only in private when she’s in a good mood.

  She’s skinny, got the nearly non-existent hips going on, the long, slender legs, the tight abs.

  =================

  I also have a couple pages of journal entry from spring break 2. That will come tomorrow.

  • 9:09 pm
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