“The clouds this morning? Deliberate low; thick and ghost smoke.”

I stood at the bus stop today, saying this and other randoms off the top of the dome, catching the words in tiny speaker swaddled by gloves. I’ve been carrying my dictaphone around again. This week has been a full on wrestling match with writer’s block—block, that is, when I sit down to write. When I’m out and about my mind is on fire, but I don’t always have the immediate means to tag it down. Renee and I used to carry our dictaphones around to collect noises for the stage. One time she brought me birds and I had the religious man shouting scripture from the corner of Smithfield and Fifth. I’m glad to be in the habit again. I like to spin the tape back and listen to the one-liners—now that it’s been a few days the pieces of thought have formed a paragraph.

Another huuuuge help, the book “Writing a Memoir” by Judith Barrington. Right now I’m reading about keeping a memoir grounded–as in reality and world, not just in the mind of the author. I could go on and on but all you need to know is I adore this book. Oh! And multiple writing exercises at the end of each chapter, and they aren’t ridiculous. Instead, they are mighty helpful.

Me – 1
Writer’s Block - 0

Turns out they didn’t need me to work at the BBT tonight after all; someone else claimed the shift a couple weeks ago. Instead I enjoyed the sweet taste of free pierogies and rum. And now I’m at home again. 

There is a show tonight, but my brain body and heart all say to stay home. So I think I will do that. Probably not in my best interest to go. Bummer on not working, but at least I’ll get more than 3 hours of sleep tonight. Hopefully.

Time to write. Time to sink into words and backwards sentence structure until I can’t see straight. It is what makes sense.

“Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference. They would like to jump down into their stomachs and digest the food and shovel the shit out.”
-William Burroughs

What a pure definition of agony; this morning, this sitting at a desk doing something or other with numbers–task task task and task. No poems near me, just handwritten and typed procedures, post-its, water cup, jargon.

Needless to say I would rather be writing. So much to get done yet nothing I can do in this eight hour vacuum. The seams between Clark and Superman are tearing. Argh!

Sitting on my porch, writing. A boy and a girl are coming down the street just below–probably in late teens, early twenties. They are disputing how expensive it is to text message on the phone.

 Girl: But I can’t LIVE without my text messaging!  

Another day, another realizing: getting old.

And you know what? I’m enjoying it.

One of my favorite instrumentals. 

Thanks to the long lost J. Eyre(the magician who made chicken noodle soup into lo mein like presto) for the introduction to this track via mixed tape, 8 years ago. This one does not forget.

I did not remember when waking, it did not start my day.

Seven years ago I had a miscarriage on this date. It is something that happened. It is a long, long time ago.

 

In piano and soot, coffee fit and

Anti-serotonin Sundays;

Bravery on a budget melody

Focus not on this, but smoke and stitch—

Heart on a spit made of correction tape;

Promise to not rot the pens;

And as the limbs subtle made for movement

As the wind breaking up the start of an old conversation

As the palm cross of the ring finger root

 

I will always write.

Let the words last be written if instrument in clutch at minute

A verb should be courage(The doorways and cities, the necks

I have breathed against)

Get it down before

It can get away

Envy cello of the body in bed next to me

Drag scrawl over the sweetheart’s hip

Molt on pulp, more ink for dinner

Without or with, the radio of sleep

Get up to the twitch and tip keep tipping

Just like a sway

Barely a bend, leaning to the T stems,

The strands of porch still in the brain, the way

Couples kind of press together

With no choice but to sit apart;

They call them little shocks

Pleasures of the wrist

Think and so

It will be, is—

 

2:33am: I woke up choking in my sleep.

Nevermind how shitless this scared me. What a horrible, horrible moment.

All I have thought about today is mortality.

“If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.”

Jean-Paul Sartre