wholly original

"we got married eighty years ago, and it was beautiful"

2011-02-17T19:52:00.000-08:00

http://vimeo.com/19773498

posting the whole thing

2010-01-14T15:48:00.001-08:00

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

alien 2009 predator 2008

2009-09-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

2009-09-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games. You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter. When I tell you a cat must have three different names.

the writer and me

2009-07-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

one cat just leads to another

2009-07-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

-ernest hemingway

fern & eudora, my loves

untitled saga

2009-04-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

i am working now, the girl said to the man. i am working, so you don't have to worry about me anymore.
but are you making plans? he asked. i'd like to send you something that might help. i haven't got it with me now but it might help you out sometime.
the girl's hair rolled with the breezes as if the breezes were punches and her hair a boxer. no thank you, she replied. i'm all set up now.
they stood in a park, in the bright late afternoon glow. it was spring. the man reached out a hand, then, on some better instinct retracted it. after a few minutes he said, what are you working at?
oh, i don't know. i mean i do but... well nothing really. i'm typing again. you know, i was always typing before and, well i like it and i'm good at it. it's just til i can get a little money saved and, well i like it so never mind.
the man and the girl looked off past each other. they listened to children laughing and mothers yelling. they listened to the wind.
nothing much was said after that. he walked her to the train station and she got on the west bound train.
he thought about waiting at the station until she was out of sight but decided against it.

© mercy lawler 2009

2009-03-05T13:36:00.000-08:00

snow days

2009-03-05T13:33:00.000-08:00

hotel bouleversant

2008-08-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

The station was empty except for two travelers. It was approaching one o’clock, and, for a small station in an inconsequential corner of France, it was odd that anyone was there at all. The visitors were both women, or girls, which made their presence there even more noticeable. It was hard to tell whether they were coming or going because all they seemed to be doing was arguing. Their voices broke the cold air in muffled, annoyed bursts. Men, whitewashing the station walls outside, occasionally looked around at them, irritated, or pleased, by the pretty young intruders. The girls’ luggage was nestled around them like a blanket, to ward off the night air, or maybe it was a wall against any presumptuous workers. The girl called Faye kept moving erratically between the bags, arranging, rearranging, and piling them up while she and the other girl continued their disagreement. The other girl was sitting on one of the suitcases.

The resemblance between the pair was strong, although it was hard to tell why. They could have been sisters. One was thin and had tightly wrapped a red trench coat around her small waist. She wore a pillbox hat on top of a pinned-up head of hair. Her name was Marla. With her hair snuggled under the hat, the slim figure looked like a modern girl jumped out of proceeding decades rather than a young lady in 1949. About her there was an air of carefree elegance, even while she was arguing with her companion. Faye had a heavy bosom and a classic face. She was very beautiful. She too exuded the comfort and style moderate wealth provides. A scarf was cinched at her throat and she wore a blue velvet traveling suit. Her hair was worn down, curled and brushed. The girls looked anxious and upset.

“Well what do you want to do then, Faye? At least here we are safe. I want to be safe for the night, that’s all I want. I don’t even know exactly where we are either,” said Marla in the red coat..
“But what about those men! It isn’t right to sleep in here,” she lowered her voice, “they might be… up to no good. They might…” her sentence trailed off when she met one of the worker’s eyes. Quickly turning away, so that her velvet cape swung around to face the opposite set of tracks with her, she muttered, “Let’s get out of here. Now. Please Marla, I’m not kidding anymore. I don’t like it.” Marla shrugged and stood up.
At Faye’s insistence, the girls tried to be as quiet as they could while they gathered their belongings. But the night workers seemed more interested in them than in their own work. Marla thought the way Faye got upset about this was funny, so she winked at one of the men on her way out of the big station-house doors. Her companion hissed in her ear. This seemed to please her and she laughed morosely.

Outside, the night was cold and very windy. Leaves whipped through the desolate streets. Marla held her hat tightly to her head with a gloved hand. To the left of the station a road led to the sea and a wharf. There were little boats urgently bumping up and down in the water.
Marla seemed to have noticed and motioned in the direction of the boats saying, “Let’s go see if some fisherman will let us stay the night.”
Faye began frantically moving in the other direction.
“Marla, no! No! Come this way, with me.” In the end, the girls took the road that ran up from the train station to the village. There were yellowish street lamps all along the road. The girls walked fast.
“Look there,” Marla said after they had got beyond a copse of trees made black by the night. There was a building with a sign creaking above the door. It read, "Hotel Bouleversant." Behind it the town lay. The girls’ arms were heavy with the weight of the bags. The hotel was not old, but it was run down. The untreated wood siding was chipped and several shutters were broken.

“But,” Faye said, “there are lights in a few of the windows. Let’s just try it. It can’t be that bad. And my feet hurt.” Marla shrugged distastefully. She noticed that the window boxes did not have flowers. It was winter. She shrugged again. The girls walked towards the hotel.

Marla put down the bag in her right hand and opened the door. Then she picked it up again and walked in. Faye followed her. The concierge looked up from his desk and smiled. He had a thin black mustache.
“Bon nuit mademoiselles.”
Faye looked at Marla, who was studying the dirty burgundy carpet.
“Um,” she began. “I, I mean, we, or je suis…” she stopped.

Then the concierge spoke in English. He was young, more like a bellboy than a concierge. His greasy black hair was combed down his neck. He wore a wrinkled suit, without the jacket. Marla noticed it hanging over the back of a chair. Faye and the man arranged the room. He handed her the key. Room 28. Faye smiled. She was satisfied. She had lovely white teeth.
“Is there any room service or can we get something to eat?” Marla said. Her stomach growled.
“Down the hall, to the left. There is the bar,” the young man said. He took their bags and climbed the creaking staircase.

The man behind the bar looked up when they walked in. His face wore an expression that made Marla think he looked up with just that expression on his face every night when someone walked in at one o’clock in the morning. She thought about speaking in French. She said, “Can we get something to eat, please?” The man raised his heavy eyebrows. He had a black mustache too, but it was thick and prickly, not slimy like the other man’s.
“The cook is asleep.” He began cleaning a small glass with a dirty towel.
The girls’ faces fell, and the man’s eyebrows went up even higher.
Marla said, “Mais nous sommes tres affame!”
“All right. I will make you some sandwiches. Cheese and meat. S’asseoir.”

Faye walked over to a round booth in the corner. She took off her coat. Hoagy Carmichael’s piano came crackling through a radio. Helen Ward sang of lovers. The room was dark. The walls were covered in wood paneling and old brass wall-lamps were nailed to it. Marla slumped into a chair and kicked her heels off under the table.
“I’m exhausted,” Faye sighed and started going through her handbag. Marla smiled a little at Faye. When she made no reply Faye looked up. Something in the other girl’s face set her on edge.
“Why are we even here, Marla?”
She waited.
“What are we doing, I don’t know why you wanted to come here. Here! You should’ve accepted Bernie’s offer right away. I don’t know why you didn’t. Now we’re in this whole mess. What are you going to do with yourself! I surely don’t know.”
Marla would have liked it better if she had asked what she was going to do with her life, instead of with herself. As if she was something to be taken care of, like a room or a dog. She lit a cigarette, took a drag, and slouched lower in her seat. Faye put her purse away, took the packet off the table and Marla lit a cigarette for her as well.
“Well?”
Marla looked up. “Well, if you really must know, I was thinking India. I could go there for a few years and work…”
Faye looked horrified. “How do you mean, India? Work? As what?”
Marla instantly regretted saying India. She puffed her cigarette then held it between her thin fingers. She still wore gloves.
“I mean that I could go there for awhile. Hospitals always need help. And I’m still not sure about Bernie.”
“But I thought that’s what this trip was for, to clear your head about things, to help you settle. Mother told me it was. I don’t know, Marla, he may be the best offer you’re going to get. And he’s a doll.”
Marla sighed.
It began to rain outside. The wind howled. She put her cigarette out in the marble ashtray. Funny that such a dowdy place should have a marble ashtray.
The barman brought out a platter of sandwiches.
“They are the ham and cheese, as I said to you. Would you like something to drink?” His voice was as thick as his mustache. The room was musty.
He brought them glasses of vin blanc. The sandwiches were made on generously sliced white bread. It wasn’t fresh, but the girls were hungry. They each had two or three.
When he left Faye continued, “Oh Marla, what are we going to do? I don’t even know where we are.”
“I think we’re somewhere between Lyon and Marseilles. But Faye, it doesn’t quite matter where we are as long as there’s a train. Anyway, I don’t want to think about it right now, my head aches so dreadfully.”
“Well it’s your own fault for coming here,” Faye said.
“Of course.” Marla’s voice was taught. “If you would stop jabbering in my ear about Bernie, and how we missed the train, and had to stop here, and God knows what else, for one second, then I could think and without a headache! I like it here, but I can’t concentrate with you in my brain. Jesus Faye!”
Faye shrunk at the profanity directed at her. She did not regard it as odd that she should think of God’s name as profanity. Marla put her head in her hands. When she raised it again her eyes glistened.
But all she said was, “Listen, I’m tired. Can we go up to bed, please?”
Faye took out her handbag again. She left several francs on the table. The girls both rose. They made their way across the room, nodding at the barman as they went.

Room 28 looked like a smaller version of the bar. Wood panels lined the walls. There were two small lamps nailed on either side of the low bed. A chest-of-drawers lurked in one corner, and a tiny European toilet faced the bed in the main room. The girls found all their bags neatly piled on the floor. Faye opened the smallest of the traveling cases and took out two white cotton nightgowns. She retrieved two toothbrushes and a tube of paste out of the same bag. The girls did not speak. Faye tried to ask which side of the bed Marla wanted, but Marla only shrugged. They took turns in the small toilet and then got in bed. Marla slept on the left side.
Faye fell asleep easily, so easily it seemed that she slid into sleep instead of falling. At three forty-five Marla got up and began pacing nervously around the room. She thought of how tired she was and how she couldn’t sleep and how that must be what most people think of when they can’t sleep. She was upset and so she thought of writing Faye a note telling her everything she thought. She thought of leaving. She packed her toothbrush and changed out of her nightgown. She separated her things from Faye’s. It was still raining. The window must have been cracked and a little stream of water was coming into the room. Marla looked at it. She put her toothbrush back on the sink. She sat down on the floor, and then stood back up again. There was water on the floor. She found a tube of red lipstick and went into the bathroom to put it on. She thought of the men whitewashing the train station walls. She smiled. For the first time she missed Bernie.
Marla sat down on the floor and tore out a sheet of white, lined paper from her notebook. She began writing.

Dear Faye,
I want to go to India because I have never been.

Dear Faye,
I do not really love Bernie and so I can’t possibly marry him.

She put her pen down. Her hair, unpinned, tumbled in brown waves down her back. She bit the end of her pen. Then she sat on the toilet and had a smoke. She put her notebook on the sink and thought out a letter. When she began to write it down she forgot all the best parts. She put out her cigarette and scribbled something down. Then she went and sat staring at it on the floor. She had seen so many mustaches on this trip.

In the morning Faye found Marla curled up asleep on the floor with a piece of paper beside her. Marla was wearing her green traveling outfit. She had red lipstick smeared on her cheek and the back of her hand. Faye picked up the paper and read it. It said, “The real thing is, I miss you.” Faye smiled and thought of the men at the train station. She thought of when Marla was a child. She folded the paper and slipped it into her purse. Then she got out a train timetable and a map of France and began planning the route they would take to Paris.

a series of unfortunate events

2008-08-20T12:50:00.001-07:00

you have to be always drunk. that's all there is to it- it's the only way. so as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

but on what? wine, poetry, or virtue, as you wish. but be drunk.

and if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of you room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . . ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: it is time to be drunk! so as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! on wine, on poetry, or on virtue as you wish.

twilight

2008-07-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

bid me to live, and i will live
thy protestant to be,
or bid me love, and i will give
a loving heart to thee.

bid me despair, and i'll despair,
under that cypress tree;
or bid me die, and i will dare
e'en death, to die for thee.

cheapside

2008-07-24T18:44:00.001-07:00

gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
old time is still a-flying
and this same flower that smiles today
tomorrow will be dying.

where ignorant armies clash by night

2008-03-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

"my throte is kut unto my nekke boon,"
seyde this child, "and as by wey of kynde
i sholde have dyed, ye, longe tyme agon.
but jesu crist, as ye in bookes fynde,
wil that his glorie laste and be in mynde,
and for the worship of his mooder deere
yet may i synge o alma loude and cleere.

poem 15

2008-03-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

something beautiful that i once read was lost
and almost forgotten. flighty as a feather,
as if it could only be captured in a baby's sneeze.
and though it disappeared, sat in a tide-pool
and decided to call itself 'time.'
but when i grew old i remembered what i'd lost
when i was young.
then i got up from my chair, went out and there,
crinked beneath the mirrored waves: aha! achoo!
i found what i sold for the price of a kiss.

excerpt:

2008-02-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

-did the idea ever occur to you, cranly asked, that jesus was not what he pretended to be?
-the first person to whom that idea occurred, stephen answered, was jesus himself.
-that idea never occurred to me, stephen answered. but i am curious to know are you trying to make a convert of me or a pervert of yourself?
-tell me the truth, were you shocked by what i said?
-somewhat, stephen said.
-and why were you shocked, cranly pressed on in the same tone, if you feel sure that our religion is false and that jesus was not the son of god?
-i am not at all of sure of it, stephen said. he is more like a son of god than a son of mary.
-and is that why you will not communicate, cranly asked, because you are not sure of that too, because you feel that the host too may be the body and blood of the son of god and not a wafer of bread? and because you fear that it may be?
-yes, stephen said quietly. i feel that and i also fear it. i fear many things: dogs, horses, firearms, the sea, thunderstorms, machinery, the country roads at night.
-but why do you fear a bit of bread?
-i imagine, stephen said, that there is a malevolent reality behind those things i say i fear.
-do you fear then, cranly asked, that the god of the roman catholics would strike you dead and damn you if you made a sacrilegious communion?
-the god of the roman catholics could do that now, stephen said. i fear more than that the chemical action which would be set up in my soul by a false homage to a symbol behind which are massed twenty centuries of authority and veneration.
-would you, cranly asked, in extreme danger commit that particular sacrilage? for instance, if you lived in the penal days?
-i cannot answer for the past, stephen relplied. possibly not.
-then, said cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?
-i said that i had lost the faith, stephen answer, but not that i had lost selfrespect. what kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?

-tell me, for example, would you deflower a virgin?
-excuse me, stephen said politely, is that not the ambition of most young gentlemen?
-look here, cranly, he said. you have asked me what i would do and what i would not do. i will tell you what i will do and what i will not do. i will not serve that in which i no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and i will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as i can and as wholly as i can, using for my defence the only arms i allow myself to use- silence, exile, and cunning. you made me confess the fears that i have. but i will tell you also what i do not fear. i do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever i have to leave. and i am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.

poem from soulmate

2008-02-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

sure, spring depended on you
many stars lined up
hoping you'd notice
a wave rose toward you
out of the past
or a violin
offered itself
as you passed an open window
these were your instructions,
your mission
but could you perform it?
weren't you always distracted
waiting for something
as if all this
were announcing a lover's arrival?

drink drink drink shot

2007-11-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

tomorrow you will feel better
you will think to that night,
and how you might feel better
so then you will feel better
and right now you feel like
you can manipulate all the tragedies
with words on a page
notes on guitar's strings, piano keys
you can't, but when you turn
things begin to swim,
and you can feel the gin
you think you can.

after the fall

2007-11-02T07:51:00.000-07:00

you took a sharp little knife and in it went
cutting past skin and bone into the chest
very deep and deeper til there were bits
missing pieces gone and everything got
dreadfully bloody and fleshy but i did not mind
i let you then then when there was an opening in went
hands nice hands the best hands yours
and out it came still beating hard and pumping
blood on the pavement blood on the concrete
til you could not stand to see it so raw and bare
naked right there you holding it in hands that were nice
but not perfect and needed washing as most of us do
and oh no you thought duty and fault and having to try
and so damn down you throw it and with the toe of your
new shoe crushed and smothered until the bits of flesh
and vessel mixed with the asphalt
sharp little stones and the grit like splitters
of glass rolled together puncturing meanly
biting cruelly and cutting at the thing that
once meant more to you than any other
and though it was no longer in me i could
feel it as if it were and every small pebble
felt as if it would kill me harder than a bullet
from a gun sharper than the blade of a sword
dull the pain but never stop, the rust infects
as you pushed it flat til it was dirty and brown
and almost dead but never quite dead quite alive enough
to feel every razors edge that mixed in with it severed
while it tried to trust and hope and love and believe
though with every blow it became more ragged
and i sat there and watched you do these things
but you you would not look at me
you would not though you were sorry
you would not even look at me how could you
you would not give it back, all torn apart
you wanted to keep it at an awful distance in case
you would not be wrong and this could not happen
but with it came soul permanent transient
so that i was just a shadow on the ground
sitting in a puddle of tears and broken dreams shards
of paper cuts from the letters i was so very far from
i ached and groaned and wanted you to hold all of me
but that beating life was gone it was only a part
of me and you decided you did not like to
and i did not know how to go on
or get the gravel out of
my heart.

2007-09-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

i have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
i do not think that they will sing for me.

get out and swim

2007-09-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

the truth is god's, it isn't man's; we had better leave it alone.

short story of a girl

2007-09-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

she decided she would not get up. tacked on to that decision was the qualifier of: not this day anyway and possibly not the next. well, and on second thought, she might have to. because, it seems, no matter how things got inside of you, you were still expected to behave a certain way, weren't you? yes, she was sure of that, no matter how free you presumed to be it was like that rhyme she read that went so, "henceforth the world will only be a wider prison-house to me." now, if you were actually, outwardly, sick that was a different story. but when you were just all alone- well no. she thought her heart might bust out of her chest it was so anxious thinking. her brain felt that it might bust open, too, for beating so hard. she could have a parade when her organs burst forth, with beating brain drums, and a sailing, singing sad heart going along as the float. she had not been pretending about what she liked, or even who she was, which is a conveniently impossible pretense anyway. this she decided apathetically. for years now she was content in that she was herself. in every other way she felt like she would rather not be. there were only things to be done that she did not like doing. and the future spread out that way with everyone else's success and happiness (and in paranthesis she thought: that she must also be altruistically happy about these little victories her co-humans enjoyed, in order to avoid becoming a bitter thing. if that happened then nothing would improve the condition. that was the thing wasn't it? you had to be better without expecting something to come of it. you had to just be happy like that or the other happiness wouldn't come, but you had to be that way without even Wanting it to come, or it wouldn't) crowding in on her, not even allowing her to be sad and alone, since she had to be alone. she did not want to be alone. not anymore. she used not to care. and now it happened that she Had to be, and that after she did care. life didn't seem a worthwhile reason. even if you were mother teresa or jack kerouac or some upper mediocre version of prada. lamo's knocking on the door on christmas eve saying trick or treat? but she believed in God. that was for sure. she even spelled his name with a capital G just in case it was important. symbols. symbols were important to men. humans that is. not male's in particular. in fact, probably to women more, because men could write any sort of thing down and do the exact opposite without much thought, like jefferson writing all those racist things but still being considered well or something. so when it came to God she tried to hope for the best. wasn't that her name. hope for the best. and then back that up with prayers. honest prayers about what you wanted, always knowing that things may just as well go the other way. but since she didn't think she could be of that much consequence she would keep on asking and maybe he would say yes, by and by. and in the mean time she was kind to those around her and didn't cry too much or let on. and talked to the nice boys that said "aren't you..." and talked to the old men in the train station who said "i've been here since..." and she would've gone farther than that, too. but no one cared about her that much so there was no need. it was freeing, but doesn't freedom often mean you are not needed? and after all she was all alone in bed and she wasn't going to get up until later on. ha! she thought. she didn't care after all that all her ideals were a catastrophe. even if dreams were prickled , or turned in to nightmares, you could still sleep and you didn't have to get up til day after tomorrow when things might be different. and being alone was better than being with some people, even most people, she thought. but then she didn't know after all.

and the emotional maturity of zelda fitzgerald

2007-08-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
if you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
till she cry "lover, gold-hatted, high bouncing lover,
I must have you!"

2007-08-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

under the spreading chestnut tree i sold you and you sold me
there lie them and here lie we under the spreading chestnut tree.

all you need is love

2007-04-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

beauty is truth, and truth beauty- that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

a tight ass

2007-04-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

first she went to the bathroom because she hadn't in the morning, and when she was sitting there she wrote in her notebook: "I LOVE MYSELF."

flushed from the bathroom of your heart

2007-04-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

to tell the truth, to whomever cares to hear it, i've got hemorhoids. and hell, i don't even know how to spell it. around after the beginning of the new year i got a job as a typist with a company i'm not going to mention here for certain reasons i am not going to mention here. so i sat on my pert round bottom staring at a computer all day and alternated in pretending i was a typist for a law firm in the nineteen forties- complete with red lipstick and high-heeled pumps- and a girl who, somewhat gawkily, gave up all the ambitions others had for her and committed herself, during the day at least, to typing up police reports for pending court cases. it was all very film-like and since one of my first jobs at the tender age of fifteen was typing up labels for boxes and crates in an office, under the careful instruction of a short scottish gentleman, i had had some practice with typewritering. but afterwards i developed hemorhoids. that is not to say that i didn't firmly believe that i was dying to begin with. i felt convinced in my self-imposed solitary refinement that the hellfire that came out my ass whenever i forced myself to go to the ladies' room was perhaps deadly? though not the most romantic of disorders to be sure. but you see, i had no idea, apart from radio advertisements, what the malady even was. so when it happened to me i was simply flabbergasted. i didn't know it was just from sitting. i guess i thought it'd be grosser than just boring old blood. i also thought it happened to the poorly cared for sickly elderly. but i celebrated my twenty second birthday last week and have been subsisting primarily on sara lee coffee cakes and ginger ale ever since, so perhaps i- I - have become both sickly and elderly. it leaves me with one, unanswered, question.

children behave that's what they say when we're together

2007-03-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

but my little brain did figure out something about telling a lie. a kid tells a lie and his parents give him a whipping or punishment of some kind. but his parents can tell lies all over the place, like papa did, and that is all right, because they are grownups. the way i figured it was that when our parents were kids, they got punished for telling lies. the only way they could get even was to wait until they had kids of their own to punish for telling lies. well, i'd show papa and mamma.

boy, oh boy, when i'm grown up, i'll be the biggest liar in the world, and i'll hand down sentences of a whole month's silent treatment on my own kids every time they lie.

oh yes. i could.

2007-03-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

o, the wild rose blossoms
on the little green place.
he sang that song. that was his song.
o, the green wothe botheth.

but you could not have a green rose. but perhaps someplace in the world you could.

a thought

2007-02-20T14:34:00.000-08:00

shall i tell you the truth?
there's no delight but in sickness
nor true story but a tragedy
nor coward but a knight-at-arms
nor hideous noise but music
nor any wise counsel but from lovers.

damn OR to those of us inclined to self-portraiture and regular visits to the dentist

2006-12-06T20:09:00.000-08:00

noteworthily enough, seventeen of them were self-portraits. sometimes, however, possibly when my Muse was being capricious, i set aside my paints and drew cartoons. one of them i still have. it shows a cavernous view of the mouth of a man being attended by his dentist. the man's tongue is a simple u.s. treasury hundred dollar bill, and the dentist is saying, sadly, in french, "i think we can save the molar, but i'm afraid that tongue will have to come out." it was an enormous favourite of mine.

this is profound, and if you ever need to write a paper on it, i've got your back...

2006-11-26T12:49:00.000-08:00

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four. seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one hunderd and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and four, one hundred and five, one hundred and six, one hundred and seven, one hundred and eight, one hundred and nine, one hundred and ten, one hundred and eleven, one hundred and twelve.

epigra

2006-11-13T19:22:00.000-08:00

for Barbara Alexandra Dicks, who often signs her name in lower case but is, in fact, a capital person.

oranges and lemons

2006-11-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

gay go up and gay go down, to ring the bells of london town.
"oranges and lemons" say the bells of st clement's.
"bull's eyes and targets" say the bells of st margaret's.
"brickbats and tiles" say the bells of st giles'.
"halfpence and farthings" say the bells of st martin's.
"pancakes and fritters" say the bells of st peter's.
"two sticks and an apple" say the bells of whitechapel.
"pokers and tongs" say the bells of st john's.
"kettles and pans" say the bells of st anne's.
"old rather baldpate" say the slow bells of aldgate.
"you owe me ten shillings" say the bells of st helen's.
"when will you pay me?" say the bells of old bailey.
"when i grow rich" say the bells of shoreditch.
"pray when will that be?" say the bells of stepney.
"i do not know" says the great bell of bow.

here comes a candle to light you to bed,
here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
chip chop, chip chop, the last man's dead.

but that which one desires i

2006-11-05T19:28:00.000-08:00

---
now love, the ineluctable, with bitter sweetness
fills me, overwhelms me, and shakes my being.
---
the moon has left the sky,
lost is the pleiads' light;
it is midnight,
and time slips by,
but on my couch alone i lie.
---
at the end of the bough--its uttermost end,
missed by the harvesters, ripens the apple,
nay, not overlooked, but far out of reach,
so with all best things.
---
o'er the hills the heedless shepherd,
heavy footed, plods his way;
crushed behind him lies the larkspur,
soon empurpling in decay.
---
thou happy bridegroom! Now has dawned
that day of days supreme,
when in thine arms thou'lt hold at last
the maiden of thy dream.
---

oh god

2006-10-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

now cinch your waist like a fighter, i shall put the questions, and you shall inform me. would you indeed annul my judgment. would you condemn Me that you might be justified. have you an arm like god. or can you thunder with a voice like his. (certainly not.) then adorn yourself with majesty and splendour. and array yourself with glory and beauty. disperse the rage of your wrath. look on everyone who is proud and humble him. look on everyone who is proud and bring him low. tread down the wicked in their place. hide them in the dust together. bind their faces in hidden darkness. then i will also confess to you that your right hand can save you.

oh tao

2006-10-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

there is no comparison between us. what kao keeps in view is the spiritual mechanism. in making sure of the essential, he forgets the homely details; intent on the inward qualities, he loses sight of the external. he sees what he wants to see and not what he does not want to see. he looks at the things he ought to look at and neglects those that need not be looked at. so clever a judge of horses is kao that he has it in him to judge something better than horses.

he looked like a crack-fiend

2006-10-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

"and let me tell you honey, it really was one of those conversations. the ones you catch snippets of as you're sauntering down the street when you you should be rushing because you'll really be late for the nine twenty-two, but you're not rushing because you've got a cup of hot chocolate in your left hand and a cheese danish in your right; or when you're in the dressing room, you know at one of the stores on fifth street, and you just hear someone talking through the thin wall- you know what i mean, they're talking to their friend or lover who is waiting for them in the plush covered chairs they have in those uptown shops, and the funny thing is, that whenever you come out of your room to turn before the mirror you notice that the listener is actually not listening at all, but is idly flipping the pages of last month's vogue that they have there for that purpose, or maybe reading something in the new yorker, but never listening, just hmhming whenever absolutely necessary. what? oh yes, of course i'm getting to it. but i wanted to be sure you understood it was really Forced upon me more than anything dearest. of course, i loved hearing it. i'm not denying That. you do seem to have a way of making a story not quite what it is meant to be, when you listen to one i mean- it's the Mood that matters most and- what? oh, oh yes- That is Just what i said . another drink..."