Mere Anarchy

Critical evidence.
andre breton
james dickey
kafka
theodore roethke
wb yeats
sylvia
ts eliot
irvine welsh
chuck palahniuk
dostoevsky

Forensic reports.
edward gorey
man ray
simon boses

Admissions of guilt.
deadcandance
cohen
nick cave
natalie merchant
rammstein
iggy pop

Crime scenes
aurora picture show
diverseworks
theater LaB houston
voices breaking boundaries

Damning testimony.
surrealism
roller derby
exploding dog
levity
girlsarepretty

I have been doing my best with some success to get up at 5:30 to write. If I am going to do this, no sense in fucking around. I have also decided that I am going to read the entire western tradition of poetry, I am still on the Greek lyrics. If you have not read Sappho or Pindar- you should. When I heard about the old great saints of literature what I reveled in was the power of, what a cabbalist would call their nephesh, their animal power. These were hard living, hard drinking, hard loving men with a plethora of mental and emotional illnesses. Being young and naive, I thought that this is what a writer was. I thought that if you lived like a writer, you would write, if you lived like a great writer... well you see. I thought I would find this generation's Prufrock floating oddly at the bottom of a gin and tonic. Maybe a new Second Coming would emerge from the smoke of a thousand cigarettes; maybe I would vomit a 21st century Marriage of Heaven and Hell? I don't think that is the case. I think these were men (and a woman or two) who worked hard, who worked themselves to the point of emotional and intellectual starvation. They strip mined their personality and perceptions until all that was left was a glowering skull with a fading hell-fire flashing under thin eye-lids. Then and only then, after having inhaled deeply of their own mortal fumes, after having eaten their own body and blood, only after having the smoke of their own cremation sting their eyes, did they go out and eat from the tree of life. May the queer blood gods of night sacred to writers smile on me.

posted by James @ 7:51 AM

Freitag, Juli 26, 2002

I'm not going to lie. It hasn't been easy. When I went for five days without talking to anyone, I assumed that as long as I kept up with the old inhale-exhale we were doing good. I finally picked up the phone. My mother's voice informed me, your dad has been in the hospital. I'm not going to lie, I don't know what to say- to say- say. I don't know, I know I don't. I'm not going to lie, I wanted to call you. I am not going to lie, I almost did. What would have happened? Would we have seen each other? Would the distance and stillness of the water between us begin to freeze until we both wondered what violence and hardship would it take to ever get out of there again? Would it be instantly regretted? Or worse, would one of us have reached across the table and votive light touched the other's forearm? Would the tenderness of such a simple action moved through my body like the remembered refrain of a sad song? Could it make anything better? Would it make everything worse? He is out of the hospital. My friends were there for me. He still has a fever and can't work very well. He could go back on Saturday. I know these two elements seem coarse and unrelated, but they are not, their melodies are the same.

posted by James @ 7:32 AM