peace
like violence:
silence with quiet music
from another room,
and children sleeping upstairs.
no one talks; someone is typing &
another person rustles the newspaper:
stillness, an ambiance, as aesthetic.
but unlike physics, where
a bullet has one purpose, peace
—silence; stillness; calm—
can be Hermès at play,
impish and unpredictable.
the music stops; chairs creak
as the dice land on the table.
Saturday, April 27
Resentment: a monologue
My poetry sucks.
In years past, I would occasionally go back through and read things I liked, things I thought were clever--I could sink an hour or more into my own writing. Self-congratulatory and narcissistic as that may be, I generally felt proud of what I wrote. But...not recently. And goddamn, if I can't please a one-member audience, why even write?
Catharsis, I guess. Ironically, I wrote a poem about that once. The raw, broken nature of poetry helps clarify a single thread of ideas--isolate the strand, hold it up to the light bulb and trace its line. Sometimes it's in focus; sometimes not. I find it useful.
Ideally, it would be art. But, like, fuck art. I'm not skilled enough to craft the thin subtleties and meta self-importance of modern poetry; I'm not scarred enough to write the real poetry of the past. The stuff I write is just self expression, but like the music that I write, anyone serious about art can easily and correctly dismiss it. (The other side of the coin: I dismiss the idea of being "serious" about art the same way I dismiss theologians--when we trap it in the glass, we suffocate and kill it.) (Oh, hey, another side: I recognize that I feel that way because of my own perception of inadequacy, so if I just described you, don't feel insulted.)
I think it's just catharsis, then. If art accidentally declares itself in the midst--whatever. Congratulations.
And as a catharsis: recently, there have been too many strands to isolate and focus. What do I isolate? How? I am standing in between two tremendous piles of good and ill. I brag about the good, and whine about the ill. And what paralyzes me now is that I find it impossible to string a thread across both without revealing the extent to which I put my hand on the scale.
At some point in high school, I realized the usefulness of having someone in a social group whose life was just ... stable. A photogenic life with wrinkles and bad hair to give it an aura of authenticity. Not as displayed in social media, but actually lived in front of my friends and family. Look, I said. The world is chaos. But there are some of us standing on relatively firm ground. Let me give you a hand.
And it's not a lie. My life is stable. I'm stable. Things are net positive, with a growth trajectory. Not so great that you have to be envious or sickened by me, just--you know, okay.
But in the background, I am piling up resentments. I don't know why--I guess I avoided a few major risks that tempted me; I made safe choices, sometimes in conflict with my basic preferences. So now, at 34, with a surprising amount of white in the hairs they cut off my head today, I have a background radiation of resentment at my (still, good) life. It's cheap shit: I didn't go nuts in college, or spend a year playing a festival circuit or getting high on park benches in Europe or whatever it is I would have done (let's be honest--probably would have just done white trash stuff in Pittsburgh, but allow me some self-aggrandizing vision of how cool I might have been).
Shit, is this what a midlife crisis feels like? Am I about to buy a nice car? Damn, I would like a nice car.
The problem with my resentments is that I have just let them sit here silently for years--decades--like a moron, not saying anything. To bring them up to those involved, including myself, would be a nasty shock. It would probably not fix anything. And I'm a total coward when it comes to those kinds of confrontations anyway. It never really mattered; it was just background angst, and I could call up my resentments if I wanted to be emo and smoke a cigarette and stare coldly at the moon. They never really mattered.
But now, judging by my absolute inability to write poetry--and the fact that I keep thinking of these goddamn resentments instead of living and enjoying my undeniably rich and fantastic life--I guess it seems I can't just hang on to this pile of disappointments and half-opened doors for free, anymore. Let's be honest, this screed (which I'm typing up insanely for strangers to read) is the closest I'll get to dealing with it, but you know, it means I got pretty close.
Looking forward to that car. Man.
April 2019
In years past, I would occasionally go back through and read things I liked, things I thought were clever--I could sink an hour or more into my own writing. Self-congratulatory and narcissistic as that may be, I generally felt proud of what I wrote. But...not recently. And goddamn, if I can't please a one-member audience, why even write?
Catharsis, I guess. Ironically, I wrote a poem about that once. The raw, broken nature of poetry helps clarify a single thread of ideas--isolate the strand, hold it up to the light bulb and trace its line. Sometimes it's in focus; sometimes not. I find it useful.
Ideally, it would be art. But, like, fuck art. I'm not skilled enough to craft the thin subtleties and meta self-importance of modern poetry; I'm not scarred enough to write the real poetry of the past. The stuff I write is just self expression, but like the music that I write, anyone serious about art can easily and correctly dismiss it. (The other side of the coin: I dismiss the idea of being "serious" about art the same way I dismiss theologians--when we trap it in the glass, we suffocate and kill it.) (Oh, hey, another side: I recognize that I feel that way because of my own perception of inadequacy, so if I just described you, don't feel insulted.)
I think it's just catharsis, then. If art accidentally declares itself in the midst--whatever. Congratulations.
And as a catharsis: recently, there have been too many strands to isolate and focus. What do I isolate? How? I am standing in between two tremendous piles of good and ill. I brag about the good, and whine about the ill. And what paralyzes me now is that I find it impossible to string a thread across both without revealing the extent to which I put my hand on the scale.
At some point in high school, I realized the usefulness of having someone in a social group whose life was just ... stable. A photogenic life with wrinkles and bad hair to give it an aura of authenticity. Not as displayed in social media, but actually lived in front of my friends and family. Look, I said. The world is chaos. But there are some of us standing on relatively firm ground. Let me give you a hand.
And it's not a lie. My life is stable. I'm stable. Things are net positive, with a growth trajectory. Not so great that you have to be envious or sickened by me, just--you know, okay.
But in the background, I am piling up resentments. I don't know why--I guess I avoided a few major risks that tempted me; I made safe choices, sometimes in conflict with my basic preferences. So now, at 34, with a surprising amount of white in the hairs they cut off my head today, I have a background radiation of resentment at my (still, good) life. It's cheap shit: I didn't go nuts in college, or spend a year playing a festival circuit or getting high on park benches in Europe or whatever it is I would have done (let's be honest--probably would have just done white trash stuff in Pittsburgh, but allow me some self-aggrandizing vision of how cool I might have been).
Shit, is this what a midlife crisis feels like? Am I about to buy a nice car? Damn, I would like a nice car.
The problem with my resentments is that I have just let them sit here silently for years--decades--like a moron, not saying anything. To bring them up to those involved, including myself, would be a nasty shock. It would probably not fix anything. And I'm a total coward when it comes to those kinds of confrontations anyway. It never really mattered; it was just background angst, and I could call up my resentments if I wanted to be emo and smoke a cigarette and stare coldly at the moon. They never really mattered.
But now, judging by my absolute inability to write poetry--and the fact that I keep thinking of these goddamn resentments instead of living and enjoying my undeniably rich and fantastic life--I guess it seems I can't just hang on to this pile of disappointments and half-opened doors for free, anymore. Let's be honest, this screed (which I'm typing up insanely for strangers to read) is the closest I'll get to dealing with it, but you know, it means I got pretty close.
Looking forward to that car. Man.
April 2019
Thursday, April 18
Dystopia
"Do you think we live in a utopia?" she asked, idling on the Albanian hillside under a foggy sunrise in early spring. "Is this how our ancestors dreamed of living?"
A clear brook bubbled along the bottom of gentle, grass-clothed hills. The first few migrant spring birds, back from winter's distant exile, sang melodic calls to one another in the gaining daylight. Brian took it all in and answered, "They wouldn't complain. I'm sure of that."
"Yeah, but--Hang on," she intoned; seasons flipped, new gear dropped into place, and the hills filled with snow, a clear powder. She kicked off on a slender ski path and he followed close behind, watching the edges of his skis. Conversation paused in the slashing breaths of snow and speed. Eventually they landed in a wide plain; she twisted the world back to fall and they resumed their long wander, hand in hand under colored leaves drifting through the clear-blue wind alone.
"I see why you're asking," he observed. "On the one hand, this--but on the other..."
"It all depends on whether one outweighs the other." She caught a bright orange leaf from its twisting journey. "And I guess that might depend on the person, or situation," she said.
"We're happy," he said quietly.
For now, they both agreed.
Dinner with two other couples--close friends, frequent companions--took place at a quaint old farmhouse in the valley. Nearby, an old grain mill churned the stream with its old, heavy, wooden water wheel, filling the atmosphere with its creaking rhythm. They talked of culture, and wine, dining long into the night. It was beautiful; it was perfect; it was free.
It was free.
They did this every night.
It was hell.
A clear brook bubbled along the bottom of gentle, grass-clothed hills. The first few migrant spring birds, back from winter's distant exile, sang melodic calls to one another in the gaining daylight. Brian took it all in and answered, "They wouldn't complain. I'm sure of that."
"Yeah, but--Hang on," she intoned; seasons flipped, new gear dropped into place, and the hills filled with snow, a clear powder. She kicked off on a slender ski path and he followed close behind, watching the edges of his skis. Conversation paused in the slashing breaths of snow and speed. Eventually they landed in a wide plain; she twisted the world back to fall and they resumed their long wander, hand in hand under colored leaves drifting through the clear-blue wind alone.
"I see why you're asking," he observed. "On the one hand, this--but on the other..."
"It all depends on whether one outweighs the other." She caught a bright orange leaf from its twisting journey. "And I guess that might depend on the person, or situation," she said.
"We're happy," he said quietly.
For now, they both agreed.
Dinner with two other couples--close friends, frequent companions--took place at a quaint old farmhouse in the valley. Nearby, an old grain mill churned the stream with its old, heavy, wooden water wheel, filling the atmosphere with its creaking rhythm. They talked of culture, and wine, dining long into the night. It was beautiful; it was perfect; it was free.
It was free.
They did this every night.
It was hell.
Thursday, April 11
Orbits
Sometimes I like to stand apart
from you, some ways, perhaps
across the room, or more;
then, with a sauntering approach,
you can be judged more fairly:
better measured against the Earth.
Up close, it can be hard to see
the myriad ways you catch me
off guard: we are distracted,
consumed by common life &
daily things, too familiar
to appreciate our strangeness.
We are, after all, oddities
in our local galaxies: the only ones
each of us orbit, undisrupted--
so I disrupt it. And then, coming
around the Sun, as it were, I see
your fingers up against your mouth
in an uncontrolled laugh, spilling
hair across your face and shoulders;
overcome with some humor
without pretense or poise--unaffected
joy. This is what I came here for.
So I return, back to orbit now,
settling again into our shared path,
richer for having stepped aside,
and happier to return.
April 2019
from you, some ways, perhaps
across the room, or more;
then, with a sauntering approach,
you can be judged more fairly:
better measured against the Earth.
Up close, it can be hard to see
the myriad ways you catch me
off guard: we are distracted,
consumed by common life &
daily things, too familiar
to appreciate our strangeness.
We are, after all, oddities
in our local galaxies: the only ones
each of us orbit, undisrupted--
so I disrupt it. And then, coming
around the Sun, as it were, I see
your fingers up against your mouth
in an uncontrolled laugh, spilling
hair across your face and shoulders;
overcome with some humor
without pretense or poise--unaffected
joy. This is what I came here for.
So I return, back to orbit now,
settling again into our shared path,
richer for having stepped aside,
and happier to return.
April 2019
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