2 for dwim

[gollum]

ok...these are both from a workshop i took last january. the first is from a list of things kerouac wrote (i can't remember what it was called or what it was for)--we had to use at least one of the phrases from the list (i think i ended up with 4 or 5). the second is a pantoum i wrote about my x-roommate.

without further ado...

*

No time for poetry but exactly what is. The valiant die but once. I'm madly wildly hopelessly head over heels in love with a boy, i'm in love for the first time in my life, yet i've supposedly finally come out as a lesbian. What?! I have a Zippo, a pocket knife and a stalker?a scary combination. No time for poetry. No time for thinking. Dig deeper, dig deeper, till you or the other person begins to cry. Dig. C'mon. What is exactly? Exactly what is. Autumn has no sense of humor, which is why winter came yesterday. Snap. Crackle. Pop. Like walking on the ice of your true desire.
Why am i here? Why are you here? I can't stop the words, they fall out before i ever even realize that there is a leak. No time for poetry?just words. No room for pomes, which are arrogantly humble in the way they fling themselves across one side of the page. No time for sickness, but my body won't listen?NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR MY HAND TO CRAMP UP!
My leg cramped, the tendon hurt, i lay there naked and vulnerable and alone. He came in, he hadn't gone to class yet. "I can't move my leg." "It's okay" and he placed his hand on my forehead and smoothed away the hairs that were invading my face's personal space. The worry on his face was largely of the self-contained kind, except i know him better. He promised to come back. I told him i wasn't going anywhere. He smiled. GOD i love that boy! (quoth the lesbian? that's what THEY think.)
I stride across my empty brain, full of people who won't leave me alone and all demand attention. But they only get it when they help make the connection from brain to pen, thought to paper. Otherwise they torment me, yelling, screaming, laughing, disrupting my sleep, disrupting my bath, disrupting class. No time for poetry? hell, there's ALWAYS time for poetry! They push and push and push, in between their Lamaze breathing, never giving me the courtesy of pausing my tired aching hand for five seconds. But if i don't let them out they will kill me, or i will kill myself. Who needs mental institutions when you can write? It keeps me sane, it keeps me going, or at least that's what i tell everybody else, when i don't want to admit that really i have no choice in the matter.
No time for poetry. Only for the anxieties and frustrations and schizophrenia that come pouring outta my head. (If it weren't screwed on tight, i'd lose it, ya know.) Oh don't forget the boots and the truck?one of which i have, one of which i want, both of which end up on the page somehow. I swear sometimes, it's like Pam Houston moved into my head, only with the boots and without the dogs.
No time, no time, no time! The pure own only themselves and maybe some toiletries, while behind me some woman talks to some other woman, and a door opens with a squeak and closes with a thump. Yossarian lives, don't tell me you hadn't heard? The world may never know?the world is not enough? Oh no, it's too much for me. No time, you see. Just the poetry and the pounding in my head. Quoth the pseudo-lesbian, nevermore.
There is no time anymore, no time for you, no time for me, no time for the restraints that we like to think in, the grammar and punctuation that we've been eating for breakfast since first grade. Why do you think i stopped eating breakfast? I'm beyond Kafka's hunger artist, i'm a hunger writer, with no time but for words that enter themselves onto the page before i can even think of them.
You're a genius all the time, which is why i went to Louisville and why god is an angry man from Carbondale. But pay attention to number 10?No time for poetry but exactly what is. No time. But you can still be a genius.
This is the end. The beginning happened when no one was looking.

*

wash the rice

she taught me first to wash the rice,
the grains slipping between my fingers.
i learned the milky color of dirt
in a milky bathroom with a huge mirror.

the grains slip between my fingers.
she dyed her hair blonde yesterday
in a milky bathroom with a huge mirror,
and now i can hardly recognize her.

she dyed her hair blonde yesterday
and i think it's awful.
now i can hardly recognize her,
but i barely knew her anyway.

i think it's awful
that all i learned was how to cook rice,
but i barely knew her anyway
and when we meet on the street we are polite.

all i learned was how to cook rice
and how to use chopsticks and say thank you.
on the street, we are polite
as though we were ghosts in passing.

know how to use chopsticks and say thank you
and learn the milky color of dirt,
for though we are ghosts in passing,
she taught me first to wash the rice.

-g

[This message has been edited by gollum (edited November 16, 2000).]

[dwim]

gollum-

I love the kerouac piece. That one blew me away. And the pantoum piece is great as well.
you are one awesome work.

thanks for sharing these with me.

------------------
I try to be humble but this guy threw my greatness in my face! I'm trying to deny my greatness!

"Everything belongs to me because I am poor." - Jack Kerouac Visions of Cody

[tyledras]

man, gollum, you've blown me away.