tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57628509607478340032024-03-21T12:30:35.908-07:00cuspidorwww.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-1763595290813226812010-11-19T20:29:00.001-08:002010-11-19T20:29:36.514-08:00life is a small boat that sails out into the ocean and sinkswww.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-59828456909476994072010-11-19T20:12:00.000-08:002010-11-19T20:26:30.511-08:00The Most Uncertain Person I Know<p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">In the juvenile morning, over morning breath;</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">She asks, “Well, what was that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Was that sex?”</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">She checks her bible and I reach over our mess</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:85%;">For the dictionary by the bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">Under “es”.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">“Your definition? Sex or accident?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She flicks </span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">Through her New Testament</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">To confess, “I’m agnostic.”</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">While we wait for the morning mist to clear</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">I say, “You may make your mistakes with me.”</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">In the waiting room, with the faithful invalids</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">I wait for health and the doctor to call,</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">To click her definite heels down the corridor.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">Am I sick or am I well?</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">She shuffles symptoms, fans them in her hands</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">And takes a gamble.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">Do not fret doctor, I am simple.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">My belief is limp. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>No need to convince me with your career;</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">You may make your mistakes with me.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">At Five the patrons leave the art gallery stark</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">And empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The paintings readjust their layers</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">Fold in their meanings, say their prayers</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">And contemplate one another across the dark hall.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">And they call, </span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">“I do not understand.”</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">“What do you mean?”</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">“Do you mean anything at all?”</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">And one painting opens to the limits of his frame</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">To say,</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">“I’m here, make your mistakes with me.”</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;"></span></o:p></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">With my dictionary held between ribs and elbow</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">I am presented to a Bible study.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">Allan is the most uncertain person I know.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">My dictionary a pious blue, a sacred weight, with certain columns.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">Uncertainty is a regular state, for me.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">They tell me to explain love. I turn to “L”</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">I consider a man who looked down from his column</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;">And said, “Have peace you can make your mistakes with me.”</span></p>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-63395182115463170502010-10-16T18:41:00.000-07:002010-10-16T20:33:12.630-07:00I practice forgetting and sometimes I fail<span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: minor-latinfont-family:Calibri;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"></span></span></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: minor-latinfont-family:Calibri;" ><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Now her breath smells like Saturday night. Sophie spits her chewing gum into the street. She has left behind the day and the words from the day are gone. Her mouth is clean and her neck, it also smells like Saturday night. Her neck smells like a perfume that she bought but that she does not wear often. She gives her driver's licence into the big <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">fingers</span> of the man at the door of the club, his eyes are upon her driver's licence and then glancing up, his eyes are upon her; she smiles as though she were the glowing sign to a motel with many empty rooms. The man at the door returns her licence to her. His job is practice. She practices her smile on his face before she goes inside. The music plays so loudly that when she orders a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">drink</span> she must stand on her toes so her voice is closer to the barman's ear. His job is also for practice, for her to practice her smile on him. She is here by herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is a woman by the wall who is wearing a perfume that Neil gave to Sophie but that she is not wearing tonight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sophie's earrings are feathers made of silver and coloured metal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She looks at the woman who wears the familiar perfume and thinks <em>mutton dressed as lamb</em>, and then thinks, <em>what a quaint phrase, a phrase for grandmothers who are divorced and for camp boys</em>. The music beats away at the daytime worries of them all and excites their night time concerns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When a man nods at her and smiles for a fraction of the nod she thinks, <em>his night time concern is what he is going to say to me</em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></span></p></span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">‘What bird did those come off?" he asks.</span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Excuse me?" <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Your earrings; they <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">must've</span> come from a beautiful bird. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>Why, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">what'd</span> you think I said?"</span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I thought you were being crude, but you’re sweet."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She turns her head so that he can see her earrings and he brushes them with a slightly drunk fingernail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>"A silver bird," she tells him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"You should finish your drink so that I can get you a new one," he says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"And you should be patient," she says and she pats him on his chest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She thinks, <em>when men are drunk they are like little boys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don't know if I like being around so many little boys. </em>She thinks, <em>I do like not knowing whether I like it or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'd like to tell this boy my thought on drunken men, but he might not understand it</em>."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So she says to him, "What do you know about birds?" <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I don't know anything about birds, but I know what I like."</span></span></p><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></p><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family:'Georgia', 'serif';">She watches the woman wearing the familiar perfume lean over and talk to one of her girlfriends and cackle like a witch. A benign, foolish witch. </span><em>I wish that this man would make me laugh so loud that I forgot myself, </em>she thinks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>"You can buy me a drink, now,"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> s</span>he says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She gives her empty glass to him so he can find a place for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He looks at it not knowing why he is holding it, "Whatever you’re having," she tells him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>He is still looking at the empty glass so she gives him a push towards the bar.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><o:p><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Where are your mates?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sophie asks him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her voice still hurts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some parts of the day cannot be spit out easily.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I don't know. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>I lost them at another club.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Too many people dancing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who're you here with?"<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Just you."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"So, did your boyfriend give you those earrings?"<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"If he did, then I wouldn't be wearing them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Can't you dance?"<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"So you've got a boyfriend then."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"A girlfriend bought me these earrings in Vietnam."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Vietnam? I've been to Bali.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I bet that you're really good at dancing."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I'm good enough."</span></span></p><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: minor-latinfont-family:Calibri;" ><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Maybe you should teach me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Show me some dance moves."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Maybe later," she says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He tells her about his holiday in Bali. They talk about holidays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span><em>I wish I didn't come here by myself tonight. A<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">nd</span> I wish that I did not use all the credit on my phone talking to Neil. I wish someone would call me, </em>she thinks.</span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The man stumbles to the bathroom and to buy another drink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He comes back to her with a drink for her as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><em>I don't want another drink.</em></span></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"So you know you're really beautiful." he says to her. <em>He won't make me laugh tonight.</em></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">“Yes, I know," she says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He reaches out and holds her upper arm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><em>Your arms are large and blunt, </em>she thinks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He pulls her closer to him and dips his head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Only on the cheek" she says and she turns her cheek to him, the silver feather swings a little from her earlobe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He kisses her cheek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><em>He doesn't know how to kiss a woman's cheek. He is too used to open drunk wet mouths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The woman wearing the same perfume that Neil gave to me probably has a drunk wet mouth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>When it comes to cheeks, he kisses me the way a boy kisses his grandmother's cheek; because he is confused he is nervous and quick</em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> The man</span> is disappointed with how his lips brushed her cheek and he pulls her towards him to try again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"No, wait,"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>she says.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></span></span><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><o:p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"So you do have a boyfriend then."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Not a boyfriend," she says.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"One more."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"No more. There's a woman over there, she look like she wants one more." She points to the woman wearing Neil's perfume.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sophie is a barman shutting up shop with a face that is tired of saying welcome to the smiles of stranger after stranger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Like a barman who does not want to make people forget about their day any longer, and wants his bar to be empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I'm tired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had a long day," she says to the man. <em>I did not want to bring today into tonight,</em> she thinks. "And I need to go home," she says.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"So I'll take you home."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><em>He is in earnest, he takes his night time concerns so seriously,</em> she thinks. <em>His face is like that of a little boy who is remembering that he has learnt that the world is not fair.</em></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I need to go home by myself." She pats his chest. <em>The pat, that is something that a grandmother would do.</em></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">He starts to say, "You should come to-" Sophie cuts him off.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I have a husband with a very big gun, and he's waiting for me."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She smiles at him and walks away.</span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="center"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">xxxx</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="center"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><o:p><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">They are both standing by the dining table and she is talking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Outside, Sophie's taxi pulls away, empty, from the kerb by Neil's house and the light on top turns on as it turns into the dark street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Inside, s</span>he is standing there and Neil looks at her and he has one hand in each of the back pockets of his jeans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She reaches for the tissue box that is on Neil's dining room table and takes two for wiping the perfume from her neck.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I'm not your husband, And I don't have a very big gun."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I thought that I would not think of you and then I did and it surprised me."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"What did you think?"<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I thought, I want you to come and rescue me."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"You were thinking of someone else. I don't have a big gun."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was thinking of you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You have other things."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"We don't have enough to make it work, you said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I said yes."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But there's enough for tonight."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing" align="left"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', 'serif';"><span style="font-family:georgia;">She gives the tissues to Neil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She walks towards his room and he puts the tissues into his pocket and from behind her he kisses her on the neck.</span></span></o:p></span></o:p></span></p>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-6061168128717662132010-10-09T00:38:00.000-07:002010-10-10T05:02:35.196-07:00As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;<br />They kill us for their sport.<br /><br />(from King Lear 4.1.37,38)www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-45713059380125489092010-06-14T07:59:00.000-07:002010-06-14T09:36:13.062-07:00Why I Write<span style="font-family:georgia;">When a writer writes, does he write for his audience? And when he is writing a love poem, is he writing for his beloved?<br /><br />Or does he write for himself? Does he write to study his own expression?<br /><br />Neither can be correct.<br /><br />If he wrote for his audience, then within his mind's eye, he would sit within the head of the audience and there would be no honesty in that; he would invent his audience's reviews. And writing above all must be honest. If he wrote his poems for the woman who would read them, the whole exercise would be guess-work; he would chase the reception he hoped for from the woman (a kiss, a roll in the hay). He would not chase anything true. I doubt he really knows her, whoever she is; whoever he is.<br /><br />If the writer wrote for himself, then where is the directive to draft and redraft? Does he chase his own perfection? That is endless and selfish. Does he chase his desire for expression or a need to respond to the world? Then he should write a diary, keep it beside his bed and be done with it.<br /><br />No. This is my perspective. The writer writes for God.<br /><br />There are writers who do not write for God- they write for the integrity of their characters. They write for the worship of words or in praise of a philosophy such as hopelessness or truth. And when they place their manuscript on the altar, then they pray that their characters, their culture's words, the internal logic of their philosophies smile down on their offering.<br /><br />But I think of God, the only audience member in an auditorium of folded-up red seats, sitting for the premiere of every writer and juggler and architect and painter, and accepting every piece with holy applause.<br /><br />So, as for my inconsistent correspondence; do not feel flattered or offended. I don't write for you, I write for God.<br />----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:georgia;">taxes<br />children<br />lost pussy<br />war<br />constipation</span></blockquote><br /><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">the living poet<br />in his harness<br />of beauty</span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;">offers the day<br />back to g-d</span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Leo</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">nard Cohen </span></p></blockquote>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-81013579621408296002010-05-28T08:09:00.000-07:002010-05-28T09:25:54.530-07:00Poetry makes nothing happen<p> </p><p>When I am more alert, I will ask why I write.</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4_DKcNIRkgNfelqGTuRd_VCCt89Nh-JEUuOrETnI0O1zh_a2AKOR2ys1_aRm_D9xyBUFbpQ8iCbwy_fRWL1cVZCz8JmR0iy3llnK6wfsu7UodgKfmjgxeIH1Cx6SxrbVSAo5loOCE7ik/s1600/bronwyn-lea.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 215px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 223px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476338829600485202" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4_DKcNIRkgNfelqGTuRd_VCCt89Nh-JEUuOrETnI0O1zh_a2AKOR2ys1_aRm_D9xyBUFbpQ8iCbwy_fRWL1cVZCz8JmR0iy3llnK6wfsu7UodgKfmjgxeIH1Cx6SxrbVSAo5loOCE7ik/s320/bronwyn-lea.jpg" /></a></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://wabiwabi.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/why-i-write/">'Why I Write' by Bronwyn Lea</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />And I will consider the poet's job.<br /><br /><strong>It's the Poet's Job<br /></strong>It's the poet's job to remain forever outside<br />and forever ridiculed.<br />To alienate his family and friends,<br />to be petty and jealous and spiteful,<br />to fail miserably, show his soft underbelly and<br />grin like an idiot,<br />to be like Jesus Christ, Judas and the Buddha.<br />To chase his own tail,<br />avoid prizes, accolades and rewards<br />and never become celebrated.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Wild Billy Childish</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb3HT02o4-cxb6PoBdjFPPwtCLgv1PUNt71G3iFr3mpi77xZCqnfaDR6zmfc7qPPz4uD2FYh0iUzagyJ35m-Xg3Ue3PUPQh1BatxSAKQUDd71-f6KwLpqSpj1IKt2L_9vCBpH7l1NZcgk/s1600/Wild+Billy+Childish.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 230px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 230px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476342540508198546" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb3HT02o4-cxb6PoBdjFPPwtCLgv1PUNt71G3iFr3mpi77xZCqnfaDR6zmfc7qPPz4uD2FYh0iUzagyJ35m-Xg3Ue3PUPQh1BatxSAKQUDd71-f6KwLpqSpj1IKt2L_9vCBpH7l1NZcgk/s320/Wild+Billy+Childish.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />And I will wonder what poetry does.<br /><br />"You were silly like us; your gift survived us all:<br />The parish of rich women, physical decay,<br />Yourself, Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.<br />Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">For poetry makes nothing happen</span></strong>: it survives<br />In the valley of its own making where executives<br />Would never want to tamper, flows on south<br />From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,<br />Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,<br />A way of happening, a mouth."<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">From "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" by W.H. Auden</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDvcR_Yi40IrG-aqN6jzE7qy1_QYU8Bajr_OkFbFxRK6soVK7vLJrKMXQk8eg4SOI65b7qxyfUtlJA1qwTz1BSRCMB-q46SMng-BFbLTjY5QR_hf4W130Zw-Kg2dRFfFsB4XIx3OGnMho/s1600/W.H.+Auden.bmp"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 187px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476346285540769794" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDvcR_Yi40IrG-aqN6jzE7qy1_QYU8Bajr_OkFbFxRK6soVK7vLJrKMXQk8eg4SOI65b7qxyfUtlJA1qwTz1BSRCMB-q46SMng-BFbLTjY5QR_hf4W130Zw-Kg2dRFfFsB4XIx3OGnMho/s320/W.H.+Auden.bmp" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />But tonight, because I am not alert, but very sleepy, I will think about the wrong draft of an old story I gave to friend, a draft which collapses in on itself in the last section, and which I later tried to fix up. I think about Bronwyn Lea who took a poetry subject I studied at uni, and how disappointed I was at how cosmopolitan she looked, that she wore makeup and that she wore a Dolce&Gabbana belt, when I want people who call themselves poets to be plain, with no time for the frivolous. Tonight I will think about Wild Billy Childish who featured in Tracy Emin's work, "Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-1995," and with whom he shared gonorrhea and herpes.www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-41663871630002226502010-05-06T08:05:00.000-07:002010-05-06T08:06:40.848-07:00<span style="font-family: lucida grande;">I'm not a bird you catch and release.</span><br /><div style="text-align: right; font-family: lucida grande;">Damien Jurado- Last Rights<br /></div>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-462966005615083212010-04-27T20:34:00.000-07:002010-04-27T20:36:07.055-07:00<span style="font-family: georgia;">All the hymns</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">I sing are</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">goodbye songs </span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">for the sins</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've loved.</span>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-88214085203903642112010-04-21T19:26:00.000-07:002010-04-21T20:30:47.966-07:00A poem and two newspaper articles that birthed it.<span style="font-weight: bold;">A Tree<br /><br /></span>This is where the city finishes.<br />This is where fences sink in dust<br />around the civic cemetery on the fringes.<br />These are the trees that pray<br />for the frustrated souls underneath.<br />This is where tombstones grin<br />like old men's teeth.<br />This is where old men sleep uninterrupted,<br />Where I built my pillar of sins.<br /><br />This is where the city finishes,<br />The city where I fathered my children,<br />Sipped drinks with silly women teaching<br />girls to giggle, listened to fights,<br />practiced my spitting and steered<br />the little wife<br />down our Sunday drive in the evening.<br />As the sun sinks<br />She's a denim clad minx.<br /><br />This is where the city finishes<br />and insects own the kitchen.<br />The wife listens to Country and Western<br />as I rinse the dishes<br />and watch her jeans<br />torn at the ankle, hitched<br />on the ripped fly wire screen.<br />Her hair is lank, her wrinkles<br />Open into eyes or a smile.<br /><br />When will I leave the city<br />with my two pairs of boots<br />and her jewelry?<br /><br />When will she leave,<br />riding shotgun<br />with the man who lights her cigarette?<br /><br />When we undress for bed<br />I wear my body like a threat.<br /><br />This is where the city finishes<br />by the cemetery where we interred<br />my father when he felt<br />that fifty years was sufficient.<br /><br />This is where the city finishes<br />Where I wait by my father's plot<br />when desire keeps me up all night<br />and the wife stays out late.<br /><br />This is where the city finishes,<br />Where I can't sleep for jealousy<br />And I offer my children as Christmas angels<br />to the cemetery trees.<br /><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/plea-for-tribal-death-for-hanging-children/2005/10/25/1130006113741.html"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></a><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/plea-for-tribal-death-for-hanging-children/2005/10/25/1130006113741.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a><br /><a href="http://www.themonthly.com.au/nation-reviewed-anna-clark-murder-pioneer-cemetery--102">The Monthly</a><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-36535119009208709742010-04-20T01:46:00.000-07:002010-04-21T19:24:06.697-07:00<span style="font-family:georgia;">Fashion culture, about which I know nothing, fascinates my most unsociable moods. The models, nothing more than clotheshorses for the outfits they wear, symbolise a belief in art above humanity, perhaps the same belief that prompted Andy Warhol to say of a friend who committed suicide, "I wish he'd told me so I could have filmed it."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">If only life were cut from such simple fabric.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Suicide- Andy Warhol</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9nmS7c8ggmoiUqf6Gc2M-prm8G5d91VllkV14NuyIxIa7iVFTxBcmdgDNOxn-lgqLWClqoVnCNwkLsO2Jjpd49GOPXknqSiunu5VXosEWSxRFnZ6mx3roabRBxU9lCYri9i-czzQIdV0/s1600/suicide.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 188px; height: 280px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9nmS7c8ggmoiUqf6Gc2M-prm8G5d91VllkV14NuyIxIa7iVFTxBcmdgDNOxn-lgqLWClqoVnCNwkLsO2Jjpd49GOPXknqSiunu5VXosEWSxRFnZ6mx3roabRBxU9lCYri9i-czzQIdV0/s320/suicide.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462139128557970322" border="0" /></a>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-47422411540764489192010-04-20T00:48:00.000-07:002010-04-20T00:49:38.091-07:00<span style="font-family: lucida grande;">I always become jealous when my waitress takes orders from another table.</span>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-41388997615444599222010-03-23T15:47:00.000-07:002010-03-23T15:53:32.407-07:00<span style="font-family:georgia;">Patient as a farmer<br />Patient as a mathmetician<br />Patient as revenge<br />Patient as a convalescent</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Patient as a tree</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Patient as a prisoner</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Patient as a sunken ship</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-40661666159980782182010-02-23T22:47:00.000-08:002010-03-02T16:33:38.658-08:00a story about love and desperation<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYegDBuUYg8TPoYv1W810O5oAV3mbP1l2NrqOjUFXIpx7gKDQ__9FfDBZaVhZyC9vAC1VCDx10ZcOiqjsEalYw9bbnfMFZ2DvyQRD5uaj9pK4pEDNO0SPOtm-LtPSzxdQmN-FeRcJ5aU/s1600-h/the+guide+for+cutting+whale.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 142px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442229588331702738" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYegDBuUYg8TPoYv1W810O5oAV3mbP1l2NrqOjUFXIpx7gKDQ__9FfDBZaVhZyC9vAC1VCDx10ZcOiqjsEalYw9bbnfMFZ2DvyQRD5uaj9pK4pEDNO0SPOtm-LtPSzxdQmN-FeRcJ5aU/s400/the+guide+for+cutting+whale.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgojIzc2G5uC1lYpvGrmDgMOD8UorjpbNkAeFWgCu-sLPtlOKcXf_8MJK2StaDb9fEZ3Nv52WC8fFRtfRjNbD5_rEubEyJiN4VF3aQCb1dfN5jTLOjBSb9iAKaer0KwykV5PnFqMCXtyZs/s1600-h/scrimshaw+woman.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 89px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442230782828294274" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgojIzc2G5uC1lYpvGrmDgMOD8UorjpbNkAeFWgCu-sLPtlOKcXf_8MJK2StaDb9fEZ3Nv52WC8fFRtfRjNbD5_rEubEyJiN4VF3aQCb1dfN5jTLOjBSb9iAKaer0KwykV5PnFqMCXtyZs/s200/scrimshaw+woman.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">In the 19th Century, whiling away their quiet hours on 12 month voyages, whalers carved illustrations of the women they left behind into whale teeth and bones. The artwork, called scrimshaw, captures the leisure time of sailors away from home and families, who pursued their fortunes in the blood and fat of sperm whales.<br /><br /></span><br /><div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">Ships carried up to 36 men, sailing sometimes two years away from home, away from wives and children and lovers. Ships of men scoured the sea for signs of whales, men who at the sighting of a whale were lowered in small boats and gave chase with oarstrokes, judging where the whale would next surface they hove to, a harpooner prepared to throw his weapon into the animal's flank. Harpoons were attached by rope to the boats which were dragged after the whale as it bucked and dove and finally died. The whale was towed back to the ship, lifted by it's flukes, stripped of its blubber, and the blubber shoveled into kettles where it was melted down into oil. A sperm whale could deliver over 100 barrels of oil. Whale products were sold and the wealth divided amongst the crew. From the early 1700s until the 1850s whaling was a major industry; whale oil lubricated the machines that ushered in the Industrial Revolution. </span></div><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 233px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442232554851933618" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgtruTg-69eXcce0dqfxW2lq06U8GBrITcYnhUBpCJBvod0V3mZRbxyX7dE_qRr6y2gAlFPNRm5B0j6-eCkZll_6bbtZL4Nc4GfjWMo1fCvHsRJJk5hse4QUa6x4HyX_pbRk5EDyJUhTk/s320/butchering+whale.jpg" /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrNBvDGHFTMGoTCjFXc5w5TBCU15iehCgM8D7OzK2D4PrW0NON-jil6lpqM5rSgoQNcdYOXkkLt8-ptdR9UWQ-3cd77L2YHlCT4svZMRpXVf9LhHWENCs2jNnPz08gAK8n0L_zrk2d5Y/s1600-h/whalers+fight.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 150px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 125px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442234399181320658" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrNBvDGHFTMGoTCjFXc5w5TBCU15iehCgM8D7OzK2D4PrW0NON-jil6lpqM5rSgoQNcdYOXkkLt8-ptdR9UWQ-3cd77L2YHlCT4svZMRpXVf9LhHWENCs2jNnPz08gAK8n0L_zrk2d5Y/s400/whalers+fight.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">Whaling ships carried weather beaten men watching the sea to war against an animal, to open it up, to unpack its harvest of oil which offered a glossy sheen to cosmetics, was used for face and hand creams and created the finest soap. Candles made from spermaceti from the sperm whale illuminated intimate dinners and neither smoked nor smelled. Baleen, tooth and bone were used in corset stays, in the hoops for skirts, hairbrushes and jewellery. Ambergris became perfume and love potions. The wild whale was transformed into delicate articles of femininity. Scrimshaw captured images of lost sweethearts and filled hours which held nothing else but the smell of whale flesh. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></div></span><span style="font-family:georgia;">In beards and sweat, isolated, having seen no women since their last stop at port, men clung to sails for a sight of an animal to fight until it would forfeit its treasure of undergarments and ladies' scent.</span><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 262px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442235622010407522" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSU__5x6AKbrG-9X2YfoBkqf7I2T7t3-UzssSgF98Og2VVxE7OCEUQSraQ9EqWtuXmj3O8J9k5lexujMSr-aL2t8aKwOagBN1d8WR5n4L0nqGM2N-1m__WlU1qmGE95_xMRKREiysZDsc/s320/spermwhale.jpg" /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The whale gives himself up, thrashing, to the power of desire.</span><br /><br /><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />"Geese are monogamous, whales are essentially unfaithful" -The World Council of Whalers. (</span><a href="http://www.worldwhalers.com/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">http://www.worldwhalers.com/</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> A website that includes whale recipes). <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo7790OoFMLxge8URkJ_-wJco-UXacO7hapZlEaaU8ftTb9x9tFITdBdISvF4nkiNJXwEzws_GY6MHLJJUc56wCMs6Nm1Hut9PWA_7Wyauyll5j-JsOdzhSc3rUmZG-usK2zEw3GQKgDA/s1600-h/spermwhale.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></a><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></div></div></div></div>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-40226343552491274652009-12-17T07:25:00.000-08:002009-12-17T07:55:14.632-08:00The warrior Arjuna converses with the Hindu deity Krishna<span style="font-family:georgia;">"Please forgive whatever I may have done in madness or in love. I have dishonoured You many times, jesting as we relaxed, lay on the same bed, or sat or ate together, sometimes alone and sometimes in front of many friends. Please excuse me for all my offenses."</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Bhagavad-gita, chapter 11, text 41-42</span>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-49197924477810714862009-12-17T07:22:00.000-08:002009-12-17T07:25:16.128-08:00<span style="font-family:georgia;">There is always a woman somewhere lost in dreams of marriage,</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">There is always a man somewhere lost in dreams of murder.</span>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-20113579859771131802009-11-09T20:47:00.000-08:002009-11-09T21:34:22.681-08:00My friend Goo has a real tattoo<span style="font-family:georgia;">Let me tell you about a friend who wore black fingernail polish and was writing a novel, and went out every night dancing and drinking and looking for inspiration, but seldom wrote anything. He wore a necklace with the word 'slut' on his throat. His advice was 'embrace your inner bitch.' I have found it far more helpful to 'embrace my inner goofball.'</span>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-32910980464681449482009-11-05T07:47:00.000-08:002009-11-05T10:55:31.502-08:00Art vs. God<span style="font-family:georgia;">God was the first artist. But, I would argue that human art did</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaCapGG8koDiZcEJG4B3pooO0PoLeDflggoyuiceGzF2eEWMfqKlmUtF5fBD9D127mlmb0JSB1Hk63dCPWJRjgmNwfxz64859WTQV2x1Cnl2LKzwyL8NFLOT8Tzsl40afGXlQUrn8LOB0/s1600-h/God%2520as%2520an%2520Architect%2520William%2520Blake.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400671708995284402" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 210px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaCapGG8koDiZcEJG4B3pooO0PoLeDflggoyuiceGzF2eEWMfqKlmUtF5fBD9D127mlmb0JSB1Hk63dCPWJRjgmNwfxz64859WTQV2x1Cnl2LKzwyL8NFLOT8Tzsl40afGXlQUrn8LOB0/s320/God%2520as%2520an%2520Architect%2520William%2520Blake.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> not begin until evil entered the world. It has been a sticking point for me that, at the moment that humanity fell from complete communion with creation, human art began. Art is predicated on conflict. The moment that a man or woman desires to capture an image of what exists around him or her, that artist works upon a canvas of conflict.</span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">GLOUCESTER: O, let me kiss that hand!</span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">LEAR: Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.<br />Shakespeare, King Lear IV:vi<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">The desire to capture images is an effect of mortality. It is only necessary to capture what is fleeting; fleeting because it will decompose, or because we cannot stay forever immersed in an image of beauty and so feel the need to take it with us, or because <em>we</em> will decompose and we want something of our understanding of the world to remain behind. Eden before the fall held the possiblility of perpetual perfection, with such an abundance of beauty that there was no need to attempt to capture it.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">Apparently Michelangelo said that "the true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection." It is difficult not to see every work of art as a work of failure, the chasing of the unattainable. Art cannot capture its subject. Neither can it capture the artist. Bo</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7CERjhOSBspR7UVYa0MsU-h1IypXdI2WFGEE_nhamoBMzuNYH5fSCSkZdg0iNqKWwOW7W4874jy16jNWmSXYUHeBkFU94PTaECKTMTxkDcefqyxX9vUpd2Nijny92BSlvt4vMktA8-9w/s1600-h/masaccio_expulsion1427.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400677171959788498" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 163px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7CERjhOSBspR7UVYa0MsU-h1IypXdI2WFGEE_nhamoBMzuNYH5fSCSkZdg0iNqKWwOW7W4874jy16jNWmSXYUHeBkFU94PTaECKTMTxkDcefqyxX9vUpd2Nijny92BSlvt4vMktA8-9w/s320/masaccio_expulsion1427.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">th are too complex to be captured. Michelangelo again: "Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish." Or consider Woody Allen, "I'm never happy with my films when I finish them. Just about always. And in the case of <em>Manhattan </em>I was so disappointed that I didn't want to open it" (Bjorkman 1993 116). Art gains its power because it works with human failings. The early Impressionists were controversial because they recognised that reality was beyond capture and so they allowed the signs of their handiwork to show through; short brush strokes and unmixed colour. Could I say they admitted their own mortality and their place as exiles from Eden? In doing so they ushered in Modernism. Art can penetrate its audience because it is the attempt of a human to understand and capture what is beyond knowledge. Art is heroic and absurd because it vainly challenges futility.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">The execution of an artwork is dependent upon tension. Painting as a fundamental medium in visual art relies upon tension, using a liquid to capture a solid image and capturing what is three dimensional in two dimensions. Rather than capturing the object itself, the artist makes the object unfamiliar encouraging the viewer to reconsider his or her perception of the object, seeing it from a symbolic or conceptual perspective. These tenets of painting are established on a struggle which is fraught with difficulty, dissapointment and the possibility of failure.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." (Genesis 3:6,7)<br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWysvYDPVQoVhzF5AOAwH1PbkWVNE2BJQJzmBfyzg6LS8ym2nWW-q4BnTAtBYYExCMhnt85iSBi87FgXocuzTa-CGxPoiFY95WoEEtYoADuCW-sJhzN2zt04-vHiIaRP97PMVueGqcIaY/s1600-h/grunewald+crucifixion.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The first human work of art was fashion. Futile, yet endeering and poignant that the</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6BdpLBma1f05lajI8oY2RddwApn4KLuJPvUSEJEQLFyDYvRYcjZvdPBnfovb3T_RSpDP1Tk0LGq0wu2Bs-YUjhwR3pUVZO0B2lEDLBA2QOG9aY0zUGzwy8eYfDRugPzefxNBmp6HZdY/s1600-h/grunewald+crucifixion.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400685764368744354" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 140px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6BdpLBma1f05lajI8oY2RddwApn4KLuJPvUSEJEQLFyDYvRYcjZvdPBnfovb3T_RSpDP1Tk0LGq0wu2Bs-YUjhwR3pUVZO0B2lEDLBA2QOG9aY0zUGzwy8eYfDRugPzefxNBmp6HZdY/s200/grunewald+crucifixion.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> first two humans would make crude costumes to hide from each other and from God. And this is where sin becomes a struggle: how does one explain its beauty, how moving it is to see someone suffer, and how stoic a man looks when he is dogged by sin?</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">Perhaps God is often referred to as the Creator because he has given art some of his own redemptive power; the power to create beauty out of severe suffering, the power to create balance from conflict, and to give meaning to what is futile and absurd.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1-GM27GbvpVV9J_EpNdOuO5KGinoiN3EPwQd8g47r4n2a3hhmfNDay_jZNrtAE1-UHzVpgAUuE3Q0_GlZ0MSVRHCfgPOSSCCsO8BAPhrmdMC6c_uVPGAXOh2aEW1RU2hCkwqXONC6thY/s1600-h/diamond-skull.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400689260137108530" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 158px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1-GM27GbvpVV9J_EpNdOuO5KGinoiN3EPwQd8g47r4n2a3hhmfNDay_jZNrtAE1-UHzVpgAUuE3Q0_GlZ0MSVRHCfgPOSSCCsO8BAPhrmdMC6c_uVPGAXOh2aEW1RU2hCkwqXONC6thY/s200/diamond-skull.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The artworks used in this post are a detail of Grunewald's 'Crucifixion', Blake's 'The Ancient of Days (God as an Architect),' Massaccio's 'Exile from the Garden of Eden' and Hirst's 'For the Love of God.'<br /></span><div></div>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-1933326167253778082009-11-03T04:58:00.000-08:002009-11-03T05:05:06.986-08:00eight million stories...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2RryWsALxs1gyrdfL3AV8Sdd_c8KbF3oznrR5zbufuQ7a2OBDsDQzGPm1LC6wMQqlgKJ0RlDe2M_kEwinHPRDSE9GXE8I6FMap56NofSFmrNH-rrFKMOA4UO52E6dTUDJNeS7fI1ckf8/s1600-h/Movie-NakedCityDVD2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399862370931562706" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 226px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2RryWsALxs1gyrdfL3AV8Sdd_c8KbF3oznrR5zbufuQ7a2OBDsDQzGPm1LC6wMQqlgKJ0RlDe2M_kEwinHPRDSE9GXE8I6FMap56NofSFmrNH-rrFKMOA4UO52E6dTUDJNeS7fI1ckf8/s320/Movie-NakedCityDVD2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">After I moved out of a house I shared with a number of girls, I caught up with one of them one afternoon. That particular house had been her first real share house. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I thought living with a boy would be naked city," she said.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Well, I thought something similar living in a house full of girls."</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">"You know, maybe naked city doesn't exist," she said.</span></div>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-45365650067657655402009-10-22T06:02:00.000-07:002009-10-22T07:10:07.524-07:00Taxi Driver<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5T0A_0vxOvVHBC4DwnKX07eFqggKQwoL6BzHBIcKHdNv8iZKTLIk42mmwpXrZChzEUyq9XOXzQcVmVuWxjBVI8bwLUuOEgJGyxpxzfFIo9Y-QYLIs77pxqQU2wAJnPUlHxok_qfWNOw8/s1600-h/taxidriver.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5395423882635520082" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5T0A_0vxOvVHBC4DwnKX07eFqggKQwoL6BzHBIcKHdNv8iZKTLIk42mmwpXrZChzEUyq9XOXzQcVmVuWxjBVI8bwLUuOEgJGyxpxzfFIo9Y-QYLIs77pxqQU2wAJnPUlHxok_qfWNOw8/s320/taxidriver.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">When I get into a taxi, and the driver is old, over fifty, and he wears no wedding ring on his ring finger I feel a tiny pinch of pity. When he works 12 hour shifts and eats chips smothered with dark gravy and keeps his energy soft drink in the cup holder by his elbow so it does not spill when he turns a corner, I wish for him a woman to wake beside, early and in the dark, to roll away from and from whom to lift his weight without disturbing her sheets so he can dress in the bathroom and shuffle out to sit in the cold cab and start the cold engine, and roll out under the street lamps. When his hair is still black for the most part, despite his age, and his hair is combed back and, although his shift started five hours ago, his hair shines as though wet because of the substance he uses to hold it in place and in front of each ear fall thick sideburns, and from within each ear curl shy hairs I wish for him a woman who will complain that he needs a shave before he kisses her and who will buy porcelain shepherdesses to put on top of his television. When he begins to cough loudly so that he cannot continue his conversation and has to open a bottle of cough syrup with one hand as he drives, and when he drinks from the bottle mouth and swallows replacing the cap with fingers bearing blunt nails, I wish for him a wife who stops smoking with him the day his father dies of emphysema and who tells him he has to pull his head in when he yells at the jack russell terrier because his desire for a cigarette makes him irritable.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">And when I see a taxi driver who wears no wedding ring I know that he is competition.</span></div>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-68690919652592708592009-10-15T04:38:00.000-07:002009-10-15T08:25:51.125-07:00Holy Sonnet XIV<span style="font-family:georgia;">My housemate received a postcard today from her friend in China. Orange dunes beneath a blue sky and a large white cloud suspended between the two.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392790472762447218" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 255px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigxj4v_ZXJs_95QQjmLScqLcmaiP85AZl3yKbXNC3Nl1_i00U9yDrJA4jV5KkRtdsruM9H-PEg2Zmompil41BTnvr8ZLesQ8kIO5k4ZPRLhRNeQ8nKWd2F2vQ4ZhRzKN4V-CnAs4fC_SY/s320/atmosphere_nuclear_bomb_test_desert.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /></span><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">-Where in China is that?</span></p><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">-Oh, that is an atom bomb.</span></p><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">-Why is there a bomb on your postcard?</span></p><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">-It is a Chinese bomb. For us it shows our defense.</span></p><br /><br /><p align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I have never seen such a benign mushroom cloud.</span></p><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;">-/- </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Hydrogen bombs were detonated in 2005 in New Mexico in a test code-named 'Trinity' after John Donne's 'Sonnet XIV'.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpYIKxJxdVqIRnijA5ytSMwLJOpLf4nyid5jaB4s60YUQCziUeBgxAL2Vsw6LfkoZKgr3zkJjqFk0pykEnm4lBKb_nR6YPUY7KrbLgDf99NcRNEJTe_jtwPPSTdbu0h8qCdRRpmnI8Qd8/s1600-h/Atom+bomb+2.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392802800057208594" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 245px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpYIKxJxdVqIRnijA5ytSMwLJOpLf4nyid5jaB4s60YUQCziUeBgxAL2Vsw6LfkoZKgr3zkJjqFk0pykEnm4lBKb_nR6YPUY7KrbLgDf99NcRNEJTe_jtwPPSTdbu0h8qCdRRpmnI8Qd8/s320/Atom+bomb+2.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><br /><br /></div>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-44418001786961059312009-10-14T10:04:00.000-07:002009-10-14T10:13:00.426-07:00<span style="font-family:georgia;">I have three, perhaps four hours of sleep before I have to wake up. I don't need a life coach, I need a leash.</span>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5762850960747834003.post-31329862585864594462009-10-14T08:57:00.000-07:002009-10-14T10:15:01.221-07:00Cuspidor<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqp_wL0t1Kpis_LGvqwqgyMFZIDTOi4VULLgMWliUDUTSpEVLwBJrHnUgkVUhGbS7u2cXoLAEiuZH-eYV2k_lNsiJAXNPzCwE7a0htn597oYkxTLz7UdSpccRugPxQCc5bnnYIUO46Gyg/s1600-h/cowboy_wagon.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392495055806412034" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 208px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqp_wL0t1Kpis_LGvqwqgyMFZIDTOi4VULLgMWliUDUTSpEVLwBJrHnUgkVUhGbS7u2cXoLAEiuZH-eYV2k_lNsiJAXNPzCwE7a0htn597oYkxTLz7UdSpccRugPxQCc5bnnYIUO46Gyg/s320/cowboy_wagon.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">I am a wagon wheel- my back is steam-bent hickory, my rattle is ill-sprung and the stony unpaved night tries to unravel me over and over, but I draw the track around my borders and leave deep ruts over its surface and I grip the dark trail tight. </span></div>www.twitter.com/tricketshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03589224174568331277noreply@blogger.com0