Writing – Gwen's World

April 12, 2023April 14, 2023

THE UNBEARABLE EXCITEMENT OF BEING

They’re there every morning – the ones you don’t
Want to be

And before the sun reaches its crest
Something has sprung
Morbid and murderous
From an angry breast

No cure.
We’ve buried the key
In tangled banks
No antidote for certainty
We’re at the interstices
Life Vs. extinction

Trapped and sordid
Beings fighting
Pleasuring ourselves
In tears and blood

They’re  there every morning – the ones you don’t 

Want to be 

And before the sun reaches its crest 

Something has sprung

Morbid and murderous 

From an angry breast 

No cure. 

We’ve buried the key

In tangled banks

No antidote for certainty

We’re here at the interstices 

Of life and extinction 

Trapped and sordid 

Beings fighting.  

Pleasuring ourselves 

In tears and bloodThey’re  there every morning – the ones you don’t 

Want to be 

And before the sun reaches its crest 

Something has sprung

Morbid and murderous 

From an angry breast
 

No cure. 

We’ve buried the key

In tangled banks

No antidote for certainty


At the interstices 

Life Vs. extinction 

Trapped and sordid 

Beings fighting


Pleasuring ourselves 

In tears and blood

January 10, 2023

I’m done with this fiction
Formatting
The quest for
Heartbeat
Success
From the keyboard
Through the screen
Words pressed – compressed
Into hope – legitimacy?
Until then – I won’t run
I’ll push ‘send’ then
I’ll swim
Slapping the water
Ending battles with the alphabet
Each lap increasing détente
Approval
Rejection

October 18, 2022October 18, 2022

DETENTE

I’m done with this fiction

Formatting

The quest for

Heartbeat

Success

From the keyboard

Through the screen

Words pressed – compressed

Into hope – legitimacy?

Until then – I won’t run

I’ll push ‘send’ instead

I’ll swim

Slapping the water

Ending battles with the alphabet

Each lap increasing détente

Approval

Rejection

February 14, 2020April 15, 2021

CIRCUS FAMILIAR

I’ve come to accept the spectacle

The morning face that stares back at me in the mirror

Large pores packed with night-sweats and frustration

There’s lots to do but nothing to say

That will ease the guilt of not doing

Most likely I’ll clean my keyboard

remove the fingerprints

angry smudges that dappled my screen with hope.

I’ll open the Times app before adjusting a pillow behind my aging back

I’ll sip some tea as I consider the tilt of the screen and font size

I’ll search for good news as if

I’ve not already thrust my chin up to the edge of humanity

To improve my view of its destruction.

February 9, 2020April 15, 2021

CIRCUS FAMILIAR

I’ve come to accept the spectacle

The morning face that stares back at me in the mirror

Large pores packed with night-sweats and frustration

There’s lots to do but nothing to say

That will ease the guilt of not doing

Most likely I’ll clean my keyboard

remove the fingerprints

angry smudges that dappled my screen with hope

I’ll open the Times app before adjusting a pillow behind my aging back

I’ll sip some tea as I consider the tilt of the screen and font size

I’ll search for good news as if

I’ve not already thrust my chin up to the edge of humanity

To improve my view of its destruction

February 15, 2015April 15, 2021

The Exultation is in the Knowing

The hardest thing about writing

Used to be rejection but now

It is the crazy aftermath

Of question marks that appear

After I’ve left all my

Answers on the page

It becomes not a matter of quality

Or quantity but a matter of why;

Why does outside acceptance matter?

Part of me sees the old metaphysical ploy

I’ll get it once I don’t want it.

Can I walk into that room and

Switch off the light of desire?

Is writing simply a vehicle

In which to drive my persona

Stopping occasionally to mop

My sweat-filled brow and rest

My silly soul dedicated to

The business of ego?

Is that it?

August 15, 2014April 15, 2021

MAY I HAVE THIS DANCE?

I write because I cannot dance.

Oh, I can shake a hip or two, moving my hands to suggest I know what I’m doing. But to dance, really dance would be to lift a long trim leg into the air and hold it there until you are out of breath. I want to swirl through the cracks in your heart blowing open the doors to the reality of movement. I want to leap weightless across your stage landing softly upon your consciousness and wriggle my shoulders free of life’s shawl.

Because I cannot dance – I struggle to teach 26 letters the art of holding, swirling, leaping, landing and wriggling free of life’s nasty decorum.

August 4, 2014April 15, 2021

ASSESSING THE DAMAGE: A Writer’s Almanac, NYT Headlines, and Triathlons

In 1974, James Baldwin’s book, If Beale Street Could Talk, was published. About a young couple who find themselves about to be parents when the young man is accused of rape and imprisoned. Baldwin was accused (by some) of sounding too bitter in the writing of “Beale Street…” I have to ask –

How do the disparaged of the times

escape bitterness – escape even its sound –

when innocence dines at a table set

with rotting images –

marinated in vinegar ?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On August 2^nd in 1932 American Physicist Carl Anderson discovered the first physical evidence of anti-matter. My heart stutters at the idea at measuring matter – much less what doesn’t. I am transported into last week where I read a NYT piece about a lower west side condo approved for a system of double entry: The condo association provided one door for the owners of the million dollar condos above and another entry for the affordable housing of the merely middle class.

There are those who matter

And those who spend lives in the

Measured existence of anti-matter

They matter not to king, god, and bomb

Certainly not to those entering the golden

Archways living cloud-high quarters

Immeasurable in size and matter

There are those falcons loosed from

the widening gyre of definition

bullets spattered across time and distance

where class and doorways don’t matter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday I spent the morning volunteering at a local triathlon event – my job was to count the swimmers exiting the lake

Making sure the number agreed with the number of swimmers who went into the lake

I meditated on the necessity of competition in a world awash in “my (fill in the blank) is bigger, better, smarter than your _________”.

I had to remember that I was in a town, home to an ivy-league institution, where competition is a personality cornerstone of those lucky enough to be invited to study at such an institution.

But what of the corralled mass of middle-aged male humanity standing next to me – exuding more testosterone than a Balco Lab? A heady experience for a second – until I remember the time in 10^th grade when

I inadvertently entered the boy’s locker room after football practice. The smell of competitive animals doesn’t change –

No matter the age.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Take-a-way Wisdom:

Art is a way of confronting life. Getting to the big unruled YES in a country bordered and ruled by no

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I’ve come to accept the spectacle

The morning face that stares back at me in the mirror

Large pores packed with night-sweats and frustration

There’s lots to do but nothing to say

That will ease the guilt of not doing

Most likely I’ll clean my keyboard

remove the fingerprints

angry smudges that dappled my screen with hope

I’ll open the Times app before adjusting a pillow behind my aging back

I’ll sip some tea as I consider the tilt of the screen and font size

I’ll search for good news as if

I’ve not already thrust my chin up to the edge of humanity

To improve my view of its destruction

Share this:

Like this:

The hardest thing about writing

Used to be rejection but now

It is the crazy aftermath

Of question marks that appear

After I’ve left all my

Answers on the page

It becomes not a matter of quality

Or quantity but a matter of why;

Why does outside acceptance matter?

Part of me sees the old metaphysical ploy

I’ll get it once I don’t want it.

Can I walk into that room and

Switch off the light of desire?

Is writing simply a vehicle

In which to drive my persona

Stopping occasionally to mop

My sweat-filled brow and rest

My silly soul dedicated to

The business of ego?

Is that it?

Share this:

Like this:

I write because I cannot dance.

Because I cannot dance – I struggle to teach 26 letters the art of holding, swirling, leaping, landing and wriggling free of life’s nasty decorum.

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Like this:

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