language light as the air between my ribs

Mar 18, 2010 09:29

Clearly I've been watching too much BSG, because last night I dreamt that Baltar didn't get onto Galactica because Sheldon Cooper was already there, and he and Leonard and Raj and Howard built a Cylon detector and actually shared their results. And then there was something where they used paintball to try and fight Cylons (on New Caprica? IDEK).

Someone (not me) should write that.

Somehow, I don't think head!Six would have had the same effect on Sheldon, you know? Though man, she is AWESOME. I'd forgotten she actually says, "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." Hee! Please do hulk out and smash Baltar's face into things more often. It's not like he doesn't deserve it.

I have to say, if Castiel were more like head!Six, I'd like him a lot more (or maybe that's overstating; maybe I just wouldn't hate him as much), and I don't just mean being a hot blonde.

Speaking of SPN angels, Robert Wisdom is going to be on "Burn Notice" next season. Woo! I just hope they don't waste him the way they wasted Richard Schiff.

And Natalie Morales is apparently going to be on "Parks and Recreation" next season. I wish I had any desire to watch that show, but I do not.

A show I might have the desire to watch is "Justified." Elmore Leonard writes some awesome dialogue; if the writers for the show do half as well, that could be kind of awesome to watch. Anyone watch on Tuesday night and have an opinion they'd like to share?

I really need to stop staying up until 1 am writing. Unfortunately, I seem unable to get any sort of writing groove going until after 11 pm these days, and I hate to stop when things start going, even if it is to sleep, but I'm supposed to be in bed at 11 pm. Sigh. Stupid western society, starting the day at 9 am. We live in a 24hour world! We don't have to start at 9 am anymore to take advantage of daylight! It's just dumb! Rar!

And that made me think of this poem:

Purity

My favourite time to write is in the late afternoon,
weekdays, particularly Wednesdays.
This is how I got about it:
I take a fresh pot of tea into my study and close the door.
Then I remove my clothes and leave them in a pile
as if I had melted to death and my legacy consisted of only
a white shirt, a pair of pants and a pot of cold tea.

Then I remove my flesh and hang it over a chair.
I slide if off my bones like a silken garment.
I do this so that what I write will be pure,
completely rinsed of the carnal,
uncontaminated by the preoccupations of the body.

Finally I remove each of my organs and arrange them
on a small table near the window.
I do not want to hear their ancient rhythms
when I am trying to tap out my own drumbeat.

Now I sit down at the desk, ready to begin.
I am entirely pure: nothing but a skeleton at a typewriter.

I should mention that sometimes I leave my penis on.
I find it difficult to ignore the temptation.
Then I am a skeleton with a penis at a typewriter.
In this condition I write extraordinary love poems,
most of them exploiting the connection between sex and death.

I am concentration itself: I exist in a universe
where there is nothing but sex, death, and typewriting.

After a spell of this I remove my penis too.
Then I am all skull and bones typing into the afternoon.
Just the absolute essentials, no flounces.
Now I write only about death, most classical of themes
in language light as the air between my ribs.

Afterward, I reward myself by going for a drive at sunset.
I replace my organs and slip back into my flesh
and clothes. Then I back the car out of the garage
and speed through woods on winding country roads,
passing stone walls, farmhouses, and frozen ponds,
all perfectly arranged like words in a famous sonnet.

~Billy Collins

***

Sigh. I do love me some Billy Collins.

***

This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/144415.html.
people have commented there.

tv: miscellaneous, poetry, tv: burn notice, tv: bsg, you should totally write that, dreams, got no halo got no wings

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