(no subject)
les slesnick
I have started thinking in color, dreaming in graffiti. Words, starting to glow blues and golds. People, while they are always people, are growing vines of color weaving through their hair and into their ears. Everyone has their own color, I've decided, that is how they have feelings. Jealousy is not green, but bronze; quiet is light-but-still-dark purple, do you understand? Colors blending and meshing together, each also having their own distinct sound. Soon, every person is a different composition: sonatas, symphonies, and whispered songs.
I read my cards for the first time in months today. The cards weaving between my fingers give me a little stability; three stacks, one for each time I will live: past, present, & future.
PAST << the knight of wands >> (a symbol of intuitive force, long-awaited decisions, and the progress in matters of creative affairs, when i knew where i was going, what i was getting myself into & how to get myself out.)
PRESENT << eight of pentacles >> (impatience, the burning and losing of energy, i am still a little lost right now, searching for my colors and my word. what word am i? the words running through my fingers as i leaf dictionaries and poetry trying to find myself. i am slowly realizing that maybe i cannot be just one word, but fill sentences, paragraphs, passages.)
FUTURE << the devil >> (confinement, feeling claustrophobic and having daily routines closing in on me & wanting to get out. the future is still shaky and i have a feeling that i will never be stable. i am a radioactive element, slowly decaying, the more i lose, the more dangerous i become.)
"I feel like a ship encountering it's first taste of the ocean." -- Memoirs of a Geisha
we are sitting together in the airport bar
and I wave to the waitress for another two
drinks.
he says to me, the idea is to get
enough sun and enough rest and to always
pay the electric bill and the rent and/or
the mortgage on time.
two of the same, I tell the waitress.
and, he says, don't let the telephone company
overcharge you, watch for the police
in the rearview mirror and think about
exercising but don't do it.
how's your wife? I ask him. you know,
she's really a looker.
keep discarding your friends, he says, because
otherwise you are going to have to continue
loaning money to more and more people.
are you catching the flight with me?
I ask.
learn, he says, that there will be hours, days
and months ahead of feeling absolutely terrible
and that nothing can change that; neither new
girlfriends, health professionals,
changes of diet, dope, humility or
God.
the waitress has brought us our drinks, I
remind him.
wipe your ass good, he says, lifting his, and sleep
on your left side as much as possible.
I'll try, I tell him.
you will find, he says, that the most interesting
reading is not classics but the daily
newspaper.
pardon me, I tell him, but I've been paying for
all the drinks so far-
never apologize! he tells me. and never say
"thank you" or "good morning."
cultivate your prejudices, they are real.
never attempt to understand the other point of view
and treat your relatives like dogs. they
are. you owe them nothing.
you want another drink? I ask.
you must stay away, he says, from people who grow
their own grass, and stay away from writers, musicians,
singers and ballet dancers. painters are o.k. also
professional boxers and amateur plumbers.
waitress, I say, two more drinks.
and, he says, when somebody hates you, realize that
it's not personal, it's because you have something
that they don't have.
is there more? I ask.
there is much more, he says, such as
don't give advice, and if you are offered some
reverse it to find the
truth...
please shut up, I think to myself, this poem must
end now
here at the bottom of the page.
-- charles bukowski
he war, oh god how he wars.
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas & I will not cheapen it by listing everything I gave & received. I am thinking a secret thought right now & will be sharing it as it grows a little more. Thoughts grow on me like my bamboo, slowly, but god, when they finally take hold it is impossible to unroot them.