3:14 Every Night

From a recent late-night sketch session.

I went in with no plan on these, equipped with a sketchbook, chalk pastel, and pencil, and just kind of drew what came out. I tried to layer the color in different ways for each.

The Witching Hour

And you know you will not be able to fall asleep until you begin to understand him. And you can’t fall asleep because you’re always thinking about so many things, in a distinct order, and all at once. Thinking about very small things like laundry detergent, or the sandwich you had for lunch today, or debating whether you offended someone at that party with your off-color remarks about Asians...while you also ponder big cares like your bank account, recent developments in your love life, your anxiety about the Christian Right, and what it would be like if you existed as someone else, even for a minute, and could see yourself as they do.

Many nights you wish you could keep that sensation of being…else…that your body always prevents with a sharp tingling in the back of your teeth that acts as the emergency switch to make you stop—before your very identity is lost.

And, of course, riding along with all of these concerns, is your fear of death. Every day you think about death before you sleep. Which does make sense. After all, it’s a natural progression of thought as you approach the middle space between waking and…whatever. But sometimes you can’t get over it, and will just stay up thinking for hours and hours. You remember this happening to you ever since you were young. You couldn’t name it then, but there was a recognized fear that often drove you out of bed to your mother. Until your nearsighted eyes could adjust to the sudden light in the living room, you would just grope along toward the formless figure you hoped to be your mother on the couch. And even though you knew she would scold you for staying up, at least you could escape, for a few moments, the dark isolation.

Do you remember the words your mother used to sing when you were afraid to fall asleep? That silly song about the Duke of York who had ten thousand men or something like that? No that was a long time ago, you’ve forgotten the words, but you certainly remember the beat. You can still clap your hands to it, da duh da duh da duh. And, great wit that you are, you even came up with a new song—which, on further reflection, you suppose is probably related to him:

‘Cause when you’re up you’re up,

and when you’re down, you’re down,

and when your mind takes you for a ride,

you’re always up and down.

But you like to remind yourself that you’re “just fine.” Such thoughts, you’ve reasoned, are not symptoms of a clinical depression, but rather evidence of your mind’s great talent at compartmentalization. What a blessing, some minds are never organized. And with such a talent you would logically conclude that your thoughts would settle down into sleep, but apparently you still don’t understand him.

In the house next door, another restless figure turns in his bed. He can’t sleep either but, then again, he doesn’t really have to, his dreams are always superimposed on reality.

How can he be sane when even the pigeons make him nervous?

How can he be lucid when everything tastes like electricity and fog?

And every night that you leave your bed and go over to your window and stare across the way, you can just barely make out his outline by the streetlight’s yellow sphere reflecting in the glass. He is always there staring back. And you wonder each time what it would be like to know yourself through his mind. Does he see you at all? Do his eyes supply a coherent picture of the world, or does the outside stimuli dissolve into shifting blobs of flickering neon before he can process them? You trace encouraging words on the window with your fingers—backwards so he can read them—if he can even read them. And then you begin to wonder why it’s so important to you that you help him. And the lack of rest is starting to frenzy your thoughts. And though it’s becoming harder to think logically, you begin to see the implications of the strange connection you have formed. Maybe you should stop this before it starts. Maybe you should just think about the sandwich you had for lunch. Draw back from the chasm outside the window, and simply.fall.asleep.already. Even though you know you cannot fall sleep if you don’t understand him. But maybe you will come to understand. Actually, it’s okay if you don’t understand, really it is. Your patience can only take so much. We all have to sleep at some point. It’s okay if you don’t understand It’s okay if you don’t. Its okay if you don’t.

It’s okay,

it’s okay,

it’s okay if you can’t escape yourself.

SM Oct 2010

Get Murky Esther

“New York is dissolving, they are all dissolving away and none of them matter anymore.

I don’t know them, I have never known them and I am very pure.”

--The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Come get murky with me Esther. Submerge in the dark deep. The water is black, not choked with oils or mud, but opaque in a way that water could never possibly be. We defy contradictions, and by our presence here this place is sanctified. Do you hear me? Do you understand? Language is useless; touch me and you will feel it, and you will know. Place your hand on my chest, taunt under damp cloth, and you will know by the movement of my blood that we are sacred and alive. Finally we are alive. Let’s sink deeper and be holy and think great things and think each other’s thoughts and believe. The water is dark but it is warm, surprisingly, comfortingly warm. The only light comes from the pale bulb so close above, but dim, a small bubble around you and me and the center of the pool. The green of the walls reflects back at the edges of vision and it only makes your emerald eyes gleam even stronger. If you moved more than a foot away, I only would see the brilliant green of your iris, until both would be extinguished too after a few more inches. But please, do not leave, the water is dark and deep, and I don’t want to lose you now. Come closer. Let me whisper your thoughts into your ear, and you will shudder at first because they are dark, and come from a heavy place, in a voice not your own. Do not despair; I will not let you drown under that weight. We still have the light that glances along the surface, and you can whisper back to me the desperate incantations you repeat each night in your chambers to ward off dreams of sludge.

SM Jun 2010

While You Were Waiting By That Tree

So i've got two new posts coming atchyall, one that's a few months old and one that's brand spankin new. For these, my goal was to move towards prose by constructing (hopefully) very vivid scenes. As always, please feel free to comment.

Also, please forgive the lack of output recently. The J.A.M. is doing their best to be productive while balancing schoolwork and other activities. So keep checking back with us, we promise more good stuff to come. And yes, Godot will definitely come by tomorrow...

Thanksgiving Haikus

So I'm gonna get a little experimental with y'all. Ive had a sudden burst of inspiration and decided to post these "haikus" at the risk of sounding more than a little contrived and ridiculous. But if nothing else, they were really good practice for poetic self-restraint: keeping to a pattern and saying the most one can with as few syllables as possible. So read them as a set, and don't take them too seriously (even though some dark things are at work).

Haiku for Suggestive Whispers Cupped Privately Into Ears

I live through few words.
She’s verbose enough to share,
Come learn some grammar.

Haiku for Intolerably Long Train Rides to Connecticut
Meet my family.

Count blessings with rich people?

Better start drinking.

Haiku for Realizations of Unwittingly Playing Central Roles in the Power Struggles of Others
Acting the fool—But
she was slumming all along.

Which is more cruel?

Haiku for Slurred Protests While Eyeing Sharp Knives on Granite Countertops
I want to carve it.

Stares back, east-coast-proper cold,
... Stick it where it hurts.

Haiku for Severe Glances Exchanged Over Laden Tables

For once she is silent.
It’s true that I drink too much,

I won't stop talking.

SM Nov 2010

Love, Family, & Citrus Fruit (M's High School Remix)

Recently, I rediscovered many of the poems I wrote while in high school. The poems are uniformly horrible, (filled with oh so much angst, jokey digressions, and unnecessary exclamation points) but many of the lines still remain valid for me. So in one of those spurious, what-the-hell moments, I spliced together my favorite lines from poems written over the course of three years. Now let's be real, this piece is still bad, but it is, for me at least, a cool reflection of my (slightly) younger self at a weird/emotional/wonderful time. Apart from the stanza headings, I have kept almost all the individual lines intact, and added only around six new words throughout for purposes of transition. There are only two instances where a completely new image has been introduced, the rest is just some inventive juxtaposition. The centered justification, capitalization, and punctuation are all remnants of my old style. So buckle up and hold on tight, cause we're taking a ride down Memory Lane, a wild road fraught with holes and hairpin curves and treacherous bandits besides. Here we go, one more time...

REMIX! YO DJ BRING THAT SHIT BACK


Entr'acte
Please allow me to introduce myself,
(The first of many allowances I will ask you to make.)
I just thought I'd correct a common misconception:
It's pronounced like a H, spelled with an E,
Comprende?
Question: What's in a name anyway?
Answer: A bunch of spaces and letters.
Yeah whatever...moving on!
I get all my appliances from infomercials,
All my culture from music videos,
I'm just going to open my wallet and stop talking.
Let's shop til we drop.

Love
Levitation's a pretty young thing but what happens when Gravity gets jealous?
Abstraction is all in good fun, but too much personification is dangerous,
Meet me under a shady tree on a warm summer's day,
And whisper strange yet delicious things.
Of course things can be both strange and delicious,
Have you ventured into Hot Topic lately?
And if the topic is truly hot, you know I'm an expert.
All you have ever been is lukewarm,
I just wrote this poem to make you boil.
So read these lines softly now (but always with purpose!)
My heart pumps not blood but citric acid.

Family
A deluge of wedding rings hit the ground like raindrops,
Humming so loud they drowned out the sounds of the party,
Just as we were about to cut the cake!
What dreadful timing on the part of my parents.
Thier hearts pumped not blood but citric acid.
He burned me twice, she burned me once,
Only once was enough to destroy all the bonds,
Fill the air between us with smoke.
You know how that old saying goes about the true parentage of inspiration?
So what does that make my mother?
Necessity Re-visited?
Or is it,
Reused? Rehabbed? Reloaded?

Citrus
Abstraction is all in good fun, but too much personification is dangerous.
They took away my citrus fruit and I was faced with two simple choices:
I could fight for it and be punished,
Or I could move on, try to remember what it felt like,
The ecstasy in tasting the sour sting, and the surge, the surge in my heart,
My heart which pumps not blood, just citric acid.

Exeunt
The time has now arrived my friends,
We have finally come to the end,
And even though it lasted for only such a short time,
Believe me, it was the best time I ever had.
A moment of silence please for memories not quite forgotten.
In keeping with the proper tradition I now ask my final wishes;
To all the poems left unfinished,
To all the beauty still un-witnessed,
I humbly beg for your forgiveness,
Know that I love you dearly even in my ignorance.
The sun sets, Apollo's chariot departs, the surf crashes upon the rocks.
Maybe one day I can start to love myself,
But that day seems such a long way off.
I walk out across the dunes as the tide slowly advances,
Erasing all my footprints.

SM Aug 2010

For A Friend

I would paint myself in crimsons and blues, the coldest hues, if only to preserve your warmth.
And I would live on water and hard bread, for days or weeks or when, if only so you can feel sustained.
Would face down the mob, charge heedlessly into the end of pitchforks as the distraction for your escape.

Well the song is true ya know, cuz you're a god, and i am not.
Imagine my surprise to fall asleep next to a friend--and wake up beside a deity.
All the others may not believe in your divinity, but I do.
They have not walked the dark paths we have traveled; they did not wrestle with angels in the desert.
Some love to test my devotion, play-acting trial and temptation as I lean casually from skyscrapers.
Some attempt to stage you in their portraits, always end up with sloppy lines and wrong dimensions.
Then there are those who deny you completely. I can only look on with pity as they turn gradually into pillars of salt.

I woke up next to a god shivering in the bed. I grabbed a brush and started living in violet.
Many will hear me, few will listen, but, really, the only person who will find any meaning is you.

SM Aug 2010