Random writing engendered by the line.
Drove in from my satellite office in Westboro to the home office, depressed, numb, blasting myself out of the depression with Metallica’s “Garage, Inc.” album; blasting their cover of Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy;” sitting in the parking lot staring at the rich folks’ cars.
The song makes me catch my breath. It’s simple, it’s clean, it’s brief, everything my life is not.
When your face is at war with your faith, it’s easy to be this moved by dumbass music. A smile goes from spreading the cheeks to jerking the mouth open, then into sobbing.
I am not what I appear to be. No one is, of course; but the struggle to be genuine slips through often enough, propelled by molten guitar, shattering snares.
Except I don’t recognize this monk within me. He stares and bleeds, and speaks to no one.
I pull my badge from above the visor, and head in to work.
I don’t suspect much of this will make it through to the poem. The monk may stick around for a draft or two. You always start somewhere.
I tend to be far less autobiographical than some poets, although there’s always a bit of factual truth in there, usually heavily disguised; it would be a mistake to assume that my poems tell you anything about my life beyond my dreams, my enthusiasms, my fears.
Which of course is everything truly important. Just don’t assume I actually listen to Metallica, ok?
Except, of course, when I do.
Dark Matter 
July 27th, 2004 at 5:43 pm
Re: I’m very curious…
Well, I just — don’t.
Not sure how to describe it; it’s not that I don’t write poetry about things in my life — I do; but to assume that you’ve got the facts as they happened to me from reading one fo my poems is dangerous.
I have, for instance, a long standing relationship with my daughters in my poems — they keep showing up in things. But in truth, I have no kids. I use my daughters to talk about my observations of my friends’ kids, or my nieces; I even have a son in a couple of poems who gets to be the foil for some of my concerns about the meaning of “manhood.” If he existed, he’d likely be pissed.
I guess my way of looking at it is that no one questions a fiction writer about how closely the facts of their life are reflected in their work; if so, we should have quizzed Tolkien about his battles with the orcs — which may have reflected his experience in World War One, but certainly weren’t “true.”
I figure poets deserve the same leeway.
July 27th, 2004 at 5:43 pm
Re: I’m very curious…
Well, I just — don’t.
Not sure how to describe it; it’s not that I don’t write poetry about things in my life — I do; but to assume that you’ve got the facts as they happened to me from reading one fo my poems is dangerous.
I have, for instance, a long standing relationship with my daughters in my poems — they keep showing up in things. But in truth, I have no kids. I use my daughters to talk about my observations of my friends’ kids, or my nieces; I even have a son in a couple of poems who gets to be the foil for some of my concerns about the meaning of “manhood.” If he existed, he’d likely be pissed.
I guess my way of looking at it is that no one questions a fiction writer about how closely the facts of their life are reflected in their work; if so, we should have quizzed Tolkien about his battles with the orcs — which may have reflected his experience in World War One, but certainly weren’t “true.”
I figure poets deserve the same leeway.
July 27th, 2004 at 5:43 pm
Re: I’m very curious…
Well, I just — don’t.
Not sure how to describe it; it’s not that I don’t write poetry about things in my life — I do; but to assume that you’ve got the facts as they happened to me from reading one fo my poems is dangerous.
I have, for instance, a long standing relationship with my daughters in my poems — they keep showing up in things. But in truth, I have no kids. I use my daughters to talk about my observations of my friends’ kids, or my nieces; I even have a son in a couple of poems who gets to be the foil for some of my concerns about the meaning of “manhood.” If he existed, he’d likely be pissed.
I guess my way of looking at it is that no one questions a fiction writer about how closely the facts of their life are reflected in their work; if so, we should have quizzed Tolkien about his battles with the orcs — which may have reflected his experience in World War One, but certainly weren’t “true.”
I figure poets deserve the same leeway.
July 27th, 2004 at 5:43 pm
Re: I’m very curious…
Well, I just — don’t.
Not sure how to describe it; it’s not that I don’t write poetry about things in my life — I do; but to assume that you’ve got the facts as they happened to me from reading one fo my poems is dangerous.
I have, for instance, a long standing relationship with my daughters in my poems — they keep showing up in things. But in truth, I have no kids. I use my daughters to talk about my observations of my friends’ kids, or my nieces; I even have a son in a couple of poems who gets to be the foil for some of my concerns about the meaning of “manhood.” If he existed, he’d likely be pissed.
I guess my way of looking at it is that no one questions a fiction writer about how closely the facts of their life are reflected in their work; if so, we should have quizzed Tolkien about his battles with the orcs — which may have reflected his experience in World War One, but certainly weren’t “true.”
I figure poets deserve the same leeway.
July 27th, 2004 at 5:43 pm
Re: I’m very curious…
Well, I just — don’t.
Not sure how to describe it; it’s not that I don’t write poetry about things in my life — I do; but to assume that you’ve got the facts as they happened to me from reading one fo my poems is dangerous.
I have, for instance, a long standing relationship with my daughters in my poems — they keep showing up in things. But in truth, I have no kids. I use my daughters to talk about my observations of my friends’ kids, or my nieces; I even have a son in a couple of poems who gets to be the foil for some of my concerns about the meaning of “manhood.” If he existed, he’d likely be pissed.
I guess my way of looking at it is that no one questions a fiction writer about how closely the facts of their life are reflected in their work; if so, we should have quizzed Tolkien about his battles with the orcs — which may have reflected his experience in World War One, but certainly weren’t “true.”
I figure poets deserve the same leeway.
July 27th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
I’m very curious…
about your tendency to not write autobiographically. How do you do that? I’m still immature enough as a writer that writing for me is typically fingerpainting with my guts on the page. I would like to stretch myself beyond that.
July 27th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
I’m very curious…
about your tendency to not write autobiographically. How do you do that? I’m still immature enough as a writer that writing for me is typically fingerpainting with my guts on the page. I would like to stretch myself beyond that.
July 27th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
I’m very curious…
about your tendency to not write autobiographically. How do you do that? I’m still immature enough as a writer that writing for me is typically fingerpainting with my guts on the page. I would like to stretch myself beyond that.
July 27th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
I’m very curious…
about your tendency to not write autobiographically. How do you do that? I’m still immature enough as a writer that writing for me is typically fingerpainting with my guts on the page. I would like to stretch myself beyond that.
July 27th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
I’m very curious…
about your tendency to not write autobiographically. How do you do that? I’m still immature enough as a writer that writing for me is typically fingerpainting with my guts on the page. I would like to stretch myself beyond that.