October 6, 2005

Today I've decided to start a literary blog. I figure that this is a smart idea. I first began to clue into the fact last night at the John Newlove Award reading at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. I was shaking hands with a lot of people that I didn't know and generally looking traumatized when I realized a great number of them kept mentioning their wonderful literary blogs that I needed to see in order to be a complete human being. So not to be outshone by these people, I've decided to do this too.

(I'm such a poser)

I will begin this new found blog( by the way, I'm not a big fan of the term "blog" and sincerily hope I do not have to use it on a regular basis.) with some writing by some of my favorite song writers. I love poetry, don't get me wrong, but I believe that good songwriting can influence and affect people just as much. Some songwriters are better poets than anyone I have ever read in my entire life. Case in point: The Weakerthans.


Sounds Familiar

We emerged from youth all wide-eyed like the rest.
Shedding skin faster than skin can grow,
and armed with hammers, feathers, blunt knives:
words, to meet and to define and to...
but you must know

the same games that we played in dirt,
in dusty school yards has found a higher
pitch and broader scale than we feared possible,
and someone must be picked last,
and one must bruise and one must fail.

And that still twitching bird was
so deceived by a window, so we eulogized fondly,
we dug deep and threw its
elegant plumage and frantic black eyes in a hole,
and rushed out to kill something new,
so we could bury that too.

The first chapters of lives almost
made us give up altogether. Pushed towards
tired forms of self immolation that seemed so original.
I must, we must never stop

watching the sky with our hands in our pockets,
stop peering in windows when we know doors are shut.
Stop yelling small stories and bad jokes and sorrows,
and my voice will scratch to yell many more, but

before I spill the things I mean to hide away,
or gouge my eyes with platitudes of sentiment,
I'll drown the urge for permanence and certainty;
crouch down and scrawl my name with yours in wet cement.

Without Mythologies

A soft breeze with the slippery concrete
black and full of muddy slush, contrasting with the hoarfrost,
clean and hung on a tunnel of silent shivering trees
(the ones you said you'd like to be),
and the birds that screamed at the sun

now buried deep down below the ground,
beneath the snow,
I press my shoulder to this wall between us.

I know you are behind me but
I press my shoulder to this wall,
determined not to turn around.

I know I'll see you standing, still
that statue that I molded in my mind to kiss,
so beautiful you'll never move again.

Someplace far away, at some sad table littered with bad light,
with chipped plates, in 48 frames from a movie
on the cutting room floor,
you said "True meaning would be dying with you",
and though I wanted to,

I did not smile.

But now I will give up on this wall that
we have fought with,
never uncover meaning behind our rich words.

If I could I would make you a raging river,
with angry rapids, supplied with rain,
so you could always meander and forever
be able to run away
without contending
with myths wrongly interpreted
with pain.

A harsh wind


The Weakerthans Website

I arrived home in Sarnia today after a 12 hour long bus ride. Which was just as hellish as one can imagine on a greyhound. Last night's award ceremony cheered me up to some degree. It was nice not having everyone tell me how wonderful I am and instead giving me solid advice that I can use. I need a mentor. Where to find one? Can one have one at my age? I'm not sure if there is a set age that you are suppose to begin.

I felt young last night. On my own I feel like I haven't accomplished enough at all and that I am getting old too quickly. There has to be a halfway point somewhere.