My Blog

Blog

  • Forgiveness

    I pardon myself for burping.
    I don’t ask for your pardon.
    I burp. I repent.
    Case closed.

  • Uh oh

    He can see
    in her eyes
    that she can see
    in his eyes
    the crazy.

  • Shouty

    As I walk out into the street
somebody's shouting at me
shouting in my face
with his teeth near my face.
    He asks me if I'm scared of him
I say no
he says I should be. He shouts I should be.
I say I'm harmless.
    He shouts some more and then
someone else shouts over at him
-- someone somewhere -- I don't know -- across the street
not at me this time more like for me.
    And it sort of pulls me out pulls me into my car.
And I don't lock the door cuz I don't lock the door
and now I'm speeding away
curving away
sliding out into
the shouty night
and I'm twisting back
over my tight right shoulder thinking:
      if I have to
if I have to
if I really really have to
    I can always run him over.

  • Shouty

    As I walk out onto the street
    just the very second I leave the coffe shop
    somebody’s shouting at me
    shouting in my face
    with his teeth
    near my face.
    He asks me if I’m scared of him
    and I say no and he says I should be.
    He shouts I should be. I say I’m harmless.
    He shouts at me some more
    and then from across the street
    someone else shouts over at him
    not at me this time
    more like for me
    and I’m grateful.
    It sort of pulls me out pulls me into my car
    and I don’t lock the door cuz I don’t lock the door
    and now I’m speeding out into the shouty night
    thinking if I have to, if I really have to
    I guess I can run him over.

  • The Palefire Deathmarch, Week 2

    Pale Fire Peoples!
    Looks like we’re off to an excellent start. Lotsa folks on the march, with fully 20 posts so far on last week’s thread, including an excellent bit o’ background on the Zemlya of it all, filed just last night by so-called “Cort.” Good stuff!
    This week is a bit of a paradox. We’ve now read the poem, so this would be an appropriate week for commentary on the poem before we read the, er, commmentary. On the poem. It’s sorta like a thin crack into which our world may whisper out. So, you know, stay frosty out there.
    Me, I was surprised by how flat-out funny the foreword was — with occasional fore-shades of my beloved “Cruel Shoes” — and then again at how sad the poem sometimes dips, especially Canto 2, as Other Dan noted in last week’s thread. It’s a regular Pale Fire Emotional Death Roller Coaster March is what it is.
    What’d you think?
    Next week: Let’s dive into to the madness of King Kinbote and then meet up at page 105 in the Everyman’s Library, which is to say, the end of the comentary on Lines 130, in other words somewheres round about a passing reference to “the interesting note to Line 149.”

  • Great-great-grand-pop

    Great-great-grandparents Googling me
    just checking in
    cork thick-thumbed after
    After Life.
    Pop.
    And every time they’d Google me
    a bell would go off.
    Some bright blue bell,
    that would hover right behind my head.
    It’d be like “g,” and then they’d go to the bathroom.
    The After Life bathroom.
    And then “o” and they’d go to the bathroom again.
    So for the whole thing
    there’d be three weeks maybe even four weeks
    in between bright blue bells.
    And that’s how it all went down from start to finish.
    Only with some work stuff thrown in that I left out here
    and a biplane explosion with my uncle on the plane.
    He walked away unscathed, heroic smile
    and the flames still ripping at the tarmac.
    He gave me a heroic hug
    but that’s not the crazy thing.
    That’s not even close to being the crazy thing.
    The crazy thing is: I don’t even have an uncle.

  • Mr. Big Shot

    I knew you
    when you didn’t
    have a card with
    Abe Vigoda’s signature on it.
    And I was nice to you then.
    So just you remember that.

  • Too much

    Is it too much
    to want to be
    the John Wayne
    of poetry?

  • The Palefire Deathmarch, Week 1

    Welcome Pale Fire Peoples! Today is the first day of the rest of your Deathmarch. By my (very rough) count, we have around 20-30 folks on board — this should be fun.
    For them what’re new to Deathmarching, here’s how it works: we’ll tackle the book in 40-50 pages/week chunks. Don’t sweat it too much if you fall a little behind — most folks do at some point. Try to resist racing ahead so as to exentuate the commonality of referential data.
    Every Tuesday, I’ll post a thread right chere on cecilvortex.com. Use that thread for comments, which can be as low-key as “Hello Pale Fire Peoples!” or as erudite as [very erudite example here]. One request: If you’re re-reading the book, do yer best to avoid spoilers.
    And that’s it. The entire sheebang.
    Thanks much for making the ‘march. The book’s entirely new to me and I’m really looking forward to tackling page 1. The first two words appear to be “Pale” and “Fire,” which are words I already know, so I’m feeling pretty good.
    Let’s hit the Foreword and the poem this week. Depending on the edition, that appears to add up to around 40-50 pages of actual text.
    Next week: See ya at the start of the Commentary (page 57 in the el [everyman’s library], 73 in vi [vintage international]).

  • End times

    “When the Fish People come,” the General said, “you’ll want to have ice nearby. Lots of it. In this heat, the Fish People can overpower you like that!” He snapped his fingers.
    Suzie scribbled a quick note in her pad and circled it:
    “Ice.”
    * * *
    “When you get to Earth, start decomposing right away,” David FishPeople told his class. “Your smell will reduce their ability to resist. The sooner you start to decompose, the easier it’ll be on our troops.”
    The students nodded, and Daphne FishPeople spoke quietly into her digital recorder:
    “Decompose.”