Jeremiah's School of Levitation
Upsy-Daisy!
Friday, June 16, 2006
Friday Desire
I hear the word for this week's poetic musing is "desire." I can't even come close to the depths of the things I desire. I wake up trying to peel desire off of me.
I just did a 10-minute free ramble this week. It's a mercy offering because that word actually dwarfs my years and if I were to explore it with any sort of depth, I'd need some wicked gigabytes.
A Friend I Call Desire
Black midnight wind, surfing over rustling ocean, whistling through stars. Alone again, naturally. Black sides of the house, where I sat and watched the surf. My clothes, hanging on the line, whipped like the tails of startled rattlesnakes. Startled rattlesnakes. I will try to remember that.
I get up and stroll closer to the surf, so I can feel the sting of the crashed up droplets of water, and taste them on my dry lips. In order to kill herself, Virginia Woolf just filled her pockets with stones and walked right into the water. Amazing. If only I had the courage to die so poetically. He drowned in a fit of tears, lying on his back, writing poems in the sand, staring at the moon, they'll say about me. Well, no they won't.
I walked up the sand, feeling it like a rough sponge under my bare feet. Desire. Everybody, every rock star in the English-speaking world, wants to rhyme it with "fire." You are my fire, you are my desire. There is not a bigger cop-out lyric on the planet. But, actually, desire is like a fire. Burning in your head, making you crazy, making you see futures that are not there, making you rest your body on beds of feelings that are made of tissue paper. I once fell in love with a girl who worked in a candy store. She had a thin face, and a smile like Karen Carpenter, and a strange gait, as if she had a weight between her shoulders, but she was beautiful, 1970's kind of beautiful, with waves at the base of her shoulder-length black hair, and a paleness and laughing face that was so Kristy McNichol and so Susan Dey and so like pretty skinny girls on faded film stock. That night, I dreamed of her living in my house and my wife coming in and me having to explain our new roommate, the one with the puppy eyes and the desire to always be near me, not like you anymore. My wife insisted that she would not rest until that girl was gone and so, to hasten things, my wife lit the girl on fire, merely using words and the purse of her lips. All I did was crawl under the bed. I think I know all of what that dream meant. But, I won't own up to it. I hate the truth.
The next day, the next actual, non-dream day, the girl wasn't at her job, and what was a life-sustaining love became like a greasy, empty stomach. Like desire. It's like holding your breath. You keep up with that desire stuff and you'll eventually suffocate yourself. All your vitals will fail, and the glorious sensation of breathless desire suddenly becomes merely a lack of life-sustaining breath.
So what?
I finished my walk and realized I'd gone nowhere. I had walked in circles, like the wind coming off the steel-black surf. Like the curl of the wave, clenching into a fist. Like there were boulders in my pockets, keeping me from walking straight.
Like I was smoke rising from desire extinguished.
I just did a 10-minute free ramble this week. It's a mercy offering because that word actually dwarfs my years and if I were to explore it with any sort of depth, I'd need some wicked gigabytes.
A Friend I Call Desire
Black midnight wind, surfing over rustling ocean, whistling through stars. Alone again, naturally. Black sides of the house, where I sat and watched the surf. My clothes, hanging on the line, whipped like the tails of startled rattlesnakes. Startled rattlesnakes. I will try to remember that.
I get up and stroll closer to the surf, so I can feel the sting of the crashed up droplets of water, and taste them on my dry lips. In order to kill herself, Virginia Woolf just filled her pockets with stones and walked right into the water. Amazing. If only I had the courage to die so poetically. He drowned in a fit of tears, lying on his back, writing poems in the sand, staring at the moon, they'll say about me. Well, no they won't.
I walked up the sand, feeling it like a rough sponge under my bare feet. Desire. Everybody, every rock star in the English-speaking world, wants to rhyme it with "fire." You are my fire, you are my desire. There is not a bigger cop-out lyric on the planet. But, actually, desire is like a fire. Burning in your head, making you crazy, making you see futures that are not there, making you rest your body on beds of feelings that are made of tissue paper. I once fell in love with a girl who worked in a candy store. She had a thin face, and a smile like Karen Carpenter, and a strange gait, as if she had a weight between her shoulders, but she was beautiful, 1970's kind of beautiful, with waves at the base of her shoulder-length black hair, and a paleness and laughing face that was so Kristy McNichol and so Susan Dey and so like pretty skinny girls on faded film stock. That night, I dreamed of her living in my house and my wife coming in and me having to explain our new roommate, the one with the puppy eyes and the desire to always be near me, not like you anymore. My wife insisted that she would not rest until that girl was gone and so, to hasten things, my wife lit the girl on fire, merely using words and the purse of her lips. All I did was crawl under the bed. I think I know all of what that dream meant. But, I won't own up to it. I hate the truth.
The next day, the next actual, non-dream day, the girl wasn't at her job, and what was a life-sustaining love became like a greasy, empty stomach. Like desire. It's like holding your breath. You keep up with that desire stuff and you'll eventually suffocate yourself. All your vitals will fail, and the glorious sensation of breathless desire suddenly becomes merely a lack of life-sustaining breath.
So what?
I finished my walk and realized I'd gone nowhere. I had walked in circles, like the wind coming off the steel-black surf. Like the curl of the wave, clenching into a fist. Like there were boulders in my pockets, keeping me from walking straight.
Like I was smoke rising from desire extinguished.
Elliot, 12:37 AM
4 Back at me:
You had me at 'startled rattlesnakes'.
What a passionate post! I've noticed that you write about women a lot, and that gives me great pause...your love, desire, confusion, etc, for my gender. I love reading your posts like this, because, really, sometimes I don't understand myself, and see a little bit of me in your writing.
Bravo! (Did you ever find out what happened to the Karen Carpenter girl? I like to think that part's real.)
What a passionate post! I've noticed that you write about women a lot, and that gives me great pause...your love, desire, confusion, etc, for my gender. I love reading your posts like this, because, really, sometimes I don't understand myself, and see a little bit of me in your writing.
Bravo! (Did you ever find out what happened to the Karen Carpenter girl? I like to think that part's real.)
what ever happened to Kristy McNichol?
very nice...
very nice...
Mona: You got me on the Karen Carpenter girl. She never came back. And, yes, your gender fascinates me to diversion. I want to write a 10-volume epic called "Women" just to expurge all the images and words about women that live in my head. Now, stop figuring me out already! :)
Ipod: I'm putting Kristy on my "List Of Things to Google" and I'll blog about it. That'll be fun.
Ipod: I'm putting Kristy on my "List Of Things to Google" and I'll blog about it. That'll be fun.
Powerful writing!
Thanls for stopping by my blog.
Thanls for stopping by my blog.
