Not Horrible

Worked until 8:45 today and probably heading in on Sunday. To make up for this, I ran to the bus stop to head down to Pioneer Square and Eliott Bay Book Co.. A series of construction sites, mis-timed buses, and people in wheelchairs found me hailing a cab for the first time (I've always called for one). Seven bucks later, I stepped from the raucous world of drunken weekenders celebrating our sweet freedom to the warm atmosphere of the bookstore. It's like walking into a bakery: all the promises of delight, the familiarity, the general glow of the place. Ended up getting another Seamus Heaney collection, a book of Borges poems, a Chabon novel, and a continuation of the Mysterious Benedict Society.

Afterwards, wandering the streets by lamplight, I realized how awesome the city is. Walked past some kind of vendor fair where a group of Capoeira fighters flipped and cartwheeled to brazilian music and chants – there is always so much stuff happening in the world that it's tough to look past the sidewalks you're used to.

Tried to sum it up in, that's right, another damned poem. Horribly unpolished, taken word for word from the newspaper that I self-referentially describe.

I'm really, really sorry.

How strange and transformed the city.

My mind is filled with song,
Perhaps the melody of a waltz
Where swept into the crevices and cracks
The bustle of action and the fervor of passion;
Or perhaps the lonely croon of a bluesman
Pouring a whiskey-soaked tune
In a room of smoke and dark, wood-paneled walls.

Peering through the windows of fluorescent-lit offices
Their sterile light piercing the soft orange glow of lamplight
The illumination of all detail
– in contrast the whispers and secrets
Hidden in the still shadows of the street.

A bus lurches precariously at the turn
Its lumbering form for a moment
The terrible bulk of a heaving monster.
They run in the streets
With frantic gasps
As they jerk
And screech
To stop:
The clockwork automata of an ant colony.

As we leave
The ebb of the fantastic
And the slow seep
Of the world I know.

So I bury myself in this poem
Letting the careless sway of the bus
Make scratches of my words
As I pour ink onto the pages
Of a newspaper I found in my bag.

Now I'm posting this as I watch Heima because it's Sad Bastard Thursday.

No idea where this came from. She's checking her phone...and...yep.

Jeepers!

Saw Food Inc. with joe, which basically reiterated the message of The Omnivore's Dilemma and reminded me why I spend way too much money on food: because food inherently comes from disgusting places, and at least this way it's somewhat less vile.

And oh hey! I've got a sketch and a poem for you today! (That's supposed to be good news...)

I walk the street at night
savoring the knowledge that
i will look upon these days
with the longing of old age.

I must take all I can.

The trees, vibrant in the light of day,
are held still and silent
in the amber light of lamps,
elms and sycamore casting deep pools
of shade on the walk below.

In the distance the rise and fall
of rushing traffic
as if a midnight ocean lapped
at hidden shores.

I close my eyes and take in deep
the night pollen and evening bloom
of the cool, slow breezes
that wander here and there
but never quite stir
the branches above.

And now, as a reward for reading my crap, something stupid! Huzzah!

Although they only solved one case during their entire career, Blossom and G.T. succeeded in imprisoning thirty-seven falsely accused men on ill-gotten, extremely shaky evidence.

Bone & Marrow

Big project at work is finished. Less stressed? No. New big project now beginning.

Finished District and Circle. Poetry is kind of like wine, which in turn is like every other easily elitist affection: you can dismiss it as above you, inane, or requiring great amounts of effort on your part. But when you stumble upon the one book or wine that you like, you immediately acquire the ability to appreciate the broader category of experiences it belongs to, and when someone tells you what you should appreciate, very often a bad experience will foul the entire thing (high school english classes). I never got poetry, but I get Seamus Heaney. His poems tap into a feeling of nostalgia for things that you've never experienced and his words rush through your mind in an almost song-like cadence. He's about quiet moments and appreciation of the present, childhood memories and the breath of the seasons.

Next on the list: Spiderman Noir.

[Just wanted to remind you that this blog isn't about me making sense nor me not making an ass of myself. It's to get all this crap out of my head, so I apologize if the last paragraph was too self-indulgent. But this entire blog is self-indulgent, so I guess we're even.]

Sketch!

I don't know, something about outward refinement and inward savagery? No, probably not. Meh.