American Mir

'I Do Not Know What the End Will Be'

I have been informed that some of you may think that I wrote these Victorian tales. I assure you that I have not. I was born in 1979, and could therefore have written nothing Victorian. When I say that a particular tale was originally published in 1885, I mean that as a truth. This is not a modern writer's tool where I write something and then attribute it to someone else long ago. These really were written long ago.
The following tale was originally published in 1896 in the macabre journal Borderlands, edited and published by William T. Stead. The title at the time of print was "A Modern Demoniac", and is an account of a young man that came to Stead's office and described his experience of a spirit possession. The spirit's phrases of "d----" and "b-----" stand for "damn", "damned", and "bloody". These were terms considered too vulgar to print in polite Victorian society. All ellipses are from the original publication and indicate pauses or interruptions in speech.

One Thursday afternoon in January, when coming in after lunch, I met at the foot of the stairs a young man, who somewhat nervously asked the lift-boy whether Mr. Stead came down to the office nowadays.
"What do you want?" said I. "I am Mr. Stead."
"O!" said he, "might I speak to you?"
"Certainly," said I, and so he followed me into my office without going through the usual preliminary of sending his name, therefore I do not know to this day who my visitor was, or where he came from. I only know that he said he was an officer in the British army, and that he is now, and has been for some time, on sick leave.
He said that he wished to speak to me because he had been interested in spitiualism and thought he could tell me something that was interesting, and at the same time he hoped I might be able to give him some advice.
Some time ago he had taken to experimenting, and found that he had great facility in automatic writing. His hand had moved within five minutes of the time he had first taken the pen in his hand, and left it free to move as it pleased. Fascinated by the unusual phenomena he had gone on and, neglecting his duties and abandoning himself for hours - eight, nine, ten at a stretch - to receiving the communications which were written by his hand. It became a passion with him. After a time he found there was no necessity for him to use a pen as his hand would automatically trace the characters in the air, and he could read them wherever he might be. This after a time was succeeded by a further form of development, when he became partially entranced, and would talk under control when he was either wholly unconscious or only partially conscious. Thus by gradually sapping the mind, the invisible Intelligence which had established itself as his control, gradually gained such complete possession of his faculties that, as he said, "I no longer felt I belonged to myself. It dominates me by its will, and I do not know what the end will be."
He spoke quietly, with simple earnestness, as of a man caught in the grip of a mighty, invisible force which was bearing him irresistibly down into the abyss against which it was in vain even to struggle. I said to him at once that he had been frightfully reckless, that the one condition of safety in all such experiments was never to abandon the control of your own personality to that of any agency whatever, and that he must break it once and for all.
He smiled sadly. "It is all very well to talk about my giving him up, but he won't give me up," said he.
"But," said I, "did the agency itself never warn you as to consequences of this frightful over-indulgence?'
"Ah!" said he, "it is not a good spirit. It is a very bad one that sticks to me, not for my good but for my harm, and I cannot shake it off."
"Nonsense!" said I. "It is all a matter of will."
"Yes," said he, "that may be, but he dominates my will. I cannot stand up against him, and he tells me that now he has got me he will never let me go until he has killed me."
"This is madness," said I; "he may tell you that a thousand times, but it is only because you give in to it."
"But," said he, "how can I help it? He seizes me when he pleases. He jerks my head from one side to the other, or forces me to go here and there at his own caprice; nay, he will sudenly drive me as it were out of himself, extinguishing my own consciousness and taking possession of my body, using it as his own."
"Do you mean to say you cannot stay him?" said I.
"No!" said he; "he has such power over me, he uses me just as if my body were his and not mine."
"But you must stop that, and at once. Otherwise you are lost."
"Yes," he said, mourfully. "I am afraid I am; at least he says so. He says that he will do me all the evil he can while I live, and that after, I am to be damned. But," said he, "will you speak to him?"
"Certainly," said I. "Will he take possession of you now?"
"At any time," he replied.
I paused for a moment; but I thought that as the Evil Spirit was in the habit of seizing him without his will at all times and to his own detriment, it would be permissible to allow him to enter in by an act of his own volition when he was with one who might possibly be the means of helping in his deliverance; so I said, "Yes, if he will talk he may come."
My visitor walked across the room and sat down without saying a word in a large easy chair. In a moment he became convulsed, his eyes closed, he fell backwards with his head on the couch, his chest heaved, rising and falling, while his body writhed as if convulsed [I find this sentence particularly interesting]. Not a word was said. I stood watching him silently, nor did he speak or make a sound beyond a low moan when the convulsions became more violent. After waiting two or three minutes over him, I at last said, "Well!"
Then there was another writhing movement of the prostrate form before me, and a very curious voice, quite different from that of my visitor, said to me,
"Well! A b----- queer fellow it is, is it not?"
"Who are you?" I said.
"I will tell you," said he, as the body was more violently contorted. "I will tell you. I am the grandfather of a girl, that d----- carcass..." Then he writhed again and the voice ceased.
"Come," I said sharply; "why can't you talk decently and tell me who you are and what you want? Will you talk to me?" I said.
"Yes," said he, and then with another shuddering convulsion he raised himself upon the chair and said,
"Yes, I will tell you. I am the grandfather of a d----- pretty girl, with whom this b----- carcass, ugh..."
Once more the convulsions recommenced, and he flung himself back with his head on the couch writhing and moaning.
"Come, come," I said; "why do you play the fool like that? Sit up straight and talk to me like a gentleman."
He continued, however, lying as he was.
"Talk to you respectably?" said he. "Talk to you like a gentleman, and this d----- carcass..."
His head jerked backwards violently over the side of the chair. Then he was silent for a moment, apparently collecting himself.
He said, "I like to do that, it hurts him; it hurts this old carcass, doesn't it, ugh." Then he struck himself a violent blow to the chest. The face twinged with pain, "Does it not hurt him? I like to do it. I am going to kill him, kill him; yes, kill him. D----- him, d----- him!"
"Nonsense," I said. "You will not kill him, or do anything of the kind."
"Won't I, though! You will see. He knows. He dare not shave himself for fear he will cut his throat. Ho! I have got him. I have got him."
I replied, "What is the meaning of all this? Who are you? Why have you got him? And what is it all to you? Can't you speak straight and tell me without all this?"
"Are you a father?" he said? [a typo for sure, but it's in the original] "You can understand then what I feel towards this brute. Ugh! How I loathe having to touch him. I only do it to torment him. Well, you know my granddaughter."
"What about your granddaughter?"
"Pretty girl, pretty girl. Well this brute..."
He writhed again.
"What about her? What happened?"
"He made love to her for four months. For four months he did, d----- him, and for four months I have had him. I have tortured him night and day, and for four months more I will make his life horrible. Oh, yes, I will cut his throat. I will, and he will be damned forever, and serve him right."
"Now," I said, "how dare you talk like this? You are only making your own torment worse."
"What do I care? I would willingly be tormented for eternity to have the joy of punishing him."
"But," I said, "what right have you?"
"Right!" said he. "Listen. My granddaughter, a lady, a girl of good family, one of the best families. Oh, yes! And this d----- carcass came along, made love to her he did. Such a nice young man! D----- fool, don't you know - always says 'Don't you know' - came along and made love to her."
"Did he marry her?"
"Wanted to," said he. "Would now if he could get the chance, but he never will. He will never see her again. Don't know what would happen. D----- swine, he is as ugly as sin; ugly, yes. Yet, she is such a fool that if she saw him again I don't know what would happen. They will never meet again. Never! Never! I take care of that."
"But," I said, "what is the matter? He wanted to marry her, made love to her. There is no wrong in that. I can't understand. Did he ruin..."
"Ruined her. Seduced her. Lived with her for four months. Nobody knew. Nobody. Then she turned round and sent him away. She said, 'You have made me a beast. I will have nothing more to do with you.' And he goes, the wretch, the carcass."
Again there was a convulsion. The breast heaved, and again he struck himself a heavy blow on the chest, writhing with passion, and continued,
"I can do anything with him now. Anything. He is mine, altogether. I make him go where I like, talk to him when I like; night and day torment him. Keep it up. O! yes, keep it up. And in four months cut his throat." And as he said so, he drew his hand across his neck, making a hideous gurgling sound in his throat.
"Nothing can save him," he said. "Nothing."
"You are quite wrong," I said. "You have no business to torment him in this way whatever wrong he has done. And he will turn you out."
"Turn me out! Ho! Ho!" he cried out. "The other day he called on God to have mercy on him. Did I not laugh? He did not talk much to God before I took him in hand. No! he is mine and I keep him."
"But," I said, "where is the girl now? Would he marry her now?"
"Of course he would. But she won't have him, and he will never get the chance. Never! never!"
"How long have you been on the other side?"
"Fifty years!" he said. "Fifty years."
"In fifty years," said I, "you ought to have made better progress than to be giving way to all this hideous passion. What have you been doing all the time?"
"I have been in Hell," said he. "In Hell, tormented, going about everywhere, doing this kind of thing."
"But," I said, "are you all alone?"
"Yes, all alone."
"Well," I said, "how did you come to get hold of him?"
"Listen," said he. "I was an officer in the army in my time, and I think I ruined more women than any man I know. Then I came over here, and for fifty years what have I had to do but to go about seeing girls, pretty girls, falling in love with them, not being able to speak to them. What could they do to me? What could I do to them? I could not touch them, but the desire was there all the the time, and I go about seeing it all. Tormented with desire that could never be satisfied, and then to go and see my relations doing as I did. My granddaughter, to see her ruined! D----- him! d-----! and he will be d-----. Oh, curse it!" he said, striking his head against the edge of the couch, "to think of it, this carcass, oh this carcass. But I will pay him out. Four months more, night and day, night and day, and then to be d----- with him for ever. That is good." And he laughed a hideous, hollow laugh.
"But," I said, "is there no one to care for you at all?"
"None!" he said, "no."
"But," I said, "you must have loved many women."
"Seduced them, you mean," he said. "They are in Hell, all in Hell. Do you think they love me? No, they curse me."
"No," I said, "I don't believe they are in Hell, and if they were - women are very good, and some of them must have loved you."
"No; none!"
"But," I persisted, "you are quite wrong. No one knows how deep, how great is a woman's love. But did you never do one unselfish thing in your life?"
"Never! never! I pleased myself."
"Poor wretch," I said. "I am awfully sorry for you."
A violent convulsion shook the frame of my unfortunate visitor.
"Don't," he said, in a ghastly grating voice. "Don't pity me! Don't pity me. I can't bear it."
"But I do pity you," I said. "I am awfully sorry for you. It must be ghastly to go on like this."
"I don't want pity, I want vengeance, and I am taking it now. Don't I take it out of him, and won't I take it out of him?"
"No," I said, "you have taken enough out of him. You will have to go."
"Who will make me go?"
"He will."
"He has no will."
"May I ask you a question?"
"Yes," he said, "ask what you like."
"Did you approve of him coming here?"
"No," said he, "that I did not."
"Then," I said, "why did he come?"
"Because," he said, speaking as if with reluctance, "because in what that d----- fellow calls his mind - his mind... it is mine, not his - there is one little bit that sometimes makes him do what he pleases."
"Then," I said, "that means he came here in spite of you."
"That is it," he said. "He did," writhing and making horrible faces. His lips would be protruded until they almost became like a pig's snout, not round, but with a circular protrusion very hideous to see.
"Well," I said, "the same will that brought him here against you will drive you out."
"Ha! ha!" said he. "Never! never! He is mine. I can do with him what I like. I say to Carcass, turn your head to the right, he turns it. Lay it on the right shoulder, he lays it. I turn his head right round [right round, like a record, baby, right round, round round]. I say, Carcass, turn to the right! he does; to the left, he does. I can use his body as I please, this d----- carcass, it is mine."
"How did you gain possession of it?"
"I will tell you," he said. "Listen. There is some b----- nonsense called spiritualism. He tried with the Ouija Board, got answers from somebody, then thinks he will try handwriting. Takes a pen. I see him, I see him. I am passing, I see what he is doing. Remember about my granddaughter. Pretty girl, pretty girl, and this d----- ugly carcass."
"Never mind about that. Go on."
"I wait, I think I can get at him. So one day he thinks he will try automatic handwriting. Takes a pen in his b----- old fist, ugh!" and he writhed. "I took his hand and wrote. Called myself 'Lucy', I did. Lucy, nice girl, always said her prayers, beautiful spirit; come to lead him into the paths of virtue. Ho! did I not fool him! I wrote, 'Your perseverance is rewarded.' Then I tell him. What do I tell him? Oh! I write with his hand and tell him everything that he thinks is only known to himself about his girl and himself. He writes and writes for hours together. I torture him by everything I can think of to give him pain, even when I am 'Lucy', then he goes on and on. B----- fool that he is; always say b----- fool, 'don't you know.' Nice young man; nice young officer. But at last I get hold of him, and he can't shake me off."
"Oh! yes he could," I said. "He could banish you by his will."
"He hasn't got one. I have it. It is mine. You see how I use his old carcass. I use it, I hate it, I curse it! -- I hate it! I have tortured him for four months; I will torture him for another four, then I will cut his throat! -- yes, I will."
"No," I said, "you won't. You will do nothing of the kind. What is more, now, you will have to clear out; you have been here quite long enough."
He did not speak again. A few convulsive moments followed, a long sigh, and then my visitor slowly rose to his feet, rubbing his eyes.
"Well," he said. "You see he can use me as he likes."
I said, "He has told me a great deal about you."
"What has he told you?" said he.
"He told me first about himself. He says he is the grandfather of a lady whom you ruined. Of course, I know nothing at all about it; I only tell you what he said."
He was silent.
"Well?" I said, "is there any truth in what he said?"
"Well, yes," he said, "I am afraid there is."
"Then," I said, "my friend, I think you are in a position of great difficulty, for which it will be absolutely necessary for you to escape at once."
"But how can I?" said he.
"By simply declining to obey him," said I. "You can banish him if you will it."
"I can't. He comes and talks to me whether I like it or not; he uses my hand to write what he wishes to say in the air."
"But," I said, "the moment he begins to use your hand put it in your pocket [save it for a rainy day]."
"But he will talk to me."
"Then," I said, "don't answer him back; don't listen to him. You can't pull on with this any longer; you have to fight it tooth and nail, as if you were fighting for your immortal soul."
"Yes," he said. "I am fighting for my life. I know that perfectly well. I dare not shave now."
"Yes," said I. "He told me that. I told him it was all bosh. But the question is this. He has overrun your territory, but the citadel is still intact. You came here in spite of his will. Regard this as the turning point of your destiny. Never do anything he wants you to do; and every time you baffle him and assert your own will you weaken his forces and strengthen yourself."
"But," I said, "what about the lady?"
He said, "I don't wish to speak about her. She is not in this country. It is all off between us."
"But," I said, "would you marry her if you had the chance?"
"Would I not?" said he. "But she will not hear of it."
"How was it broken off?"
"O!" he said. "She had a great spasm of repentance, bitterly upbraided me, and would not see me any more."
"Does no one know about it?"
"No one but she and me."
"Well," I said; "if she really repented, as I have no doubt she has, she must help you escape from this domination. You must tell her."
He seemed for a moment as if he were going to be controlled; then he said, with a shudder: "Do you know what he says to me now? -- 'I will kill you to-night if you do. Kill you to-night.'"
I will break off the narrative at this point. I saw my unknown visitor once again. His control was more blasphemous and more defiant than before. The convulsions were worse and the contortions more violent. It was a ghastly sight to see him writhing on the floor, tossed about until he was stiff and sore.
It may have been incipient insanity. It certainly was not fooling. When the control passed the victim was calm and sane. If it be madness, it was madness resulting from excessive experimentalizing with spiritualism. But I wish any materialistic doctor would take the man in hand. He would, I am sure, be less scornful in his comments upon that "exploded superstition Demoniacal Possession."

The Samovar?

This is not a Victorian true-story ghost tale. I shall post the demonic possession tale in time for Hallowe'en. For now, I've got some serious questioning going on in m'gut. And where to begin? Lord.

I met my dad's new lady this afternoon, and I say 'lady' because I'm not sure that I should say 'girlfriend' (everytime this crosses my mind, I hear Jeff Lebowski say that 'she's not my special lady, man'). She's a cool cat: mellow, unpresumptuous, and oddly piercing. By that I mean that she holds a gaze longer than three seconds, which makes me distinctly embarrassed, as though I'm expected to say something witty or that I'm being appreciated (which, yes, weirds me out somehow). She's cool, as I've said, but she has an ability to ask pointed questions which I'm not prepared to answer. I suppose that's what makes them pointed: it makes me think about things I've overlooked. The primary example is when I was talking about how Coffee People (my new employment for those out of the know) isn't really what I expected, and isn't really a cafe. I was asked what I would change about it.

Now, I've run through the idea of having my own coffee shop a couple of different times in my short life, and I always end up deciding that it would only be detrimental to my writing and to Gaia (do you have any idea how much effort and energy go into a pound of 'gourmet' coffee?!). I've got plenty of ideas, though, about how to form a coffee shop from the ground up. Changing where I am has never been my strong suit, but I'm alright with dreaming shit up out of the blue. I've wanted to open a place called "The Samovar" since I first discovered the writings of Anton Chekov, and my shop would cater to the writer/reader/linguist, with a well-sized lobby of over-plush wingbacks, tables with high tops (because those low-top deals are malicious on the spine and shoulders) and a high lecturn with a foot-thick dictionary. There would be no empty wall-space, as bookcases would line the public room. The only exception to that is space set aside for the picture of Chekov. The lighting is warm and welcoming, but bright enough to read and write by. There will be none of those ugly-ass mottled teardrop lights so ubiquitous to the coffeeshop scene. The primary colours will be of the woods: dark browns, pale tans, deep greens, and occassional flashes of burgundy. Most importantly, though, there will be table service.

If you plan to stay, please seat yourself. Someone will be with you shortly. If you plan to get your shit to go, feel free to approach the counter. We will offer 'gourmet' coffee and tea (in an electric samovar, if you're so inclined, though it will be slightly more expensive), the normal pastries and chocolate bits, and food. Real fucking food. Sandwiches and pastas and fish and chicken and all the side dishes appropriate to the main course. Seriously, how can you call your shop a bleeding cafe if you don't have food? Pecan logs and snickerdoodles aren't food! Bavarian creme blobs aren't food, either! Drink enough coffee, say 32 oz., and you'll understand that pudding cupcakes don't make you feel any better... they only make you sick.

Wow, I'm way the hell off point.

Ok, so I was asked how I'd make the place I work at cooler. It's more mental masturbation than anything, as I doubt Diedrich Inc. is going to really mull over my suggestions and revamp all their shops. I think they'd particularly resent re-naming Coffee People to The Samovar. (Oh, and just so you know, Coffee People is not a local company; it was purchased by an international coffee company (Diedrich Coffee, Inc.) some nine years ago. Go there because you like their coffee, not because you think you're supporting local businesses.)

Anyhoo, all this has gotten me to thinking: what the fuck am I going to do? I don't mean this as generally as I usually do. I'm not looking at a particular current problem which seems unsolvable and muttering bitter phrases to myself. I'm looking, for once, at my future. What the living hell can I do to earn some soup that doesn't involve breaking my spirit? Right now, I'm slinging coffee for Mr and Mrs Millionaire because I need some immediate cash... but when school is over (and I mean over, o-v-e-r), the meager paycheck and tip-jar just ain't gonna cut it. I don't want to buy a house, get married, have a coupla Dr. Jr.'s, and play basketball at the gym with buddies from work. I don't wanna play basketball (I tried that once... my freethrow is best described by the word 'free' and my slamdunk is best describes by the word 'faceplant'). I don't want a mortgage on a house, nor do I want to pay rent forever (and what's the real difference anyway?). Marriage is all well and good when done for reasons of love and not for passion or cash, but it's kind of irrelevent right now; same for kids.

Hmmm... what the hell am I getting at? I bet you're wondering that, too. I'm not wed to living off the grid. Sure, I'd like a timberframe in the woods (I suspect that's hereditary, and a dominant gene), but I'd like some internet there... or at least a phone line. And hot running water would be awesome (boiling water from a saucepan won't quite cut it). Shit. Off topic again.

I want some fucking self-earned cash. By which I mean that I want to earn some money by my labour, and for myself. Granted, someone else will always get some of the dough (taxes, if nothing else), but I want the majority of my labour to reflect back to me. If I earn more than I need to eat and feed my kith and kin every so often, I fully plan on giving it away. But we all say that at first, don't we? "I just need enough to support myself," says the basketball star. Fuck that guy. He's talking about maintaining a standard of living that includes flat-screen TVs, five bathrooms for a family of three, more drugs than Manhattan offers, and a concrete pond out back (no, that's not hillbilly for swimming pool). I'm only talking about nutritional foods each day, a warm bed at night, the occassional beer and/or bit of chocolate, and a feeling that what I do with my life is worth it to more than just myself. Still though, more than, say, 50k a year is going straight to the Generic Fund for Fucked People.

Writing. Good Christ, this is everything to me. No, wait. Reading is everything to me. If I could somehow make a living from reading shit, I'd be set. But reading 50-year-old novels and ejaculating about how good they are serves no-one except the book nerds like me. So real writing becomes important.

Not just to me, but to you, too. I don't care how bad our school system may be in the USA, but it got you to read some cool shit you wouldn't've read otherwise (Lord of the Flies, Of Human Bondage, The Turn of the Screw, MacBeth, A Clockwork Orange, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, etc, etc.). If you write it, they will come. Maybe not as many will come as you'd like, but someone will. The problem here, for me, is how many come. Who's going to read my shit? Who's going to buy it? Who's going to read it and then say to their friends, "Hey, this Kris Adams fellow is a fine chap! Check it out!"

A-ha! One has to write in order to be read. And these days, one has to write something other than poetry to be paid. The exception to this, and it keeps most good poets in soup, is goverment grants. No-one cares if your brilliant poetry falls on the deaf ears of a nation and an epoch; the goverment pays you for just writing the shit. Well, no thanks. I'd rather be paid on merit, not artisitic food stamps. This means I go into: A) journalism; B) how-to books, or; C) fiction. Now, journalism is an obvious boon to humankind in just keeping us all up-to-date on what's killing the rest of us, but it ain't my dig. It's too... fleeting? And how-to books are obviously excellent things to have on the market when one wants to, say, brew beer, or fix a faucet, or build a concrete pond. So here I am with fiction.

Fiction requires poetry. I truly believe that every great fiction writer can write at least mediocre poetry. Excellent fiction is just prose poetry with the logical gaps filled in, anyway. The more modern stuff doesn't even bother filling in the gaps so much. Or, as Somerset Maugham once put it (paraphrased), a modern novel just gives you unrelated scenes and storylines and leaves it to the reader to fill in the spaces. In other words, just like some of the best poetry, that which is left unsaid is what you find yourself dwelling on. Personally, I think that in fiction this is a cop-out... usually. It can be done well, but it's not a tool, only an end.

So what do I have? How have I spent my time? I have not passsionately scribbled out stories and novel chapters. I have not even written much poetry outside of my current class assignments. I have, to date, one story about an unnamed dude finding love, a story in the form of a letter from a suicidal composer to his dead wife (my first story), and chapter one of a macabre novel about a... chapter one of a macabre novel. Oh, and there's that Tiki God story (May 22, 2005 on this blog), which needs some serious help. I've got idea upon idea upon brilliantly luminescent idea... all of which come to naught in words. And even if I ended up writing the most insanely wonderful book of the 21st century, I'd likely not see much financial reward until the 22nd century.

And I haven't the stamina to write much and work for Mr. Boss. (Christ, since I moved back to Portland, everyone I've worked for thinks it to be some great privilege to their employee. Screw that; working for someone else who's already got it made is no priviledge at all.) Indeed, since school's started, chapter one of my macabre story has seen no work done on chapter two, which sits so lovely in my mind. Sometimes I think I'm lazy. Other times I think I'm biding my time until I'm really ready. Still other times, I try and give up. I've got an excellent story about a kid on Hallowe'en who gets too into his costume.. but the more I write it, the more I find out that it doesn't make any fucking sense.

Shit. I feel that my passions, reading and writing, will only ever be circulated amongst friends, and that sucks because it means I've got to give a damn about something else enough to work my fingers raw to pay bills. But I don't give a damn enough about anything else. And I'm done rationalizing that. Yeah, it's probably better for all around to join the Peace Corp. or enlist in a Buddhist monastery. But I don't really care so much about that. I can be a good little Buddhist on my own, and the Peace Corps... well, would you? And the coffee shop? Eh, a pipe dream. A good idea for a story, maybe.

God, I don't want to work my life away for enough money to be able to retire (as that idea is so back asswards to me, I can't even phrase it). And I don't want to be engaged in physical labour past the age of 40 (fuck you if you think that waiting tables isn't physical labour.. seriously, fuck you if you think that). Ah... now I'm bitter.

My God, what am I going to do? If any of you have ever been in this predicament, please, your offerings will be taken with the utmost gravity (or levity, if applicable).

True Victorian: The Account of Miss C.

This is the second of four parts in the American Mir Victorian Ghost Sitings Account Ledger. If you missed part one, click here.
The following is an account written by a certain Miss C, in 1885. As an Irish governess, she chose not to give full names so as to protect the privacy of both herself and her associates. She supposedly kept a diary and had consulted it prior to writing this narrative. An investigation undertaken by a member of the Society for Psychical Research found vague reports among the neighbors that a woman had died in a fire in the house here concerned in 1752.

On the 18th of April (Thursday), 1867, about 7:40 p.m., I was going to my room, which I at the time shared with one of my pupils, when just as I had reached the top of the stairs I plainly saw the figure of a female dressed in black, with a large white collar or kerchief, very dark hair and pale face. I only saw the side face. She moved slowly and went into my room, the door of which was open. I thought it was Marie, the French maid, going to see about A.'s clothes, but the next moment I saw that the figure was too tall and walked better, I then fancied it was some visitor who had arrived unexpectedly (Mrs. S. has done so a few days previously), and had gone into the wrong bedroom, and as I had only been at F.H. a short time, I felt rather shy at speaking to strangers, so waited where I was a minute or two expecting to see the lady come out, but I never lost sight of the door. At last I went in, and there was no one in the room. I looked everywhere, and even felt the back of the hanging side of the wardrobe to see whether there was any concealed door leading into the next room. This idea would not have occurred to me had I been able in any way to account for the lady's disappearance. She could not have gone by the window, as the room was on the second storey. Going downstairs, I met the cook and another maid, and asked them if any stranger had arrived, and was answered in the negative. I had never heard of any strange appearances in the house, and could not account for what I had seen that evening.
Some years after, in December, 1874, as I was going to bed, about 10 o'clock (the house had been slightly altered), I saw most distinctly a lady in black leaning over the fire in the room occupied by the eldest daughter. She was shading her eyes with her hand, and seemed looking for something by the fender; her other hand was on the chimney-piece. I walked slowly toward the room, and said, "Take care, C., you will burn your face, it is so near the flame." As there was no answer I spoke again, I suppose louder, for at that moment C., whom I supposed the lady to be, came out of her sister's room and asked what I was talking about and why I was in such a fright about her burning her face. There was no one in the room and no one could have passed me unobserved, as I was standing close to the door.
Another time, late one evening in September, I was sitting in the schoolroom with the door open, when I saw the figure again, standing on the far side of the stove in the lower hall. I at once got up to see who it was, but it had vanished. I think it seemed to go up one step of the stairs, but am not sure, as this was the only time I felt rather nervous when seeing it, and that, perhaps, from thinking it was someone who had no business in the house, or that someone was playing me a trick. Each time I have seen "the black lady" she has been dressed in what appeared to be black serge or cashmere -- something soft and in heavy folds -- with the same large white collar or kerchief on her neck. Whatever it was, I feel as certain of having seen it as that I am now writing this account of it, and it may be as well to mention that I am by no means a nervous person -- quite the contrary.

Katrina & The Waves

It seems a crime to me that those poor souls in Louisiana whose entire city was washed away have to blame it on a storm named after a mediocre pop act from the 80's. I mean, really, what does it say about us as a people that we have to invent such lame names for the horrific powers of nature? And now Wilma. That's right, Floridians get to look forward to having their homes ravaged by a cartoon cavewoman.

I think it's about time that we as a country stood up and demanded cooler, more ferocious names for hurricanes. No more of this Bob and Sally business. We need names that match the raw awesomeness of the storm, names like:

• Hagar the Horrible
• Shiva the Destroyer
• Painful Weeping Boils
• Voltron's Rage
• Death From Above
• Avast! the Sea Hag!
• Al Gore, the musical
• Intestinal Distress
• Tax Day
• Shoggoth
• Britney Spears Clipping Makeup Coupons

I'm thinking that big-hair heavy metal bands are probably a gold mine for this sort of thing.

UPDATE: Good news! This web page has qualified me to be the head of FEMA! Look forward to loads more entertaining natural disasters coming soon to an area near you!

The Diary of Mrs. Vatas-Simpson

The following is a portion of the diary kept by Mrs. Vatas-Simpson, recording her first-person experience of two ghosts. It is posted here as it was published by the Society for Psychical Research in 1885. The ellipses indicate passages left out of Mrs. Vatas-Simpson's diary by the original editors.

This is very strange. What can it mean? The servants say that they see queer things moving about, and that they hear peculiar noises. One servant has left in consequence. To-day I was told by a neighbour that the people who lived here before we came could not remain, because there were always noises and sounds about the house at night, and that even their little children were disturbed by them. At last they became so very unbearable they was obliged to go elsewhere. One hardly knows whether to believe such reports or to laugh at them. At present we have had no nocturnal visitors, and I shall not tell my dear ones, to cause apprehension of ghosts and goblins...

There must be some foundation for the rumours regarding the sounds, noises, and appearances in this old house. It has stood here since the Fire of London. The lower part of the house is very extensive; and then, underground, dark big, cavernous cellerage (which, it is said, has not been thoroughly explored or examined for years) where secret passages are believed to exist, and from whence issue sounds of moaning and sighing, clearly and quite unmistakably, after dark, when the hum of the busy world is hushed. Any one then, by placing themselves over the window grating may hear distinctly the peculiar noises within. I try to turn a deaf ear to all this, and to comabt the fears such revelations inspire in the household, but am unsuccessful with the servants, as they leave me in consequence. My husband says the sounds are produced by the contrary winds careering through the gratings, and perhaps they are.

A severe illness has kept my pen idle for many weeks. Not so, however, events. To-day, L. told me that when the children are playing upstairs and old woman will persist in standing in the doorway, looking in very disconsolately. She believes in the reality of the occurrence; says that it is an annoyance; would I give orders to the servants to keep our gate on the staricase locked? -- the iron gate that shuts in the private portion of the house from that which is below, making it thus quite impossible to pass up the stairs from the offices below...

So late, so tired and weary. Every night now L. and I have to sit up long, dreary hours to wait my husband coming home, for we are afraid to go to bed till he returns. There is no feeling of security with only women in this big, grim, and hollow-sounding house, and though we are both free from superstitious fears, and far from timid, we cannot but be sensible of our unprotected helplessness, left alone, as we are, till the night wanes into morning.

To-night, and for several night now, we have had out courage put to the test, and most decidedly it has not been found wanting.... The first evening, about 11 o'clock, sitting with the drawing-room door open, a man's face was clearly seen above the balustrade, while the old-fashioned size and carvings of the supports hid his form from our view. Instantly we both jumped up, and as instantly started forward. Both thought that he had come up by mistake, or purposely, perhaps, to see someone in the house. Ere we could speak he was gone.
The servants, not having gone to bed, were summoned, told to go and fasten the iron gate, and reprimanded for their negligence in forgetting to do so. The gas was alight, illuminating the house from the ground-floor to the very roof of the house. We stood upon the landing. The servants went down, protesting that they had locked and fastened securely the gate: and so they had -- it was securely fast.
Then I went for the key, and downstairs, and satisfied myself of the fact, and also went below to satisfy myself that all doors and every place below were firmly secured for the night.
Now, then, how did that man get in?-- or rather, how did he get out? It is possible he might have been concealed on the stairs -- but where could he go, instantaneously as he had been followed, and by both of us, neither of us suspecting anything more than that he had obtained entrance through the forgetfullness of the servants, and nothing doubting but that he would wait to be spoken to? Where could he go? -- for an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the spot where he had appeared was vacant.

Well, when my husband came home I told him. He treated it as a good joke, laughed at our bewilderment, and said we must all have been asleep and dreaming. He has such a supreme contempt for any supposition of the supernatural. He has no belief in spiritual visions, in "ghosts," or visions of the night. He is far too practical, and only derides my credulity. At present I have been able to keep all suspicion of these things from the household...

Twice late, sitting up during the night hours, my L. and I have been disturbed by that same appearance on the stairs, and each time have done our best to discover the mystery. The face is pale to sickliness, and the eye steady and mournful. The figure is shrouded in a sort of dark, shadowy indistinctness, and his departure is sudden and noiseless. The first time he came we slowly advanced to him, side by side, quite silently, and with firm decision of manner, intending to show him our determination to enforce an interview, and ask explanation for his intrusion. Ah! he is gone.
The second time I was reading an intersting book. L. looked up from her employment and, seeing him, touched me gently (we were close together), when both of us made a sudden dart forward, only to find the spot vacant which had, one instant previously, been occupied by his face and figure. It is impossible that we can be mistaken or deceived. No, No, we are not. There is no misapprehension, because no fear quells our courage; no cowardie prevents the full action of our powers of perception; no alarm frustrates our intention of grappling with him if we can, or of pursuing him, or of holding him if we come up with him. We are one our guard against surprise, and our nerves steady, prepared to make a decided unequivocal effort to find out who and what this nocturnal intruder may be.
But nothing avails; he is not here; he is not anywhere near. Looking keenly at him one moment, the next he has fled, quick as a flash of lightening. But he was standing there; we both saw him, positively and undoubtedly...

It is useless to contend against facts. nervous terrors and timorous imaginations have nothing whatever to do in suggesting the various appearances and the indescribale sounds which pervade the rooms, the corners, and the recesses of this great house. Superstition might indeed supply one person with food for miracles or for belief in deception and witchcraft; but when there are several witnesses of all ages there must be a foundation of truth, and, at all events, each and every one could not be deceived. If all that is going on here is a strange delusion, then all would not be affected at the same moment. If it is but a mere sensation or impression, then it would only be conceived by one mind, not by all. If it were capable of detection, then so many persons gathered together would surely find out that it was imposture and deception.
Besides, there is nothing done to annoy any of us; no attempt is made to frighten or even surprise us. There seems no system or organization in all these mysteries. In addition to the little old woman who goes about the upper floor, and the man who comes occasionally upon the stairs, there are often other sights and sounds, and other noctural disturbances. Very often a babe is heard wailing and crying in the kitchen, generally in the evening. We hear these piteous wailings when we first came here to live, and then imagined that a babe was really within hearing; but when, after the lapse of many months, the sounds were still those of a new-born babe, no stronger in tone or different in expression, then we began to wonder, and to strive to penetrate the mystery, and are constrained to believe that no living infant causes those sounds.

Then, again, close to my bedroom door, in a recess, there are notes of the most mournful singing the ear can hear -- real notes -- soft and sad, but clear and thrilling. Then, in an instant, the notes are prolonged, and change into short, sharp screams of agony. Then total silence.
All this takes place in the very interior of the house -- in parts where there is no outside wall, but where the wall, thick and massive, divides one room from another.

The Dentist

I was going to post the diary excerpt of Mrs. Vatas-Simpson tonight, in which she relates her experience of a haunting. But that will happen tomorrow by 9pm. The fact is, I have just concocted my best poem to date. Perhaps a better word is de-cocted. I may not like this poem much a week from now, and may be mighty embarrassed, but listening to the printer in the next room whir and shake like a washing machine, I can't help but be elated. It makes me happy to know I'll get class feedback on this one.

As always, the rules:
1) Begin with something mundane (an object or event) and write until it becomes strange.
2) Use at least three different sentence types.
3)Ask a question and don't answer it. Do that twice. (Shit. I didn't do that. I just realized. Oh well, fuck 'em.)
4) Include at least one sentence that it Faulknerian in its complexity. (Long sentences, usually compound).
5) Stutter.
6) Use paratactic syntax (a juxtaposition of clauses or phrases without the use of coordinating or subordinating conjunctions), and hypotactic syntax (the dependent or subordinate relationship of clauses with connectives).

And now, the poem:

An Apple A Day

An extra ‘x’
marks the spot
where I crave chocolate.
It’s in my genes,
in my nuts.
It’s like a hole.

Once a day, without habit,
without fail,
the bittersweet urge to let it
melt in my mouth and ooze
like an oil over gums and teeth,
rises like a rose, its petals
brushing like a sea anemone
along my spare ribs
and tickling stingingly near my armpit.

With swoops of gesture, long arms,
a heart all a-shimmer (no, simmer)
(no! stammer!),
I flit through the foil,
floating in ambrosia,
soaking in the smooth untouched sight
of my chocolate fix for today.

The dimples in my teeth
are woodgrained, streaked
by a nicotine lather of cocoa.
The dentist will hate me
When it’s time to go.
The dentist will see my cavity.

So, the first thing I want to say about this is that the third stanza loses all of it's indentation coolness when posted on the blog, because I can't remember how to convince the blogging program to let me escape the left margin.

I think that it's a good poem. One I like above all my others. Some of you who got my "anthology" last Christmas may recognize the third stanza as a direct theft from one of my older poems. In fact, the older poem was so short that it became entirely subsumed in this piece.

"They're all gonna laugh at you!" -Carrie's mom

What's Going On?

Back in the day, when the world was still young, and the Intenet still innocent, Adam (aka Dr. Frank, aka Eddie Money, aka The American Dr. Who) had a He-Man tape recorder. It was a tough little sky-blue number with He-Man and Skeletor encrusted over its surface in full relief. That way, every time you rocked out to 4 Non Blondes, He-Man could rock out with you. It was all about the 80's - all plastic, all crap.

Adam would tote his He-Man tape recorder everywhere, taping his own improvised radio dramas. He played every part, and he wrote every line. I don't know how many other 5-year olds construct such elaborate stage productions without a stage, but there was Adam, performing for an audience of one. We mocked him mercilessly for it, of course, but now that he's a big-time blogger, it's all about the respect.

The moral of the story is that when you are being asked to read your literary works before an adoring crowd of cofee-guzzling twenty-something poetry nerds, it may help your ailing nerves to picture Battle Cat up there with you, sharing the glow of the stage lights and urging, nay, inspiring! you to song.

Anyway, it is with these memories in mind that I present, this, He-Man's comeback video. You'll be glad to note that his pecs are still as suspiciously well-developed as they were in 1985. And, yes, Skeletor is there, too.

The Victorian Ghost: A Preface

The best ghost stories were told by the Victorians. We today, as a culture, learned a long time ago that the line dividing sex from death, love from hate, art from sin, sugar from salt, and trash from treasure stretches remarkably thin. Like spider silk or a snake in the grass, the line snags and catches at the unwary, using its near invisibility to ensnare both the brash and the preoccupied. A man may compulsively or consciously seek new sexual partners on a regular basis, never aware of the worship he's giving to the grave by fleeing so steadily from it. A mother, making room in the attic for a dead aunt's hideous painting, will often discover and discard a box or two of rare baseball cards. A father, or mother, or lover, or friend, or co-worker may know how to express a deep affection only through spit and bruises and fire pokers. During an animated or heated dinner conversation, one may easily dose a baked potato with pepper and sugar.

An avoidance of sex is the worship of death, and vice versa. Likewise, the worship of sex is the worship of death, for in the active avoidance of thoughts on death, death becomes the focus. For how can one truly forget the eternal night when that night motivates one's actions? And so worship of the one becomes the other.

The lover's fists, however scarred the face they pummel, always act from a personal love, though frustrated and impure is their expression. It is also often that those fists find their reward in love from the victim. It is the love of something that creates the hatred of its opposite, as the hatred also spawns an opposing love. And yet, the blows still rain down on the torn face of one's personal angel; the love and the hate fusing like glass.

The acknowledgement of half a duality requires the other half, and love and hate, life and death, good and evil, always hold hands.

No phase of western culture seems to have experienced better the mystery of the inseperable nature of dualities than the Victorians. To think of the Victorians, many of us now think of emotional and sexual frigidity, of the supression of sinful thought, and of frescoes and paintings involving naked children and women portrayed as morally pure and upstanding (on which point, I wonder why there are no Victorian paintings of a naked Jesus). The Victorian attempt to subdue and abolish all but the most upright of citizens, I hope we are all agreed, backfired in their art if in nothing else. And yet who can say how many then living understood the hypocrisy of their shadowland?

And a shadowland it was. No other era in the English language produced such splendid examples of the supernatural. Malevolent spirits, locked to a particular location by hatred and love, and still burning with evil intent often do no more than appear. Sounds may reverberate, lights may glow without cause, and very occasionally an object might move of its own volition, but a Victorian ghost most often times does only half the harm done by its witnesses. The viewers of supernatural phenomena, desperately avoiding the perceived taint of the earthbound spirit, create in the end all the horror of the story. They go mad, distrustful of their perceptions. Or they go mad, trusting in their perceptions.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein anticipated the Victorian era. The true horror in the story is not the creature, but Dr. Viktor Frankenstein himself, unable to cope with the success of his experiements. The creature is, in fact, concerned only with a gathering of knowledge and the procuring of a lover to ease his loneliness; it is the Doctor's callousness and fear which prompts the murderous rage of his creation.

The Turn of the Screw, Henry James' classic ghost story, also blends the distinction between evil perpetrator and innocent victim. The question is still debated, as it has been for almost a century, whether the tales' ghosts actually exist or are simply a manifestation of a young governess' repression. The death of the young boy in the last paragraph continues to baffle and intrigue readers, as the cause of his death is obscure: did he die as a result of a successful exorcism, an unsuccessful exorcism, or was he smothered by his governess?

And yet, the Victorians believed for the most part in these ghosts. Many tried to study it scientifically, much like our current paranormal investigators, but lacked the scientific equipment and know-how to garner much credibility among the sciences (which, with the equipment and know-how of today, they still lack). Many more believed in ghosts on account of personal experience or tales told to them by trusted sources. It is these stories which the Victorian paranormal investigator had to rely on in the pursuit of a scientific hypothesis of the supernatural. Edward Gurney, one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research and author of Phantasms of the Living (1886), admirably defended the use of personal interviews as data:

... what we are here presenting is the testimony of trustworthy and intelligent witnesses... But we have naturally preferred to be on the safe side. We have therefore, excluded all narratives where, on personal acquaintance with the witnesses, we felt that we should be uneasy in confronting them with a critical cross-examiner; and we have frequently thought it right to exclude cases, otherwise satisfactory, that depended on the reports of uneducated persons...
But the point on which we desire to lay stress in the number of improbable hypotheses that will have to be propounded if the [evidence for apparitions] is rejected... Not only have we to assume such an extent of forgetfulness and inaccuracy, about simple and striking facts of the immediate past, as is totally unexampled in any other range of experience. Not only have we to assume that distressing or exciting news about another person produces a havoc in the memory which has never been noted in connection with distress or excitement in any other form. We must leave this general ground, and make suppositions as detailed as the evidence itself. We must suppose that some people have a way of dating their letters in indifference to the calendar, or making entries in their diaries on the wrong page and never discovering the error; and that whole families have been struck by the collective hallucination that one of their members made a particular remark, the substance of which had never entered that member's head; and that it is a recognized custom to write mournful letters about bereavements which have never occurred; and that when A describes to a friend how he has distinctly heard the voice of B, it is not infrequently by a slip of the tongue for C; and that when D says he is not subject to hallucinations of a vision, it is through momentary forgetfulness of the fact that he has a spectral illusion once a week; and that when a wife... [blah blah blah]... Every one of these improbabilities is, perhaps, in itself a possibility; but as the narratives drive us from one desperate expedient to another, when time after time we are compelled to own that deliberate falsification is less unlikely than the assumptions we are making, and then again when we submit the theory of deliberate falsification to the cumulative test, and see what is involved in the suppostition that hundreds of persons of established character, known to us for the most part and unknown to one another, have simultaneously formed a plot to deceive us - there comes a point where the reason rebels. Common-sense persists in recognizing that when phenomena, which are united by a fundamental characterisic and have every appearance of forming a single natural group, are presented to be explained, an explanation which mutiplies causes is improbable, and an explanation which multiplies improbable causes becomes, at a certain point, incredible.

It is with this, the momentary suspension of disbelief in ghosts, in mind that I will be presenting, over the next two weeks approaching Halloween, on this blogspace, four Victorian testimonies of paranormal experiences. Three of these accounts were originally published by the Society for Psychical Research between 1885 and 1889, the fourth having been published in 1896 in Borderlands, a journal of occult research.

We will begin in the next few days, with an excerpt taken from the diary of Mrs. Vata-Simpson, a woman who, in body at least, has long since left this world.

Hallowe'en Cards!

The Hallowe'en cards are finished. Click on the link to check them out.

I don't feel the E-bay photograph really does justice to the detail and sublimity of the actual cards themselves. Trust me, these things are beautiful. I've already been paid my advance of coffee, so don't think I'm just trying to talk these up for my own gain. I would have done my part for free anyway (not often does a commision come along that asks for the macabre). But what I did for these cards is nothing.

There are no words in my soul that could dare to compete with the drawings Cammie created. The quality of the spindly tree branches reminds me vaguely of something Tim Burton might have tried, had his hand been steadier and his patience more prolonged. I honestly urge you check out the listing and see what you can for yourself, though Cammie's skillful, nay! inspired shading of the fence and pumpkin on the lower-right card is mighty difficult to see on E-bay resolution. If the listing I linked to is sold out, contact the seller (Cambromuse), as I'm sure she's still got some on hand.

Enjoy!

Reading Out Loud is Nuts

Ah, so. It's quarter to four in the morning. I'm drinking the Chevron brand of coffee known as Suava Java, liberally spiced with cinnamon-hazelnut creamer (which I suggest to absolutely no-one) and three packets of sugar. After my mouth went temporarily comatose from the still raunchy brew, I got a NUTrageous! to help coat my tongue. Normally, I would have stopped drinking coffee hours ago, would have minimized sugar around the same time, and would now either be dreaming of empty houses with faulty switches or sitting up wondering why I can't sleep. But I'm up. Not for long, mind you, but long enough to declare both my impotence and my sheer freaking balls.

You see, tomorrow at noon, I have to turn in my next poetry assignment. It was an easy one. By that, I mean that I decided it was easy before I actually tried to do it, and then I waited until the last bell-tolling minute. It really was the loosest assignment we've been given so far... so why was it so difficult?

The rules were simple: write a poem without line breaks. Most people know this as writing a paragraph. Nerds in English departments call it either a "prose poem" or as "Assignment #3". We simply had to write a poem without line breaks, just to make sure our rhythm stood up under its own ponderousness (the plural of ponderousness is ponderosa... just ask Hoss Cartwright). Then we had to re-write it twice, with line breaks, using any number of various guiding lights (no TV reference there as I refuse to acknowledge Guiding Light as a real TV show). For example, there's the option to break the line based on the number of syllables or accented syllables; there's the option to make the poem look long and skinny, blah blah blah.

Well, I couldn't do it. The poem I was working on about the space monkey crapping his little blue jumpers became too much about a space monkey crapping his little blue jumpers. I mean, what can you say about that other than "Ick"? The next subject I tried was supposed to be about a job I once had flipping burgers. The first sentence of that was, "Who knows what really happens underground." It then proceeded to discuss what type of clothing would last longer in the ravenous mandibles of the grave (dry-cleaned). Really, I bombed big on both of these. It's late, so I won't post the monkey one, though my sense of decorum begs me to. I'll maybe post it tomorrow.

At 2.30am, I got pissed off and left the house for some smokes, "coffee", and a NUTrageous! I had resigned myself at that point to an all-nighter of writing poem after downward-spiralling poem. By the time I returned, I realized, hey! Fuck this! I'll just grab one of my older poems! So I did.

I had to flip around through some old notebooks and this "anthology" I made for winter solstice presents last year, but I found my poem. I was torn between three, all of which are in that "anthology". One is about a frenzy of typewriter writing and another is about smoke and fire and "gosh, how pretty" (nothing demonic, though I realize it sounds bad out of context). The one I settled on, however, is about... uh... a cat. I don't remember exactly when I wrote this one, so let's just say I wrote it on Saturday night. For my poetry class.

So I grabbed this old poem for a class which is supposed to rely on new material. Big time cop-out. I feel like I'm hurting myself by doing it this way, because I really do want to see what new stuff I've got, but I also don't want to be cranky and light-headed at 2pm. So to myself at least, I'm declaring myself impotent.

But we read our poems out loud in class. Every bleeding one of them. So I'm proving myself to also have the ponderosa of testicular fortitude.

I present the poem here in its original line structure, which I used as "Option #7: Maximum Fluidity". The other organization I followed was "Option #5: Maximum Ambiguity", which version I think makes me sound misogynistic. I highly suggest you read this one out loud to yourself. Or perhaps memorize and recite it the next time you see your boss.

How Open is this Mic?

There's a sweaty kitten
Over by the bike
Over by the bicycle
I left in the yard.
Little Kitty,
Moisture clinging
To your whiskers,
Crouching so as to disappear
And avoid becoming
Subject to my pen:
Little Kitty,
It's too late!
You're trapped
In my poem now,
And you will worship me!
Bow down, Sweaty Kitty!
Accept your place
As my servant!
I am your MASTER!!!

Frantic! Frenetic! A Poem Just Shy of Pathetic!

Ok, you know what? Fuck this. Fuck poetry classes. My assignment for this week, on top of copious amounts of reading writers writing about writing, is the most impossible BS I've ever tried. We're supposed to write a poem about "an encounter we have over the next few days". So, basically, we can't just whip open the notebook and get damn-well cracking. We have to hang about and wait for something neat to happen. Now, I like my life. A lot happens here. I take inordinate amounts of thrill from the moments I spend alive. I like to stand in front of mirrors and hunch my shoulders until my hands protrude like a T-Rex from my chest and start talking like my tongue's made of rubber. I like the way crumbs fall from a toasted PB&J to the plate on the table. I dig my life and there's no bottom to my well of inspiration. But I can't bring myself to really write about the mundane. People have already done that, and I've yet to read the mundane story or poem that's worth a damn. Not to say that my interactions with my friends and family are mundane; I'm just too used to those exchanges to poeticize them. Case in point:

"Hey, dude."
"Hey."
"Sup?"
"Not much.
You?"
"Yeah."

See, it sucks. It might be a sweet lyric sheet for 20-minutes of mind-numbing techno-trance, but without the thump-thump-whicchy-wee-woop of the dance floor, it's about as bogus as it gets. Ok. Let me breathe a bit, slow my pulse, and I'll explain exactly why this assignment sucks to everyone's assmar.

The rules of the poem are not just to "hang about and see what turns up". No, no. That's too easy. What we've got on the line here is a bleeding shitstorm of rules:
In one half of the poem do the following:
1) In one line, use a lot of alliteration (beginning of syllable sounds the same)
2) In one line, use much internal rhyme or assonance (only vowels sound the same; plant/tab)
3) In two succeeding lines, use a combination of multi-syllabic words and short Anglo-Saxon words (i.e. confabulation/chat; illuminate/light up)
4) Use 2-3 onomatopoetic words (words that sound like what they describe; splash/crack/etc.)
5) Use two caesuras (commas mid-way through a line)

Easy enough, eh? Just follow the dotted lines. But wait!

In the other half of the poem:
1) Register 5 shifts in tone for which there is some aural equivalent. For instance, from embarrassment to contriteness to joy to uncertainty.

What does that even mean?! And no matter how much I BS my way through the events of the poem (such as plain ole making shit up), I can't envision changing tone five times in half a poem. I mean, how many pages should I be filling to get so many changes to sound at all natural? Shit.

Well, I found my interaction. Randomly enough, I ran into somebody I hadn't seen since I was knee-high on Andre the Giant (which means 18 years old). It was weird. And, giving no shit whatsoever for the second half of the directions (well, maybe a constipated pebble or two), here's the poem I wrote. It's flawed in nasty ways, and I have too little time to revise it before tomorrow, but I give to you what I give to my class. The only difference is the font and an indentation of the last stanza. (The font capitalizes every letter, which allows me to disregard altogether the question of when to capitalize. It's a cop-out.)

Old Friends

An unfamiliar voice
I’ve heard time over time before
Exclaims my name behind me, chafing:
Mister First Last.

I stare without recognition
But my throat reminds me
Gurgling, “Nate.”
I must shake his smoke yellow hand.

I crouch from his questions
Of where I live, where I work
Even how I do:
Sudden secrets in this census.

His eyes so watery burning
And skin fleshed out with Fritos,
I cough tenderly my discomfort and jingle
My keys out of my pocket to go.

On the road, I call an old friend,
Who knew Nate long ago,
Who I talk to a lot but don’t see,
And in sputtered half-phrases
Of a gesticulating tongue
I elutriate what it was to have seen
A greased-wax boy of good heart
Now stand in torn clothes as a man,
Unchanged from quick nights
And afternoon mornings, still pungent
With vomit and scabs.

The voice on the phoneline,
A friend still for the changes,
Drawls distantly his slow-beating breath,
“But my daughter’s reading to me
Right now,
And I’ll have to call you back.”

I turn up the radio.
Wendy Carlos is playing.
Maybe Walter. I can’t tell.
The music didn’t change
like his gender.

I'm not quite embarrassed by this one, but re-read the rules above and you'll see how I've only fulfilled half of the requirements. Perhaps two-thirds, if you're kind. Egads. This is assignment 2 of 9. Of 9!! I'd almost prefer memorizing the names and locations of each bone in the ear. Almost.