(no subject)

a ghost of my own life, revisiting
old memories from beyond now's grave
lurking outside the windows of good times
like a wet dog.

there is always glass,
always the division of cold and warmth
and I am huddled under cloaks
in the city of regret

my nose against the window
cloudy, overeager
the glass is stone
i am shattered against it

the face in the window, like tears
pushing against shut, recalcitrant eyes

i know that face inside.
he will become me.

hindsight is fate and i am
some powerless creator, unable
to stop the flood
some prophet preaching with salt
to the cobblestones

and the other in the window
they too will become...

and the prophet whispers
they too will become...

they too are at a window
in the city of regret
there is not glass between you now
but time

you cannot beat against it
nor break yourself upon it
it will simply enfold you, like fog

like an absence
diffuse, impenetrable
where no one
not even you
exists

only this city.
only this unending city of grey glass.

(no subject)

I spent this afternoon talking with a friend about poetry. he's of the neuvo intellectual schools of thought, the sort that think all the modernists were sallow, scattered failures and praise the romantics. i couldnt completely disagree with him now, maybe I could a few years ago when I was in my "I <3 Eliot!" phases. The fact that Eliot himself in his later years was scornful of all the myriad interpretations and appropriations given to the waste land and poems of that era. I always thought he'd given up by then. Even to take on the title of Modernism takes some serious huevos. It takes the impetuous cockyness of youth, which is something to be admired. I think the essense of that era was its mystique. The work was incomplete and imperfect but it boldly put forth this mystique, this intimation pointing towards some shadowy work hidden between the words that was somehow perfect in itself.

wheras my friend thinks they were just pining for the perfection of shakespeare and the romantics and quoted Yeats to this effect. twice.

The other thing this person is trying to do is convince me into a non-hatred of robert frost. saying that he too, like most everyone who was forced to memorize The Road Less Travelled, hated robert frost up to only a few years ago. But then he looked back into the later work and found evidence that robert frost is in fact a subtle and clever man. To hear him talk of this particular one whose name ive forgotten, delving into all the circular meanings and layers, one would almost be convinced. Almost. Cmon, it's Robert Frost. Icky Robert Frost.

I also let him take a peek at the hidden project i've been working on for far too long without much progress (which is hidden here). it was fun to explain to him all the myriad intentions and allusions I have hidden in there (though not even begining to touch on the kaballistic ones) though the consensus was that I have to be careful whether I am riding mystery or being ridden by it, because doing both is dangerous. I'd still rather create something that even I can't completely comprehend. Let us create nothing but gods.

thoughts such as these are just boring and vapid in all but the most airy of moods. I'll be disgusted with myself in an hour. but see. In an hour i'll be writing humor, or.. outlining the low budget kung fu movie, or.. the teen crime screenplay... or the theological play.. or maybe back to xvxvxv (pronounced eksevekveksev), in apology and supplication.

this is me. respect me not because I am the lion or the serpent

simply proteus.