To Trim Perceptions

Ugh, everything is wet. Gutterism “We are all in the gutter” – Oscar Wilde Of course, the second part of the quote doesn’t matter that much to me. In his time, Wilde made his name on being witty and insightful; misanthropy, on the other hand, never sells. I believe the quote, cut in half, tells the greater truth.  We all have heard stanza upon stanza about stars and hopes and dreams, but what remains to be a more perplexing problem, is how we understand and accept the painful truth that we, all of us, are in the gutter. Maybe not exactly  all , there are certainly a few who are blessed with ignorance, dementia, or other sorts of mental peculiarity that are beyond me. But the majority of us do live in the gutter. We eat and drink in the gutter.  We converse and create in the gutter.  We believe and we pray and we lose faith in the gutter.  We love, kill, and write poetry in the gutter.  But we do not die in the gutter.  No, to find death, we have to go someplace el

        Words for Love by Ted Berrigan          for Sandy         Winter crisp and the brittleness of snow         as like make me tired as not. I go my         myriad ways blundering, bombastic, dragged         by a self that can never be still, pushed         by my surging blood, my reasoning mind.         I am in love with poetry. Every way I turn         this, my weakness, smites me. A glass         of chocolate milk, head of lettuce, dark-         ness of clouds at one o’clock obsess me.         I weep for all of these or laugh.         By day I sleep, an obscurantist, lost         in dreams of lists, compiled by my self         for reassurance.   Jackson Pollock  René         Rilke       Benedict Arnold       I watch         my psyche, smile, dream wet dreams, and sigh.         At night, awake, high on poems or pills         or simple awe that loveliness exists, my lists         flow differently. Of words bright red         and bl

        “There is no such thing as Objective Journalism.  The phrase itself is a gross contradiction in terms.”         The quote, found in The Campaign Trail: The Million-Pound Shithammer , may well represent the most important thing I’ve learnt from Hunter S. Thompson.         Between all the mischief and his famous ‘tangents’, Thompson’s reports convey more than news and opinions.  They embodied his personality.   It’s impossible not to be surprised by the many contradictions he held.  Including the way he ridiculed politics and demystify authority; the evil jokes he played and the absurd rumours he made up; the deliberate offenses and disregard; his never ending struggle with deadlines; and most importantly, how starkly fair and honest he was in his characteristic prose.         “He had that rare weird electricity about him – that extremely wild & heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving ‘normally.’”         This

        Reunited with my notebooks while organizing the shelves yesterday.  It’s been a while since the last entry.  Leafing through the pages, sentences and sentiments seem strangely aloof.          The earlier entries are barely legible, but amid the anarchy of quotes and exclamations, here I discovered something Interesting:         “Right now, an ex-Nazi commander is being trialed in the International Court.  Jurors are deliberating whether he should be convicted.         “Should he?  Many men of similar past had sat in that chair before him, men who killed thousands – or even millions – ruthlessly, but who had done so under orders of the legitimate, democratically elected government at the time.  Should they have been convicted?         “The purpose of court and sentence, or ‘justice’, as modern citizens like to consider it, is firstly, to warn off potential crimes, and secondly, to avenge the victims.  But if that’s all the court-ordered penalty does, I think the m

It’s intriguing how life leaks into dreams, and dreams fertilize writing. Those who are close eluded reinvention, while the long-forgotten figures loiter.  The faces they wear and the emotions they invoke in dreams spark inspiration, sometimes curious realization. In an alternate universe where he went on and shattered others, how ashamed and repentant did I felt.  In dreams, naked truths come before logic.  My contrition and sympathy wrecked me.  How could any of his wrongdoings be my fault?  I wondered, as the pen stranded above the page.  In a conference room where no other participant ever arrived, the two of us sit silently across the table, while time elongated into eternity.  We never exchanged a word, not even a nod.  But I trust him completely.  When vexed by life or perplexed by emotions, in the silent conference room he always sit.  His soothing presence, calmly and quietly, waited with me in the endless stream of time, for the meeting to begin.  In the w

Good news, I’m writing again. From idleness to becoming lost, followed by trying to muster strength then start to put things down.   They may still be scribbles, but as long as I’m writing, things will only get better. Evidently, I’m optimistic already.