Tropic of Cancer

Many critics have commented upon the precedent-shattering descriptions of sexuality in the novel. Yet another subject of Tropic of Cancer is even more revolutionary: It shows what a working-class man must go through to live the creative life, and how he must redefine himself to develop the courage to write a novel about his own experiences in his own voice. "A year ago, six months ago," the narrator tells us, "I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am."

- Louise De Salvo, Introduction, Tropic of Cancer

If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.


- Kurt Vonnegut. A Man Without a Country

I have made peace with the world

At least for now.

And even though I may end up owing five dollars to a few friends here and there, the silence on this page is proof to my current tranquility.

For the time being, I shall try to redigest this zen into a readable form.
It may take some time.
It's still new to me.


So, until then, boys and girls.

Until then :)

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Heres some advice:
Don/t take it.

The last exit, it exists within us. Within each and every one of us. It/s dark. It/s mad. And it/s honest.

But honesty is one thing we aint buying. Honesty - it just aint marketable. You can/t spin it.

But you can write it.


For those of you who have any inkling of what I'm talking about here, you will be very interested to see this: HUBERT SELBY JR:
It/ll Be Better Tomorrow

You can also check out an interview


Enjoy it.

The Hunter

The hunter, he does not see the forest. He does not see the jungle.
They mean nothing to him.

The hunter, he walks into a restaurant. A lounge. A bar.
Gently, he leans on a wall by the entrance. He stands still.
He lets his eyes do the walking.

And he is no longer capable of seeing the bar. The lounge. The restaurant.

And his eyes report back: Busy three star bar and grill looking for an energetic self-starter. Two years in the industry required. Knowledge of wines a plus. Apply in person.

And he leaves.
He keeps walking. The eyes, they stand still. They roll back at him. They see nothing.

And he enters a doorway.

And his eyes report back: Hip casual restaurant. Searching for new prep and barista. Opportunity for advancement. Paste resume into the email. No attachments.

And his nose gathers the thick coffee aroma. And red brick walls surround him. Several paintings are scatter throughout the space.
But he does not see the walls, the people. He does not see the paintings.
They mean nothing to him.

And he keeps walking.



The hunter, he does not see his own eyes.
The hunter, he misses them.
Because this is one job for which he never asked for.

Because the hunter - he's starving.

It's a Beautiful Day

A beautiful day. A perfect day.
It has to begin the night before.

When you sit at your desk. The whole night you sit at your desk. And you look at the blank page. Into it. The characters, they're all there. They're talking.
You listen more closely. You wait until it gets quiet.
You push.

And the characters tell you to go fuck yourself.
To hang yourself off the chandelier.
To beat your head on the radiator.

And you know it will be better in the morning. The arguments always seem silly in the morning. You just have to sleep.
But your body is already miles ahead of you.
"Sleep?!" It laughs. "Go fuck yourself!"

And you walk outside. You do circles around your house. You walk your feet numb. You smoke. You smoke your lungs tired.
You drink. You drink.
And drink.
You drink your body dumb. So it won't care. You outsmart it into falling asleep.

The arguments always seem silly in the morning.


And in the early morning you awake. That urgent wakeness. The hot and cold flashes. The whiskey, it wakes you up.
And you feel like a million bucks.
You shower. You eat.

You sit back at the desk. You smile coyly at the page. The arguments seem so silly.
But the characters, they want to have nothing to do with you.
You sit. You stare.

By midday you flee.

And in the train you can't read. You can't sleep. You think about having children. About nurturing them. About how they will do so much more than you. Because you won't do anything. Because you can't. Because you won't. Because it's pointless. You're pointless.

And you think about a carreer. You think about the future.
And it wants to have nothing to do with you.



The streets are flooded with people when you come out. In jeans in sunglasses, vendors, professors, models, bums, freaks, they all crowd the sidewalk. Bike messengers cut through traffic. Waiters smoke outside the cafe's. There's barely room to walk. They crowd around you.
And you're suddenly goddamn glad to see them.
Each and every fucker.

You've been using the same earphones. The same goddamn earphones, found in the back of your closet. Graham Bell must have used them. Last night, the scotch tape holding them together finally snapped.
You buy a new pair. It's not the top model, but it isn't the lowest one either. You've been wanting to do it for months.
And the muscles around your lips begin to spread within.
You don't really get it.

You keep walking.

And on the corner a brother is hustling rap cd's. He makes eye contact and you stop. He starts selling.
Last time you heard rap, Michael Jordan was playing baseball. But you listen to the guy anyway. His eyes are tired.
He gives you a cd. You hold it.
"Free?" you ask. His eyebrows narrow sadly.
"Come on, man," he stretches out. "At least spare five bucks."
And you shake your head. You give back the cd. "I can't," you offer. "I have no money on me."
He chuckles softly to himself. He grimaces. He's been hearing this all day.
"Why?" He snaps.
You pause. "I'm looking for a job. I'm walking around, looking for a job."
It's not the truth, but it's the closest thing to it you've said in a while.
And his eyes suddenly focus on yours. And all of a sudden the both of you understand each other.
He nods. "God bless you, man," he says.
And you nod back. And suddenly you feel real whole inside.
You don't really get it.


And a few blocks down a woman is yelling on the top of her lungs. Free samples at Ben and Jerry's, she screams. Go get yours, she screams. And she looks at you. You look at her. Her face is flushed red from screaming. Her hair is grimy. And for a second she smiles. You smile back. You get your cherry garcia sample. It's a milkshake. And it's a beautiful thing.

You go to Strands. This was the one thing you wanted to do. Because you want to check up on Fitzgerald. This Side of Paradise. You flip the book. You windowshop. You already know the pages. The jems you come to look at. The jems you don't yet have.
And you reread the preface. Begun during college. Completed at twenty-three.
And you nod to yourself.

You put the book back. Coming out of the isle you bump into something. You look.
Her face is covered in freckles and she has auburn hair. You don't say sorry. You smile. Like an idiot.
And like an idiot, she smiles back.

And the both of you stand in the middle of the store. Smiling.
And a huge mass of fat suddenly plops into both of you out of nowhere.
"Idiots!"

And you laugh. You laugh and feel something rising in you from below. And you suddenly feel about as light as a snowflake, even if it's August.


Somewhere below your belt vibrates. And somewhere below a hand reaches for it. You're not quite sure if it's your hand. You don't really care. You smile.
"Hey," an old friend says at the other end. She's calling from work and her voice is low and tired.
"Hey," you say, smiling the words into the receiver. At the other end there is a brief pause, as if she's checking whether she has the right number.
"What's up with you?" she asks.
"What?" You ask. Still smiling. You can't stop smiling.
"You're high or what? Got a date or something?" She's puzzled. And for better or worse, so are you.
You shake your head. "No," you say. "No date. Just a beautiful day out there, that's all."
"A beautiful day?"
And you nod. You're standing at the crossroads of the isles. Unsure of where to go, blocking everybody's way.
And you can't stop smiling.
"Yes," you confirm, taking a look around you. "It's a beautiful day."

Up, up and away

I'm going up. Way up. They tell me there is no humidity there. No people.
The good life.

I'd put a vacation flag up, but I hardly post enough for it to be down. So, instead, I have offered some readings from the previously unpublished absinthemind archives.

That's right folks.

All that black soot holding the mind together.
Now yours.

Only $2.99 a minute.


.. I really should make a paypal here.

-------------------------------------------------------------

10.22.05


Alone.

The hours approach morning, and the word begins to gain new meanings. A black crow, it begins to slowly flap its wings in the wind of the coming morning. Somewhere far away, a taxi scratches its way through the grid of this island.

Alone. Me and the clock. Tock, tick fucking tock.

I want to sit on my roof, breathing the last warm winds of summer, cutting the moon like a watermellon into slices, having a feast with old friends. But the gusts are cold at the peak. I shudder.

Soon it will be morning. Soon the ants of the world will step out from their buildings and apartments, emptying out into the streets, seeping through tunnels and elevator shafts, filling the world with a march of random, well articulated noises. Their proud hymn will fill radios and televisions everywhere.

But for now the world is empty. White from the moon, it lies flat and round beneath it. Towards the morning the world loses a dimention, becoming its own shadow, collapsing onto itself. Flat, like a clock, it keeps running, keeps breathing. Soon, morning will come. Soon, this all will be gone.
It knows this. I know this.

For the time being, it stretches its larger hand towards me.
I shake it.

Thanks for the company, I say.
Thanks once again.

Don't read me.

Don't even look at me.

Give me my pen. Close the door on your way out.


Thanks.

The Last Autumn

В последнюю осень, ни строчки, ни вздоха.
Последние песни осыпались летом.
Прощальным костром догорает эпоха,
И мы наблюдаем за тенью и светом



There are several songs that I listen to almost every day. I have listened to these songs when I was 16, and I will probably listen to them 16 years from now.

There are some streets where I walk every day. Some of them are near my house. Some in my memories.

I have often ridiculed myself for this. Move on, I would say to myself. Move the hell on. Find something new for God's sake, you're not an old man.

No, I am not an old man, and I realize this the older I get. If this will keep on, the most youthful day of my life will be the day of my death.
Life is not without a sense of humor.

But I digress.


I have often wondered why I do this. Why I return to these songs, these streets.
I had my theory, and in a way, it was confirmed today after reading an interview with Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of the recently popular "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."

In the interview, Foer speaks of how Joyce Carol Oates, (who he was fortunate enough to have as a professor) wrote to him: "You appear to have a very strong and promising talent coupled with that most important of writerly qualities, energy."

Yes - energy. Energy.

Often I can't contain it. Often I sit at the same spot for eight, ten, sixteen hours at a stretch. And I write. By god, I write.
But at other times I have about as much energy as a lamp during a power outage.
The bulb is there. The wire is plugged in.
But there is no current.
None.
Zilch. Zero. Nada.

The last time I saw a grown man cry, it was my father.
He was constipated.

I finally understand him.



But even during the darkest outage, these songs, these memories - they are still there.
Little capsules of energy. A whole case of them.
Break in case of emergency.

This is an emergency.
I turn the player on. To the memories I stretch. In them I draw in every ounce of sunlight. I feel the heat on the leaves. The streets. The people.
Because this what it's all about. Because this is where it all began.
This is where it's going to end.

Some jump from bed to bed. Some develop healthy drug habits. Some walk across continents. All in search for one thing. That one little thing.

But the drugs fade. The sheets empty. Continents sink.
What remains?

You know what.


Someone turn the power back on.

Death in the afternoon

In his original, Hemingway wrote of glorious death in the afternoon.
But you wont find it here.

Eyes loose. Loose over the shirt hanging out. Bouncing. Over the shirt loose. Bouncing the train the eyes over the shirt bouncing here there the train the car the people bouncing
                                                                 pulling out over the bridge the sun bouncing around the car the people the eyes the shirt but no one sees it no one sees it -
You wont find it here.

Hello can you hear me?
Can you hear me Can you hear me NO HE CAN'T HEAR YOU -
YOU'RE IN THE TUNNEL now, fucker.

Dark all around.

In his classic Hemingway wrote of a glorious death in the afternoon. But you wont find it here. The sun rising the whale awaking breathing in breathing breathing, breathing in all the microspasms in from the surrounding boroughs breathing in to eat to eat COOK FASTER MOTHERFUCKER!
                            IM COOKING! Grilling as fast I can, as fast as I can my hands are burning at least the meat is fresh.

The afternoon. Finally the afternoon. The death. Each day the same death. The eyes hang loose from looking at it for so long. Because in the end, we all want to die just a little bit differently.

Boredom.
        Diversified.

But you won't find that here.

Inspiration Tremble

I wrote a great blog today. In fact, it was the first one in a while I was really happy with.

Then the electricity went out.
POP.

And now I cannot bring it back. It is still in my head. I can see it. I smell it.
It's right there along with everything else.
But nothing comes out.
Nothing.

Something died there.
Just like that.
Gunshot.
POP!


People often pass me in the library or in the park and see me writing. The pen to the paper. No PDA touchpad microwave oven scribble scrabble.
Their look is somewhere between disgust and curiosity.

But more and more I'm beginning to be glad for the process. When I put it down, it's down. Down for good. If the electricity fades, so much the better.
I swim in the ink and go within my head, smelling everything, tasting everything.
It is then that the well fills up.

See you there.

Echoes

And no one showed us to the land
And no one knows the wheres or whys


In the day, in the evening, the city chokes in its own breath. The sun has set and it's past midnight. Only the echoes of the day could be heard. In those echoes we live. In those echoes we breathe.

No one showed us to the land. But we are here. We do not see it. We do not know it.
We hear only its echoes.

Somewhere there are our parents. We do not know them. We do not see them.
We hear only their echoes.

We run, circles we run around the skyscrapers we run in the playgrounds for the bored we run and we bang our fists and ask for more. The dream. Supersized.

Around the skyscrapers we run. Chasing the echoes.

Echoes of our parents' steps. Echoes of ourselves within our memories. Where are we now? What were we thinking then?

Can anyone hear me?

I hope I am making a sound.

                  sound 
                              sound
                                        sound
                                                   ...

Happiness, or something like it.

Over the rails, me and the homeless man been traveling in laps the whole night. Stop go. Stop go.

His face is round. It doesn't look homeless. He sits in the plastic subway seat in peace. Over the fuzz of his beard a few bread crumbs bounce along. I am so hungry that I want to eat them.

And he tells me get a grip on yourself man. Get a goddamn grip. So I grip myself and grip on to the seat and we keep bouncing and keep lapping and lapping the city.

And somewhere he tells me drink my poison. And I take a gulp and somewhere inside a ball of warmth rolls down through my toes. And somewhere a Dire Straits song comes on. And somewhere. I'm somewhere. There, there.

This is love and its ending one stop at a time.
This is happiness.

Or something like it.

Help

Help. There is a wolf at the door.
Over my bed he stands when I am asleep. I do not see him. I have learned to sleep with my face to the wall. But he is there. I feel the loneliness of his breath over me. I feel him watching me.

He does not harm me. He does not touch me.

In the doorway he stands. Over my bed he stands. Behind the shower curtain he stands. Behind the darkness he stands. In front of me he stands. I look down.

He does not scorn me. He does not blame me.

Help. There is a wolf in my house.
Before the sun he brings them out. I buried them so long ago. But he brings them out. He takes them out. Before the sun they come out. Before me they sit. They crowd the living room. I no longer have a place to sit. So I stand. I look down.

The wolf never travels alone.

I long for the sun. I long for the day. I long for the emptiness. I long to sit. I long to be warm.
I long for the night. I long for the wolf.
Put me inside.
Put me inside.

Help.

Untitled

in our cobblestones we lie between the cracks lie between the cobblestones I told you that you told me that I should walk farther stretch farther fly farther like a cobblestone kicked from the road knowing not where its flying only for the sake of flying kicked only for the sense of being kicked only for the sense of kicking I only wish I saw the foot I only wish I saw the boot that walked over me a thousand times walked over me only to kick me out of the cobblestone street where we meet where we sink into the mud you and me next to the curb for a thousand years you and me next to the curb I only wish I saw the boot the foot kicking the root sinking the place where we raced to the place we sank into for a thousand years me and you in cobblestones I only wish I saw the foot I only wish I saw our place a disgrace I am now not knowing where to come back to walking farther stretching farther not knowing where coming back to coming back only for the sake of stretching walking back only for the sake of walking I wish I saw the foot that kicked stones out of their roots I only wish I saw the foot of which I told you in our cobblestones we lie

Workshop

Today my faithful iBook decided to lay its final words onto the page. It is still alive, but it is ailing, and so I found myself on my aged desktop. The documents on it span the last eleven years. That would be half of my life.
Brr..

So, for today, I shall offer the first poem attempted by yours truly, that was not written in a romantic Rebert Frost meter. It was first hand-written (as everything tends to be) and then typed on this great old box.

So here is another verse from the saddle of the old horse. Wow, that even rhymed. I'm going to go give myself a cookie. You guys can read.



Workshop


Our horizontal weeping done,
I draw the curtains open, and return.
In the soft slumber of her closed eyes I live
Alone.
It’s easier that way.

But in the swaying of the curtains’ pose,
The ticking clicks of clocks in prose,
On my back heels I backwards race,
To done undo, to steps erase.

But it is useless -
Soon breakfast will be served.
I find the busy chatter of meaningless words
Soothing.
My heart is let to sleep.

Somewhere in Switzerland

On the water
The swan sits
Alone.
It does not weep
It merely cleans
Itself.

Our words get lost
On the dock
You are no longer
Speaking.

You fix yourself
In your mirror
You are
Alone.
You do not weep
You merely see
Yourself.

To catch a moon

In the style of Marquez, a dedication to my very close and ailing friend.


Sometime after the war, he made out to watch the moon.

First week upon arrival, uniform still on, he came out onto the rooftop of his building. The rooftop was black and empty, the view of the city scarred only by the black antennas around him. Twilight had already set in, and the silver disk of the moon hung just over the horizon of antennas.

He set out then, once and for all, to never take his eyes off the moon.

He lay down, keeping his eyes fixed on it so that he may be able to see it move gradually and not in random ticks of directed glances during the day and night. He lay down, watching the white moon pass over him during the night, following its path as it continued to pass over and under the building as an eternal jump rope, never missing a day, even when it would rain, glowing through the gray overcast like a radioactive copper plate.

Autumn began to approach and his friends, who often watched the moon with him, began to worry that he would not survive the winter. But he would hear nothing about it, and his friends, weary of his abstinence, descended within the building.

The winter passed, and he continued to watch the moon. Hardened by the sun and the city air, his body grew hard and emancipated, washed only by the autumn leaves that came to pass over the roof. Years passed and his body became flatter and flatter, seeping gradually into the thick tar of the roof. Friends no longer came up and relatives visited at increasingly longer intervals, and then no longer visited at all, giving in to the silence of his withering, and ultimately to the silence of their own deaths.

Before her death, however, his mother came to the roof. It was the windiest night in the history of the building and the winds awoke her. They rattled the windows and ripped the dreams of those asleep out of them. Caught in the drafts, the dreams began to mix and intersect, so that soon nobody was sure if their dream was indeed theirs.

The gusts swept into the apartment and out and back within. They passed under the building and above it, sprinkling their remnants over the rooftop. Vigilant, his mother would not let go of her dream. So she held and held, and soon she too was dropped over the rooftop. And so there she sat, watching her son, ignoring the siren of her own death that was rising from the street.

She covered his body with her dream so as to save him from the coming gusts. She sat with him for a short while and went downstairs. Alone, he lay in the tar. He was cold, and feeling his chill the dream began to creep over him.

In it he still lived in his old room, beneath the room of his mother. It was night, and he was leaning out of his window. The moon was out, and his eyes were fixed upon it. Sensing his glance, his mother leaned out of her window, watching him below. But he never saw her. She watched him and he watched the moon, and seeing his eyes fixed on the white gleam she would slowly form small tears, and they would roll down and fall, one by one, until a small drizzle would descend upon him. But he did not feel it. He watched the moon and she watched him and a rainstorm of a thousand tears would wash his face and his hair and he would do nothing about it, never knowing where it came from.

The dream crept over his body, covering him to his neck, tucking him in. There was no one to bother him now, save for the company of the aged dreams resting along his side. Two thin screens of salt formed over his eyes. He suddenly wanted desperately to blink, so as to clear them, but his eyelids could no longer close, not even for a moment.

And so he lay on the roof under the sky, the moon fixed in the film of his eyes.

And so he lies on the roof under the sky.
I just hope I could visit him.

A resurrected suicide

Today I am in Prague.

The kitchen is empty and I sit by the computer, the balcony door open slightly. I exhale a strand of smoke, and it lethargically makes its way outside. There, children race between the trees. Soon it will be time for dinner. The sun has set.

Today I am in Ukraine.

I am hiding behind my sofa. Soon it will be time for dinner. But I do not want to eat. I look out into the yard where I can still hear the muffled sounds of kids playing. I want to go join them.
The memory is so real. I can smell my Great-grandmothers supper. I can hear the kids. I can taste my own feelings at that moment.

Today I am eleven years old.
I am back in my Brooklyn apartment. It is summer, and the air conditioner is on. I am lying on my stomach over my bed, the ever faithful laptop in front of me.
I am writing a book. This summer I will write it. By god, this summer I will do it.
Today I am eleven years old.

I am in Brooklyn.

The air conditioner feeds the air into the room. It is ever the residential oxygen mask. I am lying on my stomach. On the same bed, in the same corner. Telling the same ol' story.

Today I am twenty-two years old.



The years add nothing. They take away nothing.
Only strength.
They can either add it or subtract it.

The choice is, or I like to think is, always up to us.

The Return

I come out onto the roof. I no longer know where I am. The black rooftop floats like a lost raft amidst lights and buildings. Between the gusts of wind, the lights blink. They wink at me.

In the distance, skyscrapers still scrape the sky. In the distance the sun has set over behind them. Tomorrow it will rise again on the other side. It will find nothing new. All is as it was. All will be as it has been. It will find nothing.

I walk around. I know this raft well. I have sailed through many nights on it. I inspect it for changes. It has none. Several empty beer cans roll around in the wind.

On my sides the island lies empty and dark. A thousand dead babies, the buildings surround me. They blink their windows. People are dining inside, where its lit, in the womb of each child. But the children are not yet pregnant. They are not yet alive. And so the night lies quiet. The river flows empty, only its current swashing on the sides of the raft.

In the womb of the city it is quiet. The children do not speak.

Neither do I.