Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Ooh, I’ve written ten poems this year.

That’s not very good. Even if we count the two-and-a-half months I was out of action, that still leaves me with four months in which to write. I think I like three of the poems I’ve written, but I feel guilty that two of them are so short. I’ve sent two of them to M to see what he thinks of them (sigh, it’ll be a while before he reads them, being out on the coast for a week or so. I always feel slightly lost when M goes away)

Despite not writing as many poems as I’d like, I’ve been reading maybe 3-4 poems a day for the last two months or so.

I was reading Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Aubade’ the other day (aubades are beautiful. Larkin’s is…interesting…). The first few lines are just amazing:
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Am very, very tired from being up all night and having worked all day, but had a wonderful evening.

Spoke to my pretty-much-future housemate and while I’m nervous about him moving in, I think things will go really well. I’ll still have a bathroom to myself, haha! I definitely feel like I’ll be the most useless of the trio, but I did point out I will be able to help them through any villanelle crises they may have (why didn’t I study something useful at uni?). Gosh, how will I survive with two computer-nerd homebrewers? I’ll really miss my current housemate Frosty…I’ll have no one to platonically snuggle with and watch cool DVDs with.

My old music school buddy DH had me over for dinner tonight and cooked me a very decadent spaghetti carbonara…I honestly don’t remember the last time a bloke cooked for me! Well, there is Rob, but I live with him. Also caught up with J, his housemate, who has been approved for the priesthood. It felt funny telling him about how I’d kissed a girl for the first time whilst listening to DH play Chopin on the piano. We drank most of a really good bottle of white wine (been ages since I’ve had decent white wine), again thanks to Rob. I owe him extra birthday-present beer.

I’m freaking out less about the sleep thing. I heard back from L, Dee and M (L & D – I’ll reply to your communication later, promise). I think it was M who told me most what I wanted to hear (that being, stick it out for a month and don’t go on extra drugs). That’s really what I want to do. Perhaps if I stop sleeping so goddamn much on my days off I’ll get as hot and skinny as Trent Reznik in The Machinist (joking…maybe).

There are some days where I just want desperately to be lied to and told that it’s all going to be okay. I may, however, settle for Tom Baker’s Doctor Who offering me dusted jellybabies.

It would also be nice if I didn’t burst into tears in front of strangers; I would feel like less of an idiot.

I’m sad again, so you know what that means…

…post a poem! I’m really hoping that a couple of my overseas pals will hop online so they can tell me I’m not going mad…(I am really, but friends are generally good at telling you that you’re not all the bad things you think you are).

This one I also read on one of the LiveJournal communities I’m subscribed to and, in all honesty, it has to be admitted, this is probably the one that convinced me I had to read all of e. e. cummings’ work.

Here we go.
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Found out about it on Neil Gaiman’s blog, as usual. It is published on the Entertainment Weekly website, and is listed as ‘The New Classics’.

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Read more cool stuff on Neil Gaiman’s blog (where else, really?). When I read this, I thought especially of M. Then I thought of M, me and that dratted bottle of whisky by my bedside.

Writers are people who write. By and large, they are not happy people. They’re not good at relationships. Often they’re drunks. And writing — good writing — does not get easier and easier with practice. It gets harder and harder — so eventually the writer must stall out into silence.The silence that waits for every writer and that, inevitably, if only with death (if we’re lucky the two may happen at the same time: but they are still two, and their coincidence is rare), the writer must fall into is angst-ridden and terrifying – and often drives us mad. (In a letter to Allen Tate, the poet Hart Crane once described writing as “dancing on dynamite.”) So if you’re not a writer, consider yourself fortunate.

The quote is taken from Samuel R. Delany’s About Writing. I think I may need to read it.

(*whispers* are we really not happy people? If I’m only a would-be writer, then is my unhappiness ‘Diet Coke’ unhappiness?)

I read a very, very, very long Kenneth Koch poem today the other day – ‘To Marina’ – I absolutely hated it at first, but grew to like some of it. I still overall dislike it, it seems too…indulgent. Is something wrong with me that I don’t like it? I know M would say not at all but still…

Found it on a LiveJournal poetry community.

I’m actually revelling in the fact that I have nothing to do on a Saturday night and just spent most of the day in bed being lulled to sleep by Anner Bylsma’s recording of the complete Bach cello suites…oh my god, can you spell bliss? I need to add more of my classical music to our home server. I specifically ripped the cello suites for Rob (he’s a cellist) as we were having a discussion about the different recordings available (he likes Pablo Casals’ version which I’ve only heard bits and pieces of).
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I’m having an awful time trying to sleep, even though I had an awesome evening – some workmates came over and lots of beer was drunk and junk food consumed.

At present, the neighbour’s cat is lying on my bed, curled up and very happy. He has gradually become a quite pleasant cat, not at all hissy and nasty like he first used to be when I met him nearly a year ago. I’d rather like to think I’ve won him over.

Over the last month, it’s become obvious to me that I am totally in love with the poetry of e.e. cummings and Pablo Neruda. When I was younger, I used to think cummings affected and…don’t know, but something about it made me think he tried too hard. I was just an idiot. His stuff is sheer genius.

Neruda I can’t read in the original (well, I could struggle with the Spanish I guess, what with my French/Tagalog…) but in translation…wow. God to be able to write poems that leave a sweet, lingering taste in one’s mouth. That’s what Neruda does for me.

Must hunt down complete poetic works of cummings and Neruda.

Gosh, it’s so nice to feel so…normal (read: on less psychotropic shit). Granted the insomnia’s not, but eh.

A friend (thanks T – I might be dumb but I did get them working) gave me some computer speakers and christ, listening to minimal tech is so fecking good now. I love it (Vladislav Delay’s Multila and Jan Jelinek avec les exposures’ La nouvelle pauvrete [yeah yeah, kill me, I left out my accents. Baise-toi]) – fantastic music for insomnia.

Holy feck, edited to add – how could I forget to mention the American contemporary poet Richard Siken?! I would kill/perform various sex acts for a copy of his Crush which I guess I’ll just have to order as no one on e(vil)Bay is selling one…boo-urns (yes, Z, that was for you).

(I wrote this yesterday…)

Despite the fact that I didn’t actually sleep this morning, I’ve had a wonderful day. Because…

- I wrote a poem. Then translated said poem into French. I think it might be nicer in French, haven’t decided yet (thanks B for helping me out)
- finally worked out how to open the stupid bloody laundry door. This is no mean feat, the lock’s well buggered up the anal cavity
- someone who I missed is back in my life and it’s like we were never apart (I mean you J, if you read this)
- the guy at the coffee shop at work thinks I’m cute, even without the pink hat (even if he doesn’t remember my name – I mean, who does anyway?)
- I made a new friend at said coffee shop because of the ace xkcd tee I was wearing (thank you Randall Munroe – social retards like me need friends)
- my boss said nice things about me on my evaluation (he’s so nice it’s almost criminal NOT to have a crush on him. I don’t, I promise)
- holy fuck, someone just made some really funny racy comment directed at me on Facebook. I mean, I really laughed my head off – haven’t done that for ages…(it was pretty…direct)
- I have a few really lovely friends, they make me gush…

Nah, not referring to my life…*wink*.

My Jamie McKelvie comic books finally arrived in the mail last week at my parents’ place and I started reading them. I’ve finished Long, Hot Summer which was disappointing only because it was so short. And also not in colour. That was what I loved about Suburban Glamour.

But Phonogram is fecking fantastic. I mean, I had to stop reading it because I didn’t want it to finish too quickly. Let me see if I can rustle up a Wiki link.

Recently, I had a bit of a run-in with members of the opposite sex and it’s left me a bit…burnt. As a result, for some weird reason I find myself listening to Britpop. I don’t know, I kind of find it soothing for a not-quite broken heart (if you have an actual broken heart, then nothing will save you. Nothing).

I pulled out my old Radiohead (not quite Britpop I know…), Suede who just rock (and of course I can’t find one of their albums which is really pissing me off), and Elastica (wasn’t all that keen on their self-titled but gave it a chance thanks to M).

It’s funny, I was talking to K the other day and she said that while she loves Radiohead’s OK Computer she said she just can’t listen to it because it depresses her dreadfully.

I was going to post about my weekend, but can’t be stuffed. Let me just say thanks to Rob, K & M for looking after me last week. I really needed it.

But now’s time to check on the tea and dance like crazy to New Order’s ‘Temptation’! Woo yea!

At least three boys I know have told me they don’t believe love exists. One on good authority.

I’m starting to believe them, too.

Perhaps it’s just some fictional construct we make up to erase people’s limitless flaws. Or some convenient ‘intellectual’ explanation for the throbbings in nether regions.

Then, of course, I read a poem. Actually, two. One by Pablo Neruda which I’ve read before (I think this link will work).

And another by Mary Oliver. Guess what, it’s not about love between two humans at all. Surprise, surprise.

‘Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night (Percy Three)’ by Mary Oliver

He puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.
And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.

Tell me you love me, he says.

Tell me again.

Could there be a sweeter arrangement?
Over and over
he gets to ask it.
I get to tell.

With what I’ve read by Oliver, I either hate it, or love it. This I most definitely love. The last four lines are just sublime.

I miss my pussycat very much all of a sudden. I’ve got one right next to me at present but he doesn’t give out hugs very often. We very much have the Petrarchan dynamic going (I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Wikipedia is failing me when I look for something to explain the dynamic of Petrarchan love…but the above Neruda poem with its discussion of fire/ice etc. owes a lot to Petrarch).

Both my parents are postcolonials.

In terms of personal identity, sometimes it really fucks me up.

Other times it seems fantastic because it means I belong to several different cultures (Indian, British, Filipino, Spanish, Australian).

Anyway, I’m posting a note that a cousin of mine wrote. He lives in Canada, and unlike me, both his parents are Guyanese-born (Asian) Indian. He had a lot of interesting things to say about a trip to Guyana (my father refuses to take myself and my brother there, for reasons my cousin mentions). It reminded me a lot of my visits to the Philippines (my mother’s birthplace) where I’ve made similar such observations.
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On Wikipedia’s main page they have these cool featured articles – a different one for each day.

Tomorrow’s (well, my tomorrow) one is…interesting.

Lookee!

Sertraline sucks arse. That is all.

(But I still heart Wikipedia!)

Interestingly enough, a friend asked me to go to an exhibition about drugs on the weekend. Curiouser and curiouser!

I’m feeling a little sad tonight, and I can’t sleep, though at least for once I know why.

So I decided to post one of my favourite poems of all time. I’ve been watching the series The Tudors and the last episode I just (I have already seen it) Sir Thomas Wyatt, a Henrican poet is discussing lines he is writing to a composer called Thomas Tallis. Now, none of the actual encounter is historically accurate at all, but it makes me gleeful just to hear Wyatt say those glorious lines…
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There’s a cat called Bruno who is very much beloved round my apartment block. He’s small, black all over and has a nasty temper. He’s only recently stopped hissing at us in my place, and ever so occasionally, he lets me pick him up. He also likes to sleep with me and meow at my bedroom door (I have a door in my room which leads to the outside, so he wakes me at all manner of hours, as cats will do once they’ve decided they own you).

Not that long ago, I met another cat who, from a distance I assumed was actually Bruno (it was dark). Turns out this is yet another neighbourhood cat, I don’t know her name, but she’s black and has a white bib and feet. Today I started calling her ‘Mittens’.

She’s very shy. She wants to approach, but is still a little tentative. However, today, she finally ventured into my flat, had a poke around, contemplated jumping up with me on the couch as I lay under the red blankie. I left the door open for her because she got a bit freaked out when I firstly closed.

Then guess who wandered in!

Bruno! And he was all sweet and timid and very…well, un-Bruno. They delicately danced around one another, clearly wanting to get closer to each other, but not daring to.

It was beautiful.