notebook 4: tidbits & cutouts (circa 2009)

marc jacobs


if only all the wandering would lead away from home


*___*___*

THE BOOK OF LOVE

mine just a few notes,
each anecdote separated by
pages and pages of blank.
deserts. fasts. me-time.
(the book is heavy now with them.
the weight of a man, alone)


*___*___*

Parallax: a Study in Joyce & Astronomy (walking home down Santa Monica)


*___*___*

The child dreams another invention into creation. That's 13 this month alone. In those rare moments he sits, not speaking, staring away, I hear the sound of wind as his mind blazes through itself, beyond itself, to an undiscovered world, and returns with its little token. Pocket knives with high energy laser beams. two sided photo-camera devices so you can simultaneously capture yourself as you capture your subject, a contraption to untune pianos, a levitating wheelchair, a peaceful world.


*___*___*

wednesday, 6pm (a pre-nocturne)

the last of the sun is just(leaving
a final gasp of warmth)
an equipoised system: one pinprick(perfect contentment)
versus the sharp edges of everything
trying to cram in through the shadows


*___*___*

IMAGES (of contentment)

__2.
i feel soo far from you.alleverything
(a distance not measured in times or lengths)
(a slowly blurring dream, coming apart at the edges)
(slowly losing weight like a punctured tire
or the elderly skin of a deflating balloon)
"i can turn right or left, makes no difference"
___[he smiles]

______"i feel soo free"


*___*___*

Time ,
; come-then
(all of now) :
yours
(everything)
As you wanted.


*___*___*

SELF PORTRAIT, OR: PEOPLE WHO EAT CEREAL AT 3AM

where you go, empty cereal boxes follow
.
.

___in the present you are empty
space people have filled with
white-goods and recent mo(u)rnings
and countless new problems -
the steam, smoke and skeletons from tea and cigarette conversations
.
.
___where it is too quiet to tell stories
and all the rocks he kicked were never seen again.


*___*___*

a (maze) me] 'nt


*___*___*

Dear A-Diggity,
___In recent history, Christmas has become a day of exile. A day for departure lounges and solo-coffees. A day to measure the relativistic duration of these long Decembers.


*___*___*

REASONS I HAVE NOT BEEN WRITING LISTS LATELY, A LIST:

1. can't think of anything
2. don't believe in numerical ordering of information in such wise as to satisfy rudimentary requirements of a basic taxonomy of self
3. i don't really care about anything.
4. it is all so quiet
5.
________fall.


*___*___*

MID-20s ADVENTURES: things you are.think.feel on weekends when your best friends get married and childhood friends die inexplicably in their sleep while you wrestle with social-conformity, An Exercise in Self-Loathing
.
.
two weeks ago, we sat at a table. and laughed. and both our hearts were beating. and we were happy.

*___*___*

wet paper is soo sensitive she said. and you don't really know which words will blur. then she walked off, giggling almost inaudibly, and scratching under her neck as her head kept up with her eyes darting around.


*___*___*

"what are you looking at?" he asks. She keeps looking at the road.
"the beach" she says, "same colour", never smiling.


*___*___*

and though there is nothing left to be said, sometimes nothing is a lot. Sometimes nothing is everything. And sometimes: nothing is all you have. all you are left with. And so this is about nothing (everything).


*___*___*

THE BALLOON

it's halted in the corner of the room
cheek-to-white ceiling.
flaccid tail hanging down,
no children left to grasp at it.
an arrested flight.
one nudge away from the window, clouds, rain.
inhaled breath that we forgot about.
unused return fare.
words we wished we said.
check-to-white ceiling.
___if only it could turn its head it would be lip-to-lip.

someone leaves another room,
shuts a door loudly,
the balloon's tail quivers
then still again.
where it ends.


*___*___*

peripatetic effusions


*___*___*

a new year yawns. opens its eyes. feels like any day, any other day - the way birthdays feel.
i smile in the afternoon, when i have finally learnt i am not superman. and grow tired. and sit at my steering wheel and pray someone is, and will come help me cross the street.


*___*___*

this notebook has been the least successful of them all, of all of them taken together this book has achieved little. it is a little book but not soo little. i had expected more of this book. i do not know what this says about me. or this time. or if there is nothing a matter with me, or this time, but that this book is faulty. there is no novel in these pages. no story. maybe a few phrases out of some poem that could not be saved but for an eyebrow or fingernail. the rest is forgotten already. this book is the leftover whatevers of forgotten things.

___