Spend the day with...

[Tzara]

Her phone rang several times before she picked up.

"I'm in Christchurch," I said.

"Why?" she said.

"It was where our boat landed. I've rented a car. I'd like to drive up."

"No," she said, "you can't."

"Your husband?" I asked.

"It's not that, it's..."

"Your feelings have changed about me," I said.

"What feelings?" she said, sounding puzzled.

"You 're afraid I will sweep you off your feet, ruin your marriage, alienate your kids." I paused, dramatically, "But all I want to do is say hello. And that's the truth. The absolute truth."

"We'd say g'day," she said practically, "not hello."

"I know that," I said, "Can I drive up?"

"No," she said.

"Why not?" I was pleading a bit. "Why the hell not?"

"Christchurch is on the South Island. I live on the North Island. You have ocean in between. No driving."

"Oh," I said. Her laughter echoed bitterly in my ears.

 

[normal jean]

Tzara,
do you have ANY idea how very attractive a fertile imagination really is?

I mean, seriously...

makes me wanna handcuff you to a desk in the USC computer lab and feed you moon pies... while you try to teach me come sort of computer program that will revolutionize cybersex... ....we'll make a trillion dollars and start a nudist-poet colony

 

[wildsweetone]

Her phone rang several times before she picked up.

"I'm in Christchurch," I said.

"Why?" she said.

"It was where our boat landed. I've rented a car. I'd like to drive up."

"No," she said, "you can't."

"Your husband?" I asked.

"It's not that, it's..."

"Your feelings have changed about me," I said.

"What feelings?" she said, sounding puzzled.

"You 're afraid I will sweep you off your feet, ruin your marriage, alienate your kids." I paused, dramatically, "But all I want to do is say hello. And that's the truth. The absolute truth."

"We'd say g'day," she said practically, "not hello."

"I know that," I said, "Can I drive up?"

"No," she said.

"Why not?" I was pleading a bit. "Why the hell not?"

"Christchurch is on the South Island. I live on the North Island. You have ocean in between. No driving."

"Oh," I said. Her laughter echoed bitterly in my ears.

very good. only thing is, you can drive from one end of the country to the other (well, from the South Island to the North Island and vice versa)... there are vehicle ferries that run across Cook Strait several times a day.



(very glad to see you're not afraid to use dialogue in your writing. you use it well too. )

 

[Tzara]

very good. only thing is, you can drive from one end of the country to the other (well, from the South Island to the North Island and vice versa)... there are vehicle ferries that run across Cook Strait several times a day.

I was afraid of something like that. Why, I think, they keep telling you to write what you know.

I don't suppose starting in Hobart is quite the same thing?

 

[Tzara]

makes me wanna handcuff you to a desk in the USC computer lab and feed you moon pies...

I actually was a graduate student at USC, though at the one in southern California. And, I am proud to say, I have actually eaten a Moon Pie. Well, part of one anyway. I was in the USC (i.e., University of South Carolina) Holiday Inn right after you wrote some poem that mentioned Moon Pies, which I, native northwesterner, had never heard of. I walked out to the vending machine near the elevators and—what the hell you know—Moon Pies! Just had to buy one.

I have to tell you, though. Not my vice. Kind of cloying. Threw half of it away.

That Carolina Blonde Ale is a keeper, though.

 

[wildsweetone]

I was afraid of something like that. Why, I think, they keep telling you to write what you know.

I don't suppose starting in Hobart is quite the same thing?

i'll meet you there.

 

[Angeline]

I first met her in the sixteenth century. Minha Mãe, Minha Mãe Aña, I called her, for she was as a mother to me. Neither Aña, my teacher, nor I, her impoverished student could practice our art freely in daylight. Neither uneducated girls nor the wife of a winegrower, even one with an especially fine plot of land in the Douro Valley, were permitted to waste time on poetry. We each had our domestic duties, she, the farmer’s wife and I, her maid, but we sensed poetry everywhere, smelled and tasted it in the Douro and its alluvial soil that gave the grapes a special sweetness. I dreamt poems in the sweet indigo sky of her eyes: when I told her they danced merrily as a couplet, she froze, a statue, and pressed two fingers to her lips. "Shhh, Silêncio!" she entreated, then kissed me where we hid among the oaken casks, pressed me to the stone wall until the Marquis’ guard passed. I tasted the grapes on her breath, holding my own as the footsteps faded. We never finished that first sonnet: it was our last kiss for I lost my dear Mãe three days hence in the Revolta dos Borrachos, the revolt of the drunks. She died that Shrove Tuesday, caught under a fallen beam in Pombal’s counting room.

2007. I had spent the past two years wandering through Europe, supporting myself on the meager wages of a docent, first in Firenze and then in Aix-en-Provence. Mostly I avoided my dissertation. I dreamed of Spain, of Basque Country and was able to secure a temporary position at the Guggenheim. Restless, I left there after two months and made my way southwest, thinking I might visit friends in Rabat. I found myself drawn instead to Portugal, to Lisboa. My intention was to wander through the Bairro Alto in search of a club where I could pass an evening listening to Fado, Portugal’s traditional song. I walked aimlessly and instead found myself in the Portogallo District, near the Café A Brasileira and the statue of that great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. I surveyed the scene, the crowd bustling past the bronze man who is everyone and no one, until my gaze fell upon a beautiful young woman seated on a bench next to the café. She was busily typing on a laptop, paying no attention to the crowd passing her by. When she lifted her face though, her indigo eyes locked to mine and I felt a frisson sweep through me. I smoothed back my gray hair as I stared at her, lost in a memory that couldn’t be mine, a memory of kisses centuries old. I stared at her mouth, transfixed.

“Minha criança querida,” she cried out as I stumbled to her, to my Minha Mãe, to Aña, minha filha. “You came to help me finish the sonnet!” I leant close and smelled her lips, the grapes of Doura and the lemony scent of her skin. I kissed her and held her close. “I’ll never leave you again,” I said. “Never my Aña.”

 

[EriAliSaa]

Spend a day huh? There are so many of the people here that I would love to get to know better.... but how do you do that without being seen or known? My fear is that people here would see how dull and plain I am

However I would like to spend a day with:

1. Try concrete poetry with wso to get the real feel for it.
2. Have a good old fashion slumber party with J because... it would be fun!
3. Try to figure out Chris' quiet intensity
4. Go out clubbing with HKS
5. Do a wild safari to observe Rbuka, MET, RF, and WE in their natural habitat... you know, Marlin Perkins style.
6. Try to figure out what lurks deep in Tris2

Jeez I think I could all day list something I would like to know for everyone I have come in contact with.... maybe I should make that a mission But back to bed... I have an early play date for the kids =)

 

[Tathagata]

it is a bar of course.
it will probably always be a bar, if they allow hospital beds and oxygen tanks to be wheeled in i can assure you it will always be a bar.
eternal dusk in there
like always watching the sunset
golds and muted reds and dark polished wood
these are conducive to conversation
to truth and reminiscing
a confessional sans guilt or penance
a psychiatrist couch without a timer
or a complex

choosing a drink is like choosing a dueling weapon
you want the right caliber, you want to be able to pinpoint where you go
verbally
beer is buckshot, scotch a magnum, tequila a tommygun in the hands of a monkey
i wondered what she will drink?
Jamaican rum and coke for me
Appleton a good omen
same name as the street i grew up on

she will be smaller than her pictures
perhaps she's been worn down
her edges softened
a magazine to often leafed
perhaps that 's it
she's been looked at and handled
over and over

we will talk
as people seldom do
without pretense
no standard response, no pause to weigh words
no need
we will smoke without guilt
knowing it is a necessary evil
creating atmosphere and setting a tone
it is a song this meeting
this sharing
there is harmony and flow
it is unhurried and moves
assuredly on
we have no idea how long it will last
our job is simply to listen and dance
till the music ends

the door opens
the baton is dropped
and on her smile
the orchestra begins

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I first met her in the sixteenth century.

That's beautiful.

 

[WickedEve]

it is a bar of course.
it will probably always be a bar, if they allow hospital beds and oxygen tanks to be wheeled in i can assure you it will always be a bar.
eternal dusk in there
like always watching the sunset
golds and muted reds and dark polished wood
these are conducive to conversation
to truth and reminiscing
a confessional sans guilt or penance
a psychiatrist couch without a timer
or a complex

choosing a drink is like choosing a dueling weapon
you want the right caliber, you want to be able to pinpoint where you go
verbally
beer is buckshot, scotch a magnum, tequila a tommygun in the hands of a monkey
i wondered what she will drink?
Jamaican rum and coke for me
Appleton a good omen
same name as the street i grew up on

she will be smaller than her pictures
perhaps she's been worn down
her edges softened
a magazine to often leafed
perhaps that 's it
she's been looked at and handled
over and over

we will talk
as people seldom do
without pretense
no standard response, no pause to weigh words
no need
we will smoke without guilt
knowing it is a necessary evil
creating atmosphere and setting a tone
it is a song this meeting
this sharing
there is harmony and flow
it is unhurried and moves
assuredly on
we have no idea how long it will last
our job is simply to listen and dance
till the music ends

the door opens
the baton is dropped
and on her smile
the orchestra begins

Tath, this is brilliant and beautiful. It could be about any woman, but I'll guess Angeline. I hate guessing, by the way.

 

[Tathagata]

Tath, this is brilliant and beautiful. It could be about any woman, but I'll guess Angeline. I hate guessing, by the way.

who said it's only about one woman?


i'd drink with you but I'd have to sit on a phone book

 

[Angeline]

Tath, this is brilliant and beautiful. It could be about any woman, but I'll guess Angeline. I hate guessing, by the way.

They're all about me. Even the ones that aren't.

I've got one about you I'm cogitating on--well except when it's about me.

 

[WickedEve]

who said it's only about one woman?


i'd drink with you but I'd have to sit on a phone book

No. Too many strange people in a telephone book. I'd sit you in a highchair and poke you with my finger until you giggled.


Ange, it's all about you, really. I saw that written somewhere.

 

[Angeline]

No. Too many strange people in a telephone book. I'd sit you in a highchair and poke you with my finger until you giggled.


Ange, it's all about you, really. I saw that written somewhere.

It will be if I ever finish editing this book! (Of course, the thousand and one breaks I'm taking isn't making it go any faster lol.)

 

[champagne1982]

 

[EriAliSaa]

No. Too many strange people in a telephone book. I'd sit you in a highchair and poke you with my finger until you giggled.

So Tatha is like Elmo then?

 

[Tathagata]

No. Too many strange people in a telephone book. I'd sit you in a highchair and poke you with my finger until you giggled.

wouldn't be the first time I giggled while being poked....

 

[EriAliSaa]

wouldn't be the first time I giggled while being poked....

Tatha IS Elmo!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

wouldn't be the first time I giggled while being poked....

....now if a woman giggled while getting poked it might devastate her partner.

 

[Tathagata]

Tatha IS Elmo!

I'm more Oscar

 

[WickedEve]

....now if a woman giggled while getting poked it might devastate her partner.

Especially if she giggles at her partner while someone else is poking her. Hey, some people get off on that.

 

[Angeline]

I'm more Oscar

I can see that.

Oscar's Song

Oh, I love trash!
Anything dirty or dingy or dusty
Anything ragged or rotten or rusty
Yes, I love trash

I have here a sneaker that's tattered and worn
It's all full of holes and the laces are torn
A gift from my mother the day I was born
I love it because it's trash

Oh, I love trash!
Anything dirty or dingy or dusty
Anything ragged or rotten or rusty
Yes, I love trash

I have here some newspaper thirteen months old
I wrapped fish inside it; it's smelly and cold
But I wouldn't trade it for a big pot o' gold!
I love it because it's trash

Oh, I love trash!
Anything dirty or dingy or dusty
Anything ragged or rotten or rusty
Yes, I love trash

I've a clock that won't work
And an old telephone
A broken umbrella, a rusty trombone
And I am delighted to call them my own!
I love them because they're trash

Oh, I love trash!
Anything dirty or dingy or dusty
Anything ragged or rotten or rusty
Yes, I love, I love, I love trash!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Especially if she giggles at her partner while someone else is poking her. Hey, some people get off on that.

how about if she giggles at her partner while someone else is poking him?

Hey............

 

[WickedEve]

how about if she giggles at her partner while someone else is poking him?

Hey............

Oh, you giggling slut!