Thursday, April 23, 2009

i disagree

i have to be writing right now. there is so much noise being broadcast out here that i need to be a part of it.

i stumbled off the bus today and into the thick of yonge and dundas circus. i am acutely sensitive to the eaton centre thicket. the pitterpatter of shoppers is dumbfounding considering the economic climate. i saw a young guy glance his fist accross another guy's face. you could tell that he basically missed. fighting seems a lot more desperate and clumsy in real life than it does on tv. and everyone seemed to disappear very quickly afterwards. there were four guys. and then they weren't anywhere any longer.

dennis told me that the word "nowhere" was always very confusing to him as a non-native english speaker. he always wondered if it was pronounced 'now-here,' or 'no-where.' i never even thought about the fact that it lodged those words. nowhere. now here. a while ago we decided that he is better equipped to see the 'big picture,' while my eyes descend upon finer details. i think that this nowhere example proves nothing.

anyway.

Friday, April 17, 2009

untitled 8

there is nothing to write


the time has passed


for that


and i can't write to the past

and if i did


it would mean buh-bye


to all of that


i wonder


i read that for albert camus, the larger percentage of the population

is carrying its rotting corpses on its back


this being the business of living,

this being dead


i remember tammy faye baker said something similar-

that in ancient times 

ancient peoples would carry

dead bodies on their backs 

in some sort of penance

until they too were surely dead


i read somewhere that there is only one real destination

that somewhere after going to work

and growing old

that you will be dead


it makes you wonder about

the quality of living


tammy faye said that she had been carrying someone

around like that until at some point she didn't see the justice in it any longer

she knew to cut him off,

to let her live


and she was right


it didn't change the practice of being human

she died of course some time later


and it doesn't mean that we don't all carry this ancient burden

of being punishable for something indescribable, unknowable

but all the more real, kafka-esque


but it's like what dennis said-

the way you feel when a stone falls

from your heart-

being alive 

like that