Myth of Arrival

Some time ago I started a journal. I am a terrible journal writer since I make up large sections of what has happened to me to amuse my "readers" (whoever they might be, someone in the far future I suppose) but I am also well aware of this. In the first page of my journal I wrote out for myself what I now see if my mini-philosophy on Negative Ecstasy. Interesting, since I would go back to that subject when I started this blog. I will only quote a bit, since most of it is illegible and repetitive:

The end result [of my creative process] is that my sonnets take on a sort of drifting, rambling, straggling quality to them, like I was making up lines to fit the rhyme since I am never really sure what direction the poem is taking. Sometimes I even … fib, exaggerate, embellish to keep the story moving. I love absurdity (as long as it is not happening to me)

Speaking of absurdity¹ I have been amusing myself by turning small real life situations into outlandish drama while writing my sonnets lately. For example, it is true that I do a lot of cumbrous lifting at work in the rest home. Many of my residents with Alzheimer's are unable to transfer themselves out of their beds and into their wheelchairs so I do it for them. It's not easy lifting 220 pounds of human flesh (I have no idea what that is kilos) from a stumpy, slumped over positions² but I tend to come home aching all over and dreaming about saunas, massages and steam baths. A poetry of steam baths? It sounds strangely tantalizing, exotic, libidinous.

Also, I put into the poem whatever is happening around me at the time. The radio was on and first I tuned in to a classical music station where they were playing a bit of cello by the composer Bach, then I switched to a local jazz station where John Coltrane and Bird, Charlie Parker, played back to back. There were a lot birds outside my window twittering in the morning light and so I thought: "ah ha! Zack is being clever," so that went into the poem too. Of course, alcohol, pain killers and aspirin aren't the way I get through the day (no, it is coffee), but this all had a nice ring to it and is a lot more exciting than just saying: "I need a massage, please." We love our tragic heroes, I guess.

Pain is a real pisser. To wake; yellow
phlegm, limbs shaking, lungs fluid filled, the brain
pan on fire. Nothing pleases. Bach's cello?
Birds' song outside? A low groan from Coltrane?
Nothing — but to wake and rise and labor
out of bed. Thrown into flesh's burdens
I gulp down pills with my coffee. Killer
migraines need migraine killers; mountains
of raw aspirin. Sleeping pills. Alcohol.
Enough to numb another day. Thirty
wild years and how many do I recall?
Just wild fear — of failure, of poverty,
you name it. Pain drove me. Ai, little word
of my core. You make life richly absurd.

1. As we all know some people are funnier than others. I don't have a television at home but I was helping one of my residents at work get ready for bed on Friday and he had his television on. The station was tuned to the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Channel ("for the hockey games," he said), and a comedy show, "Rick Mercer Talks to Americans," was playing. It was hilarious. It consisted in Mr. Mercer interviewing random Americans on the street and getting them to agree with bizarre "facts" about Canada. He persuaded Americans to say: "Congratulations, Canada, on legalizing insulin," "Please, Canada, stop putting your senior citizens on ice floes and sending them out to sea" or "Congratulations, Canada, on your first mile of paved road." The intent was to make fun of our American ignorance on all things Canadian, so he got various locals to urge the Canadian government to install a new air-conditioner to help save the National Igloo and to agree that the U.S. should bomb Saskatchewan. Of course, my short term memory being what it is, I couldn't remember the name of the show when I got home at midnight, but thanks to all powerful Internet I discovered what I had been watching and even an article Mr. Mercer wrote concerning how the show started. [back]
2. I have only thrown my back out at this job once. True, I lay on the ground crying in pain until help arrived and was unable to return to work for two weeks. The codeine they gave me to keep me numb helped a lot … I don't recall a lot of those weeks except I had difficulty getting to the bathroom [back]

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Forms, Original Poetry, Writing Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.