Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Another Slack Romantic Chasing His Heart Like an Unleashed Dog Chasing a Pickup Truck



That's not the gif and this is not the post I accidentally published then erased last night. That post was started while I was in a good mood and will (or not) be finished and published (or not) when I'm in a good mood, which isn't going to be today, one of the three or four times a year I go to sleep happy and at peace and wake up dark and seething, angry that I went to sleep happy and at peace, angrier at the impotence of my darkness and seething. Let's see if this helps:




Yup but nope. Last Thursday's pints were postponed until last night. After everyone described the current stage of their obamapostasies and demdisgust, I was asked for the gigagillionth time why the fuck I'm burning my peat on a motherfucking blog. Because, I said, adding now, where better to seethe darkly and impotently?






DAY JOB AND NIGHT JOB

Andrew Hudgins

After my night job, I sat in class
and ate, every thirteen minutes,
an orange peanut—butter cracker.
Bright grease adorned my notes.

At noon I rushed to my day job
and pushed a broom enough
to keep the boss calm if not happy.
In a hiding place, walled off

by bolts of calico and serge,
I read my masters and copied
Donne, Marlowe, Dickinson, and Frost,
scrawling the words I envied,

so my hand could move as theirs had moved
and learn outside of logic
how the masters wrote.  But why?  Words
would never heal the sick,

feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
blah, blah, blah.
Why couldn't I be practical,
Dad asked, and study lawor take a single business class?
I stewed on what and why
till driving into work one day,
a burger on my thigh

and a sweating Coke between my knees,
I yelled, "Because I want to!"—
pained—thrilled!—as I looked down
from somewhere in the blue

and saw beneath my chastened gaze
another slack romantic
chasing his heart like an unleashed dog
chasing a pickup truck.

And then I spilled my Coke. In sugar
I sat and fought a smirk.
I could see my new life clear before me. 
It looked the same.  Like work.

4 comments:

  1. Mister computer, I know you have BDR locked up in there somewhere. I demand that you let him out!
    ~

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  2. What's funny about Torres is that if one of his not-*that*-bad chances (I'd have to watch a rerun to recall if each was a mishit or a good save or what) had gone in last week, given that it was in the CL, (almost) everyone would be saying that he's back, fantastic signing, etc.

    Thus, surprise at having left him on and taking Drogba off instead though, man, that link Wilson provided, way higher percentage of Torres' goals on the ground than I had assumed.

    Novels? In the same boat, verse and historical non-fiction. I can't even remember what the last novel I read. Not remembering seems to be a running theme here. Shit, I'm turning into Admiral Stockdale.

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  3. Torres doesn't fit Chel$ki's system. I think they they signed him just to keep ManUtd or City from signing him.

    Mucking Fadrid is the only side I'd ever root for Chel$ki to beat.

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  4. While saying the Civil War was about slavery is a gross oversimplification, the Civil War was, in fact, about slavery. The state secession documents are a valuable lesson in primary sourcing on this issue. Had the Internet been then what it is now, we'd have laughed Duane out of town.

    Though it's still fascinating to me that an unreserved Marxist taught us that the war wasn't about slavery. I attribute it to his other-side-of-the-river origins (and continuing domicile).

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