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Belletristic Blathering & Trash Poetry -
Phosphorimental is just a placemat for
the dribblings and crumbs of creativity.
Keep an eye on www.good-graffiti.com and www.trashpoetry.com

Sunday, September 28, 2008

…Thing about enigmas are that I'm so damn fascinated by them. Touchingly odd, because I believe that in the absence of complete understanding, there is this neon sign flashing, saying "Insert Imagination Here!" Favorite enigmas are those that traipse along between quirky and comfortably predictable. Not sure what others there are…always a topic of discussion. But 'tis true - fascination is maybe 20 parts objective to 80 parts subjective. So we invest in the mystery – we weave an understanding around an undefined space, we rest foundations on fathomless ground, we invent what we want in things that are not obviously functional.

But I could tell I was at the end of my mundane discussions and keyboard tapping here in the long eastward shadows of days end; shadows only imagined on this cold spitting day void of sun. So I need to write and people don't respond universally to my writing – one, I'm not polished or professional and two, I'm either too friggin intense or utterly confusing. I always hope that someone doesn't have to read what I write more than once, but sometimes I don't give them a choice. It's nice to find one person who appreciates it – it's some kind of deep inward cleansing, when you feel like you are not accepted on the outside, but like a well calibrated laser, can queue emotion or self awareness deep within someone.

As you can see, I enjoy alliteration, allegory, and the entire crayola box of literary descriptors. I am addicted to writing…more so the expression of stuff in my heart and mind as proverbial ink on page. I am excited by the transliteration of someone's depth onto tangible medium and then right back into the psyche and subconscious of someone else. What is that? Sex, consummation of spirit, conception?

What is weird, is writing to someone who I know nothing about – but from whom a few words and images convey an inviting blank canvas. I think it's admirable to open up an answer to "about me" with something other than "I am." Seeking the triptych… an enchanted listener, a prudent skeptic, and a sensual…muse. Not sure what a reader writes – I'm sure that what is delivered in the action of script is likely to measure up to what is received in the action of reading; provided the cause, the means, and the effect are magically aligned.

And so much parlance might leave you wondering if we could ever hold down a conversation from floating away into the ceiling fans and being scattered about. But I have to add, in conversation I am driven to humor. I like that pithy and silly comedy that can be subtle, bone dry, or dripping wet, thereby encouraging someone else to jump in and save me. I can recall those times in bed, talking myself and partner into prostrate mumblings…exhausted from wine, love, dance, or conversation. "Whaaat?" she would say, stirring me from what I mistook as an awake state. Eyes still closed, the only reflex to the question is another, half whispered, "hmm, what…what I say?" This would be followed by a staggered series of completely misshapen and pathetically struggling and barely audible thought fragments…each one failing to relate, or even attempt to relate to it's predecessor.

I love that – that stupid tired conversation in the dark, that wrenches every last drop of consciousness from our minds as the electronics shutdown. It makes me wonder how dreams ever manage to find a synapses that is still able to fire. I miss that element of partnership – giving into the exhaustion of giving; knowing that you are safe and that your paintings will still be on the wall in the morning and your wallet will be no more empty than it was when you put it on the end table – staggering in the door the night before. I've never been a victim of a relationship any more than a victim of my own shortcomings. The only robbery in the morning is innocence, which is recovered promptly through our reactions.

I enjoy audiences, and yesterday I was amidst interesting company of very senior executives defending a budget line I am sure I need. I walked out with my budget and my boss, leaving behind a room in which ties were a bit looser and the declivity of mouths were ever so slightly overturned. The passing time from the morning onward brought a marked change in the weather, and soon I was on 495, rolling north barely breathing more than four times a minute. I became the traffic, and it occurred to me that someone somewhere whom I've never laid eyes on or spoken with, is reading my inner thoughts reduced to two dimensions on a screen. Phosphorimental. How would it be reconstituted in their mind?
The recluse, Jim Harrison, and I sat next to each other in first class. I could hear the pitter pat of mice feet in his mind running in their squeaky wheels, cobwebs waving in the breeze. He talked a bit about Jack Nicholson and that genre of people (Hunter Thompson, Dennis Hopper, Jimmy Buffett, and a few others.) Or so I imagine it that way.

Harrison is a planetary and somewhat round man, dense enough to have his own gravitational pull and full set of orbiting moons. From the corner of my eye, I can still make out that unruly salt and pepper hair, blown back in disarray like Tea Tree branches on Rottnest Island off Perth, to be specific. Add to that a thicket of mustache, with different shaped teeth, like chicklets jutting down, like tombstones in bear grass. He needed some grooming and some detangling. His eyes reminded me of stout cement nails, beset in a tan round face. In them were little hematite beads, lens caps on film projectors rolling polyester film from the early 60's. His one eye roamed, while his right tried to console a childhood injury that left him sightless in the other.

His clothing was reminiscent of that which you'd find wearily hanging in a dark storage closet. His light brown T-shirt was a bit too small showing a hemisphere of abdomen. Over that he sported a rust colored and distressed suede jacket, with gnawed fringes on the sleeves as I recall; or so I seem to imagine. I'll bet that in his pockets were a couple of old well pressed diner receipts, a turnpike ticket, and crinkled cellophane candy wrappers from, like, 1970.

He spoke with a bit of disgust about the Hollywood scene; having just returned geographically and mentally from a movie director's office in LA. Said that there was no money in being an author, but screenwriting, well there's a living… Aspiring screenwriters are coming out of the knotty woodwork, with lolling tongues and pointy pencils (that's not exactly what he said, but so I like to imagine it). Writers are assigned to movie adaptations of novels before the books are ever finished. I didn't get the feeling he'd be putting out another book – but I hope to see some poetry.

What would I say to Jack Nicholson, who I ran into walking along the bay in San Diego years later? About this chance meeting with his friend Jim Harrison? "Hey Jack, I went out for barbeque with your friend Jim Harrison when he came through Tucson…he told me what a fucking nut you are." When I ran by Jack that sunny day, I just said "hi Jack," which seemed to startle him…he lifted his head in bewilderment and tried to spot me from under his shades.

Jim Harrison and I drank booze and made up a story for the flight attendant…you see, he was an underwear model and I was his agent…this went on for the entire flight. He disappeared while disembarking – ending up somewhere in Patagonia for a retreat. That day, I went home and Googled Jim Harrison.