Writer’s Log #33

Why write?

And to what purpose?

If the god idea is on the outside of the known universe

Then a creator is on the outside

Of their structure of work…

Or the structures of society…

There are no sharp edges

No walls

No ceilings

You can create whatever you want

But why…

There is a feeling –

And like most things- it’s lonely and likely,likely, a minuscule group and not the reality…

But there is a feeling at least for myself…

That it’s an Instagram society

And we must purchase

Exchange something from ourselves

To attain something – a special key – to unlock ourselves ….

But I don’t think we are a puzzle …

With pieces scattered throughout the universe …

We are whole…

Right now…

And there is a feeling- a pressure- that it must be

Insightful

Inspiring

And useful

——

Again…

Imposter syndrome is likely my culprit here…

If architects build structures

And landscapers lay foundations

And gardeners set tables

Artists

Are the emotions

The colours

The sensations

The memory

For society

Imagination is so important

It’s doesn’t even have to be good or great

Just show up

Even if you sit there 250 days in a row and don’t build anything

But on the 251st day

You do

You’re an artist in and out of season

You matter

——

The older I get

The less I am impressed with people

headlines (they sell stories)

There’s nothing new under the sun

We gripe on our parents

Our children will gripe on us…

We feel important and like we are doing a great work

but we all will grow old and slowly fade into the corners of rooms

Possibly becoming punchlines, ignored and suddenly we will understand how our parents possibly felt

And

There is nothing new under the sun

It’s so easy to just fall in line and be an echo

I could write about how lovely my wife was until we divorced and then it would be so easy to say she failed in the marriage and crucify her…

And most people would be ok with that

It’s easy to occupy an established place until you step out of or over a perceived line and then you become a punchline or headline and are reminded of your place

There was a writer from the Middle East

She wrote me once and asked me to keep writing …

I read her work

And all of her writing was about losing friends in school

And bombings

And religions

I thought what it must be like

To be surrounded by religions

And people selling you something all the time

Maybe we are just another echo when we pray…

I have doubts

Like a flood

But I think about her a lot

And I – I believe in art

And so I ask

Why write?

To build

Brick by brick

Forget about what you think you know

About headlines

About social media

everything is marketing and nothing is as it seems

So …again…

What are you saying and why are you saying it?

Who are you saying it to?

Why do you want to say it?

What happens next?

——

– E

Radiation High radiation nights

There is a place I go (inside)

Feel all the hate

That you can hide

Sell all you can just for a headline

They will tell you

It’s not related

But look how fast you ate it

The algorithms won’t fit

Smash it apart just for –

Doubt all you can

Just for the –

Feel all the pain

heat

The knife just before you pass it

To get the ghost on the inside

Sometimes it passes just behind my eyes

Radiate

Just to kill what crawls

It’s there at the bottom

Pump the root

If you really want

To kill

what remains

the pictures in my head

constantly grow

There on the inside

All at once

You walk on water

All at once

For the sins of the fathers

Try to save what you can

Just a hole for my

Vices

—-

There’s a place I go inside

Carry it with me

Just so I can hide

——

Radiate

The flesh and bone

Pump what remains

Try save something you can build upon

But the ghost remains

Try to aspire but I’m not really –

And I’m running –

I’m fading-

Out of things I think I can say…..

Bleeding out

There

It’s all in red

——-

-E

Beagle in the City #301

Ethan: I don’t care what you thought you saw, you have to come inside now and take a bath. Or I can just use the water hose…
Simon: It was really there though, it was a ground hog, dad. I can smell it. I have to go find it.
Ethan: It’s not gonna happen, man.
Francis: I was there, kind of, through the windows, it boxed at his nose…
Francis: Face it…he’s not into the poems…He’s into the wrestling…
Ethan: Oh god….
Simon: You gotta let me be a hound dog, dad. I gotta use my nose.
Francis: Let him joins the circus.
Ethan: Let me tell you both a story about the digging-est dog…

Clay

I wondered what artist must have felt, from their studios, during war times…if they felt any significance, to continue to carve at clay, to continue to shape, to continue to paint…

Hearts, beating in my head, like drums, you face it, you always must face it, carving your way through it, with ink and pain, bleeding out on this page…

You walk through grief…

There is no other way…

Even when it feels insignificant

Meaningless

——

Maybe this is how we love

Even when it feels meaningless

Even when we feel nothing

Maybe

This is how we live

How

The work must feel

Does it know it is art?

Does it breathe ?

Does it carry us with it?

Is it just clay

Ink

Paint

In a room –

Empty of us –

Empty ?

Or is it aware

Of the darkness in the earth

The grief

The pain

Our hearts slain

Bleeding out

Our voices

Silently screaming

This is the way

This is the way

Is a studio

Hearts beating

Against the night

Against the night

This is the way

-E

On our way

1

You think the Apex of all pain is losing a parent…

You tell yourself, ok, this is it…nothing could hurt more than this – (losing a parent or a divorce etc)

And then you lose a brother…

And there’s such fresh pain

Pain you can’t even understand

It’s just there…

In such a way

That it feels so unfair

it levels the field

You feel

Cheated from something

You don’t even understand

——

2

There’s no order

To this madness

You think

Ok, there’s parents you’ll lose

You prepare for that

But losing a sibling

Is so different

Whether you’re close or not

You really understand the brevity of everything

It wakes you up

From the grind

From the hustle

And you look around you

And you see

How quickly and randomly

All of this can go away

——

3

This funeral home

Where our father was

Where all of us end up

Through our history

Whatever we may do

We end up here

How strange that

We won’t be living

This ache

This invisible target

We really don’t know

—-

4

How complex

How layered

We take things so personally

I remember losing our father and I thought it was all so personal

And it was

In its way

But there is always hurt

Beyond what you see

There is always layers

There are years

Entire decades

Of complexities and issues

That we know nothing about

It’s all so blurred

The lines

We think it starts and ends with us

A moment in time

But it’s layered

Traits, ethics, work, talents, looks, pain, old pain, new pain, life …

I lit a cigarette and I smoked it

I probably shouldn’t have

But I wanted cheesecake

And didn’t have it

And I felt that I was overthinking

——

-E

Regardingsamuel.com

(Hearts doing) Time

I know
We used to say
We would get out
And we went
And we died
With rose coloured eyes
We had dreams
That haunt us now
We thought we could keep the world
And politics
outside of our bedrooms
But life
So often is about circumstances
And
Circumstance stares at you in the mirror
writes your bank balance
tells you what hospital to use
makes your bed
Is it there with you
Always?
The bag in your tea
the fighting words
Like the ghost from what we thought we were

—-
She tells me
I can’t keep showing up and ghosting out like this
And these days
Times are hard
But we can’t shut our minds
And somehow
We can’t leave hurt alone
It’s the drive
That keeps us
Up at night
—-
And we both
Have fear
And we both
Have doubt
And we both
Have memories
Of what we thought
Life would be by now
But we both
Have to keep going on somehow
Because we can’t stand
What we thought
——
And we understand
Life is just life
It’s broken hearts
It’s shattered time
And time again
It’s people and lies
And
Sometimes you just have to keep
Moving on
And hope
That by Christmas
We will be doing fine
While our hearts
Are still doing time

-E
Regardingsamuel.com