The Green Mountain

This is just to say that I am now firmly entrenched in the Green Mountains: a state of mind and body. I'm at a writer's residency in Vermont for the next 28 days. My goal is to write a 300 page novel in that time. Doable? Probably not. Tryable? Fuck yeah.

I'm going to be mostly out of contact. Emails will work but I'm trying to keep my phone out of reach while I'm working in my studio, which is fly: room 8 (my lucky number) on the second floor overlooking a wide, placid river with green banks pouring down the sides to keep the water clear. I'm in the tiny town of Johnson, which has one bar, which doubles over as a pizzeria.

My Tarot reading about this venture said a new period of creative output is dawning in my life and the only thing that will stand in my way is, unfortunately, the Devil himself. That is to say material temptation is my largest hurdle. Leave behind wine women and song to find the turn where I went wrong. And focus all my vision inward, to reach my goals before this winter.

So here's my proposition: Ima try an' write a poem every day while I'm here as a warm up exercise. I'll post them on the blog along with a word or two about how the work is coming along. Email me if you want to come visit, but apart from that, don't be offended if it takes me a long time to reply to email.

Here's a poem I found in my journal from last summer (read it slowly, out loud, the rhythm changes a lot and only works if read slowly to accommodate):

You said you need to notice you
a thing I think I needed too,
But when the time came to reach out
through love's lost twine tangled about,
The broken bracks of unseen spokes
encycled spoking speaking out
And by the fire's flirting flare
we sought out what was gorging there,
But point and tack and take it back
and let on where your hopefuls lack
and find yourself within a mirror
wondering what heat is near,
Because your thoughts are nonetheless
(and mostly writ just to digress)
on fences burning on the the plains,
in cityfolk who dress the same
to fit in with our joint vocation
submerged as one alien nation.

I realize that I just don't care
about the topics written here
and whether they are strong or weak
and whether I stay mute or speak,
The well is full and monochrome
and all they ever want is home
(and rhyming couplets are the same
as every other tired game)

And somedays you have energy
and life is bursting with what to be
and sometimes heart and mind are beat
and every face echoes every street
and what is green and what is black
are only one (reverbing smack)
and angels watch from towered walls
as mankind grows and mankind falls
and maybe we are only ants
(they watch us cheat and watch us dance)
like hungry jackals taking treats
to lonely corners for to feast
and my oh my how they are tiny
and the wisest poems simply whiny.
And other days, as sunbeams grow
and light the skies, the people know
that God and love are only functions
that give this wiry life its gumption,
but once again I can't quite tell
if writing's just like ringing bells:
there is no need beyond aesthetics
and swollen prides are dead prosthetics.




So there's that. And here's a poem I wrote a couple days ago, dedicated to James Collector:

Escapism rebounding distraction:
a sense of responsibility-
that is the ability to respond
(to provide a response)
-under the guise of building character,
as if it were a building.
[Max coughs his consciousness back to life]
To live a life of laughter after all,
one need only travel through that world;
insular eyes to the yuppie view
that paradise imbues
(the mystic "possible")

Meanwhile, the concrete realities
of the "we" we recognize
materialize

Starting tomorrow, I will post sections of my new novel. Not how I'm writing it now, but how I started it 2 years ago. What I'm working on now should be waaaaaaay more accessible.