POEMS & SHORTS

November 17, 2009

Here we go again. Frustrated from waking, dreading the block in my brain that keeps me from writing. Writing what? Sure, let’s talk to ourselves right off the bat. Off the bat and off the rocker. Muffled somethings, groans or coughs or nasty morning masturbations from the landlord downstairs already have me contemplating homicide. Time to put on the jazz again. Just wrote jizz before jazz. Ha. The masturbation slipped into the ole subconscious, didn’t it matey. Matey, matey mate. Got a friend from New Zealand, that’s why. Well, music please. Eddie “lockjaw” Davis, playin ‘Epistrophy’. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes my hepcat. Gotta look up that word. Wait. Huh. Doesn’t exist, except in the Jazz world. Who woulda thought? That’s why it is Jazz…and all that. The sun hasn’t hit the deck yet and my hands are chilled on the lap top keys here, here, here in my office in the Topanga woods. Lovely. Clear blue sky, canyon hills beyond. Lucky. But oh, that landlord. No, she is cool and friendly but…I LIKE MY PRIVACY WHEN I AM CREATING. YES JUST ME AND MY MEAND MY MEAND MY FUCKING MIND. Funny, meand didn’t take a spell check on that one. Fuck, that proactive add again on the radio. But…now before I could even get riled about it, back to jazz. Clifford Brown. ‘Blue and Brown’. Nice. Clean. Crisp. Cool. So where was I? Like in my while life that is…Where was I? Got sixty dollars on the table that my wife left. Three twenties. Jacksons. Jackson had cool hair, all wavy with long sideburns. Kinda looks like he could of played with ‘Pink Floyd’ in the seventies…Damn oh damn, do I hear the landlord going on and on and on with silver haired gossip on the phone. Up the volume a tad, here. Johnny Lytle on the zylophone. Spell check obviously here. Xylophone. I shoulda known. Xylophone versus telephone. Turn it up and, hey maybe throw a rug on the floor to muffle the landlord’s many sounds seeping up through into MY OWN EARS, DAMNIT! Mabe that would help but money first…and shit are there a lot of bills to pay. Drawing my hand over my face now, in a, help me lord way because what am I doing here anyway. Is this my job for sisterfucks way? Indians say that. Sisterfuck or brotherfuck instead of only motherfuck. Anyway, drawing my hands over my face in mild despair because actually, I feel quite good if not worried about my scriptor career. Can we start a story please? Or have some adulation somewhere? From within, perhaps. Oh, rubbish and what a pile of it. I had this idea about a revenge story of this woman in her mid-forites, who after a successful modeling career and string of boyfriends and failed marriage, finds herself all alone and without children. Her work has phased from photographer’s assistant to successful photographer herself, to sought after in interior decorator. But she is still alone with no husband or children to share love with. What love? That may be the point. She has no love or she just missed the point of love. By the way, reading ‘Shantaram’ on the side and I’m so jealous of that guy, someone, someone Roberts. I hate when people have to use three fucking names. I mean, shut the fuck up and don’t take so much time. But his book is selling millions worldwide with a major movie to be made starring Russle Crowe or Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt. Fuck. The book is written in mediocre style with flush full of adverbs but the story is a great one I must say with the best described Indian characters (always mis-spell that and have to look it up so many, many, many times….geez…)and magic passages of dialogue.

Well, back to my story about the bitter middle-aged fading beauty, who did want a husband and children when she was in her twenties because I was dating her and, duh (spelled dud, first...hope that ain’t a sign) better to write about what you know, which may be one of my major problems because research king I am not. Musta been all that lack of schooling. Do ya think? Give me a break, I mean if you’re not trained to do it…how can ya? Know what I mean? Know what I’m saying? But give me a subject other than my own. I slow down and rest my head in my hands. Close my eyes. Spots and shadows, kinda scary..so I open them and see the brushed silver of my laptop and the black keys with white letters, numbers, symbols. The grain of my wood desk, just a half inch or so with the wires from the computer that connect the speakers and printer, curling over and into the drawer. Post its all over again. One says, “Black of night. Thousands of Crickets sounding like sleigh-bells, piercing the brain…” That was accurate at the time I am sure. Got John Jenkins and Kenny Burell playing now. ‘Blues for Two’. And me too, please.

Is it lack of discipline? Patience and discipline? Putting trust in before discipline sounds better. The lack of, I mean.

So I wanted the story to be about this woman, who just by accident or coincidence or by premeditated plan, walks into this cozy Japanese country style joint in Studio City for lunch and when she sits, notices that, I, that me, I mean that the man she planned to marry and have children with back in her twenties is sitting there with his grown up son from a previous marriage. The son that she knew when he was three and promised to me (well, my character…hurray, spelled it right!) that the son would not be coming over for visits when they (her and I) were properly married and had their own children. So when she sees him…and he sees her…well, I wrote all these fucking notes already but in short, the son remembers what she was like and he gets up and leaves the restaurant, pissed at me and then when I wave to the waiter for the check, the woman thinks I am waving at her…well we already saw each other…and then I go over and talk to her and find out how bitter and lonely she is and how she alludes in a vague way, that I fucked her over…so there, my movie idea starts there with her finding out I am re-married and calm and happy (?) Ha, that is a funny one but I guess I am or was or seemed to be when this all happened a few weeks ago. So work it from there. She begins to methodically tear my life down and apart to match her own misery. Step by step, work it out. Work? Sure I can do it. ‘Ruby my Dear’ on the radio. A Thelonios Monk tune done by James Moody but done oh, so smoothly and that is the work, when it is done so smoothly (adverb, watch out…” Okay when it sounds so smooth and easy that you can’t tell…because when the work is done, that is how any great form of art seems. The beauty. And now I am so sick of myself, meself, oneself, the self. I have to stop. No, the self does not stop. Puke. Shut up. Think. Think. Think. Space out into nowhere. Give me something, god, please. Start again tomorrow. Fine. Okay Art Blakey with ‘Backstage Sally” takes me out.