There would be time for this

"Gawd, mom," says the girl. "You're such a nerd." She's wide-eyed as I giddily skim the hardcopy course notes she just picked up at the college bookstore. The Hollow Men!, I exclaim, and off I go on a Doctor Who tangent. (It seems I've done this before.)

She's enrolled in a course that's a poetry face-off, Eliot vs Larkin, and I'm jealous. Maybe I should've studied literature. But maybe I'm relieved I didn't ruin my joy of reading.

Here's something I wrote for an assignment in high school a very long time ago. (I found it!)

For the Love of God 
[A response to J. Alfred Prufrock] 

Let us pour the tea 
While from the day's tedium we're freed,
Momentarily.
Teas steams my pores and stains my skin,
Like he did.

(They know their art.)

A question twines itself about the steam,
Rising and spreading as all questions do.
Crashed to the floor, sparking, igniting, teeming with smoke.
There would be time for this.
But the tea is growing cold.
Hisssss.

Does he dare? How dare he!
Lighting their cigarettes. In holders so long  —
Precariously balanced, flicking ashes on my dress.

In the room they speak as though
Only they know Michelangelo

He should have known
To crawl back to his hovel
Where no women go...

Time crosses legs, swings his foot, 
Fingers drumming on the table at his side.
Beside himself. "Besides, you never could
Take our relationship seriously!"

You know what I mean,
Do I have to spell it out for you?
It would have been worth while
If we tried and cried awhile;
Starry nights, and snow angels...
No. After sunset there's only twilight.
You know what I mean.

No! I am not Eve, no giver of life;
Am she who takes,
And preys on innocents,
Savouring life better than knowledge.
Living, not knowing.
Hunter of the hunted.

You grow old,
Ssooo oollldd.

I would sing for you, 
But I know the voices of mermaids 
Would disturb the guests.

I would've written you one for ten bucks, but I handed this one in myself. Top marks, of course, and seriously not bad for a 17-year-old, although I see myriad ways to improve upon it (particularly the title). 

What strikes me now:

• That I had any notion of romantic love, or failed romantic love
• That I referenced Lilith mythology, that even then I railed against intellect, that I argued (academically, ironically) that heart should trump brain
• That I thought I understood Prufrock

Prufrocked

She... and here I rear back and halt myself, ashamed, prufrocked into a sudden pudeur, for, after all, how should I presume? Shall I say, I have known them all, I have seen her like a yellow fog rubbing her back against, rubbing her muzzle upon, shall I say, licking her tongue into the corners of this evening? Do I dare, and do I dare? And who am I, after all? I am not the prince. An attendant lord, deferential, glad to be of use. Almost, at times, the Fool... But, setting aside poetry, I'm too deeply in to stop now.

— from The Golden House, by Salman Rushdie.

Source

I'd forgotten that I'd read Rushdie before and I liked it. I'm liking the current novel, too: There's a charm and wit and intelligence that I find disarming. Although, at another time, in another place, I might find this same text pretentious and tiresome.

However, I'm only a quarter of the way in, and I'm worried about where Rushdie might be going with this tale with the makings of a presidential parable. We'll see where we end up.

But. Prufrocked! I sat up and paid attention!

I wrote a response to Alfred J. when I was 17.

[I can't find the damn poem. I can't find in anywhere. It's in a puke-beige duotang (not the boring-beige one), along with a weird essay I wrote on Pythagorean dualism. This is a thing I kept for 30 years. Or thought I kept. Did I lose it in the divorce? I mean, physically. Not like that story I lost on a bet. Did I throw it away in anger, or sheer drunken stupidity? Could I have been so careless? Maybe the poem's no good. Maybe I threw it out because it was no good, and I was so horrified by the poem's horribleness, I blocked the whole episode from my memory. Have I merely misplaced it? I grow old.)

Last week I met a boy who writes poetry. He devotes himself to it. He will be a writer. A poet.

It takes guts, being a poet.

Maybe I should've been a poet.

My fable

< You can't sleep right now. Continue? >

I came to bed late last night. J-F brings me a coffee this morning, and I try to talk out my predicament.

"I'm having trouble with my character — she can't sleep. She won't get into bed, let alone have sex. I think it may be potion-related — you know how many of them are java-based..."

J-F looks at me in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how much you sound like a teenage geekboy?"

I stayed up way past my bedtime playing a videogame.

For Helena's sake, of course. Watching her father play Fable II, well... she wanted to play too. When J-F started to worry that she'd undo his progress, I agreed to coach her through her own game. Better: we've created our own kickass girl hero.

We have an arrangement: she kills all the bad guys and I take care of all the administrative affairs, as well as kill off those bad guys that are either too tough or too scary.

We play nice, generally: work hard, follow the rules, love presents (giving and receiving), don't steal, dance for the crowd, treat the dog right. We make decisions, set priorities, consider strategies. We explore.

I watch her kill 100 hollow men; she ignores me rambling on about TS Eliot, despite the fascinating Doctor Who connection.

At the end of the day, there is business to settle: an inventory of treasures to manage, skills and weapons to upgrade, rents to adjust, relationships to maintain.

I want to keep our game-family provided for and happy. Having been away on a quest, it seems only right to spend some quality time together before embarking on another.

But I can't get my game-husband in bed with me.

I've tried everything. I buy a new outfit, dye my hair. My game-husband says he wants me, as do many villagers. But my character will not go to bed. This bed is worn and has a suspect history; so I buy a new bed. My game-husband asks, "Are you sure this is your bed?" I put the old bed back. I try a few pick-up lines; he suggests we go "that way." I can't be quite sure what that way lies, but it's quite certain he will not lay with me. "That way," in the direction he indicates, I buy a new house, a fresh marital home. But my old problem follows us.

I give up. I decide I may as well get some rest, restore my health. My attempt to do so gives me a message: < You can't sleep right now. Continue. >

Well, I can't sleep now.

Sublime things (this week)

The moon! Did you see the moon!?!

Helena offers to show me the yoga positions she knows. She assembles herself into a lotus, palms together, lowers her eyes, and sweetly murmurs, "Namaste."

Beethoven!

J-F, as we're trying to plan the coming week, comments that Helena, busy with a toy, is too much in the present to want to participate in this conversation. She asks why we would say that, "Je ne suis pas dans une boîte."

The other night we watched The Man From Earth. While some of it (the acting, the camera work) is laughable, the ideas are persistently interesting. A departing scholar reveals to his colleagues that he is a Cro-Magnon caveman, 14,000 years old. He reveals that he studied with Buddha, and it later comes to light that he himself was a significant religious figure — Jesus. I love stories that work like this, showing great events as banalities — we see how the everyday grows into historical significance, given the right filters. See this movie if you want something to talk about for days.

I'm reminded of one of my very favourite films of all time (Man Facing Southeast), mostly, I guess, because the premise is beyond credibility — our protagonists' confessions must be taken on faith — but also because, when words run out, they turn to Beethoven. (I wonder what ever happened to David?)

Helena thinks the cat, knowing she wants to pet him, can "read her head."

Reading. Reading Bolaño, not sure what to make of this Bolaño, almost finished this Bolaño, need to take a break from Bolaño. Lining up: Lessing, Winterson, Turgenev. Also reading TS Eliot:

Twelve o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.