I recently bought a used copy of E. B. White's essays. His writings have enchanted me since I was a child. I believe he is indeed a consummate master of style; there is an economic grace to his writing that I imbibed early on in my career as a reader, and which I try, both consciously and unconsciously, to emulate in my own productions. These excepts are from the essay titled "Some Remarks on Humor."

"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."

I believe the same applies to literature, and probably any other art, and this is precisely why I've chosen to place my efforts into literary creation, rather than literary criticism, despite having been rigorously trained in the production of the latter.

Another tasty quote:

"Practically everyone is a manic depressive of sorts, with his up moments and his down moments, and you certainly don't need to be a humorist to taste the sadness of the situation and mood. But there is often a rather fine line between laughing and crying, and if a humorous piece of writing brings a person to the point where his emotional responses are untrustworthy and seem likely to break over into the opposite realm, it is because humor, like poetry, has an extra content to it. It plays close to the big hot fire which is Truth, and sometimes the reader feels the heat."

Glad to Be Here Now

I knelt there before Love

and begged her, pleaded with her

"Please, please forgive me," I said,

"I forgot about you,

and had you not come to me and reminded me of your presence,

I would still be where I was yesterday."

Love said to me,

"Get up;

get off your knees.

Sometimes, I'm a long time coming,

so during the in-between times,

you wait

and think of me;

make me up, invent my form and countenance.

Console yourself with those thoughts,

and soon enough, I will come."

"Ah," I said,

"My punishment and my gift."

Love smiled.

052305

Camus on a Wednesday Evening

« L'erreur, petite Catherine, c'est de croire qu'il faut choisir, qu'il faut faire ce qu'on veut, qu'il y a des conditions du bonheur. Ce qui compte seulement, tu vois, c'est la volonté du bonheur, une sorte d'énorme conscience toujours présente. Le reste, femmes, œuvres d'art ou succès mondains, ne sont que prétextes. Un canevas qui attend nos broderies. »

-Albert Camus, Une morte heureuse

“The error, dear Catherine, is believing that one must choose, that one must do what one desires, that there are conditions for happiness. The only thing that matters, you see, is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest - women, works of art, worldly success - is nothing but excuses. A canvas awaiting our embroideries.”

- Albert Camus, A Happy Death

Ready to Go

Shit

fuck

cunt

honkey

dog!

god, I love screaming

Toejam aloe shit fuck piss damn ouch your mom!

everything,

all of it,

all of this

it all makes me want to scream and laugh and have fun and kiss you and punch your fuckin lights out

you little bitches,

come run with me

without you

my poem wouldn't exist

so let's go

let's run

I'm ready


091614

You're Gonna Have to Beat It Out of Me

Okay, okay I get it

I'm talking to you, God

I see your plan for me, I get it now, okay?

I know you're going to keep me in humble circumstances

keep turning the screws

I know you're going to keep knocking me down until there's no fight left

maybe its arrogance you wish me to rid myself of

arrogance in thinking that by worrying and dwelling upon, I can change myself and the world

I can see myself as the old man you want me to become

old but wise and still alive and vital and creating

and this man, the man you want me to become, he lets almost everything go by him

he doesn't rush out to defend everything he holds dear every time someone disagrees with him

most of the time he just nods his head and says, “Maybe you're right.”

So I get it, I get it

But I still can't seem to take anything on faith

You know that

And you also know that, as such, I have to live my life the way it makes sense to me from moment to moment

Maybe it's fight, maybe it's heart, maybe it's dull arrogance, maybe it's all three;

but no matter what it is

if there's something in me that shouldn't be there

You're gonna have to beat it out of me

070514

To my sister, one of my heroes

Sometimes I feel

we were born into darkness

not the darkness of scary movies

devil worship

or moonless nights

but the darkness of people who can’t love each other

the darkness of alcoholics and racist grandparents

the darkness of people who doubt themselves so much

that they paralyze themselves,

remain frozen in a miserable stasis

for generation after generation

but not you, sis

and not me

we seek the light

071214

The eternal moment I seek now to relate

#############$>........THE FEELING OF BEING ABOUT TO GO ON A GREAT VOYAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111...%($#@%_)(#@)(

that's the only way i can think of to describe it

(fear of failure compounding everything today)

but I will not yield

no

on the contrary

I will dive in

for that

is the eternal moment i seek to convey now

however clumsily

072014