I went to visit Dr. Watson today. We ate in the dining hall of my old college and I'm happy to say I like what the students are looking like these days. I like how they're turning out, but I don't miss it. That time is over. Dr. Watson gave me a scenario which I truthfully said there was no way in hell I could honestly answer: the one that says "Five years from now what do you see your self doing?"

I think that it's easy to see a dare in this question simply because so many people place one there, and the dare often implied is: will you settle down, will you be secure? That strikes to the heart of who I am? What I have to be.

You see-- and London will understand this-- when the novel was finally finished and finally proofed, and I began to put it up that was when my career began. That was when I sold out. I offer no criticism to writers who write on the side. Write when you can, I say. But I know that if I have a hundred PhDs and three hundred bestsellers my career has begun now, with the long lovely work of writing for myself, out of myself to those who need whatever is in me. The work starts here, even-- especially-- with the hardships, the lack of funds, the occasional rejections. The work is gratified here with the letters and notes from friends, with finding a kindred spirit.

I promise this, and if you are someone who cannot not write, if you are someone who is possessed by it even if-- like certain people called Andrew-- you find that words do not come easily-- promise this to yourself-- not to back down, not to cower into safety, not to compromise the poet's voice, not to stifle the stuff of story. Right now the world needs stories, poems, true commentary more than ever before. Right mankind is sick for it. And I know that we will not go about writing or publishing in the same old way. That something new must happen if we are to get anywhere. And be anyone. If we are to really be healers and teachers, prophets and bards. Not just writers. It's not enough just to be a writer anymore.

what I've been proofreading



He tells her, “I love you Jinny.”
Her father has just left to go to the restroom, and so this is first time he has been free to speak. Isaac felt his bladder pinch suddenly at the mention of restroom, but he couldn’t pee beside his girlfriend’s father. And a professor at that. No, he just couldn’t.
Up until then the young man had been busy sucking down his last cigarette and drinking a Coke, putting it down, turning his fork into the chicken he’d ordered at the older man’s urging. Isaac laughed at the right times, and nodded when it was appropriate. She was caught in her love for him. Sometimes Jinny loved him almost to death. Sometimes the love was too much, too embarrassing. So she hid it away.
The older man, Professor O’Muil, like most professors, was caught in his own words and full of his personal brilliance. Now the sky darkened, and the high schoolers left, and Isaac Weaver, the young man, scowled murmuring, “They would leave just as we’re getting ready to go.”
The meal was over. They tipped well.
On their way out, Isaac pulled on his lambskin coat with the wool collar and then pulled out the chair from under his girlfriend, and put her coat over her. She was big and pretty. Isaac had never understood what was so great about skinny girls. Black people were right on this score, and he’d tell Efrem this when he saw him. And Efrem would throw his head back and laugh at him.
Suddenly she grabs his hand; she hooks it under his and through his coat. It’s so warm, so intimate. This handholding is more personal than sex. A little shocked he turns his blue eyes on her as if she’d just exposed herself. She is smiling. Her face is round, her hair is crinkly an reddish. Her eyes peat green. She is just so beautiful. Her perfume juat smells so good.
“I love you Jinny Oatmeal,” he tells her.
And suddenly he looks so alive and so happy and so serious, all at the same time that she knows why they have been together so long.
They are both only twenty-two.

endless day
when i loved you
endless days like purgatories
when i told you all my stories
stories told to your deaf ear
mixed with fear
and all the time i gave the care you would not take
all my love it only breaks you
and you'd make me twice as dead as you

there never was a heathen
in the deepest glen
worshipping idols
praying to pretend
virgin marys
who worshipped stone as vain as i
when i told the lie that we had something
and yet that love was mine
sweet and fine honey from the flower of my nature
any creature before my eyes
would have won that prize
but in that year
for that brief season
without much reason it was you

blot out the sun
snuff out the moon
dissect all music, remove it's tune
and tone and still you'll not get to the bone of me
which is this love from me
undeserved it came to you
but needed it was born from me
it made me free

saturday

Saturday: AKA the day I get to wake up late and take things extremely slow. I couldn’t be more fortunate right now. Last night and today have involved a boob tube marathon of watching the pre-recorded re-runs of Angel off TNT. I am midway through the fourth season. The Beast has darkened the sun and all of Los Angeles is a playground for demons. The infamous law firm Wolfram and Hart has been taken out. Oh, Angel, how could they cancel you? Now we will only be left with Charmed.

Which doesn’t hold a candle to any Joss Whedon creation.

The second half of Ash Wednesday is now posted at Wicked Fairy. Now that I’m posting these old stories and re-proofing them I wonder if I could actually sell them to a publisher? It would be nice to get a publisher for Jamnia (The Hidden Lives of Virgins) But really, it would nice to have anything published. I wonder what the market for short story collections is?

I saw the story I want to put up next. It will have to be revised—heavily—and step by step. The Homecoming. When I over old stories I ask what the theme is. Is there some overarching message that concerns me that keeps popping up? And don’t say Catholicism, because that’s a given! I don’t know, whaddo you think, Helen? You’ve read almost everything?

Thursday iii

If you wander on down the sidebar you will se a new site has been added. David's all grown up now, and he's got a blog. David, you say? Who's David? Well, why don't you go on down and see, you silly cabbages?