In like Flynn

Word on the street (and, more importantly, in my email inbox) is that the University of Victoria has accepted my application to study there next semester. Now all we need is money and a student visa.

# posted by Daniel at 10:00 AM.

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Poem

Started this one last summer, and finished it up a month ago or so. As I haven't posted any poems in awhile I'll throw it up here to see what y'all think. Read it, then respond to the questions at the end.


GOOD FRIDAY, AFTER THE ALTAR CALL

Thorns on his head, spear in his side
Yet it was a heartache that made him cry.
--song lyrics remembered from a Baptist altar call

Remember the hard sell, the Gospel
hook the Baptist preacher worked
to wriggle us up the aisle to the altar
of a sentimental god? Like yesterday.

I'd rather have been thundered, struck
dumb or dead by hellfire, some infuriated
Presence, rather the preacher put the fear,
the voltage in, like God's own rancher

tasering us up the chute to glory. Anything
better than this gentle
accusation: he thought of you, twisting
on the cross he thought of you. Oh Lord.

There's the line that drags us
from our pews--Christ crucified,
sad puppy eyes-- He thought of you.
Won't you let him in? Like Christ Almighty

were the ugly girl you asked to senior prom
because your mother made you,
or made you feel so bad at not asking
that she might as well have ordered you

when you really wanted to walk in
with your arm around some long blonde
Jezebel, some little bit of fun
but wound up in the corner, out of sight

as possible all night, then kissed the ugly girl
for pity's sake, then married her
six months after graduation--you couldn't
bear to break her heart. Just like Jesus,

doe eyed, wishing after me. I've been
writing your name in all my notebooks,
child. I've been waiting by the phone.
I love you like horses and bubblegum.

As if when they spiked you
to the crossbeam and the nails erupted
in your hands and feet like newborn stars
you wrapped your mind around my face,

when they hung you like a flag
above the squat, indifferent city.
As if you wept for my photograph
and not the meat hook pain

or sudden loss of God, shocking
knowledge of a universe gone empty
as a bell, the weight of wrath, abandonment,
the only thing you'd never known.

No, you wept for me and for the thought
I might not love you back, or something
like that. Sentimental fool--you're up there
with an album full of photographs

taking weeks to die while you flip through
pictures of all your children and the guards
beneath the cross take it in shifts, whisper
what the hell's he doing up there?

Look--there's a snapshot of me tearing
open gifts on Christmas morning, and one
where I'm waving from my treehouse, ten years old.
And look at that--one more recent,

taken just this morning: me in bed beneath
a fan that beats the air with dim white hands,
mouth open and fish-white gut exposed--asleep,
as usual, while someone saves my life.

(6/04-3/05)




Two things:

(1) Still not sure if I want to leave the introductory quote. It's from this absolutely wretched song I grew up hearing from time to time in church/camp, etc. Those of you with similar evangelical roots may know the one I'm talking about. The refrain (and possibly the title) is "Is there any way you could say no to this man?" ("this man," of course, being Jesus, not the potato chip salesman). The gist of the song is "Look at Jesus on the cross. Aw. So sad. Don't you know this is for you? He loves you so much. Aw. Won't you love him back?" I give you the passive-aggressive gospel.

Anyway, the song didn't spur the poem--it was triggered by a comment overheard at church or somewhere about "Jesus thinking of you" while he was on the cross--but at some point during composition I remembered it, and it seemed to exemplify the sort of thinking being addressed in the poem. So it's there for the time being. Not sure if I'll leave it. It feels like a bit of an asshole move, to hang this quotation at the front of the poem to be mocked for the next fifteen stanzas. Not that I really mind doing that if it comes to it, but I'm not convinced it helps or clarifies the poem.

[EDIT 4/24/05 Yesterday afternoon as I toiled in the East Texas heat, visiting death and destruction upon my aunt's many overgrown hedges and crape myrtles, I remembered precisely what incident triggered this poem, and it was in fact another church song, this one of more recent memory. You know the song that starts "Above all powers, above all kings..." and culminates in the chorus "Crucified, laid behind the stone/You lived and died, rejected and alone/Like a rose trampled on the ground [ed. note: this is arguably the worst line in the entire crap-tastic canon of contemporary praise and worship music. Although it is certainly not without stiff competition.]/You took the fall and thought of me...above all." This is Sean's favorite song ever. Anyway, one night last summer at choir we got into a vociferous debate over the merits (or lack thereof) of this bit of songwriting. That night after choir I began the first draft of the poem.]

(2) The second person in the poem is a bit uneven. In the first half it's some hypothetical "you," while in the second half it's Christ himself. Was that distracting, or did it transition easily?

# posted by Daniel at 6:49 AM.

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Bad for the body, good for the soul

Yesterday I fell off my bike. I hadn't ridden the thing since returning from Canada, so I thought a ride up to campus would be nice, especially as I had things to take care of there anyway. En route I noticed the tires were seriously underinflated, so I made a note to stop by the bike shop on the way home and inflate them. Controlling the bike was quite a bit more difficult than usual. The mushy tires made it wobble all over the place, but I adjusted and made it up the hill just fine. Parked the bike at the library and went about my business.

After finishing up I returned to the bike, unlocked it, and started on my way. Not thirty feet from the bike rack (just at the entrance of the Allkek parking garage ramp, for those of you who know campus) I turned right as I've done hundreds of times, and promptly fell over. A complete and total crash. The tires slid out from under the bike or something. I can't say. All I know for sure is that I fell sprawled across the pavement in front of eighteen live camera crews and thirty seven million of my fellow students who just happened to be walking through the breezeway at that moment. If I'd been doing some cool trick and crashed that'd be one thing. But no--this was completely random. I planted like a fat kid in a funny movie.

Injuries were slight. I only tore up my hands a little bit (cue Black Knight: "I've had worse!"), which I cleaned up in the bathroom at Wells Fargo ("Whatcha going to do? Bleed on me?"). Oh yes--and fractured my dignity in three different places. Which is a good thing. Or so I hear.

# posted by Daniel at 8:39 AM.

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The BIG News

So as not to keep everyone in suspense for any longer, it's my great pleasure to announce that Fanny Beaudoin and I have decided to start an indie press. That's right--we'll be publishing our own books under our own moniker (tentatively Back Porch Books). Because we're way, way too cool to actually make any money with our writing.

But running a press is a stressful thing. And so in the interest of easing the transition we're going to get married in August.

That is all. Our own press! Cool, eh?

# posted by Daniel at 10:29 PM.

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News

Alright, folks, you can quit kvetching about updates. I'm back in business.

Terribly sorry about letting this place go. For those of you not in the know, it's been a pretty busy couple of months. See, back in the middle of February I was all tied up with this crazy international flower delivery (fortunately, I had some help). And then I had to finish up my application to the University of Victoria. And no sooner was that taken care of than I heard Spring Break knocking at the door, and had to scramble for plane and ferry tickets to head north to Canada for a week and a half. You'd think that maybe now I could take some time off and catch my breath. You would, however, be wrong. But more about that presently.

I arrived home from British Columbia just over two weeks ago. Was up there for eleven days; spent every waking moment with Fanny and (nearly) every sleeping moment on Matthew's couch. Drank some beer with Michael (as well as with plenty of other fine people; they, however, don't have blogs, so they miss out on the cool links). Hiked around a lake, climbed a tree, played some chess. Browsed through plenty of used bookstores. Went to church a couple of times. But for the most part the week was about spending time with Fanny, getting to know each other as flesh-and-blood instead of merely(!) as voices or remarkably well-composed electronic correspondence. And let me assure you (those of you who don't already know her)--however cool and smart and funny and gorgeous you might have taken her for on the strength of her blog, the reality-that-is-my-girlfriend* is greater still.

Since then my life's been consumed with phone conversations, planning for the move in May, and frantically trying to publish Persona 2005, the Texas State literary journal of which I unwisely agreed to be editor this year. So that's why no updates. And I wouldn't count on a great number between now and...forever. Through June, at the very least.

In the meantime, those of you on Texas time should check out this afternoon's solar eclipse. It looks like it's going to begin about halfway through my afternoon route, which means I can secure the good behavior of my middle schoolers by threatening to blot out the light of the sun if they don't stay in their seats, a la the Boss in Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Exxxcellent...

* more announcements related to this term are forthcoming in the next day or two. Not that nearly all of you don't already know.

# posted by Daniel at 9:35 AM.

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