My Words, My World

First drafts – A few pages in the large wilderness of the world of writing

Archive for the month “December, 2018”

Where do all the words go?

So you start writing and you continue, word by word, one after another: 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 and then…you turn your head away and BANG!, you hit the buffers, nowhere to go, no more forward momentum. You open up the story; it’s been two weeks damn it, not two years but when you look inside it’s like taking a straight razor and cutting yourself to see what comes out.  20,000+ words and there they sit, destined for the file marked ‘In progress’, along with half a dozen other 20K’s that came to the same end.  It’s like trying to build a Lego house but someone’s blocked up the holes in the bricks.

The penultimate day of the year and I sit, devoid of ideas and inspiration.

Am I destined for a life of flash fiction and off-the-cuff poetry?  Fuck.

 

 

Somewhere

Clock tick, ticking in the silence of the apartment
or
the apartments because there are nine in the block
and
I’m the only one awake at this time,
in
these hours where I should be elsewhere
and
not writing, or reading or dropping benzodiazepine for sleeping
and
my body aches for sleep
but
my mind tells my body to fuck off
and
get up, get going and do something
and
I’m on the sofa with a pen in one hand
and
a notebook in the other and a book by my side
and
the clock keeps ticking
and
to think that somewhere the sun is rising
and
somewhere else it’s setting on another day
as
the momentum of our forward roll takes us around
a
big ball of light and heat that keeps us here,
alive,
going nowhere except forward;
rolling, rolling
in space time, in real time,
(who’s got the time anyway?)
as
somewhere to the east of me the sun is coming up
and
somewhere to the west of me it’s going down
as
10,000 lives have just left
and
10,000 have just begun
and
we just keep on rolling. Somewhere.

Slow is the night

Night,
split into two:
broken lines
black and white
drawn and then fade
merge
and become grey,
like the dawn;
if it ever arrives.
 
My eyes are heavy
and my face is sliding
like some lost Dalí canvass;
long dripping clocks
leaking slow time:
sluggish minutes
and
creeping hours
in the long dragging night.

It’s the season

The sax-playing Santa
sat in the shade of the subway
blowing his way through Christmas classics
and then just some classics
with no mention of Christmas;
which is good.
I could listen to him all day
or even an hour
or even 10 minutes
but I can’t;
I’ve things to do
and people to see
and places to go
and even if I don’t
I have to be doing something,
buying something,
eating something,
drinking something
and I can’t stop,
we can’t stop
because it’s Christmas
and there won’t be another one until…
well, this time next year.

Government lies and secret files

Government lies and secret files
and prepare to wade through the bullshit
as it flows on down from above

There’s no responsibility in selling arms
to someone else
for them to kill someone else

and so the hands are clean
and the conscious is clear
Everyone’s friend is no one’s friend
and vice-versa
and around it goes

Sanction this and sanction that
and “they started it first”
and “my bomb’s bigger than your bomb”
as if they’re comparing their cocks
in the changing room

and there’s still room to change
but no one wants to
It’s all government lies and secret files
and the dirtiest clean hands
you’d never want to shake.

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