In Barnes and Nobles

Creative Forums Creative Writing
1

Next to me . . . sits a sarcastic sentinel,
I hear the crow of ages in her voice.
She can’t be more than fourteen.

Across her, sits, what must be, her brother,
busily typing away on his laptop -
black-rimmed glasses and a tedious, disillusioned
expression.

He picks at his teeth as his goblin of a sister croaks:

“Do your homework!”

She spills a glass of water on him, accidentally -
and the little-man stands up and exclaims:

“Wadddaya do that for!?”

That agitated little booger -
I almost envied him when I heard him hammering
on his keyboard, mourning my own lost time.

The girl, whose presence you’ve already anticipated,
I’ve just caught sending me a curious glance,
a little paper airplane landing on my nose.

She’s scribbling something in a little red notepad,
as I’m now scribbling something;
I’m convinced that she wants to show me
just how it feels.

She gets up to go buy a cup of Mocha,
(you’ll see, I have a keen sense for these things)
while the old couple in their Glaucoma-green sunglasses
are still chatting away as they skim their magazines,
looking like a pair of vultures scavenging for words.

My girl, my scrumptious Korean cupcake, has returned
with what looks to be fruit-punch and a sugar cookie -
ah how terribly sweet and young - too much so for me.

So mazing around, I find an old lady in the poetry isle
(it’s so rarely visited that I want to hug her)
she seems to be mesmerized by some poet’s world
(how I long to write these words for her)
I’m young, and she, a bit wrinkled, seems soft,
her face reminding me of scrunched-up beige silk.

Suddenly, I’m led by the aroma of fresh chocolate brownies
ballooning on a glazy Sunday morning: Grams and me
sitting by a black-marble table, beginning a jigsaw puzzle:
her hand, guiding mine, slowly, helping me see the big picture.

Then the loudspeaker leaps into a song by Keene,
“Everybody’s changing.” Everybody’s Changing.
I start to struggle to keep from weeping.
Ah! Curse me! I won’t weep!

Was it perhaps the long-skirted clerk girl rushing by me, Daina,
with that soft excuse me under her breath,
who made this cd? Not even Whitman in my lap
can soothe me now. I must run.
Else we both might weep.

2

Ah, the triumphant return of UGM - been wondering when we’d hear from you again. That was a great line to end the poem with. Just what was Whitman doing in your lap? Inquiring minds…

lhw - AKA: The Straight-faced clown AKA: M.C. Tape-Hiss

3

TUM,

When you ultimately become a famous, published writer (this seems, to me, inevitable), you won’t forget your friends back here at ILP, will you?

4

lol…

rainey,

Never. And that’s still probably a good five years away. Though I really doubt the fame part…

5

10.01.06.1576

Good free-form, but correct me if I’m wrong, but was your aim at describing a Starbucks that’s “in Barnes and Noble”?? That’s what it sounded like to me… afterall, that’s all you described.

Of course, I despise corporate coffee shops in corporate bookstores… You never see a mix and match of corporate and independents. Even more so, you rarely see an independent bookstore with an independent coffee shop in it. Is that due to the fact that too few independent bookstores and coffee shops are only small enough to maintain their own established propriety?

[This has been a rant sponsered by Sagesound and inspired by TUM; thank you for reading!]

6

Yes, it was partly my aim. See, Barnes and Nobels is so ‘pop’ culture now in days, that it didn’t really seem nessesary to describe the setting at all: for I’m sure any American who read this poem was quite comfortable in the illusion of being inside a BnN (at least that’s what I hope; and seeing how you mentioned Starbucks from a simple reference to a cup of Mocha and a sugar cookie, I think proves the point).

Now, I’m with you on the whole independent coffee shop and all, but, I was actualy in a BnN when I wrote this piece (laadaadee my imagination just is not that good) hence you have where it all takes place. Thing is, I’m still struggling with myself to determine what I like writing more about (what is more worthy, etc etc): realist prosody or surrealist prosody. It’s this stuggle between the internal and external, and the overlapping of the two (notice how I see people personified as birds - don’t ask).

I hope I’ll be hanging out in more interesting places, more independent, (although, I actualy think Barnes and Nobels is quite facinating) and then I’ll write about them. But that would require a little exposition, and err… you try setting a scene in 14 lines without boring your reader. :confused:

This rant was sponsored by DrunkPoets.org, inspired by Sagesound.

7

10.02.06.1577

It’s too bad we can’t discuss independent anything (unless it’s music, usually) because everyone (usually) isn’t going to know what you’re talking about… unlike something universal, mainstream, corporate… like… Barnes and Noble (who owns B. Dalton)… or even Borders (who owns Waldenbooks).

The corporate rape of independent style to be mutated into mainstream popularity is a direct result of the greed of money. Sadly enough though, due to that greed, we can talk about something (i.e. Starbucks in a BnN) that you, I, and everyone else knows about because we see it on a daily basis…
…its existence sprawls into our conciousness and our subconciousness…
…its nature soaks into our awareness and our sense of self…
…its appearance plays into our emotions and intuition…
…and yet we know better, but yet still, we choose to accept it.
One would ask another, “Is this hell, or merely a memory of it?”

[This rant, and others like it, have been presented to you by Sagesound and inspired by TUM… and this guy.]

8

I think you should actively subvert the arbitrary man-made line between the “realistic” and the “surrealistic”. Afterall, reality is a function of our perception of it, and not just a static environment in which we merely exist. We perceive it and, therefore, actively shape the very “reality” we presume we merely passively exist in.

lhw - AKA: The Straight-faced Clown AKA: M.C. Tape-Hiss

9

Hey Kanti, I’m all with you. We can’t know things-in-themselves, so to presume to construct “realist” art, is already a contradiction. I will always be writing, no matter what literary catagory the prose/poetry is lumped into – realist, surrealist, absurdist, etc. – from a subjective, probably polluted, phenomenological realm. Writing, therefore, at it’s base, it seems, is a translation of the ‘phenomenological’ into language (Husserl backwards, if you will). The illusionional effect upon the reader, however, is quite distinct when contrasting with the abstract: between concrete-realist prose/poetry and concrete-imaginative/figurative prose/poetry. Think of the difference between Blake and Buckowski. Or, another example, take the differences experienced in reading Nietzsche’s abstract philosophy on language and religious genealogy, compared to the “realist” biographies on Nietzsche’s life, compared to the metaphorical/figurative language of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra; (e.g. "One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star) – three completely different experiences of the written word (in terms of conscious apprehension).

So, if it boils down to translation of expeience, then, I guess, the artist (and the philosopher as well) is always bound by language to produce the desired effect upon the Other – in order to generate a new (though hopefully similar) experience. But, the question seems to be, what is the most poignant way to transcend individual experience through langauge? Is it through the communication of abstractions to present ideas? Well, it is, when, in my view, one has ideas to communicate. But literature, a bit unlike philosophy, seems to want more: Literature seems to want to communicate individual experience, in a universal way. Wow! Talk about a tall order.

The difficulty, for me, lies between bridging that gap, that is, conveying as much individual experience through a semi-objective language, in a transcendent, universal manner. Do I do it through pronouns or bird similies? Daina vs an old couple who look/act like a pair of vultures? The space of the untold - the void - between what the prose does not say, is, of course, the crucial element in giving a sense of “depth” or “life,” to literature. (I have reached this understanding through the postmodern works such as those of Italo Calvino.)

You suggest, lengthhieghtwidth, that I “actively subvert the arbitrary man-made line […]”, but I say that all writing is already a subversion, and not just that, but also a perversion. The matter seems to be: To what end does the writer pervert his/her phenomonlogical experience, and to what desired effect? It is probably a bit of a trick question, as I do not think a formula can be applied. Mythology, for instance, can be used to comment upon social and philosophical issues, but so can “realist” prose. Compare, for example, Sartre’s play No Exit, to sociological criticism (or even pyschological writing) – two different methods, yet one subject. (Social commentary.)

Well, this has gone on long enough. I’ve been trying to avoid theory for a while now – as too much theory will probably drive anyone mad.

p.s.

Wherever I’ve come off as a pompous ass, an ignoramus, or, a fool, do be sure to point it out for me – thanks.