When I don’t know what to write
(Like when I’ve followed the “following” thread multiple times already)
I follow the line of the pen
starting from a small dot and circling around itself
wider and wider until it slips off the page
or into some other spiral.
It’s a trick Matilda taught us this summer –
A way to keep the pen moving when the mind wants to stall
When it wants to give up
Or start editing and judging
When it wants to stare out the window
Instead of filling up the page.
It has come very much in handy, this spiral trick,
Because it helps me follow my thought in writing
But also
When listening
When trying to follow a spoken line
The following of a circling line
Comes in very handy.
Author: erainbowd
He waxes desperate with imagination.
When we’re little, everyone praises us for our healthy imaginations.
When we tell a story, they are amazed and wonder where it came from.
When we invent full fledged imaginary friends, parents will take pride.
When we grow up however, without the proper channels, imagination can become a liability. It can make us desperate.
I am desperate with imagination, too.
Without enough avenues to play on, without toys or playmates, without a playground, my imagination drips out of me like tears – at inopportune moments, when I’d like to appear in control, or when I have a moment alone and the barricades have lifted for a moment,
It feels so good to let it out then
But I have to wipe it all away soon enough, blow my nose, toss the remains
And return to a very serious world.
Without enough art in my life,
I wax desperate with imagination too.
I’ll follow thee.
The drums are hitting that downbeat with
So much power, it’s like they’re willing people to dance.
I don’t know this form. No one has ever talked me through
What I’m supposed to do when. Step step kick?
Step back? Twirl? I have no idea.
I’d be more comfortable with something a little slower
But you’re offering your hand now
And the music is insistent
So I will take your hand,
Get up from this bench
Walk with you to the dance floor
Where, perhaps, I will put my hand on your shoulder
(If that’s how this dance goes)
I’m going to trust that you know what you’re doing
I’m going to trust that you know how to lead
You’ve lead me this far –
So I’ll follow.
Go on.
Anna made me laugh from a place I forgot I could laugh.
She showed me my spine and my shoulder blades.
She helped my ribs make room for breath.
She brought my hip toward her and all of me eventually came along for the ride.
She pressed on my shoulders, found a way to rock me like a baby stretched out flat.
There was one spot in my back that, I could swear, has never moved before.
She suggested I stop carrying my burdens on my back – that I might want to try
Juggling them – like big rubber balls bouncing from one part of me to the next.
When I sat up, I was a self I had forgotten.
I was the lighthearted me
The one who will laugh easily and robustly
The one who delights in the world.
An hour before I was heavy. I was buried in trouble.
The world felt like layers of earth laid on top of me
Something I had to fight my way through.
With each fistful of dirt that I pushed out of the way
A new bit would fall into the newly cleared space.
I wondered if I could keep it up.
I wondered if I could keep struggling toward the surface. I could see no way ahead.
One hour on Anna’s Feldenkrais table and I can go on.
I can see the stars.
I say, away!
So many voices, rushing in to judge.
So many opinions, crowding around to label.
So many, “fix this”, “That sucks” and “I don’t think so” s
I feel like I’m standing in a field
Trying to put up a barn
And instead of picking up a hammer to help,
These people stand around and critique my nails.
They think if they tell me what they think
That they are helping
But really they’re just keeping me
From getting this wall erected.
If you’re not here to help me get this off the ground,
Get yourselves gone.
I don’t care how you would have built the barn.
Either pick up a corner
Or pick up and go.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
Making ghosts seems like a rather positive spin
On the destruction of death.
The ghost community has a much happier view of death. Death, the ghost maker.
Death: the ghost birth. In that moment, that from this side of the veil
Seems to be an end, is, from that side, creation, birth, the beginning.
The ghosts all celebrate when you pass through,
Pat you on your ectoplasmic back,
Welcome you to their tribe.
They honor their ghost makers – thank the ones that killed them or neglected them
Or let them starve
Because they made you. The ghost makers are the parents of a whole new life.
The end of one and the beginning of another.
Unhand me, gentlemen.
Nothing like the use of “unhand me”
To signal classical style.
You need only say, “Unhand me, you brute” to conjure up
An olde worlde full of Renaissance men
Galloping on their horses and seizing hold of ladies
In bosomy white blouses busting out of corsets.
It’s robust, “unhanding.”
Were I to say it now, I could not do it unironically
But it’s a shame
Given what a succinct and forceful way it is to say
“Get your stinkin’ hands off me, jerk!”
Still am I called.
Sometimes it feels like someone is striking a gong
Over and over again.
Just when I think the sound has died away
When I can’t hear it anymore
When I think I’m free of it
The sound gest louder again as it’s struck with the felt covered mallet.
When it’s first struck, the gong is impossible to ignore and it reminds me
That the sound has never stopped
The call has only gotten weaker –
So weak one can forget about it for the moment
But still ringing
When it is struck anew.
My fate cries out And makes each petty artere in this body As hardy as the Nemean’s Lion’s nerve.
Fate sits in a drawer in the closet.
It’s crowded in there. Fate is tangled up with an old phone chord,
7 dead batteries, a small flashlight, an assortment of keys that no one
knows the locks for. It shares space with a baseball card,
a smattering of paper clips and a doorknob.
Dust and lint jockey for room in there.
Fate is waiting. It’s listening. It knows it is not up to much
In this moment – but at just the right prompt, when the moment arrives
It will burst forth and take over.
Fate will seize its moment, surge ahead –
There will be no stopping it.
You shall not go.
It’s really quite something
To lay hands on a prince and keep him from his will.
Horatio is negotiating this tricky problem
By speaking to the Prince
In a formal You
While giving him a denial.
There is no way to be deferential
While restraining a person.
Pardon me, my lord, while I cuff you.
Excuse me, sire, I’m just going to
Grip your arms and ignore your struggles.
It takes some guts, this.
Guts, and a firm belief that following a ghost is really
Not a great idea.
The Hamlet Project 