Portrait of a City Twice Removed
See
- A teenage girl in full Muslim garb (including a hijab) — jogging
- Old women convened at a park bench
- Walkers and wrinkles
- Two little girls, ages two and four, running towards a woman and her Yorkie, bouncing and laughing
- Grey squirrels scrambling to cross the path
- Love letters on tree bark
- The moon rising over Michigan
- An ant doing laps around my rearview mirror
- That little plastic "protector" (broken), rattling against tire spokes
- Quivering Russian and light laughter
- Two little girls, ages two and four, yelling: "Doggie! He-wo doggie! Eeeee!"
- Cat Power's "I Found a Reason"... three times before letting the iPod shuffle on
- Cicadas that grow louder from all directions
- Waves mistaking themselves for the ocean
- Crickets just audible over a passing train
- My neighbor counting to 12 through an open window
- His son shrieking just when he's been found
- Gnats that appeared from out of nowhere
- Citrus spit from xylitol gum
- Sweat from lip corners
- The sweet nothing of water after a long run
- An ache that comes from shins worn by hard pavement
- Sand that fell in my shoelaces
- Needles from the evergreen near my entryway
- The pedal against my knee
- A metal door knob pressing into my back
- The reverberations of a cat's purr
- Fresh water in motion
- Old food and mildew in a trashcan as I stretch to view the etchings on a tree
- Exhaust from a city bus that leaves passengers in pitch-black
- Toxins and saline accumulating on my shirtsleeves
- The faint hint of charcoal (a barbecue's last call)
Stream of consciousness victim to the five senses. Perception dictated by failing vision.
Labels:
brain chew,
city-living,
diatribes
8 comments:
The funny thing is, I get the feeling this is a "typical" day for you, but by pointing out the little things, it sounds pretty extraordiniary.
~BPP
Yesterday, when I was asked who influences my reading and writing these days, I thought of you.
Seems well-balanced between the bizarre/distasteful (pun intended) and domestic/pleasant. It's nice to find the moments of simple enjoyment (kids chasing a dog, a game of hide-n-seek) amongst the deluge of sensory perceptions that one experiences in a city. And when one thinks about it, the bizarre moments are also indications that life exists in small, interesting pockets of time and place, even in a city of millions of souls.
By why "twice removed"? Is it the perceived, the perceptions, or the perceptor that are/is removed? Or perhaps they are all removed to this artificial medium. In fact, I guess putting things that are ultimately non-linguistic into words and then written words makes them even more removed. I'll have to think about that further. But what did you mean when you called it/them twice removed? Just curious.
BPP: You know me. Sometimes those little things (negative and positive alike) hit like a proverbial ton of bricks. Only way to climb my way out from under the rubble is to write about them.
Mollie: Suffice it to say I could feel my cheeks turning red when I read your comment — thank you. It's good to know there are a couple folks out there who take an interest in what I write.
AA: Before I attempt to explain, allow me first to say that I thought about changing the title (as well as the last blurb under "think") multiple times. Even after I published the post, I thought about going back in and tweaking. But I ultimately left it at that... and here's my best attempt at explaining why.
ONCE REMOVED — Though I may be an "active" observer in the city, I nevertheless feel like an outsider. So even as I observe life around me, I feel like it's beyond me. Like it's something I witness, and not something I do. Think of it this way: you enjoy watching birds. And if you watch a bird long enough, you get a pretty good idea of what it is like (not to mention, you can admire its beauty... its flaws). But there's no substitute for being said bird.
TWICE REMOVED — I'm not the first person to note that words never quite capture an experience. And I'm not the first person to be tremendously bothered by how granules of thought, as we articulate them, are "lost in translation" (if I may quote Merrill).
Back when I wrote "real" poetry, much of it focused on my frustration with speech. That frustration continues today.
Add to that I forgot much of what I wanted to say by the time I made it home, and the post was really only a fraction of what I "thought" I was going to say. Which was itself only a fraction of what I saw/felt during that evening's bike ride & jog.
Thanks for your encouragement. I'd like to walk with you in a park someday and see what you see.
the stink of gin rattling around in the rear of my head because I slept on my back happy after the sunday night football game. had been on a strict water diet through the Favre game to try to symbolicly keep the old man in it. then silly celebration after the first sad wore off; colts win. and a poor poor monday
morning. needless to say. and september stretches into the bad mornings of winter. wake up in dark. come home in dark.
ds
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