Resurface

A Memo to Writers Robert Frost, Adrienne Riche and J.D. Salinger

And I dove...

Like so many writers before,

Into the abysmal wreckage where time is held by

the frozen ropes of bliss and suffering,

I walk a sad tight rope act,

Through myself and outward,

Back again trying to slowly trip my way...

Into transcendence...Nirvana...Valhalla...

Heaven....

To be reborn as a spiritual machine

chasing perfection...

I swim away from the surface,

Forty leagues into a motherless chasm

where in every hollow cave there is a shadow

of my former self.

The deeper I go the more vulnerable I become

The volcanic embers at the bottom, filled with 21 years

of failures, have erupted and finger their way into my lungs,

And I fall, poisoned by self deception and deprivation

All for nothing...

Riche explored her wreckage,

and found a place where god was nothing more

than a hollow reflection no more knowledgeable than she,

And memories were nothing more than phantom words,

and empty pages recanting the untold history of a woman's strife

That may or may not have ever existed

Lost within a dream's dream

And drowning...

But I meander through the halls of shuffling melodies

and search for my meaning,

However, like peaking into the window of a lost Atlantis

A vision is just not proof enough!

I must touch, taste and feel this state of being,

Or be left forever to question whether it really existed,

Connected to the pale illusion of a passing cloud

dissolving in the wind...

I await now

in this limbo of confusion here love is reincarnated

into the form of an eternal wreckage

I, unlike others, rejected this wreck,

Left temporarily insane trying to assassinate the boy

who hides alone in the distance, rejecting beauty,

yet hopelessly impaled by it

And after 21 years of exile

inside a barrel of empty wishes,

Drunk, afraid and alone,

Roaming a city where loneliness

comes in the shape of a thousand boot heels,

That boy has failed to grow...

A weary reincarnation of Holden Caufield,

jaded by a brief lifetime of insignificance and disarray

Rejecting heaven... Rejecting life... Rejecting death

Left for dead on the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue,

While the parade of monophobic fools pass him by

and spill into the street.

But through this emptiness, I find myself

Back at this wreckage that poses to be

a mirror into my soul,

However there is a resurgence that enters

and envelopes the sinewy flesh of my body

It grips and shakes the foundations of my religion,

Leading me to the paradoxical crossroads that is my suffering,

It is here In this kingdom where way leads onto way.

Two Roads perish in sardonic irony, within the undergrowth

While the sleepy snows transforms them into sunken bodies

of nothingness...

And I strip my sleeves, showing my tattooed mark of Cain

And bury them in the white iridescence of true divinity

Breathing in the cosmic remains of an imploded star.

I resurface from this wreckage...

Away from the steep and thorny path

Not as Frost, Riche or Salinger

But as the nameless apparition, freewheeling in the night

With echo's of pain and wanderlust in his eyes,

Salinger begins to speak through me

and whisper's 'Where to, little boy?'

My only answer is the dreaded pen to page

which consistently lights the pathway home

It is on that road

That I alone, can trip my way back to myself

I remember this, but I see that you've made some changes to it....

this version flows better and actually relates better perhaps.

The last few lines really jump out at me....

Salinger begins to speak through me

and whisper's 'Where to, little boy?'

My only answer is the dreaded pen to page

which consistently lights the pathway home

It is on that road

That I alone, can trip my way back to myself

Why dreaded? It certainly seems to be an outlet for you.

Any writer worth his salt knows that writing... isn't pleasurable.

Its why most of us drink ourselves to death, or do drugs.

It's an outlet, yes, but like with any art, it takes a part of you.

Sometimes your best work, is the some that buried and bloodied you,

Forced you to go to a place you did not want to go, or reveal something you wouldn't normally want to.

Kind of like framing your scars and weaknesses.

Writing is like swimming in lava, slightly pleasurable and slightly suicidal...

You read Catcher in the Rye, in a few days, its a simple read,

yet it took 6 years to write and perfect, Salinger once wrote that it stole a part of him.

Thats what writing does it steals a part of you,

Marcel Proust, quite possibly the greatest writer ever lived (and he was gay)

Only wrote one Novel in his life, a novel which like Salinger stole a part of his soul

Writings interesting... I do it because I must, not necessarily because I like it...

Kind of like music

Hmm, well I guess that answered my question.....

I'm not sure what to say in regards to that except that I know from my own reading that many

writers do fall into that category; but I'm not sure if I'd say that most writers do. What's a bit

disturbing is that you put yourself into that grouping. It seems like a death wish from the get-go.

Then again I also know that these poems of yours are from a group of poems you call the

"Suicide Handbook"; so with that in mind, I really shouldn't be surprised by what you said.

"Catcher in the Rye" was required reading in both high school and college...
at least in the ones I attended....but that was eons ago; and yes, it was an easy read..however,
at least half of the profanity could have been left out and Salinger would still have gotten his
point across. I don't remember however that it took him six years to write. If I remember

correctly, he was in a mental hospital when he wrote that, or at least when he started writing it.

As for Proust, I never tried to tackle his 4000+ page, 1.5 million word novel (and the only reason

I have those statistics is because I looked them up) Although I have heard it's an excellent

read, and that it doesn't really get bogged down. I just couldn't convince myself to spend

several years of my life reading his work; and I more than likely still won't.

obsessed said:

Hmm, well I guess that answered my question.....

I'm not sure what to say in regards to that except that I know from my own reading that many

writers do fall into that category; but I'm not sure if I'd say that most writers do. What's a bit

disturbing is that you put yourself into that grouping. It seems like a death wish from the get-go.

Then again I also know that these poems of yours are from a group of poems you call the

"Suicide Handbook"; so with that in mind, I really shouldn't be surprised by what you said.

"Catcher in the Rye" was required reading in both high school and college...
at least in the ones I attended....but that was eons ago; and yes, it was an easy read..however,
at least half of the profanity could have been left out and Salinger would still have gotten his
point across. I don't remember however that it took him six years to write. If I remember

correctly, he was in a mental hospital when he wrote that, or at least when he started writing it.

As for Proust, I never tried to tackle his 4000+ page, 1.5 million word novel (and the only reason

I have those statistics is because I looked them up) Although I have heard it's an excellent

read, and that it doesn't really get bogged down. I just couldn't convince myself to spend

several years of my life reading his work; and I more than likely still won't.

Salinger had been toying with catcher for 10 years, he'd written a few stories about Holden, but never so extensively. Did Catcher have a point? I swear people thought he put the swear words to be provocative, he was just mimicing what he heard, and said in his own world. Which is why it's brilliant. Because it's truth in its purist form. Just a window into the world(s) of failed seekers, searching for beauty in the world.

Proust was the same way,

Kerouac also...

Writing is easily corruptible, easily to crutch into cliche's and hollywood endings.

And also easy, to get lost in abstraction.

Like in any art there's tension between those two opposing spectrums.

in my opinion it's the artist job, to paint a picture of what's inbetween,

that is where reality is hidden, in a sea of grey.

Thats the hardest thing to do.

Cause writers tend to be delusional creatures, and sometimes reality isn't the easiest thing to write down.

Not here nor there, or anywhere, it just lies in the land of inbetween.

it's funny, we seek shelter from reality in our delusions, and then when those get too currupted we come running back to reality, its a vicious circle

I just realized that this poem is about that as well..

finding the inbetween...

Reject the two roads diverged by a yellow wood,

and find your own path to yourself...

hmmm...

I never thought that he was doing it to be provocative either.....it was realistic;

particularly since he was writing from the viewpoint of a teenager trying to find his place in the world.
But honestly, I was distracted by the overly extensive use of profanity....but that's just me

I see what you're saying about 'painting a picture of what's in between'. I find it hard to write

down reality myself; I've written, but I don't "write"......and I don't think I'm delusional, but

some folks may disagree about that

"Finding your own path to yourself" is something I'm sure most of us strive to find....if not,

then we'd be lost completely unto ourselves, and to the world, if that makes any sense.

Btw, I had a link to an article written about Salinger's death this past January....it was extremely

interesting (to me anyway), but the link doesn't seem to work anymore. If I come across it again,

I'll post it in here. The article was a good window into his life; however, you seem to know a lot

about him already, so you may not find it as interesting as I did.

And thanks also to the "window" into your life....it's always interesting to see what makes folks tick of all ages.