Here a Zephyr Wrecked

"Most of the good men who lived along that shore/Wanted to be in love and give good love/To beautiful women, who weren't pretty/And to small children like me who wondered,/What the hell is this?" --James Wright

[menalongtheshore]

Does the rear view mirror count as looking back at your hometown?

Taste yourself to see

[menalongtheshore]

Master: I write as a character you see

Pupil: so it’s not really you? You write as another person that doesn’t exist? You know their thoughts, their desires, their traumas, their truths? You know the sound of their body in the shower, the silence of snow falling on their skin, the metronome of their heart ticking out tempo changes in their pathos logos ethos mythos? You know why they were born, why they die, how they die, and when? You know their gods, their devils, their gate keepers and their guards? You write as another person? So it’s not really you?

Master: well...

[menalongtheshore]

Would you take it back

He replied No

I would have had you just the same

Knowing what I would do

Knowing what you could have done

Knowing what I’ve become

Knowing what you couldn’t become

Even now

No, but then yes

[menalongtheshore]

OM

The prophet bought a guitar from this very shop. Of course they were not a prophet yet, only young and trying to pick up girls. They asked if we had work, and I asked if they played and they said no. Then they asked if they could buy a guitar, apparently penniless. Just like any other, I say them down, figured their body, noted the size and camber of their hands. We decided on an orchestra model; they were only young then, and small but with a clear voice and enigmatic chordless songs. They paid and left.

On the day they were assassinated in front of millions and heaven’s shepherd descended to carry them skyward, and as their holy apparition took the shepherd’s hand, I could not take my eyes off that orchestra model axe in a stand on stage. They hadn’t even gotten a chance to play it yet.

[menalongtheshore]

The shrug of an Anchor

If you’re going to sail the ocean blue

Come to know the wreck first

Count the splinters

Measure slope of the shoulders

of the anchor as it shrugs

Reach out to a friend

tell them what they mean

then try to board

[philosophomoric]

a graduate student in philosophy at the university of toronto wrote a program to strip occurrences of “unintentional haiku” from corpuses of text and:

> Snow falls, and is white; > the falling is a process, > the whiteness is not. > (Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind) > > The game, one would like > to say, has not only rules > but also a point. > (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations) > > No Grandfather, no > Father; no Father, no Tim; > no Tim, no killing. > (David Lewis, “The Paradoxes of Time Travel”) > > Suppose that I cling > to some rock as a mere means > of escaping death. > (Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons) > > We sometimes say: in > later life I will be a > different person. > (David Lewis, “Survival and Identity”) > > You have an auto > accident one winter night > on a lonely road. > (Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere) > > When I turn my eye > inward, I find nothing but > doubt and ignorance. > (David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature)

[menalongtheshore]

Like the heathens would ring their bells

If they found out god was dead

[menalongtheshore]

Atonement has been in your head all day

Like a gap in your teeth

You plumb it till it feels familiar

aTonement

aToneMent

atOnment

aton(E)ment

atoNmeNt

atonemeant

a tone meant

/

And then suddenly,

As you raise a pastry to your mouth

Without even noticing

You stop thinking about it

For it has been done

/

Years later at a party

(With the one you met since all this happened)

You suddenly remember that distant afternoon

Where you asked yourself if you really

Knew what it meant

Why haven’t you done that in a while?

[menalongtheshore]

So what I’m saying is

Sleep in

/

If you know what’s good for you

/

There’s a thing in the morning

It will harken your senses

into your forehead

You’ll feel it in your coffee,

it tastes like salt and earth

There will be some people

and they will have names

that you’ll chase down with a salad at

eleven

/

So what I’m saying is

Sleep in

[menalongtheshore]

This is my generation

The generation of run

I see them pass me everyday as I walk home from a race

Bleeting, half formed and yet so sure

With their faces red and breaths heaving

/

Come again, landlord?

That we might find some other call

When our parents whittled tree branches to toothpicks

We ran into the woods, trying

Just trying

To never come back, a face on a milk carton

To be a People person

Of the year

Tragically misunderstood

Horribly entertained

/

Plain as the severing as a friendship

Intricate as the things we liked two years ago

[menalongtheshore]

Hey first graffiti

How am I doing

Just please tell me

This will wash off in the morning

And the reply:

Not bad

[reallyreallyreallytrying]

medusa, trying to turn you to stone, but you accidentally called her “melissa” when you first walked in and now you’re too embarrassed to look at her. “it’s alright” she keeps saying “i get it all the time” but you still won’t look. u don’t even remember the stone thing until later

[nosebleedclub]

Discussion 12/13/15

1. Evacuation 2. Virginity 3. Blessed Child 4. Liquid Water on Mars 5. Language of Flowers

[menalongtheshore]

1. Run, rabbit 2. A three story blue house with peeling paint in the snow 3. The muse, walking barefoot across Africa 4. Plead the fifth if you know what's good for you. 5. Scarier proposition: they don't have one *cue diminished arpeggio*

[menalongtheshore]

Mind while we sit here and derive fish hooks from tangled line the muse walks barefoot across northern Africa You will struggle with your figure 8's and they will lay them down to rest seven hours away

[menalongtheshore]

Relativity

Something big is coming I told her spread the word Layne looked at me like a broken odometer We're coming for it she explained

[menalongtheshore]

Monday Wine

It's red and white and blue spangled for all you care Sip it slow or tip the bottle chug the voices yell You're going to write later as the crystal kisses you you're going to write This is how they all do it courage is inspiration they said you're going to write later they said you said Then you're seeing god in the shower curtain and double of everything else and there's a bed and a woman and they're both throbbing with rest There's a pulse in your toes, she picks it up in her calves and asks if you're getting shorter Spangled as ever, you begin to write

[menalongtheshore]

Can I ask a question?" "Depends on the answer.