The Island

i.

Constantly on the verge of some collapse

I went to the island

The blue goat

Island

Where humans are only half formed

And salacious pale fawns

Are scandalously clad in Armani scarves

“Love is transformation,” says the fawn.

“You keep your filthy hooves to yourself!” I cry. 

ii.

Then a girl appears

As she always does

Yellow sand dunes rise into the ethereal blue sky

Wet white dress snapping in the briny breeze 

Then the swaying head of a large tortoise

Peaks over a dune

Its rider a tiny man wearing a loin cloth and a red skullcap

Raises a spear made from the poisonous needle of a Swift Cactus

A Discussion on the Nature of Writing 

“It ain’t easy brother, Chester can tell you that. I wrote a novel, you know. A kind of spy thriller in which I had to stop a Soviet Squirrel named Natasha from giving my recipe over to the Russians. I worked for two years on that book, while still prowling the parks and campuses for potential customers. When I finished, I knew it was good, clean spy fiction, a paragon of the genre. But they told me I couldn’t publish it, not even under a pseudonym. Couldn’t afford to confuse my image, they said, as if they hadn’t renamed me three times already,” said the Cheetah bitterly.

            “Did you like writing the book?” said the Rabbit.

            “It was crunchy,” said the Cheetah.

            “Maybe you could give it to someone else, and let them publish it under their name?” the Rabbit suggested.

            “What?! Never! Chester don’t fuck around like that. Chester gonna stop doing this TV bullshit one day, and find himself a place in Brooklyn and get Paul Auster to help him publish his book. Talked to Paul last year at a party in L.A. Paul says he can help Chester out.”

            “Oh,” said the Rabbit a little offended. “It was only a suggestion,” and then added, “I tried to write something once. It was a book of aphorisms, you know a la Nietzsche or Schopenhauer. But they only mocked me as always: ‘Silly rabbit,’ they said. ‘Silly, silly rabbit.’”

            “I used to write poems about me lucky charms,” said a sad little man, drinking hard ale from a wooden cup. “Beautiful poems they were.” And then he recited wistfully:

Frail the white rose and frail is the charm

Which she holdeth before with a spoon

Whose marshmallow sight

Was sure a delight

And it caused all the children to swoon

            “I remember one,” said H.G. Wells, suddenly barging in unannounced:

Our novel gets longa and longa
Its language gets stronga and stronga
But there’s much to be said
For a life that is led
In illiterate places like Bonga

            “How did you get here?!” I asked Wells astonished.

            “I'm here to tell you to get back to work!" he roared. “Or quit writing books and get a real job! No one’s ever gonna read it if you spend all your time whining about how it’s hard! You think writing the Time Machine wasn’t hard? You think I didn’t want to throw the manuscript for Twenty Leagues under the Sea into the Boston Harbor?!”

            “Wasn’t that Jules Verne?” I pointed out timidly.

            “I’ll show you Jules Verne,” and he raised his cane menacingly and I thought him ready to strike me about the head, but instead he scattered the cartoon cereal mascots from my childhood and disappeared. 

Sitting Here

For Charles Bukowski

I am sitting here

Watching the flies fucking on the yellow ceiling of my neat little room

Which I have tidied up

So much

I feel I should get some sort of prize

I always think this when I am tidying things up

Because two girls

Entirely independent of each other

Told me

I had a natural eye for feng shui

I never really understood what this meant

Because I have never really understood what it means

To have a natural eye for anything

Could I have an artificial eye for feng shui?

Or what if I had an eye made of glass?

Or what if both of them were surgically removed and replaced

By two glowing sapphires 

Staring out of the cavities of my skull

Where my wet brain sloshes in darkness

Anyway, it is a miracle I have eyes at all

I used to be something real special

But now when I use my eyes all I see is disappointment

When I brush my teeth

I try to keep my eyes focused on the dirty chrome ring around the sink hole

I watch my spit dribble down the side of the ceramic bowl

And for some reason I often imagine Humphrey Boggart smoking away

Brushing his teeth with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth

Peter Golub lived his first three years inside a 4 by 4 crib in a communal apartment, where crying simply wasn't allowed. They would put these old pilot headphones over his head and blast Mahler’s first symphony. His mother says she could put on the first symphony and let it play all day and Peter would just sit there rocking back and forth like rain man. To this day, whenever he hears it, he wants to cry, but silently into his wee little hanky.

The Island

i.

Constantly on the verge of some collapse

I went to the island

The blue goat

Island

Where humans are only half formed

And salacious pale fawns

Are scandalously clad in Armani scarves

“Love is transformation,” says the fawn.

“You keep your filthy hooves to yourself!” I cry. 

ii.

Then a girl appears

As she always does

Yellow sand dunes rise into the ethereal blue sky

Wet white dress snapping in the briny breeze 

Then the swaying head of a large tortoise

Peaks over a dune

Its rider a tiny man wearing a loin cloth and a red skullcap

Raises a spear made from the poisonous needle of a Swift Cactus

A Discussion on the Nature of Writing 

“It ain’t easy brother, Chester can tell you that. I wrote a novel, you know. A kind of spy thriller in which I had to stop a Soviet Squirrel named Natasha from giving my recipe over to the Russians. I worked for two years on that book, while still prowling the parks and campuses for potential customers. When I finished, I knew it was good, clean spy fiction, a paragon of the genre. But they told me I couldn’t publish it, not even under a pseudonym. Couldn’t afford to confuse my image, they said, as if they hadn’t renamed me three times already.”

            “Did you like writing the book?” said the Rabbit.

            “It was crunchy,” said the Cheetah.

            “Maybe you could give it to someone else, and let them publish it under their name?” the Rabbit suggested.

            “What?! Never! Chester don’t fuck around like that. Chester gonna stop doing this TV bullshit one day, and find himself a place in Brooklyn and get Paul Auster to help him publish his book. Talked to Paul last year at a party in L.A. Paul says he can help Chester out.”

            “Oh,” said the Rabbit a little offended. “It was only a suggestion,” and then added, “I tried to write something once. It was a book of aphorisms, you know a la Nietzsche or Schopenhauer. But they only mocked me as always: ‘Silly rabbit,’ they said. ‘Silly, silly rabbit.’”

            “I used to write poems about me lucky charms,” said a sad little man, drinking hard ale from a wooden cup. “Beautiful poems they were.” And then he recited wistfully:

Frail the white rose and frail is the charm

Which she holdeth before with a spoon

Whose marshmallow sight

Was sure a delight

And it caused all the children to swoon

            “I remember one,” said H.G. Wells, suddenly barging in unannounced:

Our novel gets longa and longa
Its language gets stronga and stronga
But there’s much to be said
For a life that is led
In illiterate places like Bonga

            “How did you get here?!” I asked Wells astonished.

            “I'm here to tell you to get back to work!" he roared. “Or quit writing books and get a real job! No one’s ever gonna read it if you spend all your time whining about how it’s hard! You think writing the Time Machine wasn’t hard? You think I didn’t want to throw the manuscript for Twenty Leagues under the Sea into the Boston Harbor?!”

            “Wasn’t that Jules Verne?” I pointed out timidly.

            “I’ll show you Jules Verne,” and he raised his cane menacingly and I thought him ready to strike me about the head, but instead he scattered the cartoon cereal mascots from my childhood and disappeared. 

Sitting Here

    for Charles Bukowski

I am sitting here

Watching the flies fucking on the yellow ceiling of my neat little room

Which I have tidied up

So much

I feel I should get some sort of prize

I always think this when I am tidying things up

Because two girls

Entirely independent of each other

Told me

I had a natural eye for feng shui

I never really understood what this meant

Because I have never really understood what it means

To have a natural eye for anything

Could I have an artificial eye for feng shui?

Or what if I had an eye made of glass?

Or what if both of them were surgically removed and replaced

By two glowing sapphires 

Staring out of the cavities of my skull

Where my wet brain sloshes in darkness

Anyway, it is a miracle I have eyes at all

I used to be something real special

But now when I use my eyes all I see is disappointment

When I brush my teeth

I try to keep my eyes focused on the dirty chrome ring around the sink hole

I watch my spit dribble down the side of the ceramic bowl

And for some reason I often imagine Humphrey Boggart smoking away

Brushing his teeth with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth

Peter Golub lived his first three years inside a 4 by 4 crib in a communal apartment, where crying simply wasn’t allowed. After beating him with a wooden spoon, they would put these old pilot headphones over his head and blast Mahler’s First Symphony. His mother says she could put on the First Symphony and let it play all day and Peter would sit there rocking back and forth like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. To this day, whenever he hears it, he wants to silently cry into his wee little hanky.

Images by Elfie Hintington courtesy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

Copyright © 2016, Otis Nebula Press. All rights reserved.