Lacuna, Blog 4: Writing Is . . .

What an epiphany! Sitting there in that corporate coffee shop sipping that excellent cup of French Roast, perfectly aware of all the evil that corporate capitalism was capable of and all the good and irreducible things human beings were capable of when they weren’t trying to be automatons programmed to buy things. I mean, it got me worked up and even a little angry, but—shees! What a nice goddamn epiphany!

In its afterglow, suddenly, sitting right there at that corporate coffee shop window, you did something really decisive, but also really eccentric in a quiet unnoticeable way. You grabbed your little professional-looking yellow legal pad and you started jotting away.

Here’s what you jotted:

                 not

Writing is ^ a career!

What is it ten then?

List: Writing

Writing is eating a snake with a fish in its mouth.

That’s symbolical, yo: fish=alpha snake=omega

Writing is kissing a mannequin in a clothing store, humping it a little even

Writing is ascending into the sky out of a field of wheat or maybe poppies if you’re a pot poet then ascending slantwise

Writing is wading naked in the Hudson in broad daylight because you’re in love with somebody named Hudson

Writing is spending an entire day trying to get an ant to roll over on its back.

Ants don’t do tat, that, they don’t roll over on their backs just because you want them to.

Writing is running down some avenue pursued by a police helicopter, stopping at a phone booth every now and then to call home to call home make sure your nephew or your brother or something is stirring the sauce for the pasta.

You got that from a movie you saw

Also, it’s gravy, not sauce

goodfellas

Writing is keeping a little mouse in your violin.

So it can listen to you play

                                                                                                                                                                              anymore

It likes to hear you play, you never do^.

Writing is finding a dead man’s hand and lighting all the fingers on fire

Writing is trying to get a duck to eat your pastrami sandwich

You could never get a duck to eat a pastrami sandwich keep trying though

Writing is standing in the middle of Hyde Park during a lightning storm saying the lord’s prayer for once in your life meaning it

But then you got tired. Besides, your little coffee interlude was up, your day had to go on, you had to get back to your career. Surprisingly enough, it’s not hard to go back to your career after you’ve had an epiphany, to put the straightjacket back on and all and start following the protocols.

As long as you know it’s only a career you’re going back to.