Friday, March 30, 2007

PM 1: Vocation

My name is Peter MacLeinn.

I have tried several times to tell my story... never with anything remotely approaching success and I very much fear that this time will be no more successful than any of the other attempts. If I just tell it perhaps... well then maybe I can get through it.

I want to tell it, I need to tell it, but though its my story and God knows its full of everything that should make a story exciting, I'm afraid that you will quickly grow weary of me. Weary of my voice... weary of my weariness. If only there was someone else or some other voice. There are none. Its just me.

My story has an obvious beginning. I could trace it back farther but what would be the use. Do you want to know about my dull childhood, dull adolescense, dull adulthood? No of course not. It was idle. Whatever came before does not really matter. All that really matters is like Dante I came to find myself, in the middle of my life, lost in a dark wood, my way barred by a fierce animal. But I had no Virgil to save me. I had Bud Holligan. Who he is - or was - well I'll get to that in a moment.

Open the door to my little apartment in New York and see me hacking away, two finger style on a dirty keyboard. I don't know what color they call it - bisque I think. Gray-brown-khaki. I was there wearing sweatpants and a tee-shirt a can of coca-cola with a wet ring around it slowly seeping through a pile of bills and receipts. I could tell you, but it doesn't matter what I am writing, its how I am feeling. I am/was trapped by this same voice that I try and throw off. Let me embrace it. I couldn't write then and I can't write now. Look at me though, before the irridescent screen. I was so weary. A failed, miserable, writer. I had no business writing. What did I know? But I feel. I go on feeling. And I want to write. It is an itch in my mind nothing settles.

My story is falling apart already. But I'll go on scratching.

I reconsider. I will tell you what I was writing. A novella called the Sword of Constantine. A novella with some four hundred pages loosely connected waiting for me to thread them together. I add to it every night. Each word I keep. But that night frustration is high and I am confronted, for just a moment, by a vision which borders on the realisitic. A certainty of futility. And I close my document without saving. I turn off the computer and I walk away to the television. Collapsing on the sofa, I let out an exasperated breath. My mind won't shut off right away. Four hours of infomercials, documentaries, news shows numbs me to the point I can sleep.

How much more of this can you take? Writing for me is a relief. Each second of writing brings me closer to my story, closer to the end, closer to where I am now. I will find myself in this. I am in this story someplace.

The next day I go to work in a black mood. Sit at my desk and respond to an endless stream of e-mails. At 10 I go to the break room and sit down at the table. There's the morning paper. I flip open to the classifieds - to the employment section and I start to read. Mr. Daniel walks in behind me. I do not lift my head. "Looking for a job?" He asks. His voice is plain but irritating. Cheerful and too intimate. I want nothing to do with him. He makes his way to the coffee and pours it into a styrofoam cup. Three sugars and a cream. I sense he is starung at me. Several minutes pass and I flip a page. He slurps.

My dourness wins out. "Catch you later." He says as he leaves the room. He doesn't know that what happens next changed his life - mine - everybody's.

The ad was not anything spectacular. Only its proximity to another larger and more colorful one made me take any notice of it. I can almost remember every word, but to be honest, I'll just paraphrase it.

This is what I read in the break room:

"Looking for adventure? We're recruiting now. Free room, board, and training. Ample free time. Call Bud at 888-XXX-YYYY."

Thursday, March 29, 2007

This Poem Would Make No Sense, Unless You Knew That I Was Nikki Giovanni

If you thought that I was an emaciated, syphalitic preteen Vietnamese prostitute
This poem would make no sense to you.

Or if you thought that I was a balding, polo-shirted white man
You wouldn't get it.

And if you thought I was an obese chain-smoking lesbian ex-nun
You would be closer, but it would pass you by.

But if you thought that I was a shrivelled old black woman with too much money and a pocket-full of hate

Then, honey, you'd be right on.

Friday, March 23, 2007

PM0: Prelude

Bishop, "mission" priest disappear in Smokies
Local resident claims alien abduction

Newport, TN, March 23, 2007

Authorities are trying to locate a Roman Catholic Bishop and a priest who dissapeared under mysterious circumstances from a remote East Tennessee village. Auxillary Bishop Atwater of the diocese of Bridgeport Connecticut was visiting a rural mission located near the village of Tom's Mill in a rugged sparsely populated region 10 miles from the North Carolina border.

Mystery surrounds the event since federal agents took over from the TBI and placed a military cordon around the area and are denying media access to the local residents.

"We are very concerned about Bishop Atwater and Father Kindly." A spokesman for the diocese of Bridgeport said in a press conference Thursday. "We are as much in the dark as anyone. All we know is that Bishop Atwater went to St. Paul's Mission house Tuesday morning with a driver, Father Kindly and two . He was supposed to return to Knoxville by Tuesday evening. When he did not return the Knoxville Diocese became concerned and alerted the Tennesse State Highway patrol. That is as much as we know."

The TBI and the State Highway patrol have refused to answer questions in regards to the Bishop and his companions but Trevor Cooke a resident of the nearby village of Harmony Grove claims to be a witness to the abduction of the Bishop by aliens.

"I was at the mission to get my toilet paper. [The Bishop] and the [black] priest was there when I saws there was a flash and a bang and this bright disk came from the sky. We was all knocked over and then a man came from the disk and grabbed them two and just hauled them off."

Cooke claims to have gotten into his pick up and attempted to ram the disk while it remained on the ground. However the craft was airborn before he had a chance. "As soons as I missed that disk thing there was another one that landed behinds me. I didn't want to be abducted again so I just went on home. I suspect the other craft came and got them other people who were still at the mission."

Within thirty minutes Cooke than saw several military helicopters flying into the area.

Bishop Atwater was a Glenmary priest for twenty years before being created an Auxilary Bishop in 1998. The mission has been run by the Glenmary fathers and brothers since 1957 .

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Darkness doth Drain...and leave its stain

Darkness. Everywhere!
Ink doth flow from sharpened point,
like blood spilling forth on field, battle torn.

This fog, so dense, that even light
only, barely, can its ember so subtle,
one heart, it shall penetrate and thus pierce so trite.


Ah but harbinger, she is!
Of light and life there to come.

From my being doth pour
the light of this life.

But life renewed?
Fire-fly flicker on distant ridge,
scratches mind's eye as it winnows through fog and one tiny sear.

Life's own vapor seems to leave my breath,
like that fog that will lift on morning's light so soon due.
But afterlife, for me, and no light of sun's ray
one illumination of mind, with new eyes, and new son to see!

And again the ink doth pour on page,
like blood-born stain in battlefield rage
poured thus from soul, and spilled at so young and ripe an age.


Will her flow, stop its course?
Will dry scratch etch paper
and scribe words no sentient mind shall thus comprehend?

Alas, doth blood lie still on unholy ground,
and thus the same as the word so then scribed
without ink or inkling?


Thus soon to become dry etching in dust,
and then lifted by lukewarm breeze, and carried thus away,
like the fog of this war, seared by lying sun's gentle ray.

While today, it is vapor
driven away by snakes dual rapier,
cool, moist night shall return, and with it a mist's dense and weeping taper.

And the snakes shall they gather,
once again - a cold, dark smather
returning to their chasm, plotting fight on unforseen day.

Alas, but where is my inkwell?
Where thus my raging blood?

My transfusion and tranmutation thus born on a thrashing chopper's blade;
and with the reaping scythe's sure swing of rip, spit and tear
I again shall write, fight and swear

like a lithe, gentle fog thus rything and rising on a warming Spring air.

Snake and slither...beware!

Whilst blood she doth course,
and ink thus for one child she shall spill,
One Veritas, One word,
and with one word, one sword,
one blade, this Word...eternal forged in my will.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Another tribute to N. G.

In the spirit of Nikki Giovanni I offer another poem.

Ken Blackwell's Dog

Kenneth Blackwell,
I bet it was your dog,
Your dog you S.O.B,
Your dog who did what dogs do
Right outside my door.

Mark Mallory's dog doesn't do that.
Mark Mallory's dog hugs people.
Mark Mallory's dog walks with people.
Mark Mallory's dog talks to people.

Kenneth Blackwell,
Your dog thinks you're white.
So your dog did what dogs do
Right outside my door.

Until I came home today I didn't know,
I didn't know you lived next door,
I didn't know you had a dog.
Kenneth Blackwell you S.O.B.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

A Clerihew

Sean Hannity,
Of humble roots and burgeoning vanity,
Does not grasp Humanae Vitae,
But knows by heart veni vidi vice.

Definition of a Clerihew

(See inspiration for this Clerihew here)

Monday, March 12, 2007

Ode to an old Black and White Photograph of Stage Starlet, Octegenarian, in Cat's Eye Glasses

There you sit, in your stall so regal.
Tiffany lamp, illumini une life-chiseld visage.

One nose, held high, but then not...
No advent of intimidation, ney, haughty resignation.

For years fifteen, mine eye hath enamoured,
by lovely countenance, your proud indignation.

Once two towers there stood, on your holy ground,
a place far buried in memory, -a time, now tremor, bound.

I'll never forget how I felt in your home,
a privilege in my heart, to share hallowed ground with thee.

A starlet, perhaps? One faded bit part,
or one righteous backdoor, ancient stage tart?

Your cat's-eyed glasses tell me so much,
of your star that has risen, one life now Zenith.

The apex 'tis yours, Tiffany Illuminati.
In my soul, you will reign, one frame, one dame, now captured in time.

Now on my wall you hang, faded photograph
of time shot down like a prey in sights - so long is memory, and memory now gone.

These years that I've spent in the limelight of your faded glory,
they were years lived well, as from lofty perch with you there on watch.

My prayer is for...for the both of us.
While my star is on rise, yours now -forever placed...

In eternal home heaven,
tacked to bare wall
and there, proud refrain, and watching over all !

Noosphere

Noosphere

Penultimate reach of natural churning,
Zenith of fumes of incense burning,
Creative nature’s vector’s target,
Sown wisdom’s everlasting market!
No, not the springing source -
Tis the end of every rivulets course.

In this no question goes unanswered,
Nor no Capricorn without its Cancer
Vacuums of particular abhorrence,
Must be filled by massive torrents,
And each imbalance shall be satisfied
Before Demeter’s wrath is pacified.

Thus in the Olympian sphere Jove did decree
Apollo to produce a good facsimile
And give proof of pre-historic man.
Yet interfered capricious Pan
And swapped the artwork while he lulled
For an ape jaw and a human skull

The mirthful gods saw no harm in the least
Though greatly shamed was their priest,
The tenets of their faith remained,
Whole, unshaken, unblemished, unstained.
“Another chimera shall we assemble,
A better caprice to make men tremble?”

Eros took the whimsical progeny
of feminism with misogyny,
And fielded a cynocryptic hound,
Three missteps before each bound,
Ears pinned back its tail chased
and thrice looped a circumferential race.

Maw opened wide and swallowed complete
legs, hind quarters and fore feet.
And so intoxicated it became,
In believing both and doubting same,
That driven on by the scent of truth
It did not stop till tooth ate tooth.

The gods delighted in this sport,
Therefore ordained more be of this sort.
A nation of thinkers all of a mind,
And with them tools to serve their kind,
Not with wisdom but to engender,
The world-mockery of their senders.

And these fools were all of noble bent,
Considered themselves quite excellent,
The sort to govern and to judge,
the commoners they sat above.
“Men are straw, but not are we,
We are the necessary end of history.”

“Just wait, a new feast we will bring,
And blunt the pain of death’s sting.”
Within the wombs they began to sow,
The rank seeds of their own overthrow,
Each neglected seed would produce,
Rancid living animals from its fruits.

And what ghastly creatures of their nightmare pride,
Stalk this world! Each ghoul seeks bride,
And with her plans a more noxious lot,
Of similarly composed rot.
Oh how the hungry miscreants,
Pour forth from the infernal vents!

The beauty of a thousand generations,
Washed away by their philanthropic oblations
And each with ravenous unquenchable lust,
Consumes its kindred and thinks it just.
While from above descends the laughter,
Of our playful gods hereafter.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Your Help Needed

Go to this site and make a donation:

http://intothedeep.wordpress.com/help-get-me-to-the-convent/

Thanks!