Another Slow Sunday

I need to use that subject line as a title somewhere. Just sounds like a lyric/poem title to me. :P


Currently listening to KALX, UC Berkeley's college station, while I do the occasional weekend errand. Doing laundry, helping Emm by cleaning up the kitchen while she does some cooking for later in the week (she's currently blanching some bok choy for later use), and continuing to fill up my mp3 player with the late 80s stuff I listened to back in the day (it's making for perfect background at work, as well as for when I'm doing my WiS writing during breaks.

Getting a bit more done on LLB again...on the final scene in the first chapter and it's looking pretty good. Just a few cosmetic things to clean up at this point. Probably going to work on that this afternoon, and perhaps pick up ADoS later just to keep connected to it. And of course there will be poetry at Dreamwidth later on today as well.

All in all, a nice relaxing Sunday. I let myself sleep in a bit (Ooh, waking up at 7am! Such decadence!) and am taking things deliberately slow. My brain gets all wound up during the week doing all sorts of disparate things that it's nice to take part of a day and just let it coast. Plus having a day of football doesn't hurt either. :)

9: Gradual Redux

Late August, 1988

I
Suddenly it's the last summer of your short life
Suddenly it all hits you like a freight train
You stand there at the window at the end of the day
Looking east down the broken road, back towards the house
When it dawns on you that it's the end of an era
An end of the day you didn't want to see leave

You'd prepared for this, but it still makes you bleed
You'd meant to deny it, meant to rise above this pain
And yet that one song just kicked you in the teeth
And left you lying and facing reality

You didn't want to let go, not all this, not right now
But now it's here, it's here and it's now
So you do what you can't and you feel what you can
And start that long dark road away from home
Ready or not you'll take that first step despite your fear
Hoping one day you'll rise above it all

II
Let's give this a try, let's wear this black for a while
Let's see where all this goes, these darkened thought
Let's play with a handful of dark and angry words
And see where they go, see if they impale anything on the way
Even if all they ever do
Is bounce off the surface like so much misplaced anger
Let's make it sound like I'm dying inside
If only as an escape hatch, only as a release valve
Because we know we'll feel better after it's out and on paper

III
The wind picks up outside that window, the hint of a storm
Time passes and you're stuck there watching it all go by
People and places, colors and images move past you
Leaving you blinded by your own tears, by your own walls
You can't yet move on, and yet all around you accelerates
Leaving you there, a victim of your own destruction
A victim of your own internal debates of right and wrong
A victim of your own patience, a victim of your age



[These three are remakes/rethinks of the first three poems of the chapbook The Omniscient Umbrella that I'd written at the time, called "Gradual", "Gradual--Alone" and "Time Passes". They were originally written late Sunday afternoon, 22 August 1988 while working at the local radio station. The main theme of these three were of close friends I'd had in high school that were graduating one year ahead of me. The anger and frustration I felt wasn't so much from their departure (the "will we ever meet again" that is so common at that age) as it was that I'd have to go through one last year in high school. It was frustration that I'd be forever a year behind everyone, trailing instead of being a part of the pack. In reference to the first line, the song that kicked the whole thing off was The Motels' "Suddenly Last Summer", which happened to be playing on the radio at that moment.]

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