meandering nostalgia
i can't promise this is going to make any sense. I've always been a nostalgic person, used to say I only did things in the present tense in order to sort out a new set of memories "we're making our own flashbacks" still listen to the music of 1997 and the past is important. from about 1998 I was into making websites and somehow got sidetracked into thinking with that grave importance of youth that what you write ought to be serious. took me a couple of years to escape that - I don't think I do serious very well and to be honest don't need to...
at the moment I'm being (haunted isn't the right word) by names and faces from the past - each broken connection each missing person each letter unanswered .. I can't stand my own inability to keep in touch with people - and I see flashes from the past, each as crisp as the bright spring day (didn't I tell you I remember everything?)
and never forget / and never look back
when you write poetry I don't think it's about words that like each other, it's about fresh words, and this is what's so important about cliches - they were once beautiful words; as Jacob says, "you could cut the atmosphere with a knife" - when coined, this sounds so fresh! such an exciting metaphor! these days you wouldn't dare use it and a good job too... and so for years I've wanted to write about moments in the past, to crystallise them, not like a butterfly collector but forever fresh and sharp as a memory or a thought and a place that you hadn't given a thought to for years but suddenly comes as if no time had ever passed, the "fizzy movie tomorrows", the power of teenagers and of a way of looking at the world that you'll never be able to do again; nothing so trite as "my friends are so beautiful / i want to die" a true untainted sense of euphoria (no dance anthems please) more like the soar of smashing pumpkins through the park I guess
god I can't believe I'm talking about fresh words and lapsing into cliche. this is the point, I think... for years I've been trying to write about these vital moments and find myself either as muted and awkward as a youth or as serious and filled with passionate intensity as a youthful website...
there has to be a way.
at the moment I'm being (haunted isn't the right word) by names and faces from the past - each broken connection each missing person each letter unanswered .. I can't stand my own inability to keep in touch with people - and I see flashes from the past, each as crisp as the bright spring day (didn't I tell you I remember everything?)
and never forget / and never look back
when you write poetry I don't think it's about words that like each other, it's about fresh words, and this is what's so important about cliches - they were once beautiful words; as Jacob says, "you could cut the atmosphere with a knife" - when coined, this sounds so fresh! such an exciting metaphor! these days you wouldn't dare use it and a good job too... and so for years I've wanted to write about moments in the past, to crystallise them, not like a butterfly collector but forever fresh and sharp as a memory or a thought and a place that you hadn't given a thought to for years but suddenly comes as if no time had ever passed, the "fizzy movie tomorrows", the power of teenagers and of a way of looking at the world that you'll never be able to do again; nothing so trite as "my friends are so beautiful / i want to die" a true untainted sense of euphoria (no dance anthems please) more like the soar of smashing pumpkins through the park I guess
god I can't believe I'm talking about fresh words and lapsing into cliche. this is the point, I think... for years I've been trying to write about these vital moments and find myself either as muted and awkward as a youth or as serious and filled with passionate intensity as a youthful website...
there has to be a way.
posted by Rufus Moonshine at 4:28 AM
1 Comments:
I just read Trout Fishing in America by Brautigan. The Boke of St Albans made me think of you. And fresh words, of course, are the precious commodity.
How are you?
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