Yesterday I was in the midst of what I thought would be a true epiphany. I was thinking: John Lennon & Paul McCartney, yin & yang, light & dark—you get the idea. I was thinking a rainbow snapped in half, glued back together. Unexcavated details (rich ones!) lay in this train of thought! I was thinking: what other duos in musical history had this kind of chemistry? Mick/Keith, Page/Plant—but Lennon and McCartney were different. And so, prompted to do a little online research, I dug in. Within minutes, that life-altering revelation on the tip of my tongue had fizzled, spent pop-rocks on a dreary afternoon. Because not only was this a theme explored extensively by professionals and dilettantes alike (obviously), it was one of the most explored themes in pop culture history in the last fucking decade. Obviously, Iz. And I had nothing to add, truly. Don’t argue with me.
Round 2
Today, I encountered traffic on my drive to work. It’s mid-October and the crisp, sunny days have settled in for their brief stay; the eternal roadwork of July and August had come and gone, and the hellscape of slippery upstate winter and holiday lunacy was still a couple of months away. Even September’s tricky early weeks were over. So what the hell was going on. It took a full hour for my normally 15-minute commute, and as I cleared a wide bend, I saw a fire truck positioned sideways, blocking three out of four lanes on the busy highway, guarding at least three mangled cars. A pretty bad accident, but it didn’t look like anyone was hurt.
Oddly, or maybe not that oddly, I never know anymore, there had been a similar accident just yesterday on a different section of the same highway.
I stared out of my window for many minutes these past couple of mornings, and especially today. The light was good, that golden light with round edges, sleepy light, here’s a little sun—I’ll be going to bed soon, make it last. The small patches of greenery on major roadways always fill me with an almost pleasant desperate sadness. It’s so endearing to try to make something this ugly just a little more beautiful. If I ever write a book on life’s Sisyphean nature, the cover will be a photograph of a tiny brown-green island on the side of Interstate 90, just trying, trying as hard as it can to help.
Well, I’m sorry to report that every song I heard this morning bored me. The ones I chose, the ones Spotify chose for me. Songs I love, songs I didn’t know. Every single one. I can’t write about Lennon and McCartney because the fucking wheel keeps spinning. And I’m not unhappy, but my sleep is troubled, my eyes are tired, nothing tastes right, and the thought of changing anything, let alone everything, is exhausting. The thought of anger is exhausting. I dream of red snakes and ink blots, of swimming in a dank pool while the ocean is in my line of sight. I collage and am startled by the final image.
Round 3
As a kid, I would dream of stepping into fire. Not in a destructive way, I just wanted the heat. If I could live inside the blaze, I would. If I could learn to sleep in flames, I might. If I could start over with a fresh body and a new mind, I probably wouldn’t. When you are drawn to something and it makes you feel good, it’s supposed to be your subconscious and your body telling you what you need. Like cravings during pregnancy. Like touching a crystal and really feeling its particular power. This is more landslide than slope, a golden invitation to flasks, buckets of pills, bodies. Drench and quench. You have to learn to draw the line between what feels good and what feels good. Just sittin here writing poems for the dead.
now all his work is done,
(poem: The Dead Volunteer, JW Barker, 1920)
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