{"id":178,"date":"2010-08-03T23:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T23:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/?p=178"},"modified":"2012-03-28T20:34:27","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T20:34:27","slug":"theres-death-good-sir-and-then-theres-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/2010\/08\/theres-death-good-sir-and-then-theres-death\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s Death, Good Sir, And Then There\u2019s Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s death in a blinking cursor; death in a blank page.
<\/span>
I often find myself staring at the John Doe of poetry titles, \u2018Document1\u2019 (Microsoft Word); a thousand words bled white. I then look through my poetry archive [read: ramblings of the poor man\u2019s Stephen King\/M. Night Shyamalan] and think Holy Frack, what the pig\u2019s scrotum happened to me? I could find terror in a teacup, a tale of macabre waiting to unfold behind the steely blue eyes of a doorman. <\/span>

Now, there\u2019s only wretched white noise. I think \u2018vampire\u2019 \u2013 bam! Head stuffed with images from the latest episode of \u2018The Vampire Diaries.\u2019 Next thought: evil fetus that drives its mother insane through violent nightmares \u2013 hello, \u2018Nightmare on Elm Street\u2019 slash \u2018Splice\u2019 slash \u2018Alien.\u2019 Every thought is unoriginal, derivative. Where once all I needed was a word [\u2018Whack!\u2019 was my inspiration for \u2018Incubus\u2019], a phrase [\u2018Eat some of my remorse\u2019 from \u2018a la carte\u2019 just came to me], or a character [suicidal closet-homosexual, for example \u2013 see \u2018Sodom\u2019], now I find myself fishing for inspiration; forcing my hand on the keyboard. I wrote two poems recently \u2013 they were as effective as Stephenie Meyer\u2019s take on Nosferatu [my umpteenth \u2018Twilight\u2019 reference; do you see where I\u2019m going with this?]. To her credit, though, I found \u2018The Host\u2019 to be a particularly riveting read. Gaah \u2013 I\u2019m digressing again. I can\u2019t write 224 words without \u2013 sigh. Moving on.<\/p>\n

I once wrote a concept about a little boy who walks in on his parents having sex; he\u2019s told they were playing a \u2018wrestling game.\u2019 I must have forgotten all about it: just came across the document while cleaning up my \u2018My Documents\u2019 folder. [I also came across a document that only read: \u2018PRIVATE MALE ESCORTS NOW AVAILABLE, HANDSOME GUYS FOR YOUR SWEET MASSAGE, DINING AND NIGHTLIFE PLEASURES\u2019 \u2013 and before you triumphantly pump your fist in the air, Shehla (she insists on interpreting ‘Sodom’ as my subconcious urging me to come out of the closet!), that was character research: I played a gigolo in a Lahore Grammar School production \u2013 but that\u2019s a story for another time]. <\/span>
<\/span>
The draft\/concept read:
\u201c9 year old boy (8? 7? How young is too young?) sees parents in Kama Sutra position number \u2013 oh just pick a number. Goes batshit ballistic till daddy tells him they were \u2018wrestling.\u2019 Boy wants to \u2018wrestle\u2019 with sister \u2013 [comment added later: \u2018You\u2019re fu***ng sick, Obi, make it girl from school.\u2019], scary freaky shit \u2013 to show or not to show?
\u2018I drew mommy as a trout\u2019 \/ daddy as (what\u2019s a really big fish? Shark? Lol, this gives \u2018Jaws\u2019 a whole new meaning.)\u201d <\/span>

When I couldn\u2019t think up of any<\/em>thing more original than that concept, I decided to write out a poem based on the material my perverse mind conjured more than a year ago. This is what I came up with:<\/p>\n

I drew mommy as a trout; Snotty Steven thought it was a grey
SpongeBob SquarePants – he doesn\u2019t know they don\u2019t have
spines; silvery freshwater seafood \u2013 Steven laughed when
I used the fuchsia pink crayon to fill in mommy\u2019s cheeks; but that\u2019s her
only camouflage against the rose bed spread when daddy plays
the wrestling game with her. Mrs. Trellis was quite bemused (I learnt the word
in English-II today) when she saw daddy
devouring mommy; a great big shark, or the whale that wolfed down Geppetto
\u201cWhy would you draw your parents that way?\u201d she asked me; but that\u2019s how I saw them,
Swear on the old ghoul that lives in the attic. She said she\u2019d call home when it\u2019s
After dark, but that when\u2019s they play the wrestling game most; the trout and
The shark. Tonight, canvas in hand, I opened their bedroom door, just as
Daddy was done wrestling her on our hardwood floors; they were so quiet after those
Three seconds I was sure he was going to dogheaven (just like old Scooby did)
From a heart-attack, just like that mostly shirtless man from mommy\u2019s favorite soap opera \u2013
And mommy was going to be crushed under that human grand piano
(Sylvester does many times, but a cat has nine lives, doesn\u2019t he?)
They were staring at me but not staring too; so I asked mommy if what they were doing
Was just for fun; and my heart skipped a beat \u2013 what if daddy turns into Jaws and mommy\u2019s
No more \u2013 sometimes I wish Steven hadn\u2019t made me watch that movie \u2013 but then mommy
Laughed in a voice that was much too hoarse, and said of course, baby, of course.
Daddy took me to my room, and while fidgeting with my Transformers model said
that it\u2019s not scary what they do; that might be true
I\u2019ve seen them pray sometimes in between their game; just yesterday I counted
Mommy taking the Lord\u2019s name
Five times (or was it six?) \u2013 so maybe it is holy and daddy\u2019s not a monster after all; he crinkled
His eyes and laughed when I showed him my picture;
he tousled my hair and said
I\u2019d have my fill of the wrestling game one day
Little Peggy makes me all funny inside, with her painted toenails and
Maple syrup scent; I wonder if she\u2019ll be at school tomorrow
I wonder if she\u2019ll play.
<\/em>
After writing this, trying to change and alter it into something worth salvaging [read: making it so complex it seemed as though the poor boy was spewing Sanskrit], I have now resigned myself to the following:
a) I should stop trying to enter the mind of an eight-year old (as poetry protagonist, gaah \u2013 this reads like I\u2019m a bizarre Inception<\/em> pedophile),
b) I should stop trying to write poetry that rhymes,
c) I should just \u2026 stop?<\/p>\n

Oh sweet Krishna, I started off this blog post saying there\u2019s death in a blinking cursor.
Well, there are some things worse than death.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s death in a blinking cursor; death in a blank page.I often find myself staring at the John Doe of poetry titles, \u2018Document1\u2019 (Microsoft Word); a thousand words bled white. I then look through my poetry archive [read: ramblings of the poor man\u2019s Stephen King\/M. Night Shyamalan] and think Holy Frack, what the pig\u2019s scrotum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[54,61,7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}