I got a girl in the war, Paul, her eyes are like champagne

[sovay]

I am supposed to finish two poems by tonight. I don't know if it can be done. I didn't sleep very much. The subjects are not difficult ones, which means I really don't want to knock something out with my eyes closed; I don't want to be facile. Anyway, I had to run a bunch of errands with my brother. This is what I wrote with a borrowed pen on the rental car receipt he had in his glove compartment, because I forgot my usual pad and pencil, but for God's sake I am not going to start taking my laptop to the grocery store. It's the equivalent of my brain doodling. I'm terrified it will be better than whatever poem I can actually make myself write.

He never built himself another wife, Hephaistos. The lame, shamed god, wedded to war's lover: I imagine him one of the boys in the back room, watching her dance with soldiers, as carelessly alluring as he finds it hard to get words around things instead of fire, wires, springs, wheels. This could be a war movie: the boffin whose beautiful wife is having it off with the military's golden boy and everyone knows it. He's an aircraft engineer if her lover is a flier; if he's regular army, then it's explosives or artillery. Either way, it's her husband's hard work that her lover takes to war. Being thrown off Olympos is like having one of your inventions blow up in your face, you're never quite sure what will set anything off ever again. You're safest in your workshop, where sparks or chemicals still aren't as volatile as people. It was an arranged marriage, mythologically. I hate love triangles, so maybe historical poly will save the day. There's no point in expecting monogamy from a goddess of desire. Or let's cut out the middleman: it's modern, Hephaistos a programmer or an artist (a welder), Aphrodite the soldier he's married. She goes off to war again and again while he worries, in love with the shock of adrenaline, drawn back to the battlefield away from their bed. I don't know the ending to this one. I don't know if there is one.

I am really extraordinarily tired.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What a fascinating final scenario you've imagined. It has the possibility to jump away from expectations completely.

Good luck with the poems. Alas, I have nothing for the exhaustion....

[sovay]

What a fascinating final scenario you've imagined. It has the possibility to jump away from expectations completely.

The problem is that I can't write from concept: it's why so many of my dreams never come to anything. I need language. I don't know where to start with an idea.

Good luck with the poems. Alas, I have nothing for the exhaustion....

Thanks. I fell asleep for about five minutes earlier this evening . . .

(One poem written, trying to figure out what to do about the other.)

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Rather a Peter Greenaway-ish feeling to those story stubs.

[sovay]

Rather a Peter Greenaway-ish feeling to those story stubs.

That's a compliment. Thank you!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Very Greenaway indeed.

Nine

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Your isn't-poem very good. Hope able sleep this nite. (srry, feel must play Game with Four, from Seth)

[sovay]

(srry, feel must play Game with Four, from Seth)

All words in a given context must be four-letter ones, even if that requires respelling them?

(Thank you.)

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Pref. don't make diff. word, άλλα ain't able self. Seth, otoh...

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

(Also, ain't that Josh. Diff. nerd, who's from Mass, also Juif.)

[sovay]

Also, ain't that Josh.

Alas.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

this like time post poem: "Hwæt, anct. near-east alit. narr..."

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

... that is a) quite good

and b) weirdly, almost an Avengers fanfic.

[sovay]

... that is a) quite good

Thank you. We were on our way to the Hertz store near the Burlington Mall to replace the battery in my mother's car. I wouldn't have thought it an inspirational environment.

and b) weirdly, almost an Avengers fanfic.

. . . I don't think I want to write it into one, but you should tell me how that works.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

This is what I wrote with a borrowed pen on the rental car receipt he had in his glove compartment, because I forgot my usual pad and pencil, but for God's sake I am not going to start taking my laptop to the grocery store.

Clearly you need a Moleskine. I want to read this!

[sovay]

Clearly you need a Moleskine.

I used to carry index cards and a mechanical pencil. (I had a jacket with good pockets.) Evidently I need an upgrade.

I want to read this!

Thank you! I will see what I can do.

[sovay]

Oh, that is neat.

Thanks! I feel like it's only neat if I can do something with it . . .

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I wish you the gentle dark, and rest.

[sovay]

I wish you the gentle dark, and rest.

Thank you.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Do I need to slip a pocket moleskine in the parcel, or do you despise them for pretentious?

I think this is what wanted to show up. I think it goes with the thing.

[sovay]

Do I need to slip a pocket moleskine in the parcel, or do you despise them for pretentious?

Oh, God. If you're offering: sure, what the hell. I don't find them pretentious.

Thank you.

I think this is what wanted to show up. I think it goes with the thing.

I'm not sure. It may then make the thing inappropriate for its necessary context.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

This is interesting, really.

I think the last idea is brilliant--Ares as metaphor, a metaphor gone all too concrete, Hephaistos sending his wife off to tryst with a lover made of adrenaline and steel and desperate camraderie, cuckolded not carnally but by carnage, Aphrodite a goddess of desire whose own chiefest desire is for the rattle of the guns and the reek of propellent and the song that the shells sing as they fly overhead.

I'm sorry you're tired, and I hope you can find rest soon. Good luck with the second poem--the first, assuming that's the one you're just after posting, is lovely.

PS

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I just reread this, and "interesting" is a gross understatement.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Intriguing. I like it very much.

Sleep well.

Nine

[sovay]

Intriguing. I like it very much.

Thank you. It's not a finished thing.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Hence intriguing. It could go anywhere.

Nine

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

I hope you found both that second poem and sleep. I like what is here, very much.

(I owe you a decent reading of A Mayse-Bikhl.)

- Ash

[sovay]

I hope you found both that second poem and sleep. I like what is here, very much.

Thank you!

(The poem is under friendlock, so you should have no difficulty seeing it.)

(I owe you a decent reading of A Mayse-Bikhl.)

That would be wonderful, but mostly I hope you've enjoyed it!