Littéraire | Grammaticaster

NaNo Update I

by doug | November 11th, 2009 @ 12:41 pm

It is going slowly. At this pace, I might crack 15,000 words by the end of the month. Not good enough. I must step up my game now. (I am trying to keep a running word-count widget on the left-hand side of this page, but its operation has thus far been intermittent. You can follow my progress at the NaNoWriMo site, if you so desire.) Anyhow. Below, you will find a wordle.net representation of my ‘novel’ – which, among other weirdnesses, was useful in that it has informed me that I am using the word ‘little’ way too much.

words

The problem seems to be a time-management thing. Things would be easier if I did not have to pause to eat, sleep or clean up after myself. For the moment, I continue to envy all you happily-married, working professional, well-read writers out there. I know you exist. And I loathe you.

Also, these past 30 minutes I have spent constructing my wordle and blogging about it? I should have been writing. Damn you, internet!

Think.Coffee

by doug | July 6th, 2009 @ 11:29 am

a blank page blinding me under a sun
an asscrack sidewalk day
    a ribbon melting
a slow awake     affluence in tongues
clatter of bicycle chains
on the bowery    the coffee bean
    brilliance
        the artists
the    ass cracks

the glass with the sky
reflected inside it     the craft
of the structure
    the people in spite of it
the trees springing through
all the concrete and hangovers
    here is some greenery
take what     you
want of it

and the heat and espresso
    steam sunglasses on
        it installs a whole
world to cast my     dreams upon
it would take a whole age
to dismiss     but with
    just     one     swift
kick     from her boot
it all spirals away into dust into space
into cultures
        decay

Jesus     it is starving
where are you
I need you
    I felt you
or else I once felt the idea of you
    now I am empty
    a page in the sunshine
a perfect example     a
creature in night time
hotel rooms     bar rooms
municipal vehicles
machinery of adult things
I weep     for a childhood

My Top Ten Favorite Books (As Of Today)

by doug | June 14th, 2009 @ 11:24 pm

In the absence of anything really important to talk about, I have decide to present a list: my top ten favorite books of all time. The compilation has resulted in some problems (as anyone who knows me can imagine). I have tortured myself much longer than was necessary in order to parse the pantheon of good reads down to the essential 10. Not my 10 recommendations. Not my 10 fiction or nonfiction. Not my 10 most inspiring or most enlightening or whatever. These are the basic ten books that I have enjoyed over my thirty-two years in existence on this earth. Nothing more or less. If I was to present a summer reading list to potential Rhodes scholars, I would probably delve deeper into my repertoire in order to come up with the most satisfying, well-rounded list of literary influences that a young mind should feed upon. This is not that list. This list is just a top ten favorites list. It represents the upper realm of the grammaticannon. Do with it what you will. (i.e., suggest your own lists in the “slap me” section)

Here ’tis:

10. Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying by Wolfgang Langewiesche

9. Richard III by William Shakespeare

8. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

7. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

6. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

5. London Fields by Martin Amis

4. I, Claudius by Robert Graves

3. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

2. The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Faronel’s Ground

by doug | May 9th, 2009 @ 7:53 pm

my hand
    hangs
        beside your little hand
    our heads up
                   side
                   down in the wind
our laughter                     accelerates
into the sky
    and plum
        mets
        like
        rain
            to our skin

you say
    I play — a lost little boy
and I tell you
    I will never grow old
and I tell you
    I will never be found(little girl)
I am         lost     in the stories
we told
        to each other across all our distances
crossed — pale electrons
    spinningandfree
now I peer through my hair to make sure you are there
        and you peek back
            through your hair
                        at me

past lives we have led are now
    twis-ted rust-red
    mere reminders of places we’ve been —
the remainders of long-ago love’s long / divisions
    scratched out
        with invisible pens.

the sunlight retreats
                down cruel fiery streets
    and the twilight takes over the skies
little stars flicker on
    in hotel rooms
    and bar rooms
    and galaxies
    highways
    and eyes

as we cast little games
with our words
with our names
with our what-ifs
    and
what-could-have-beens
    so we fade with the night
        and the lines that we write
    scratched out with invisible pens

Afflictus Dies I

by doug | February 10th, 2009 @ 10:37 pm

Here
was a bright blue today
    alight breeze-cross the county hills.
kin senjoyable&mundane Stress
    less (less (less (less))) bliss-fully
         truncated. King Forword twine and relaxation
(and that for a while…)
    faded….frittered…busied..readied.slumped
        amisused, perhaps!myself).

Then blackbleak cloudrolled
    settled over
        storm-threateneding its potential.
    Everything perilous Everybody a hair
        -trigger. Everysky rain. Every piercinglance, every tear
             burns my wall
     xposes my fragile realities of working wo(man)rld.

— returned its hibernation. deep
    press (now) ion sit closed
off rambling little glacier
    deadletter-dull agony lifeless
limp. We do not speak.
    s/trained, heartless, timid words
fragile flightless baby birds
    huddled cold far apart.

I try to leave there
once I am here

photolosophvisagonism.

by doug | February 2nd, 2009 @ 11:13 pm

I admire <small territory>
    here in the universe of words. never "where should I
claim? the question, rather,
‘artist’ flag tonight?" whitherthe union?
    sfeeds of wonks, muckrakers brandish firmer grasps
I. A poemphoto treatise fire
page is pretty s
morgasboar
dof the intelistry of others:

    all these things, but they are my own
presence smack
free-form
mediocrity.

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