The Persistence of Life
The Persistence of Life
by Prototype
Deleted because:
#1) I do not trust the internet.
#2) Copyrights are not foolproof.
#3) I'm guessing there won't be an overwhelming cry of upset.
If anyone wants to read it, like always, PM me.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
I have not. I think it's safe to say I have not read anything you have, excepting Chuck, since it seems that appears to be the trend.
Sad but true.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
You should check him out. Not in an OMG/Igby-he-changed-my-life kind of way but because I think you'd really find an affinity in terms of experience and style.
Every story gets better Proto. 'Dedicated To' is my favorite because its my favorite. 'Free Will' is more accomplished but who really can know what the hell will resonate and tell the story back at someone in such a way that they will say: "thats my favorite"
Exactly. I'm just happy when these things resonate with people, any of these stories. It's nice to hear since finding a place that will allow you to have an audience (or, in layman's terms, getting published) is about the hardest thing one can try to do.
And kudos for the OMG/Igby-he-changed-my-life thing, I about pissed my roomate's chair laughing at that.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by prototype [/i]
[B]
#3) I'm guessing there won't be an overwhelming cry of upset.
If anyone wants to read it, like always, PM me. [/B][/QUOTE]
Wrong. Here we go again. I wake up, brew some tea. Log on in anticipation of rereading this story and boom, deja vu, its GONE!
1)You never check your PM's
2) You're rarely here.
3) One very upset person, one bemused bystander, one broken teacup
1) I check my PMs daily, and would jump on a Mirkah request
2) I'm here once a day.
3) I thought you already read it.
4) Sniffle.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
The Persistence of Life
(encore presentation)
Meh.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by prototype [/i]
[B]1) I check my PMs daily, and would jump on a Mirkah request
2) I'm here once a day.
3) I thought you already read it.
4) Sniffle. [/B][/QUOTE]
1) Now I know, sorry and thanks
2) Nuh uh
3) I wrote [b]reread[/b] above
4] shh, I'm reading 
Well, fine then.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
This is great. Some comments on my favorite parts.
[i]It’s February, the asshole of the year. All the overzealous chumminess of the holidays is a distant memory...[/i]
I absolutely love this line.
[i]It’s always with a face congested by pity and nausea, guilt and righteous disgust. It’s always something, it’s always urgent and it’s always right after they see the arm. [/i]
more of your particular brand of excellence.
[i]...women like that rumpled look more than they’d be happy to admit. It says something, it says “I need you, but just a little bit.” It says “there’s a place for you in my life, fix me.” It says “my needs are manageable.”[/i]
Laughing, maybe blushing a little. I didn't know guys already knew that stuff at 22.
[i]My car smells like winter and ash. It smells like alcohol that sweat out while I slept in the backseat. [/i]
Is that the same car as the other story? The one that smelled like kitty litter and broccoli? lol, yes I know its fiction, but still..
[i]Still, there’s always the other possibility. Something. Anything. Damnation. Perdition. Continuance and comeuppance.[/i]
Niiiice
[i]“Looks like you’re missing one there.”
Convenience store clerks rarely make sense, and always come across in the most condescending way. They speak cryptically, tersely. Like it’s your fault their job is dead end and demeaning. Like it’s your fault they’re going bald before they grow out of the acne phase of life.
“What?”
“You’re missing one,” he says, pointing down.
This is some sort of stupid joke that I’m not getting.
“Yeah. Oops.” Smiling warily, looking in his eyes, I know him. I can do this sometimes, if I try. Other times this happens on accident. It’s nothing magical, just good deduction going on under the skin of my conscious brain. Body language maybe. But eyes are always telling. This kid probably jerks off to his mother’s copies of Vogue, down in the basement where his video game system is set up. He tells girls he loves them so he can get them in bed faster, then pretends to have nervous breakdowns so he’s rid of them. He hates car salesman and interracial couples for the same reason.
“Your tattoo, I mean. Where’s Alpha? It’s all endings the way you’ve got it.”
He’s running the price scanner’s scalpel thin red line over and over the tiny Omega tattooed into my left forearm.
“Alpha,” I say, “probably somewhere in here. Least that‘s where it was.” I’m pointing to the mess on the other arm. The kid looks shamed, ears reddening, eyes going quickly up, then to the merchandise at hand. For a second I feel guilty, again, somewhere beneath the thin ice of my consciousness. I dismiss it.
The kid says nothing else, scans chips, clears his throat, scans lighter and iced tea and makes a noise like a cat caught in the fold-up of a recliner. He asks if that will be all.
“Pack of whatever’s cheapest back there.”
He asks for ID, I tell him to fuck off, he rings them up anyways.
He probably feels guiltier than me, now redeemed by my assault.
One of us will forget this in less than an hour.[/i]
Pure genius. My most favorite part of the entire story. Vivid, funny, sad, seamlessly written.
[i]I’ve had enough of the right thing, humility, honor to last me a full expansion and contraction of the universe. [/i]
Just good. Not just, you know what I mean
[i]Four years ago, I saw a movie where they told you how to make napalm. I wanted to try it, not to hurt anyone, just to see if it would work. It did. I was smoking when I did it, a dumb fuck thing to do, and I lost the end of my cigarette when I sneezed. The long sleeve of my glazed ham hue polyester shirt caught and must have been saturated with the goo because it didn’t go out. By the time I got the shirt off, I wasn’t sure which parts of my ribcage, my hipbone, my forearm, my hand were meat, and which parts were shirt. I didn’t have medical insurance so skin grafts were out of the question. It was antibiotic ointment and best of luck. My girlfriend dumped me a month later. I never returned the ring I had behind my bed for her. It’s still there.[/i]
hahaha, I think I've seen that movie too 
-the ring is over kill for me as a reader. Just too pathetic, almost doesn't need to be there. Almost.
[i]Did you know passion and patience come from the same root word, meaning to suffer?[/i]
I love this kind of trivia. You worked it in well.
[i]Somewhere in some psychology textbook I learned a name for that, people who have sympathy for inanimate objects, but I’ve forgotten it. A crash at forty isn’t going to do either of us any good, though. So I drive home in silence, excepting the flick of a lighter and the scream sound of air blasting through the driver’s side window.
I feel sorry for that ring too.[/i]
And the ring is redeemed...lol
[i]Her teeth are splinter sharp and her eyes are flooded and longing. That’s new. I wake up and my scar is burning. My insides are unpolished slate.[/i]
pure poetry
[i]When there’s no moon you almost have no choice but to miss old lovers.[/i]
this is so achingly simple, true and beatiful
[i]The best part about finally leaving the town you grew up in is it’s a fresh start. You don’t have to worry about running into people you barely knew in high school or from old jobs who greet you like you’d sucked them off every night for a year. You don’t have to tell the same story once or twice a week., maybe more if you ever want to go to a bar.[/i]
lol-y goodness
[i]Occasionally, you’ll meet someone worth knowing who thinks you’re worth knowing too. You’ll meet them in the most bizarre and last place you’ll look, without even knowing you’re looking. The very last place.[/i]
I really liked this but you don't seem to follow it up.
[i]There’s a literary concept called “the bathtub story.” In a bathtub story, the narrator starts out in a bath, or some other equally confining space and never leaves it. Instead he just ruminates and muses about the past, present and possible futures without ever doing anything. Writers are cautioned to avoid these stories. [/i]
hahaha, you showed them, didn't you?
[i]And smiling through hot, spiced tears...[/i]
I'd like to read some of your poetry on of these days.
[i]Time passes, but not quick enough. This is just like chewing foil. [/i]
Genius. Love the foil.
[i]I’m not keeping the phone here for hope. Maybe I feel sorry for it, out there all alone. [/i]
Really, really nice the way that idea works its way back in.
The copyright isn't foolproof you said? Great. I'm nicking the story to publish it as mine.
[img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y172/LoopLaLouve/award_met.jpg[/img]
Good fucking luck. If I can't get it published and you can, I will fly to Scotland and eat you. Then I'll swing by Greece and eat your family. And your pets. And your houseplants.
Okay, so maybe I'm a bit bitter about the whole not getting published thing.
Mirkah: Jesus. Thanks. I really appreciate that kind of thing, the highlights reel for what worked and what didn't. Thanks again. That was awesome of you.
And for the record the "You'll meet them in the last place you'll ever look" does get worked back in once you figure out where he met the ex. The phone call? Maybe it's not clear enough.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
The Persistence of Life
re-repost
Not here either.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
Jesus Christ man, that's the best compliment I've ever gotten.
Although I'm scared to ask what you're reading.
Why do I fear that it's like the Las Vegas Tax Guide 2003 or something?
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
Hey, I already wrote some other shit on some other thread but what the fuck. You've got a great sense for stories and language. It's fair to say I'm jealous and fuck the bastards who didn't publish. If you want I'll kill them for you.
I'm now going to read "The Persitence of Life" assuming it is on the writers workshop section now... if not you'll be getting a PM from me.
Mirkah. Good critique. I write shit all the time and no one ever gives me good feedback and it sucks. A lot of the reviews on the workshop don't even work (not that my work is up there yet... hopefully in the next day or so). People just say... "yeah I liked it," and then I say, "thats great, did you get a free toaster with this." Anyway, if you get the chance in a few days to read my story I would appreciate anything you have to say. You too proto. Also. If you got the movie quote about four lines up. You rock. If not, whatever, watch more eighties movies.... haha...
PROTOTYPE MIMMICKS CHUCK TOO MUCH I HATE IT!!!!!
jeeeuuuussssssstttttttt kidding!
I guess I'm just a weird guy...
Why do you keep deleting them Proto?
Copyright isn't foolproof is my public answer. For my private answer, see your mailbox.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
Thank you. I was trying to remember:
"The thing about being dead, is no one ever comes back.
Why is that, I wonder?
[i]Is there nothing to come back from, or is it like a great vacation from the insistence of pulse and breath which no one wants to leave? [/i]"
italics mine
And why were you trying to remember that?
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by prototype [/i]
[B]And why were you trying to remember that? [/B][/QUOTE]
Because I just read (reread) 'Long Day's Journey Into Night' and I was thinking of Edmund reciting Baudelaire to his father:
"Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to earth, be drunken continually.
Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue as you will. But be drunken.
And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; It is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken if you would not be martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine or poetry or virtue, as you will."
Might be a stretch, but yeah, thats why.
Right.
Well, I'm glad that I ended up in the same sentence with Baudelaire.
On a similar note, I plan on releasing my first book bound in goatskin and inscribed in blood.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
I wasn't dissing you. Just relax and accept a compliment.
No, no, I know.
I [i]like[/i] Baudelaire.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
Ok
"Is there nothing to come back from, or is it like a great vacation from the insistence of pulse and breath which no one wants to leave? "
Be drunken etc.
Got it.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
'bout time
Had it before.
Nyah.
Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
Its all complicated... jeez, you should be a writer. Oh wait, you are.
Thanks P, there is so much to reflect and savor in this one. Really, thank you.
Postscript: have you read 'Drown' by Junoz Diaz? I think you might have an affinity with his stories.