100th post, and a few things i've noticed about this blog...

happy 100th post to me.

hello quiet readers. let us all celebrate the overwhelming cultural contribution of this website together, shall we?

yeah. you can thank me later.

just a few things i've noticed about Written Off, in general.

-- the greatest service i think this blog has provided has been to the anonymous commenters, who come here and post because they think its a good way right some wrong i've done them. i'd just like to say i admire your courage. it is an impressive display of testicular fortitude. you've really put things on the line here, made yourself vulnerable, opened up some issues for debate; i really respect and appreciate that. you dumb fucks. grow a fucking life, and quit trying to be anonymously antagonistic; you fail at both. if you want to dialogue, i'm all for it, even if you think i suck and i think you're a shithead. i'm not here to be the vessel for your catharsis. if you really want to tell me what you think of me, my e-mail address is SweeneyAstray(at)gmail.com. i check it every day. sometimes more than once.

-- most of you assholes who know me and leave anonymous comments are going to willfully misinterpret the sarcasm of the opening lines of this post as arrogance. you=stupid.

-- God, is there even anything else worth writing after that? after all the heaviness, its seems a little schizophrenic to point out that the old post i did in the spring about the Tori Amos cover of Famous Blue Raincoat has drawn the most responses from random web-surfers -- among whom the common consensus seems to be that Cohen is God, and no cover, however well done, can touch the original. ok, we're all entitled to our opinions; some of us are more entitled than others. on Written Off, i am the most entitled. Cohen is often grating to listen to. i'm sorry, its true. with the time signature his songs are set in, fruitflies could live entire lifespans between one beat and the next. and (heading this one off at the pass) maybe i have the attention span of a fruitfly, but even so Cohen's voice is like something you expect to hear out of the Lincoln head on Mt. Rushmore: that is, its like stone. and Tori's cover makes my heart hurt. if you can hear Tori's voice and not wince with pleasure, then you, Anonymous Sirs and Madams, have no heart. and you probably eat soylent green. and soylent green is people. its madeoutofPEpAHL. if all of those arguments fail, the cover will always be more interesting, in a lit theory kind of way. so there.

--anyone notice i haven't written about christmas yet? compared to last year, i am really off my game.

--also, it would be nice to know someone was out there...and not just laughing at my food poisoning (?) episode (FRED).

i have...

...so far to go to become a good writer

...so much to learn



...been comparing myself to other people too much






...not been writing

a poem from the vault

i think this might be my favorite thing i've ever written. which is saying a lot. i wrote it three years or so ago. usually the appreciation i have for my own writing would lose a contest with the shelf life of unrefridgerated milk.


this is a sestina,
unto the moon
--------------------------------


lady moon you are an apple in the vault of the sky
waiving white lily fingers as you pass me by
drawing shrouds of heaven about you as you go
slowly wheeling through the sky, your light like fallen snow
trust me when you ask me and i tell you of my love
there is madness in the roads i roam which most know little of

wake me not from my sleeping madness yet
though i pass the scent of apples by with much regret
i am trusted by the sun to pick a route between the stars
my fingers clenched around my sword and guiding chariot cars
my burning feet are wheels cutting through the nether-sky
my hand before my face shrouds the burning of my eyes

soothe my restless dreaming with your shroud as thin as light
sing and soothe my madness in the midst of desp'rate night
there are none that go before me but a golden fiery wheel
and none so well has led me but my apple through this field
your fingers spread through nighttime, your fingers through my hair
ever on must i trod and trust that you are there.

trust me though you know not why they call me the Half Red
the shroud of night will come and spark a fire in my head
my fingers itch to work upon their each appointed task
what madnesses I’ll meet, I neither know nor want to ask
but do not even offer me an apple 'pon my road
and risk the falling heavens ever if my wheels be slowed

on the rim of heaven, on the Wheel around the Tree
while i trust my Eastern course, and from the West if you can see
beneath the silver apple-light i'm sending kisses out to you
in the beaks of little birds who'll pierce the shroud and sing them through
their song is mad and keening for the veil that stands between us
their winged fingers harping winds for sleepers dreamless

my fingers are ablaze both with fire and with blood
my burning wheels are spinning in the darkness and the mud
my madness is a tunnel that I must lead and be led through
trust that though I may be late I’ll not break tryst with you
fate is wrapped up in a shroud and bound up in the night
and woven on a loom beneath the bloom of apple-light



your silver fingers trace through the stanzas of this ode, chasing tunes of apple trees across my chest, in woad
the tearful night is tearing and has torn in shrouds behind you; let the always wheeling, turning night and burning stars remind you
that my love is like an Axis, like the Tree, your trusted guide, a constant through the madness you can rest your head beside.

de________

i was doing so ok for awhile, you know? what happened...?







funny...
"despondent" has just as many letters as "depression"

...another song for emily

We’ve tried to wash it out with shots lined down the table
Tried to feed it prescriptions until it was dead
To chain smoke it out with Salem green labels
To exorcise it with holy water and daily bread
To medicate the household strife of Cain and Abel

We have been to the end of the rope and found it tied in a noose
In our house you can feel which rooms blood has been shed in
Some days I admit I wonder what’s the use?
And its all I can do not to stick my head in
Or look for something stupid to give me an excuse

(chorus-like part)
And I wonder if I can handle staying...
What does it say when we’ve turned
Chain smoking into praying?
And love is patient, love is kind
But remember the day you came home and
Ah, forget it, nothing, nevermind
Cuz, love, it don’t keep no record of wrongs
And I’m living to learn, learning to love
turning the hangovers into songs

You know I don’t mean to be mean
I don’t mean this to be a dirty laundry airing session
I just wanna have a place to come clean
I just wanna make a love-confession
Even if it requires me to make a scene

(chorus, again)
And I wonder if I can handle staying
What does it say when we’ve turned
Chain smoking into praying?
And love is patient, love is kind
But remember the day you came home and
Ah, forget it, nothing, nevermind
Cuz, love, it don’t keep no record of wrongs
And I’m living to learn, learning to love
turning the hangovers into songs

Sometimes the best parts are what don’t belong
My grandmother once told me that no one is pure
I am not going to live my life trying to prove her wrong
Cuz living with life gets damn close to a cure
and scratches on the vinyl lend their beauty to a song

And God knows we’ve got enough scratches showing
Even He thinks we’re a hell of a bunch
But I’ll be damned if we don’t have what it takes to keep going
Every day is a grind, all our faith rests on a hunch
And sometimes a belief is just as good as knowing...

"boom ba-ba boom ba-ba boom..."

God himself has struck me ill.

more to come on that later, after i rehab a little.

remember that scene in Stand By Me with Lardass at the blueberry pie eating contest? remember how many people there were, just heaving all over the place?

i think i out-puked them all today.

so, so tired.....

how not to be miserable

DO NOT leave home to break any patterns of self destructive behaviour. self-destruction is actually quite pleasurable, if you don't count the hangovers.

DO NOT NOT get into the new school in your new city, like you said you were going to.

DO NOT flake out on your previous two semesters so that new school in question does not think you are some kind of joke of a student.

DO NOT move to a new city and get a job at the Olive Garden. (don't move back to an old city and get a job at the Olive Garden, for that matter. actually, just forget the Olive Garden all together...)

DO NOT get what you think will turn out to be a better job at a really cool restaurant only to put up with incapable douchebags who have no idea what kind of gem has fallen into their undeserving laps. (the gem i am referring to is the Van Dyck...but if you thought i was talking about me, the judges will accept that answer as well. contestants, please remember; your answer must be in the form of a question. circle gets the square. would you like to buy a vowel...?)

DO NOT, under any circumstances, move too far away from your girls friday. or true loves, for that matter.

DO NOT tangle with married girls, unless you have a doctor's note that says you knew her from before...(unless?...or especially if?).

DO NOT live outside of a walking radius of the Pink...EVER. neverever. you will always need somewhere to pick up, somewhere to land, somewhere to dance, somewhere to puke...

DO NOT leave your hairstylist.

DO NOT leave your drinking buddies. or buddettes. they are your best friends. remember the long talks and drunken stumbles home? no...? ah, but you didn't wake up with missing teeth, missing money, or a sore ass. no, you woke up on their couches, lip-chapped, bleary eyed and dry. now that is love, friends.

DO NOT somehow manage to still be a terrible brother/cousin/nephew/son/grandson even when your family lives within five miles of you in any direction.

DO NOT stop writing.

DO NOT walk off your last job two weeks before christmas.

DO NOT think about moving back so soon.

DO NOT crumble under pressure.

DO NOT forget to buy gloves at Target the next time you're there.

DO NOT let anyone fuck you over, unless you are fucking yourself. try not to let you fuck yourself anyway, though.

DO NOT let this list go on for much longer.

the end.

small victory

i'm giving this to emily, if she wants it.
a song.


there is grace in making beauty out of danger
and you're a bad bet, but i've gotta take the wager
i am sitting in the window; i am dangling my feet
and thinking if i did it i could fly above the street

you’re a bet that I’d take a chance on
and the street is a place that we could dance on
even if I lose
if I scuff my wing-tip dancing shoes
it would still be a beautiful thing to glance on

if I fell for you only to crash and burn
i’d keep our ashes on the mantle in an urn
i’d build a private altar to our public scandal
and run my fingers through the votive candles

you are a glow that I want to stand in
a fire I want to stick my hand in
if it blisters
if the fire gives me up in whispers
it would still be a beautiful thing to land in

like it says in the bible, love conquers dying
and I’ll tell you it makes for beautiful flying
regardless of what dangers and how certain
(landin' the leap of faith don’t mean there’s no hurtin).

It’s a thing that I still have plenty o’ doubt of
(and I’m not someone you’d open a window and shout of)
but all doubts lingering
like new and shaky guitar fingering
there’s a danger we could make some beauty out of

love/hate

i look at other people's lives and i hate myself.

i hate that i knew people that i don't know anymore, that they float around with pieces of me in them that they've forgotten.

i know its my fault. i've been a terrible person. perhaps i deserve to be forgotten. perhaps the reason i can't get it together is because i've let all those people go with all of those pieces of me.

i'm such a fucker. i wish that the people i've pushed out of my life, the people i've burned, the people i've crushed......i don't know. i hope they forgive me and never forget me. i'll never forget you. if i've ever loved you, you have a piece of me in you and i have an aching fondess for you.

i am ashamed of myself.

if it helps at all, know that i'm a pretty lonely bastard these days.