And I thought I'd shaken the habit of the late night cup of coffee, but I was in need of waking (5 hours napping and a short little rest today) and so it didn't seem like a bad idea...at the time.
Now, of course, as the wee hours roll on and I show no signs of fatigue I'm beginning to question the wisdom of it all..
There is small consolation to be found - here. But I'm not in my 20's and I can't help but thinking that 5 hours napping and 2 cups of coffee at 11:30 PM are more proof of my stupidity than cleverness.
And so I work on writing, hacking, writing some more, editing, writing.
The editing is murder, what to keep, what to discard, what to lay aside in the hopes that it might grow up in it's own right. The pruning of words.
The current hydra:
The sound of one hand clapping
It's the sound of one hand clapping
It's the dream I dreamt not napping,
It's the tune of a broken string played by the wind
it's the harmony of 1 voice singing;
it's your voice on the telephone ringing,
It's the unwound clocks' stopped ticking
It's the light of an unlit candle cast about a darkened tomb,
it's the murmur of conversations that fill an empty room -
it's the moon scraped from the river, held in a silver spoon;
It's the final cry of the phoenix, before she is consumed,
It's the sound of one hand clapping - applause for all you've ruined
And this short - very imperfect scrap from a larger body of lines (grown to some hundreds) that include:
it's the secret midnight garden that you water with your tears
It's the clamor of honest lawyers
it's the juggernaut of all destroyers
It's the sound of forks and spoons in separate drawers
it's the unmatched sock's limp searching,
It's the view of the new moon not risen
It's all the freedom had in prison
it's the letters you never sent,
the countless slights you never meant;
it's all your just suspicions,
every flawless intuition
it's the list of promises you kept all bound up in my skin,
it's all your inept accusations put down and scored for violin.
it's your loyalty when you disowned me
it's the mote of your integrity,
the featherweight of your fidelity;
it's the sum of all your virtues,
counted from 12 til noon.
it's all the snow found in the desert
it's all the warmth gleaned from the stars
it's your footprints beneath my window;
it's your love shaped in my bed
It's the constant quiet whisper of all the things you never said,
Some of which I rather liked. Especially: The unmatched sock's limp searching, which was discarded because it provided a tangible visual, whereas the rest of the rhymes, well, you get the idea. Some just seem personal and bitter, and should be discarded, others provide little hope of rhyming (ever, and I'm growing ever more a fan of blank verse...), and so it goes. I'm not against poetry being personal, I just don't have a personal life to be personal about. One day I'm going to change that. In any event, keep the title and closing line and keep hacking everything that's in between...
But from the dropped lines and stanzas there of course spring even more poems and the night wears on...Time now, I think, to switch to whiskey and see if that makes sleep come any easier...