He sits in a booth with a beer and writes in his notebook, scribbles things out, writes again.

At the bar there is a younger guy who fancies himself a poet. Now, he doesn't call himself a poet -- it sounds presumptive and pretentious to describe one's self that way, most likely --but he says he writes poems. I guess not all who plumb are plumbers, I don't know.

He sits in a booth with a beer and writes in his notebook, scribbles things out, writes again. Sometimes he appears mildly anguished, which I can imagine poets looking like: there is a word, the perfect word, but it just won't come to mind. 

Words can be tricky: they have different associations for different people, and you may be trying to play off of the different associations to achieve a deeper meaning. Or perhaps you're just trying to find the best word that conceivably rhymes. It probably sucks when you start with what you consider the perfect word, but then no other good word rhymes with it. Maybe Cole Porter already used up all of the good rhymes. And he wasn't even a poet.

But I don't think the younger guy writes the kind of poems that rhyme; if you are skilled at rhyming there's more money in rap nowadays. More chicks, too: you might still have 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one.

Maybe his poems are good, maybe not: as far as I know, he hasn't let anyone at the bar read them. That doesn't mean others haven't heard them, of course: maybe there's a friend, or a girlfriend, or a friend he wants to have as a girlfriend, who he has shared his work with. Exposed his soul. Maybe that person really likes his poems. But maybe she doesn't like the poems enough to actually have sex with him. Which probably can be the source of more poems, because: unrequited love is suffering. And poets suffer, a lot.

The rap guys, though: they don't seem to suffer much. And on the Ave you meet more than a few aspiring rappers. Some will shoot you some rhymes for a cigarette; others are hawking CDs they made that they swear are about to blow up. They certainly seem like they have more confidence than the young bar poet. They might still have 99 problems, but rhyming ain't one.


- james james

Comments

  1. madAsHellJanuary 5, 2018 at 7:54 PM

    I've often thought of poetry as the sound the deck chairs made as they slid off the Titanic, and into the abyss.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For some reason I also picked up several two-packs of hard-boiled eggs from the refrigerated section.

I am hazy about how it started; alcohol was probably involved. I would walk past a group of heroin kids outside what was, at the time, the Big 5 Sporting Goods store. They typically had a cardboard sign on the sidewalk, asking for money. Sometimes the writing on the cardboard attempted to be clever, or funny, or appeal to emotion, with the occasional decorative squiggly lines or smiley face; sometimes it just simply asked. I was at the Bartell's Drugs on the corner, picking up a few items, of which I cannot remember. For some reason I also picked up several two-packs of hard-boiled eggs from the refrigerated section. Outside the store, as I approached the heroin kids, I took the eggs out of the bag, and then gave the packages to them. They were a bit baffled, but appreciative. Maybe a bit disappointed it wasn't just cash. I wasn't going to give them money which then would inevitably be used for drugs; I figured the eggs weren't worth selling for them, and h
Read more

They often tell the women and the college girls they have coke: they don't need to find someone that has it: they already do. And it is back at their place.

David Foster Wallace had a collection of short stories entitled "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"; at times, this seems like a perfectly reasonable title for conversations that happen with some people at the bar. Maybe not truly hideous; I could check a thesaurus for a synonym that seems somewhat lighter, but it is just easier to say I could check a thesaurus for a synonym that seems somewhat lighter, and you'll know what I mean. I have mentioned the broken men before, and those that instill distaste.They are usually obvious as losers: poor posture, poor bodies, questionable hygiene, enervated, isolated. The broken men who inspire fear -- sometimes it is just a vibe that says prison, or possible serial killer. The kind of guy most women instinctively know to never get in a car with. But there are also the broken losers who look like winners. They show up in a fashionable suit and tie; they wear an expensive watch, expensive shoes. Maybe mid-twenties; maybe earl
Read more

The guys who were trying to f**k her didn't even buy her a drink: there really are useless people in this world.

I ran off to do some errands -- sometimes there is life that needs to be conducted outside of the bar -- and when I returned the girl with the tattoos and the streaked hair from a bottle who just quit her job was still there. She can hold her alcohol, but she now has had more alcohol than she could reasonably hold. The unseemly part of bar life is now happening: most of the regulars have left, and a few young men are around her, commiserating. That is, they are commiserating with her in the hopes that being the commiserating guy will get her to drunkenly go home with them and fuck. Hyenas. I usually keep a distance to people's dramas: you can't make everyone make a good decision. But I cannot let this happen. I slide between her and one of the guys and disrupt the path of the conversation. I ask her gently if it is time to go home. The guys are now upset with me. Upset, and drunk. They make comments, I make comments back. Eventually one guy infers that we should ta
Read more