This is a Fantasy Story

This is the beginning of my story.  The year was 2009.  Everything was coming apart and I didn't want to believe it.  I avoided detection by scurrying beneath the detectable income line, and ate so little it appeared I was in great shape.  I'm sure ill-advised decisions were made, but the greatest decisions I ever made happened too.

Skip years into the future.  I am avoiding failure like I cheated on it, and I am doing so well I am learning new ways to fail.  I don't want to be writing this.  Every time I drive in the car - the old, old, old Animul - I am reminded of my haste, drive a little bit faster, pay a little less attention.  I would like to get home and write.  Write on my typewriter.  Hear the loud, jagged, disjointed keys hit the paper irregularly.  I would like to watch them get stuck.  I would like to watch the letters misfire and hit the paper incorrectly.  I would like to write in a room filled with smoke (I don't smoke) in black and white.  I would like to write the last great manuscript to be sold or hung in someone's parlor for millions of dollars.  In fact, that is what I need to do, and I will do it as soon as I get home.

I seem to like losing my nerve when I need it the most.  I don't want to be writing this right now.  My head, my mind, is so very far away from my body right now.

I have many poems to write on here.  Many poems that need to be put on here.

My computer crashed a few days ago.  For weeks before that I knew it was coming.  My plan was to place them here, so I could have them somewhere.

Thankfully my computer was fixed, so I don't have to do all that copying and pasting.

That would take too much time.

This is as brief an image as we get.  It is as thin a glimpse as we can muster right now.  There is nowhere else for this to go.  There is so much more we have to do.

Try to make me proud.

Charles Bukowski's Advice to Writing Students at EMU

For some reason I can't find the poem "Poetry Readings" by Bukowski in any of the books I have.  Here it is anyway, check it out.  After you read that, you can read this poem.  I love his view on poets and poetry readings, because I find them timeless and all but too relevant to me right now in this place.  If I ever had to do a poetry reading, I promise myself now I will read Poetry Readings first.

For now, I'll put another poem I found from him, that every student I have dealt with at this school should read.  It applies to all of them; in fact it probably applies to most of the staff at this college as well.  Another poem that directly applies to my life right now.

I'm not all knowing, but...
by Charles Bukowski

one of the problems is
that when most people
sit down to write a poem
the think,
"now I am going to write a 
poem"
and then they go on to write a poem
that
sounds like a poem or what they think
a poem should sound like.

this is one of their
problems.
of course, there are other 
problems:
those writers of poems 
that sound like poems
think that they then must
go around
reading them
to other people.

this, they say, is done
for status and recognition
(they are careful
not to mention
vanity
or the need for 
instantaneous
approbation
from some
sparse, addled
crowd).

the best poems
it seems to me
are written out of
an ultimate
need.
and once the poem is
written,
the only need
after that
is to write
another.

and the silence
of the printed page
is the
best response
to a finished
work.

in decades past
I once warned
some poet-friends
of mine
about the masturbatory
nature of poetry readings
done just
for the applause of
a handful of 
idiots.

"isolate yourself and
do your work and if you
must mix, then do it
with those who
have no interest at all
in what you consider
so
important."

such anger,
such a self-righteous
response
did I receive then
from my poet-friends 
that it seemed to me
that I had exactly 
proved my 
point.


after that,
we all drifted 
apart.


and that solved just
one of my
problems
and I suppose
just one of
theirs.

Mine and Mine Alone

There is so much to read out there that I don't believe, unless someone can find some merit and it helps them, that these poems will have as far a reach as I would have liked.

I also feel like this is such can be so selfish.  There are far more valuable things I could be doing to offer legitimate help to those who want it, and have to settle for moral support.

I took this prayer and used it for a poem.

On Playing Inkball On My Computer At Beginner Difficulty and Getting 100,175 Points 

by Matt Catania 

“For all we ought to have

thought

and have not thought;

For all we ought to have

said

and have not said;

For all we ought to have

done

and have not done:

we ask thee

for forgiveness.”

 

A Tribute to Edgar Allen Poe

This poem is not mine.  I edited the conclusion of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Poetic Principle" to show people that didn't know that there was so much more to Poe than just the dark, suspenseful prose he wrote.  He was a genius, and most of his poetry and writing celebrated life and its beauty. 

"What the true poetry is...
(excerpt from Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Poetic Principle')

“…by mere reference to a few of the simple elements which induce

in the Poet himself

the true poetical effect.

“He recognizes the ambrosia which nourishes his soul,

in the bright orbs that shine in Heaven –

in the volutes of the flower –

in the clustering of low shrubberies –

in the waving of grain-fields –

in the slanting of the tall, Eastern trees –

in the blue distance of mountains –

in the grouping of clouds –

in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks –

in the gleaming of silver rivers –

in the repose of sequestered lakes –

in the star-mirroring depths of lonely wells.

“He perceives it in the songs of birds –

in the harp of Æolus –

in the sighing of the night-wind –

in the repining voice of the forest –

in the surf that complains to the shore –

in the fresh breath of the woods –

in the scent of the violet –

in the voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth –

in the suggestive odor that comes to him,

at eventide,

from far-distant, undiscovered islands,

over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored.

“He owns it in all noble thoughts –

in all unworldly motives –

in all holy impulses –

in all chivalrous, generous, and self-sacrificing deeds.

“He feels it in the beauty of woman –

in the grace of her step –

in the lustre of her eye –

in the melody of her voice –

in her soft laughter –

in her sigh –

in the harmony of the rustling of her robes.

“He deeply feels it in her winning endearments –

in her burning enthusiasms –

in her gentle charities –

in her meek and devotional endurances –

but above all –

ah!  far above all –

“he kneels to it –

he worships it in the faith,

in the purity,

in the strength, in the altogether divine majesty –

of her love…” 

My Intentions Have Been Impure

I realize now that I wanted to be a writer for the wrong reasons.  I wanted to be recognized as something I always thought I was.  I wanted to see my writing published, and acclaimed.  I feel like more recently I haven't been doing it to prove anything to myself, or for the sake of the art of writing itself.  For that I want to apologize to myself, and anyone who may come across this.  The real reason, I believe, that I started this blog, was to share my writing freely, and to remove it from under my shell.  If anyone gets anything from it, then it has served its purpose.


Some Fame Someday
by Matt Catania

When I see a pretty girl

I want her to know I’m in a band

a band she knows the name of

We can go talk about who I am

how great I am

and how when we were in high school

I wasn’t as great as I am now.

I haven’t changed

You haven’t changed

You don’t know that

It’s a shame

I want to see a pretty girl

and impress her with what I do.

I want her to get hot for me

because a million other people

know my name too.

If she’s real cute

I’ll even give her a smile

and make her sweat like I couldn’t do

when no one away from home knew

who I am.

I am the man

thick with fame

who knew everyone with

my name on their brain

gave me game?

 

The Wall

I'm hitting a wall right now.  I don't want to write anything.  Here's another old poem.

The Writer's Creed
by Matt Catania

Before I write
any words


Before I write
I must remember The Writer's Creed:

What I write right now
What I write at this moment
What I write is Perfect
at
this
very
moment

for it cannot be written any other way.


This may not be
The Greatest Poem in the History of Time.


This may not be
Perfect when you read it.


This may be
changed at a later time:


but it was Perfect at the moment it was written;
it was The Greatest Poem in its moment in time;


at
that
very
moment


for it could not be written any other way.

Emily Dickinson

We all know about Emily Dickinson.  This is with her in mind.

Like Emily 

by Matt Catania 

I too have written

my share of poems

secreted, safely

folded, finely

crackled, crumpled harshly

kept in my drawer

like Emily -

with the hope

that they will be found someday

like Emily -

hopefully before I die

like Emily