Final Destination

     Truck stops. Cars stop at truck stops. They stop so that life can keep moving. Passengers refuel. Drivers drink drinks, eat snacks. They wipe salty chip dust on their khaki pants and pile into the Subaru with their family of four. Little kids press greasy unwashed fingers on windows and ask about the big trucks. The dad laughs and explains that maybe they can go see the big trucks one day. On the inside he knows it’s not a possibility. He lies to his son for his benefit. He can’t be realistic because the boy is just a child, so he leads him on a bit to nothingness. He can’t tell the boy that at the end of the day, he won’t see the trucker, but he can’t tell him he will. He just tugs him along a bit, never letting on to the final destination. When the kid asks where are they driving to and if they are there yet, the dad just responds
     “Soon.”
     Soon, the trucker will slam a vial full of crank into his vein. Good meth too, made by bikers. Not that white trash sudafed shit. In the thirteen hours that his heart will be jerking, he will make it to his destination. Somewhere in North Carolina, he’ll unload, and load back up. He’ll score some more crank, and make his way to Minnesota. From there he’ll get his next few routes. His company always gives him a few routes in advance, but never a yearly schedule. They lead him on a bit, hinting at California or Florida or somewhere warm. But they never tell him his final destination. They can’t tell him that at the end of his life, he will be sad, alone, and drug-addicted. But they can’t tell him he’ll find love or fulfillment either. So they tell him, he’ll find sunshine and sandy beaches in Miami, Florida. He is old enough to never ask “Am I there yet?”
     He just keeps on trucking. When he starts to question, he shuts himself up with some speed. When it gets darker, he switches on the headlights and stares out into the blackness. The lights don’t show the road way up ahead, just a little patch of blacktop. The trucker stares out into the blackness, not knowing the final destination. He doesn’t ask either.
     The little kid stares out the window. The road and the monoxide are making him sleepy. His mother, on the other hand, is nervous. She stares ahead, not knowing where they are going. She turns to her husband.
     “Are we there yet?”
     The husband, not knowing where ‘there’ is responds,
     “Soon.”

Another post about not posting

I used to joke with my friend Steve that I never wanted to have a blog where I just blogged about not updating. Both of us ended up doing that. I’d really like to change that. This blog definitely had a heyday, but, like the american economy, it has started a steep decline. Perhaps I need a stimulus package. If I were taking a personality test, I’d say I’m self-motivated, but I don’t think that’s the case.

So maybe I’ll resolve to write. Raymond Carver suggested that one should write everyday, multiple times during the day. Seeing as how it is Lent and the economy sucks, and we have a new president, and it’s my senior year, and the planets are aligned and shit, I will write everyday. It may suck, it may show clear lack of thoughts, but I need to get in the habit at least. I’ve been sober of writing for a few months now, and I do not like that.

Leviathan

With the leviathan below
and your hand above
I know which one to trust
for I trust the animal
I know where his teeth are
and where I shall die
but the human kills from all angles
no surface safe to touch
The belly of the beast is at least soft
but the flesh of the human grates the spirit into shreds

Phonotation

English teachers invariably review connotation and denotation with their students. This has happened every year of English without fail. I could assume that everyone knows what they are or I could take the ironic route and explain them to those who don’t know. I’ll take irony. Denotation is the book definition of the word and connotation is the meaning that the word has taken in everyday speech. For example, Alan recently asked me if I had decimated something. I responded by saying, “No, I destroyed more than one tenth.” Albeit pretentious, the example works.
In that same day, I also heard many people misuse words. They used words that could have passed the inattentive ear, but did not fit. I thought of all the times I had not understood what a word meant but used it in a sentence hoping I had it right. There is a common psychological process that takes place during that awkward situation. We think of the word and wonder whether it fits in the sentence. If we have no knowledge of what the word means, the last resort is how it sounds. We pick all words, even the ones we know, based off of some level of how they sound. When we finally say the word that doesn’t fit, there is a level of tension created. There is comfort however in knowing that at least it sounded right.
Sound is important to speech, so why not create a subsection of –notation called phonotation. Phonotation would be the meaning as a result of how it sounds. It would be onomatopoeiatizing every word.
I believe phonotation serves a place in language especially in areas like poetry and lyrics. Sound can be more important, especially when dealing with spoken word. The meaning should come through in the rhythm and noises. That was what initially attracted me to Talking Heads: they didn’t make sense. David Byrne used his voice as an instrument, not a complementary text to the music. I’d like to see more of that: a liberation from the limitations of denoted and connoted language. There is a whole world to be explored from the sound of words. Mayhap I’ll write a poem or a song employing such techniques.

Two Beasts

two beasts
entertaining this bloody ritual
claws into flesh
teeth into skin
making fission of our bodies
our passion: a power plant
lets make and destroy
create and employ
the fires that burn within us
we’ll boil the primordial ooze
we’ll be the gods of ground zero