Wednesday, April 2, 2008

SIT NEAR A WINDOW AND DON'T LISTEN

It is time I begin living more concretely.
I will no longer put potentially abstract phrases in quotes.
If something is good I am going to say it is good
because it is good.
I am speaking. It is time I said.
Metaphysics and abstraction are more important
to me as language than things I can define.
The most simple things are the most abstract.
I would rather read about a wall in a house
than about sadness.
The wall in this blue deskroom is more sad
than the day you couldn't think of anywhere to go.
I am not thinking about anyone specific
while I am writing this. I am not angry.
My anger for life has inverted
and become a mammoth child that stands over me
in my bedroom while I am sleeping
though my bedroom now is somewhere else.
People are probably going to my ex-bedroom
while I'm not there
and having fuck parties on my bed
which still has a blanket on it that my mom made
out of tshirts that I used to wear
and they are probably fucking hard.

I am not afraid to tell you that
I think General Tso's chicken is delicious,
and when something is delicious it is good.
Good in the sense that I ate it
and felt pleasure eating
and felt pleasure again
when it came around to leave my body
for somewhere else.
The chicken that died for me to eat it died.
Abraham Lincoln also died,
as did Tupac and Roald Dahl
and lots of other people with names
which to most other people are nothing
more than names.
Al Pacino has died a fuck lot of times in the movies
but he still finds time in his schedule
to make more movies
albeit bad ones
and probably play golf and donate money
to a presidential campaign of his choice,
though he does not choose.

The scene in THE SHINING
when Jack Nicholson is working at his desk
and Shelly Duvall comes in and interrupts
causing him to yell at her profusely
with a smug grin and wild eyes
should be mandatory viewing
for all people everywhere.
It should be replayed in endless loops over cribs
while babies lay waiting to make more shit and spittle.
They should also watch credit card
and mortgage lending company commercials
to prepare them for the presence these entities
will take not too far in the future in their lives
if they decide to allow these entities
into their lives.

One day your mother might be raped
and I can always watch TV.

12 comments:

Josh Maday said...

i am listening. i have listened. i like this, blake. your brain has the combination of chemicals and responses that i enjoy. it is okay and sometimes even good to be abstract. and the same goes for concrete. that is what i think. good words you made here. i read a short story by samuel beckett yesterday and i liked it though i felt dumb. i am circling in on bleak and lowering altitude. i always write too much in these comments.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

your comments are good

Ken Baumann said...

i liked the last last line. you changed it.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

what was it i dont remember

death-hustler said...

Blake Butler it is time for you to laugh at concrete. It is time for you to contemplate like a cinder block. It is time to compose non-decomposable blocs of sensation. If my mother is raped and you are watching TV will that be an instance of something concrete? A cinder block among cinder blocks? A wide eyed fish bowl full of feeling? A cluster of narcotic ampules? Is there solidity or enmeshing of edges when I think of food as accumulated death?

I dub you as the first and finest ( and final and fittest ) member of your species of affect without affect. Every attempt I have made at life has become a proposition:

abstraction is more important to me than anything I can define.

sam pink said...

i like this poem. blake, i am almost 100% sure i could beat you up. write some THUG LIT.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

death hustler, that was a good comment and now i feel good and you are good.

sam, i will write thug lit.

christopher higgs said...

1). I don't know if you have a Whole Foods in your village, but if you do you could go there. They make a delicious General Tso's vegan chicken which does not come from death.

2). Yes, Motorman, yes. Now is the time to read the sequel, Age of Sinatra. Can't get Moldenke out of my mind. (Also, who are those jellyheads? They are gross.)

BLAKE BUTLER said...

chris: i will try the vegan tso's. i've had it vegan once before and really liked it.

motorman i am finally going to read when i can get back into my apartment and get it out.

Ken Baumann said...

blake:

and this is not a punchline

that was the last line

The Fashion Scientist said...

I don't have some mind-blowing literary comment to make, but I like how exposed your thoughts are.

And yes, it's been a year and yes, I still occasionally enjoy reading your blog.


Because it's interesting. Because there are ideas here.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

yo larissa! good to hear from you. hope you are well.