So in the spirit of me throwing random things at you guys, I'm gonna switch things up again. Behold, a temporary direction for this blog! So my Creative Writing course has switched now into fiction rather than poetry, and as much as I love poetry, I'd like to start doing some fiction again too. Part of the reason I opt for poetry is because I'm lazy: a poem can be written relatively quickly and can vary in length. Characters, scenes, plots, standard structure, their omission is all up to you. I have written about as much fiction as I have poetry, but I love poetry more. Again, because I'm lazy. And I love playing with structure. The only rule in poetry is that you have to create everything. Also because my writing style in the past couple years has begun to savor brevity. Nuances are beautiful.
So anyways, this is a short story that took me forever to write (READ: lazy. And sick too, I suppose). The protagonist for the story is the antagonist in a novel idea that I'm developing at the moment. I did a character sketch for him for class last week and had a blast because I LOVE doing character sketches. It's the opposite of fiction. You create a persona who can do whatever he or she pleases with a plot. The plot does nothing to the persona. And thus, Samuel Tyler Coldridge (yes, a parody of sorts of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, though NOTHING alike), goes about his merry way thinking about why he writes poetry about ten seconds before he presents his poetry at this huge poetry reading in UW Seattle. Why Seattle? Not sure; I've never been. But the Suzzallo Reading Room, according to Google Images at least, is reminiscent of a church. VERY reminiscent of a church.
Well, I think I've talked enough. As if this word count isn't already quadruple what these usually are.
Higher Wisdom
“Samuel Tyler Coldridge….”
Bombastic. Heavy. Ornate. The speaker’s tone weighed on his ears like a King James Bible. A Bach four-voice English Suite. Grandiose and pretentious. Samuel hated any writing that was not his, including this thirty-second introduction. He hadn’t prepared anything. He refused, in his typical passiveness, to write himself an introduction, and he memorized all his poetry. He sat in the front row of the Suzzallo Reading Room at the University of Washington, analyzing the structure. It reminded him of the nave of a church. His position in the next several minutes would shift to the pulpit. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Samuel Tyler Coldridge, a twenty-four year old sociopath who wants nothing more than to go back to sleep on a naked mattress. And the Word was God. The beginning, of course, would be in about two minutes. Did Samuel think of himself as God? In the context of his poetry, yes. And for him, that was all that mattered.
“… A visionary of syntax….”
The way Samuel used syntax had invited comparison between him and e. e. cummings. Samuel liked bending things to his will, notably, people and words. Words, of course, were much easier to manipulate. People were too independent. And they always failed his minimal expectations.
“… And grammar in poetry…”
Words never did. “Autumn” would not complain if it were used as a verb. He had written a poem once comprised only of nouns in various grammatical categories. He hated adverbs ending in -ly. They were derivations of adjectives. Weak and useless. He called many people “adverbs.”
Poetry was the only thing Samuel thought could exert his existence. Cogito, ergo sum. I verse, therefore I am. And where I am, I am God.
“… Is here today. This…”
Here? Today? What was he doing here? What did he agree to do? Oh yes.
Quentin the publisher had begged him to do this poetry-reading thing. Samuel had agreed to it because Quentin the publisher said that this would be “your big break!” with an exclamation point. Samuel thought the exclamation point was too late. He had already had his big break when he was eleven and found a coffee-stained copy of Robert Frost’s North of Boston under an issue of Better Homes and Gardens in the powder room. Art to wipe one’s ass to. His parents sure taught him many useful things. They also taught him to never split infinitives. Or write in fragments or end phrases with prepositions. Or both.
“… Is a…”
Quentin the publisher was ecstatic. Quentin the publisher wriggled in his seat anticipating the next word. Quentin the publisher would have ran up to the pulpit and read Samuel’s poetry in a heartbeat had Samuel requested it. That was just the kind of person Quentin the publisher was. Many commended Samuel for finding such a devoted yet nurturing publisher. Samuel called Quentin the publisher an adverb. Quentin the publisher still did not comprehend that Samuel meant it as an insult.
“Privilege!”
Everyone clapped as Samuel remained unresponsive. His hands were cupped over his mouth, and he breathed into them. He had been motionless for the entirety of the speech but right now was set on doing one of two actions.
“Ladies and Gentlemen:”
Turn his back on his entire life philosophy.
“Samuel Tyler Coldridge!”
Or run.
The audience applauded as Samuel emerged out of the bobbing heads. He moved away from his seat, still unclear which plan he was carrying out. Once he stopped he noted that he was in front of the pulpit. So this is where my poetry takes me.
People plopped everywhere, like dead fish, vacuous eyes in evaporated wonder. This nerveless pod, their sashimi textured will. Arrogance could not save him. Everyone was attentive. Samuel was God for the next two minutes. But Samuel was a God who wanted no responsibilities for disciples. And the only disciples that he desired were the ones that he could create.
Samuel scanned the audience for anyone that was not either ready to succumb to euphoric turrets like Quentin the publisher or armed with a note pad and pen and taking notes of his every movement. He caught the wondered gaze of a college-aged boy and swore he saw the boy take furious note of it. Samuel was looking forward to reading this one’s thesis.
He was also looking forward to firing Quentin the publisher and never releasing any of his poetry ever again. He believed he was a self-sufficient human, and as far as poetry and intrinsic wealth went, he was right.
A pair of familiar eyes in the audience.
Not ready to immortalize him into writing or to receive his Word. Two eyes, frail and dimmed by years of insomnia. He knew why she didn’t sleep. He knew better than anyone.
Ambrosia Froid didn’t look at him. She looked at his poem floating in preparation in his mind. She waited because she knew she was the only person in the world entitled to hear this poem. And she was right. He knew she was right. She needed to hear this poem, if no one else. The poem needed to return to its nexus. That was God’s mandate. He would read this poem and decline the other two.
Often Samuel closed his eyes when he recited his poetry, but instead he looked straight into hers.
“hIre why’s(dumb),” he began.
This was the poem that he had written in a few minutes, not in the morning or during the enigmas of the day like most of his other works. He had written it after her, after she showed him the cracks in his world. She was the reason he called everyone adverbs and why he stopped humanizing Quentin the publisher. He couldn’t stand the sight of the most tangible representation of someone else’s free will. Was she also God? In the context of exerting her world onto his, then yes. And to him, that was all that mattered.
There were no similarities between how he had planned for her to fit in his world and how she did, and even after he cast her aside with the great thoughtlessness that he imbued, she had already demonstrated much more than he had ever wanted. He wasn’t God in her world, and that simple fact trickled back into his own. Omnipotence was a hollow word.
As soon as he finished the poem he sat back down. Quentin the publisher’s eyes were alight in terror, motioning that Samuel go right back up to the front of Suzzallo and continue with the other two poems. Samuel shook his head. He wanted to see Froid.
With the unplanned truncation of the program, there was extra time for the reception. Students threw themselves in Samuel’s path, hoping their martyrdom would enable them to ask some trite question about Samuel’s choice of orthography or why he always ended his poem with the letter “I,” but Samuel was in no mood for converts. He wanted to see the one person he could never convert.
Froid was lying on a bench, her left arm dangling off the side so she could caress the grass. Her eyes were closed, so she couldn’t see Samuel approaching. Nothing else existed aside from her, the wooden bench cradling her back, and the feeling of grass. Samuel stood and watched her for a few moments.
“If it were not for you, I would have run off this campus the moment she said my name,” he said. His voice suggested no origin: perfect, standard English, no slang, a sociolinguist’s nightmare. Just words.
Froid opened her eyes and looked at Samuel but said nothing.
“I never tell people about what inspired a poem, but it seems important to tell you so,” Samuel continued.
Froid did not respond at all to Samuel. He waited for her to react in some way, but it never came.
“Why are you here?”
Froid sat up. “I go to school here now. For physics.”
“You switched majors?”
Froid nodded.
“You transferred schools?”
Froid nodded again.
“Why?” Samuel knew why, but he wanted to hear her consent.
Froid instead got up and ran off. Samuel didn’t try to pursue her.
She hates me that much. She wants no recollection of me. Samuel imagined the freshman in his writing seminar doing physics on the other side of the country, taking debilitating strides to vacate Samuel Tyler Coldridge from her existence. The paradox.
She had changed her entire life for him. The thought gave him sickening pleasure.
Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre
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