So yesterday I received a very cryptic warning, over the phone.

 

She couldn’t tell me, it was a professional thing, the object or the source of the rumor – just that someone at school is coming down hard on  us creative writing cretins – again she couldn’t give me specifics, but I’d have to trust her.

 

And I do.

 

My advisor then told me that, while she knows all the research I did and the places I’ve been, others might not and she doesn’t want someone thinking I’m just white boy suburbanite writing about voodoo and other things I don’t know anything about – so,  in the forward for my epic poem (which I still have to write…the forward that is), she advised me to really stress everything I’ve done, more than I normally would, to help tear down any prejudice, that some have, thinking the Creative Writing majors and masters are lazy little con artists who don’t do any real work, the real work that, say, a literary English major might do (or even better…someone in Math or Science or History).

 

While this can sometimes, certainly be true…when told to me directly, those kinds of thoughts usually make my teeth grind, just a little, and through a slightly forced smile say, Well, someone has to write the things they meekly study.  And I wonder if they’d ever cut into themselves, just to see what would drip onto a page, if they ever faced off against self-esteem and self doubt (nightly), taking that risk of finding out that you indeed don’t have anything worth while to say, and seeing what is on the other side – or had they just traced the phantom paths of others who had done so.

 

But then…I feel like I’m taking myself too seriously and I usually laugh at myself and shrug my shoulders and think of all the times that I really did get away with something, con my lazy but past real work in grad school.

 

So my advisor and I talked about other things I should consider in my second draft.

 

And that was that.

 

It was one of the more clandestine calls I can remember getting.

 

It left me feeling a little bit…..excited.  The creative writing classes never had a very competitive spirit (we all wrote different stuff) and theatre felt only marginally more competitive…and any real, competitive spirit is more or less a dim memory of sports in high school.  So I find the prospect of having to defend this little monstrosity I’ve given birth to…exciting.

 

Better get to work on that Forward…

You Are 96% Evil

You’re the most evil person you know. The devil is even a little scared of you!

…………..just kidding….hehe….that’s not my real score.

Is it just me…or does the guy on the E-Harmony.com comercials creep anyone else out?

So my White Wolf Publishing check for $1,000.00 came in today.  I’ll deposit it tomorrow…which leaves tonight to snuggle with it.  I think this is the largest, non-student-loan check I’ve ever received.  They spelled my middle name wrong (that is to say, conventionally), but I can forgive them because it came in an envelope with a wolf paw print on it and a Where the Wild Things Are stamp.

 

Also, Val Perry emailed me to say she nominated me for an Illinois Arts Council grant.  If I win it, not only do I get money…but Eureka Literary Magazine gets some too.  I figure that’s a lot of respective fingers and toes to keep crossed.

 

The money and the potential money are welcome…because there is a black, nasty, abyssal debt I have hanging over me, with Leviathan hungers and a fanged maw that would scare the piss out of Gmork (that reference is for you fine LJ ladies who are currently waxing Neverending Story).  Yeah, my debt is out there and it’s hungry…

OK…I figure I should do another excerpt from the epic.  Again, for those tuning in (I think I’ve got a few new readers since my last spray of excerpts), the last post gives a bit of a synopsis.  For those who haven’t, the prologue was posted previously (http://nevermore-66.livejournal.com/86761.html).

 

So I guess I’ll give a taste of what comes right after the prologue.  This is “Book 1,” and is the start of the poetic portion of the epic poem.  It works as a dialogue between a voodoo priestess and the spirit she summons to be her muse (but he doesn’t act like any proper muse…but then…this isn’t a proper epic…even my muse insults it).  This isn’t the whole chapter, it’s too long to just post.  But it’s the beginning.  It gives a taste and an example of the format I use.  Enjoy!

 

Book 1:  Invoking the Muse

 

“For though my rhyme be ragged,

Tattered and jagged,

Rudely rayne-beaten,

Rusty and mothe-eaten,

Yf ye take well therwith

It hath in it some pyth.”

-John Skelton, Collyn Clout (c1522)

 

 

Spindly, long fingers spider-crawl down an altar, in an apartment, in the inner-city.  Black-nailed digits, long and lithe, click-clack across the tabletop, climb over an obsidian cross, with arachnid grace, dip into an oil filled clay bowl, feeling the thunderstone beneath – oval, cool, and speckled with mirror shards.  And now, the flare of a match, the glow of a skull-shaped candle in the vanilla air, and the slow drip of purple wax.  Oily-fingered footprints lead across the altar, as creeping hands go to work.  They manipulate playing cards in silent-sleight poetry, divining meaning from randomness – beat rhythm from a baptized drum – make four shakes of the ritual rattle, saluting the four cardinal directions – skillfully draw veves, the complex geometric symbols for each spirit, on the floor, trickled down from the contents of three half shells:  a pattern of bisecting crosses, in powdered redbrick, for the crossroads loa – a design of coffins and crucifix, in crushed, purple chalk, for the graveyard loa – an ash outline of a black bird, not a loa, not even a real veve.  The scuttling hands make offerings:  popcorn scattered over the three shapes, rum squirted, spiced and dark, from between the teeth, and blood, cheap by the pint, splashed from a butcher shop container.  And, at the last, a black feather tossed to the air, and a plastic bag containing rancid road-kill, held at the dexterous tips of reluctant fingers.  She would not normally use rotten meat, but tonight she planned on contacting something outside the Vodou pantheon.  This was not normal protocol.  And through it all, Mama Nancy sings and prays…

 

Papa Legba, open the gate for me!
Atibon Legba, open the gate for me!
Open the gate for me, Papa, so that I can pass.
When I return, I will thank the Loa.

 

Saint Peter, open the door.

Saint Peter, open the door to grace.

Saint Peter, open the door,

the door to the other place.

 

LEGBA, I draw your VEVE, it’s powerful magic.

Entrance I seek, to The Mysteries.

Gatekeeper, give me the key to The Mysteries.

Bless the crossroads, let in The Invisibles.

Allow me to commune with The Invisibles.

 

Papa Ghede is a handsome man.

Papa Ghede is a handsome man.

He is dressed all in black,

for he is going to the palace.

 

Papa Ghede, master of cemetery,

lookin’ through your purple shades,

I see the dead.

Loa of Death, Sex, and Humor obscene,

lookin’ through your purple shades,

I see the dead.

Whether we lay in the coffin,

or love in the bed,

you laugh the grinning-skull laugh.

In bed, we love one another – in the coffin, we love you.

Lusty Ghede gets to lovin’ every body.

Birthing, screwing, dying – we all lay bare.

You dare to find humor when we lay bare.

Teach us humor in hardship and the jazz skull laugh.

Hypocrisy fades under the purple shaded gaze.

 

GHEDE, I draw your VEVE, it’s powerful magic.

Hurry Ghede!  Bring your black top hat.

Enter my room, smoke sweet cigars, drink dark rum.

Dead man, yes you can, come down and ride me.

Enter Papa Ghede, bring your lewd wit.

 

Ghede-wicked-grin-by-the-cross,

I need’s speak with that

Patron of Scoundrels – Dark Diviner – Oracular Wind Rider.

Let me see the midnight winged corpse eater,

always playin’ round your playground.

I need his skewed viewed wisdom tonight.

 

Arise old Crow, awake my carrion friend.

Heed my call, I have the blessings

of the gatekeeper and the crossroads.  Shake

the dust from your feathers,

stretch bitter-black wings.

Heed my call death eater – sing, sing, sing

to me, my Ebony Muse, murmur soft a sad song

of what was forgot.

 

I have a story to tell.

I need a dark muse tonight.

 

Who disturbs my meal

of memories and mind.

 

I have a story to hear.

I need a dark muse tonight.

 

Who disturbs my meal

of entrails and eyes.

 

I have a story to make.

I need a dark muse tonight!

 

Mama Nancy, quit your keen!

Woman, you think your mumbo-jumbo-mojo-juju-kung-fu-hoodoo

means anything to me?

I am the sable-winged harbinger,

Noah’s first hope.

I am the omen bringer

Apollo turned black for his troubles.

I am the death watcher,

witnessing Odin dangle in the gallows.

I am the dark trickster, dream carrier

riding Plutonian winds,

eye eater, soul stealer

sipping memories by the retina.

Mama Nancy, quit your necromancy.

Leave me to my mischief.

 

Clever Crow, wily Crow,

wily Crow outdoes himself.

Strutting Crow, preening Crow,

preening Crow, I offer this meat to you.

 

Treat for me, Mama Nancy?

Sweet meat for me, Mama Mambo,

hot off the rot?

Flattery will get you anywhere.

What do you seek sweet-sister?

 

Crow, Dark Muse, one wing in Life,

the other dipped in Death.

Tell me…

 

. . . ha!  I know

what you seek

and the answer’s no.

 

Please Crow.

I have the blessings of the gatekeeper.

I have the favor of Ghede.

Please spirit . . .

                                                 

Click-

clack-

crack!

I am not a spirit!

I’m not a god,

I’m not a ghost.

I’m not a part of your pantheon.
I’m not Odin’s crows,

Memory and Mind,

but they are me.

I’m not the corvid

you saw eating

road kill today,

but she is me.

I’m not the black bird,

eyes of a demon’s dreaming,

who perched and sat

on the pallid bust

of that bimbo who burst

out the sky god’s head.

But he was definitely me

when he said,

he said . . .

. . . well, never-you-mind.

Trip-

trap-

tripe.

 

Clever Crow, wily Crow,

wily Crow, your words are strange.

 

It’s a strange world, Mama Nancy,

where the blood of a messiah

is the social, alcoholic beverage

of the weekend.

So I’ve had a few people mention interest in reading my thesis.  It’s still very rough…so I think I will, instead, fiendishly place little bites and excerpts of it, in the journal, for those who are interested.  There is a certain magic to things our of context.

 

OK – so if you’re just tuning in, I wrote an epic poem.  It’s about a voodoo priestess, Mama Nancy.  She summons up a strange, ancient spirit called Crow (who is more than she bargained for).  After a bit of bribery, trickery, and a sacrifice, she gets Crow to help her tell the story, to give her the name of a fallen angel (one of the angels that didn’t choose sides in the war in Heaven) so that she can contact and convince him to go down into a bleak underworld (Sheol) and rescue the soul of a little girl.  These chapters are done in narrative poetry.

 

In between said chapters, are little chapters, called “Interludes.”  They’re in prose.  They indirectly tell the story, or at least advance certain themes.  Thus the story is told in a spiral, not in a line.  The shape of the universe is the spiral.

 

So here is a little Interlude to wet the taste buds.  It comes in the early third of the book.

Interlude:  Be Not Afraid

 

“When I looked for good, then evil came unto me:  and when I waited for light, there came darkness.  My bowels boiled, and rested not:  the days of affliction prevented me.  I went mourning without the sun:  I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.  I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.  My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.  My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.”

-Job 30: 26-31

 

 

They’re arguing too loud.

 

I’m about to trade a stack of comics to Joey, for his dad’s Playboy, and they’re arguing too loud.  The boiler room walls are thick, but the janitor or a teacher might hear.  Heroes and villains stare at me from the shiny comic book covers like I’m betraying them.  But this is how it has to be.

 

This is growing up.

 

The argument started when we snuck off to the boiler room.  They’re too loud and my Catholic school uniform collar squeezes my neck like a weak gremlin.  The teachers say the uniforms are so we don’t feel pressure about what we wear.

 

That’s not what the public school kids on the bus say.

 

The argument started when we passed the second grade room.  In the hall, they had crayon drawings of angels on the walls.  For kicks, John taped up his own drawing, a scary looking angel.  That’s when he and Roger started arguing whether angels are scary or not.

 

John says yes – angels were supernatural soldiers and did the deed when God needed a hit, like the angel of death who wasted all the first born Egyptians for Moses.

 

Roger says no – angels are messengers and protectors and look at all those old paintings – their little fat babies with wings or tall, pretty people in robes and halos.

 

I don’t know whether the teachers would be mad or proud – boiler room conversations don’t usually get this religious.

 

But they’re too loud and—

 

“Your drawing’s all wrong, Johnny.”  Malcolm speaks for the fist time.  When Mal speaks, we all go silent.  He’s the oldest.  He scored really high on some test, so the principal and his parents try and get him into these accelerated programs.  Mal doesn’t like that.  He ditches classes and causes trouble, even got a sub to cry once, and the guys respect him because he’s smart . . . but not a nerd.  Sometimes he introduces himself as “Mal Content” and laughs.

 

“Johnny, your drawing isn’t scary enough.”

 

Roger protests and mentions pretty cherubs and peaceful angels playing harps.

 

Mal takes a drag on his cigarette and blows a dragon stream of smoke and that stops Roger short.

 

“Rogge, Nero played the harp – played it when Rome burnt down, fed people to lions, lit folks on fire and used them as lanterns in his garden.”  Mal takes another big drag.  The other guys don’t know, but I know Mal doesn’t really smoke, just in the boiler room.  It gives him status.  He blows smoke the way an island chieftain blows a conch shell before telling a story.

 

“What do angels always say when they appear?”

 

None of us answer.  Mal has the answers.

 

“Be not afraid, that’s what they say.  The first thing they say.  Do you think they had to start every conversation with be not afraid because they are all pretty pixies and cute mini-Budas with wings?  We’re talking about primal beings, creatures older than dinosaurs, older than things with tentacles sleeping at the bottom of the ocean – the first things God made in the dark, without practice or light to work by.

 

“They’re the first soldiers, prototype killers.  Every punishment, every killing, God sends an angel to smite someone Old Testament style.  They turn cities to salt, kill more kids than King Herod – every still birth, every plague, every famine, every storm, every volcano, every extinction – and it’s a prehistoric monster with wings and he’s playing a harp the entire time.

 

“Every demon is an angel that tripped.”  Mal takes another puff and there’s nothing in the room except his voice and the gremlin squeezing my neck.

 

“So you guys tell me.  If, some night, you’re walking down a dark alley . . . would you really want to meet an angel?”

“Black cats, they don’t bother me
I smile in bad company
And I’m cool as the day is long
But takin’ my car, Jack
That’s dead wrong”

-Royal Crown Revue, “Friday the 13^th”

 

Sometimes I wonder if I did something to mortally offend a Model T. Ford in a past life.  I have suffered two flat tires in ten years of driving…and they both happened last week.  BAM…tire disintegrates.  We fix it.  BAM…the spare pops (less than a mile down the road).  AAA to the rescue!

 

Then, a few days later, on my way to Torrie’s single’s party in Springfield, my car dies on me.  AAA to the rescue for the second time that week (paying for itself in towing costs)…only I was stuck with an angry tow truck driver who was not happy that I made him tow it to Springfield, rather than let him repair it at his shop in Lincoln.  All I could do was smile   So I had to get the timing belt and water cooler replaced (and eventually decided to replace the rest of my decrepit tires).

 

Luckily, Torrie allowed me sanctuary in her apartment for a couple extra days.  One night, sleeping on the downstairs futon, I awoke, early AM, in the dark, with that vague feeling we all get, time to time, that eyes are watching us…that something might be stalking us.  And like most sane folk I dismissed it and was about to close my eyes, when a black blur flew across the floor and Torrie’s adorable black kitten (who had been stalking my toes) sank her little teeth and claws into my feet.

 

I was at once filled with the startling epiphany that every time I have ever felt like something was watching me from the dark, every time I felt that way my entire life…something, indeed was…

 

My Eureka week is over.  I’m back home.  I need to finish co-writing the magic show, get my second draft of my epic poem done, and start piecing together my White Wolf novel so I can cream the other four writers and take first prize.

 

…and I have to do laundry…

So if you are a single who is going to post yet another journal entry of – I’m single on Valentine’s day and got the blues…blah…blah…blah…– take heart.  Being single, and depressed on V-Day is cliché.  Instead, celebrate the Roman festival of the She-Wolf (also tomorrow night).  I…don’t know how one goes about celebrating a Roman festival of the She-Wolf…but I’d like to think it involves running…nay…loping through the forest, barefoot, under the night sky.

Well…last night was a craptastick misadventure (and my computer is trying to tell me that “craptastick” is not a word…but I am a more willful carbon based life form that that).

I left Bloomington, headed for Eureka, and then BAMB. My tire disintegrated. I started looking for my flash light and Nick came to the rescue to help out. So we get the tire changed, in the frigid cold. I pull out, with Nick still in his car on the side of the road. A minute later I get a call, “Josh, you’re not going to believe it, but my battery went dead.”

So I turned around to rescue Nick…and then, a mile down the road, I have to make a phone call to Nick, “Nick…you’re not going to believe it, my spare just went flat.”

So……someone comes out to get jumper cables from my stuck card, Nick gets his car jumped, and I awaited the tow truck. I finally got to Eureka a little before 7 am.

So here I am Eureka folk!

Other than the car problems, it’s been a good weekend. I’ve gotten a chance to relax and see real, live people. Torrie came up to hang out on Friday, got to see more folk on Saturday, and am about ready to join the world at large again.

All right.  I’m driving down to Bloomington today.  I’ll be in Eureka later tonight and I shall stay through most of the week.  I want to see EVERYONE.  That means YOU.  Give me a cell ring, call Nick’s room, stop on by.  I need to socially interact with large amounts of people before I forget how to talk.

Got another email from my advisor.

She’s getting the book in bits and pieces and she’ll have the last one by today sometime.

She did email me some comments that she had thus far, including:

I think, your novel/poem/drama is a classic–I think it will be a success–as in after your degree.

This was laste with some specific concerns for me to ponder in the next draft, before I turn it in to the second reader.

But…a brief rest is nice. I sletp 11 hours lastnight and have lazed around the house today. Keeping my lazy pace…I’ll start on a list of little things I’ve had to put on hold with my 12-18 hour writing fits.