2002-01-16 - 11:53 p.m.

***

The Third Year

Too much to repeat from the last entry but I'll try.

I found that I absolutely hate office work, but we all knew that before. And I also found that Invader Zim is one of the funniest shows on TV.

I was reading a book of translated poetry that I'll be helping to edit as a class next semester. There's a poem from a German poet named Ranier Malkowski that I found to be possibly the sole explination of how I feel lately (not just now, this past year or so):

The Third Year

The words become fewer.
These few
change their meaning.

There are strange ones among them.
One sounds
like someone smashing
a bottle on a rock.

One is only a rumble.

One is a shrill song
in the thorns.

"Lord," he scratches with a stone
on the wall of his cave.

He sleeps a lot now.

Sometimes he chastises himself
because he doesn't miss anything anymore.

When he has time and doesn't
have to recite the alphabet,
he likes to listen
to the river in the gorge.

Most people won't get what that means to me. As a matter of fact, a lot of people won't get that. But it does have major significance to me personally and I feel that having read something that speaks so close to me, I have to try harder to write better poetry. And just writing in general.

I go back to Plattsburgh on Saturday. Long time away from school. I go back to Lowell as soon as possible.

Long time away from home.

BMC

Last Few

What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?