Ye Writing Life
Posted 6th March 2010 at 02:56 AM by w h pugmire, esq.
I have not been able to concentrate on writing for days. Life intrudes -- mundane everyday life. Pah! I can tell that I shall not have my new book completed by October as I had hoped -- but since it won't be published until late next year, this is fine. In my foolish optimism, I thought, "Oh, a collection of prose poems. That's so easy, I'll write one a day and the book will be ready in no time." Nope. I now have two new prose poems for the book. Here is the newest.
"Postcard from Prague"
Avigdor:--
I hear wind in moonlit trees--an emotionless sound. Lunar light gloves this hand with which I trace your name on rough tomb-rock. The wound on my finger (do you remember?) has opened once again. How dark the crimson drops appear in this pale light. Blood on stone, again. I cannot find the pit where Judah lies buried, but I have scraped a little hole into the sod, into which I whisper his name; and into that little hole I shall bury the Golem that you fashioned out of clay.
Dearest, I have found a bit of broken tombstone, one edge of which is sharp. I shall bring it home. I shall hold it to pale moonlight in the place where you rest beneath cold earth. I shall dig until I touch your face, and with this stone I shall inscribe your forehead. Dearest, I shall shiver when, again, you hold me in your arms.
Eternally,
Karo.
This prose poem is far more macabre than I intended it to be. It was inspir'd by a postcard my friend and co-author, Maryanne, sent from Prague, of the Old Jewish Cemetery in snow. I had planned a piece with a more Jewish theme -- but this is what spill-d from my brain onto paper. Next I am trying to write a prose poem inspir'd by The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. & not having ye film, I've been watching it at YouTube, where I have found mention of an updated version that looks rather interesting.
I have started a photo album shewing pictures of my trip to New England and New York in October of 1707. For a Lovecraftian writer, this was an amazing experience, and one that stays with me when I now reread the fiction and poetry of HPL.
I hear wind in moonlit trees--an emotionless sound. Lunar light gloves this hand with which I trace your name on rough tomb-rock. The wound on my finger (do you remember?) has opened once again. How dark the crimson drops appear in this pale light. Blood on stone, again. I cannot find the pit where Judah lies buried, but I have scraped a little hole into the sod, into which I whisper his name; and into that little hole I shall bury the Golem that you fashioned out of clay.
Dearest, I have found a bit of broken tombstone, one edge of which is sharp. I shall bring it home. I shall hold it to pale moonlight in the place where you rest beneath cold earth. I shall dig until I touch your face, and with this stone I shall inscribe your forehead. Dearest, I shall shiver when, again, you hold me in your arms.
Eternally,
Karo.
This prose poem is far more macabre than I intended it to be. It was inspir'd by a postcard my friend and co-author, Maryanne, sent from Prague, of the Old Jewish Cemetery in snow. I had planned a piece with a more Jewish theme -- but this is what spill-d from my brain onto paper. Next I am trying to write a prose poem inspir'd by The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. & not having ye film, I've been watching it at YouTube, where I have found mention of an updated version that looks rather interesting.
I have started a photo album shewing pictures of my trip to New England and New York in October of 1707. For a Lovecraftian writer, this was an amazing experience, and one that stays with me when I now reread the fiction and poetry of HPL.
Total Comments 4
Comments
-
You took a trip to New England and New York --- in 1707?Posted 6th March 2010 at 07:23 AM by dask
-
Ah, 'tis a Lovecraftian affectation, one of ye many ways in which Ye Old Gent gets under one's flesh & infiltrates ye mind...
Posted 6th March 2010 at 04:32 PM by w h pugmire, esq. -
Thanks for sharing this. I wonder - will this perhaps be a book of literal postcards, realised with the aid of a visual artist, as in the Sabine & Griffen books?Posted 7th March 2010 at 04:02 AM by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy - No, the postcard from Prague was but one of the things that inspired a particular prose poem. I am now trying to write a prose poem influenced by The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. I have a feeling that, unless I am much mistaken, this new book won't be very Lovecraftian, although I do hope to write at least one sequence, perhaps of 7,000 or 10,000 words, of prose poems inspired by Fungi from Yuggoth -- as Lovecraft may have had in mind when he wrote "The Book."Posted 8th March 2010 at 02:44 AM by w h pugmire, esq.
