an enticing house

"...and so I renewed my kisses with even greater enthusiasm, caressing and in turn devouring their dark lips, dark with wine and fleeting love, an ancient memory love had promised but finally never gave, until there were too many kisses to count or remember, and the memory of love proved not love at all and needed replacement, which our bodies found, and then the giggles subsided, and the laughter dimmed, and darkness enfolded all of us and we gave away our childhood for nothing and we died and condoms littered the floor..."

--Johnny Truant, The Navidson Record, House of Leaves, p. 36

I recently began reading Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves" and am thouroughly impressed. I bought the book because of this-and-that that I heard about it online, but even all the this-and-that caused me to expect far less than what I got. I'm only 60 pages into its near 700, but the remeaning pages are not a forboding 700, but a distance I look very forward to traveling. I expected a good horror book, and it is quickly becoming that, but it is also so much more. It is commentary on life, and the things we fill it with... the voids we try to cover with fleeting things, and even that is only a small part... there is so much more that I have yet to discover about what this book is about. In any case, it's very good.

In other news, I'm almost completely finished with a series of about 30 poems that all link together to tell a narrative story (though each poem remains individual and has its own theme and can be enjoyed singular of the anthology). I'm also illustrating many of them, and hope to get it all published in the relatively near future. Should I allow you to read one of the poems? I dunno.... you really wanna?
ok, well i GUESS i could let you read just one....

Part 5: Lost in the City

Taking it all in,
This glorious City—
So filled with light—
So many sights!
Will I have time to see them all?

I’m here to stay
For the fun and all the promises
Of the City.
I’m here to play—
No responsibility here!
No worries, no cares,
Not here in the City.

“Walking down Main Street,
Take a right on Self-Indulgence Avenue.
Continue eight blocks
And soon you’ll come
To the corner of Fourth and Pleasure.
There’s a great place I know there—
Lusty’s Bar and Grille—
How about it stranger?
Meet me at seven
For a bite
And maybe a little
Mutual indulgence?”

That’s what she said to me—
The girl on the tram
With a delicate wink
Just after I watched her
Stab the man
She was with.
(I’m sure she had a reason.)
Even with a blood-spattered dress
I’m afraid I must confess,
She did look quite enticing.
I think I might take up her offer;
She seemed like a nice enough girl.
(She must have had a reason.)

But for now
I’ve come to my stop;
Off the train,
I’m lost—
Lost in the City.
I’ll find my own way,
No need for a map.

I walk down the boulevard,
Passing numerous shops
Pawning off their
Earthly delights.

Tarts and toys,
And wine always
Will lift a sorrowful soul.
Lavish and lusty ladies
Pose in apartment windows,
Wearing near nothing at all;
Nonchalantly they vend
Hearts on puppet-strings,
As well as hearts
With no strings at all.

This air smells so sweet,
So sweetly toxic.
It feels so nice,
So nice to be lost in the City.

Then again,
I’m not really lost
If I don’t wish to be found.

There ya go.... part five of the series... if you want to discover how the meeting at Lusty's goes, however, you'll simply have to read the book once it's published (At the Corner of Fourth and Pleasure is part nine in the series).

K, well that does it for today.... oh and i do have so much more to tell of my travels through time... but not today... maybe i'll tell you yesterday....