Being Nostalgic with Stalin and Olivia Wilde - Wow, these titles just keep getting more absurd.

Mother fucker. I just typed out half this fucking blog and Word crashed on me.

So let’s start again. Sigh.

Tonight was a night. I suppose most nights are nights. I went to see Cowboys and Aliens. It was rather horrible, but it at least featured Olivia Wilde. As she did in Tron, she made this movie bearable. I could watch her do anything. Anything. If you’re reading this, Olivia Wilde, we should go on a date. I’ve been working out. I play piano and write novels and enjoy snuggling. Think about it.

Returning home, I felt rather nostalgic. I’ve been feeling this way a lot lately. The distant past, the recent past; I suppose those are the only two versions of the past. I tend to think about the past far more than the future. I’m the sort of person who lives one day at a time, very slowly. I hate looking too far ahead. The thought scares me. I refuse to grow old, which is why I’m growing younger. I’m afraid time will run out, only I’m not sure what it will run out…on? That makes sense if you really think about it, so do that. Really think about it. We should all grow young together.

This is going better than my original post; maybe it’s good that Word crashed. A sign, perhaps. All things have meaning and purpose. Strands in a tapestry. Unravel.

Feeling nostalgic, I decided to go through my stack of unlabeled CDs, hoping to find past writings and whatnot. I found a ton. I also found my Phantom of the Opera, the movie, soundtrack. It’s one of my favorite movies, as well as my favorite soundtrack. I was quite pleased with finding this. I found a few short stories I will sadistically edit and post at a later date, and, thankfully, I found all of the poetry I thought I had lost. Turns out I wrote far more poetry than I ever assumed, and I actually really enjoy some of it. Maybe I’m not as awful as I thought. Or maybe I’m delusional.

I’m not delusional, Olivia Wilde, if you’re still reading this.

I also discovered—although I already knew this—that I really don’t write upbeat and pleasant things, and nothing of mine ever ends happily. I will, of course, contract this very statement tonight, on this blog, posting a humorous poem. I enjoy humor; I just use it far more in real life than in my writing. I also dislike happy endings. All is never well.

But all these discoveries fail in comparison to what else I found. Random, strangely named files I saved late into nights while half asleep, I’m sure. File names like adfasdfasdf, and magizsics, don’t forget to look at this, and so on and so on. I’ve apparently been leaving myself messages, for me to read in the future, which, I guess, is now. Or something of that sort? One file said this and nothing more: We cannot be whole unless we first let ourselves be broken. How poignant and true of you, past me. You’re clearly wiser then than I am now, me. At least I’ve completed half of that so far, and even more than once. One file contained a three page single space unfinished story I do not remember writing. At all. It’s incredibly depressing, about a guy in LA and how much he hates the world, and everyone, and how we are all just ants destined to die after working ourselves to death. This seems like something I should remember writing, but maybe not because it sucks so much. Other files are one or two unfinished paragraphs that make little or no sense. Everything is dark and hopeless and ends very abruptly.

One file, from 2008, starts off with Just drive, and is an italicized paragraph, written in first person, about driving at night and thinking to clear your thoughts, which doesn’t seem to make sense, but it does. I’m sure some people out there can relate to that.

One file is titled stars. I opened it and it was blank. I don’t know what to make of that.

There are many documents pertaining to space and stars, and none are even closed to finished. The one short story I wrote about stars—I really liked it—is mysteriously missing amongst everything else I found. I don’t understand its absence, since I wrote it junior year of college. I really want it.

Anyway, here’s a few poems I found. I’ll post them all in due time, slowly but surely and so as not to overwhelm readers with poetry, especially my poetry. If you read this, and know me, don’t be afraid to talk to me about the poetry. I’d like some feedback, or you can just comment even if you want to bash and troll me. I know, some of you, if you’re still reading this blog and maybe you are, don’t particularly like poetry, but alas. Poetry is good every once in awhile.

Starting off with the funny poem. It was incredibly hard to write, as it nearly follows the exact meter of the original. It’s incredibly offensive and inappropriate as much my humor tends me to be. I just reread it, and wow, I’m fucked up.

St. Stalin’s Christmas

“Twas the day before Christmas, when all through the camp

Not a person was stirring, not even to stamp

The stacks of papers upon the cold metal desks,

All letters from children to the man they loved best;

St. Stalin, of course, that loveable man,

A gun at his hip and eggnog in hand.

Mamma carried stones outside, as I in my sheet,

Laid snuggled in bed counting my sheep

When out on the street there arose such a clatter

I sat up in bed and emptied my bladder.

Away to the window I ran with much haste,

In hopes St. Stalin could save me from this place.
The streetlight across the newly laid bricks
Reminded me of mom’s new boyfriend, that prick.
When, to my amazed eyes should appear,

Good Old St. Stalin carrying a head on a spear,

With his newly tailored suit,

A bushy mustache and shiny black boots.
More rapid than Fascists his good friends did come
And he whistled, and clapped, and called them one by one;

“Now, Sverdlov! now, Bunov! now, Kamenev and Zinoviev!

On, Rykov! on Molotov! on, Isliver and Hitler!
To the top of Russia! To the top of the world!

Now march away! March away! March away all!”

So up to the roof-tops the communists they flew,

With a bag full of cocked guns, and St. Stalin too.

And then, in an uproar, I heard on the roof

The stomping and smashing of each heavy boot.

As I drew in my hand, and was turning to see,

Down the chimney St. Stalin grinned at me.
He was now dressed in fur, from his feet to his cap,

Black gloves and a communist flag draped on his back.
The sack of guns he tossed onto the floor,

And I’m sure if he was stronger he would have carried more.

His eyes—how they twinkled! His dimples so sweet.

His cheeks like roses, Stalin was so fucking neat!
His wide grinning mouth was curved like a V,

And his mustache so thick it quite tickled me;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

His breath of stale smoke and the most rancid heat.
He had a broad face and a little round tummy,

Which he slapped me for noticing and called me a dummy.
But he was chubby and plump, a jolly old Russian,

A handsome old man and master of discussion.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon I knew he wished to take me to bed.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

Removed my pants and began to jerk.
And laying his finger on my cheek then his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his communists, high-fives all around

For molesting this blessed boy without a sound.

But I heard him exclaim as he marched out of sight,

“It’s best you keep quiet, my boy, and never fight.”

The rest I quickly edited. Some, my favorites, I’m not posting since I might send them to literary magazines again just to see what happens.

Sailor’s Choice

Carry me seaward waves

to lands lost and blue drowned graves,

to shores where what I had, I gave

you everything I had hoped to own,

your broken body, your hair blown

across your face, your empty eyes I never could replace

within my thoughts where your voice

still speaks Come, we’ll sail the Sailor’s Choice

to make our lives, to trace

the sea as your fingers once traced me

so long before these sands and shells,

your smile We’ll give them hell

against the bay’s countless swells.

And I ask again, a final time,

beg the seas for stealing what was mine,

once, just once, hear my plea

seaward waves, take me away

into the deepsea grays and breakwater sprays.

During the Storm

Caked with snow she wanders in,

following the swinging door.

Spanish polka plays from the jukebox.

No one dances, no rhythm.

Bodies still and rigid, hunched over

unwashed tables, weathered hands

reaching out for more

frost covered ale, flaked with snow

like what flows through the door

into the tavern from the white outside.

Someone shuts the door behind her,

pushing it against the wind

and her, stumbling, to her seat

by the fire, on a scarlet rug.

Beads of ice melt, drip

from her stained gray strands.

Pushing hair aside, she stares

into the flames, red like her hands,

clutching nothing, clenched.

She will never let go.

We ask her

of what she has seen

in the whiteout, out

beyond the bolted door,

away from the flames,

a slow German waltz.

We ask her of the world outside.

She nodes, smiles chapped

lips that mouth us answers

we cannot hear.

We know the answers, predict her pain.

We leave her alone

with the flames and warm

butter melting between biscuits.

We will ask again.

Until then we sip warmth,

share stories of times before the storm.

We smile, talk away our troubles.

We dance

drunkenly around the flames.

We do not see her leave.

We do not hear.