This was originally called "ER". In the spring of '99 I went back to work on it, called it
Point Defiance after not being able
to remember why it was called ER in the first place.
Basically it took something like 4 years to
write five pages of prose. Talk about shitty output.
Prose poems written during road trips to
Mexico and Minneapolis; ambling with Nate Hanson to Cleveland ND; a trip
to the Art Institute in Chicago with Jon Stern, where I saw
Jan Van Eych's "Christ" on display and was impressed by the hollow concavity
of the stomach; various and
assundry early mornings with a case of beer, a canary named Al, and a rather seductive
guitar; a brief tutorial and exposition of Northumbrish;
and at least one experience with psychotropic fungus. So it
made for a good time, if nothing else. This chunk of prose
was what it stemmed from, after a final email to Matt work on ER pretty much
halted completely.
The thing originates from a piece of work by Jim K and Matt W., a poem
written by the two of them in the fall of '96, back in the day, and they called it ER.
I took this and reworked it into something resembling prose-poetry.
I wish I knew if he thinked in the box.
Received: from casbah.acns.nwu.edu (casbah.acns.nwu.edu [129.105.16.52]) by
thor.isp.nwu.edu (8.6.10/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA08326 for
; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 18:53:58 -0500
Received: from mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu by casbah.acns.nwu.edu with SMTP
(1.40.112.4/20.4) id AA100514335; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 18:52:15 -0500
Received: from localhost by mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu;
(5.65v3.2/1.1.8.2/09Oct95-1257PM)
id AA21721; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 18:53:39 -0500
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 18:53:39 -0500 (CDT)
From: Matthew Wambach
To: Josh Buermann
Subject: The Stuff
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Length: 1836
E.R. (waiting for the bus)
Cymbalic treasure comes to mind
An empty soliloquy...blah
He uses me in his cryogenics experiments
Sporadically flipping the switch,
Dawg gonnit.
Imploding every mile
Thermonuclear smile, stop
Tragic eye gouge
Depends on how you look at it
A little too symphonic
Arbitrary waxdrip floorstain
We are subject to availability
A cinnamon whirl of goodness.
Frogs
Potroast nude figurine
She, smuckering her lips
Cold as glaciers
Here's what we did. We all three sat down (at Perkin's of
course). I told Jim to give me random words. I told him each word would
be in one of the lines. Here was the list (this is kind of chance art,
isn't it?)
Cymbalic
Soliloquy
Cryogenics
Sporadically
Dawg
Implode
Thermo cuplar (might be one word, in fact probably)
Tragic
Depends
Symphonic
Arbitrary
Subject to availability (ok, more than one word)
Cinnamon
Frogs
Potroast
Smuckering (his lips came immediately)
Glaciers
I said that Glaciers would be a good way to end the poem; with that word
in the last line. Jim agreed. It was interesting, because we took
basically random crap and tried to tie it in and have everything make
sense.
Overall, I don't think that this is too bad of a method to generate
material; Jim hadn't wrote anything for quite some time but ideas were
pouring out of the kid. Which was enjoyable.
Wambach
We churned it over quite a bit, and minced up a sort of prose-poem after a while:
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:25:57 +0600 (GMT)
From: A Guy Named Hippie Used to Call Me Syd
To: Wambach- The Artistic Genius Who Could Drive a Car
Subject: ER
Ashore by default. This would have been the last place I'd have
chosen to land. I couldn't see nearly straight, the blacktop caosted by
at a snail's pace - if I was in Aberdeen I was in Cleveland. All a stiff
hug for a penny, lost in a white backdrop, her lips together, cold as
glaciers.
Linoleum carpet for warmth and minus the wool socks. But for me
colon spells happiness, so I guess fiber can kill, can't it?
The syrup's running slow in the morning, a white backdrop
windowpane. The waitresses, bitter and fragile as those rotting melons
left in the garden since two weeks ago. My face crumbles into an ash
frown - I can't. thinking. this is like watching cassettes rewind. Feel
the eye open to find the nude porcilan figurine of dreams on vacation,
where'd the dog go? we'd ask, forgetting the dog was left back in
Illinois, and the girl in Kansas, and something in Iowa, getting plugged
up, I don't remember the place. Not extremely important, like a dream
where nothing occurs but eating a sandwich and talking to dead friends.
The sandwich might be good, but your friends are still dead. Wake up,
they're still dead, probably better that way, and it's still cold, day old
pizza, a bath you've been sitting in for too long, leftover breaddough on
the floor with a breadknife stuck three inches into the sheetrock wall,
nobody remembers who put it there.
-Keep looking at the mirror- this is all hazy in memory, a smile
like playdo. It was too much, she lost the dog, her head was on sideways,
my fingers were pruned like raisins with a towel and a suitcase and my
mind hit the freeway. these junior high romances last two weeks and you
move on. Mom, can I go hang out at Jenny's place? only if we pick you up
at ten oh mom I'm grown up now, we're really serious we're in up and down
the playground these days you're young to talk said with a chuckle why
don't you go now or you're running out of time. Thanks for the smack dad,
yeah I need what mom said seems like you were nineteen and dad but I gotta
run.
In the end I pasted a smile to your nullish face like a post-it
note and left you there, northwest and out.
II
You. Sittting there in my head crying like I'd never hurt you but
did in the windshield against the dash lights. Clocked, three in the
morning, 71 stretching out a flat line to the ocean. This is a matter of
process. Put one piss in front of the other. Move. Keep the mind on the
coffee and the gas gauge. Sobriety racks up the back like a thimble and
everything was preplanned, from the start to the knotted bedsheet under
the matress, we're out the window.
Montana gets flat if you look behind. Nobody needs bearings, air to
clean the blood and blacktop to clear the distance, running by age 13 with
a bike from a home, distance matters. All that matters. You never go
back to turn those wheels or reverse- home was a hollow impression.
The white sheets kept rolling and rolling, backseat in a
rainstorm, raps like a chain on the hood, tears itself over the rear
windshield, beading, And I dream that this is a small child, my thumb
bleeding where teeth wear down the skin around the nail, It's a catholic
soldier ringing out the word with a wool wrap at sunrise in clockwork
phrases. Vibrato engine tamarac on the tires, this is where we get off.
Makes a growl from the back of the night's throat, yellow
dartboard eyes hesitate in mirrors, digging beneath the wheels, they said
you could see the stars from here Blue like rain, can't remember what
rain is, can't remember her.
Does he think in the box?
The white sheets keep rolling and rolling.