Wednesday, August 20, 2014

A Man Who Lived His Work

"The world is shaped by people like Jim Foley and the overwhelming majority of humanity who are appalled by those who killed him...we will continue to confront this hateful terrorism and replace it with a sense of hope and civility.

That's what Jim Foley stood for, a man who lived his work, who courageously told the stories of his fellow human beings and who was liked and loved by friends and family.


Today, the American people will all say a prayer for those who loved Jim. All of us feel the ache of his absence. All of us mourn his loss."

--President Obama

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

The Statue

I'm thinking about the antique bronze clock statue with no feet because I'm moving soon and she started to feel like dead weight awhile ago, even before I wrapped her in a thick blanket like a mummy and stuck her in the back of the closet.

Her feet fell off one night

when I bumped the sturdy sculpture-stand she was perched on and she fell, a crash of a sound that immediately started the loud dudes downstairs banging on the ceiling, as if on cue at 2 a.m., waiting for me to commit just one sound offense.

I put the feet in a separate blanket and laid this much smaller lump to rest at the foot of the statue or, well, where the foot--I mean, feet--of the statue would have been had the antique bronze clock statue with no feet still had feet.

This beautiful piece of sculpture, long since non-clock-functional, sat on my grandmother's mantel for years, central to her schema. In less than six months, I had cashed in on the pot of gold of Irish guilt in breaking it, by accident of course, though guilt leads me to wonder if, on some level, I did it on purpose...

I start to also think of that Poe story, and how maybe now I can never restore her feet, so they'll become my golden arm, or arms, ugh, so naturally, I leave her behind, now in two pieces, one large, one smaller lump, in my parents' garage and start writing that horror script in my head...

Sunday, August 03, 2014

New York Haiku

The mantle of my heritage rests heavy upon my shoulders:

Fuck you, the punchlines goes over &

over &

over &

over &