A personal piece of hell

Blew out my brain like a flat tire this morning. That happens when I get a head full of ideas but can’t them out fast enough. The after math of which is a stress headache or at least I presumed to be a stress headache. At times like these, I’m tempted to reach for the Chivas Regal and make my brain a little peace offering. But I know it will only slow me down. Soldiering on is the only option.

I’ve been reading about Allen Ginsberg’s American Sentences, which is movement he started to Americanise the Haiku. Instead of the 5-7-5 patterned lines, the American Sentence is, well a sentence of exactly 17 syllables. They seem like good practice for heightening one’s awareness of the things around them. Like this morning I wrote:

Smoke drifts in thin line, silence cut by time, the day lurks and night retreats.

It’s an observation of me burning incense and watching the dawn rise through the cracks in my curtains.

Paul Nelson fell in love with the American Sentences and has been documenting the movement ever sense. He has written an American Sentence a day for that last 4 years.

I’ve gotta give my brain a break and not thrash it like this.

Ok, I think I’ll leave you with this:
a personal piece of hell

after breakfast
they would take her
quietly, get straight
to work doing wrong

but you wouldn’t know this

life is knowing
the lay of the land
how it stands
to make anyone
other than me

free from this
living hell

Peace,
Clay

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