Snapshots

[PrinceMyshkin]

It's strange
BECAUSE
WELL I wrote a 2000 word essay on WHY
but my computer froze (f---ing idiot!)
It's strange BECAUSE
It's slow motion because of the perception of the viewer, not the movement of the bicyclists.
Or not.
Time is perception,
but if there's nothing there to perceive (the bicyclists are gone)
why is that nothing still measured by time. Is it something else?
Or are they just one...
some merging of the other person into yourself, so that you lose that person for a moment, but gain that person as your self,
so time stops because they don't cease to exist in your world -
they don't MOVE AWAY, they stay FOREVER.

heehee.

Notwithstanding your inveterate self-depreciation, you are WAY more bright than the average 18-year old! (Yeh, I know....)

[Umbilical]

hey BIT.CH
I'm 19.

[PrinceMyshkin]

hey BIT.CH
I'm 19.

Hey, smart-tukhes! Didja read the parenthetical remark at the end of my post? I'm, like, several steps ahead of you!

[Umbilical]

I read it after everything we'd been through...
sorry.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I came this |~| close
to finding love this morning.
At the café a youngish woman
pecked away at her laptop.
When I looked at her
she gave me a smile
that was open on all sides.
“Where did you get that smile?”
I asked, one of my standard lines.
“I stole it!” she said.

The conversation proceeded
easily, comfortably until at last
I arrived at the question:
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes,” she answered
with a slight blush.

Later, I imagined them making love
and wondered, Does she give him
anywhere near as much pleasure
as she gave me those few minutes we chatted,
smiling.

[Virgil]

I haven't kept up with them all Prince, but this last one is very elegantly done. Really captures a moment.

[tractatus]

Nice idea PrinceMyshkin.

[Umbilical]

You're making me want shhhheeexxxx
is it your intention?
"...she gave me a smile
that was open on all sides..."
I wonder what association that has.

I enjoyed it very much!

[PrinceMyshkin]

You're making me want shhhheeexxxx
is it your intention?
"...she gave me a smile
that was open on all sides..."
I wonder what association that has.

I enjoyed it very much!

Assuming I understand correctly what "shhhheeexxxx" is, yeah, that was exactly my intention. And from now on, anytime I mention eggplant or sauerkraut or a whole lot of other things, you will think of "shhhheeexxxx," as in this well-known song:

Shhhheeexxxx is bustin' out all over!
The saplin's are bustin' out with sap!
Love hes found my brother, Junior,
And my sister's even loonier!
And my Ma is gettin' kittenish with Pap!
Sheeexxx in bustin' out all over

Because it's Shhhheeexxxx... Shhhheeexxxx, Shhhheeexxxx, Shhhheeexxxx
Just because it's Shhhheeexxxx, Shhhheeexxxx, Shhhheeexxxx!

Shhhheeexxxx is bustin' out all over
The ocean is full of Jacks and Jills,
With the little tail a-swishing'
Ev'ry lady fish is wishin'
That a male would come
And grab 'er by the gills!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Breakfast at "Beauty's"

A mother and her two young adult daughters
visiting from New Brunswick,
the young women oooh! and ahhh!
at everything in this historic ‘luncheonette.’

“Bagels!” Sesame-seed bagels
among bona-fide Montrealers
on rue Mont-Royal corner avenue du St. Urbain!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Marie

She might have been a young-looking 35.
I’d have preferred that
although, even at that age...
And there was something so quiet about her face
I almost found it forbidding.

Still, when she went outside for a cigarette
I followed her with my American Spirits
and asked if I might join her
for the length of a smoke.

She made place for me
on the concrete step
of the building next to the café
and I sat down and lit up.

We exchanged little pellets of conversation,
the sort that might have been the prelude
to anything
or nothing
then she re-entered the café to finish her lunch
and I moved over to one of the outdoor tables.

Soon after that she emerged,
nodded at the other chair and asked
if she might join me.
Of course, I said, hoping for no more
than a few minutes more pleasant conversation
or love at last.

When she left to go back to work
we embraced and, Quebec-style,
kissed each other on each cheek
and promised to look for each other there
some other time.

[Pendragon]

Marie

She might have been a young-looking 35.
I’d have preferred that
although, even at that age...
And there was something so quiet about her face
I almost found it forbidding.

Still, when she went outside for a cigarette
I followed her with my American Spirits
and asked if I might join her
for the length of a smoke.

She made place for me
on the concrete step
of the building next to the café
and I sat down and lit up.

We exchanged little pellets of conversation,
the sort that might have been the prelude
to anything
or nothing
then she re-entered the café to finish her lunch
and I moved over to one of the outdoor tables.

Soon after that she emerged,
nodded at the other chair and asked
if she might join me.
Of course, I said, hoping for no more
than a few minutes more pleasant conversation
or love at last.

When she left to go back to work
we embraced and, Quebec-style,
kissed each other on each cheek
and promised to look for each other there
some other time.

Encore! Encore!

[firefangled]

Two moments in time and you manage to make a movie I will have in my head all day if not longer.

And this...

Of course, I said, hoping for no more
than a few minutes more pleasant conversation
or love at last.

is the width and depth of it all.

[CdnReader]

I loved all of this, every line, every word. I was right there in the cafe and on the step, watching it all unfold, but especially this....

Of course, I said, hoping for no more
than a few minutes more pleasant conversation
or love at last.

....which nudged me (quietly) off my chair with its open, naked honesty, and made me want to weep (quietly) for more. More poetry, and more than conversation.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I loved all of this, every line, every word.

Um, what about the line breaks? the punctuation? the spelling?

Reminds me of Mary McCarthy's remark re Lillian Hellman's autobiography, that every word in it was a lie, including "the" and "a".