So I'm working on a play and I have absolutely no idea where it's going. It...well, I'm not going to give any disclaimers because HA no one reads this anyways! A secret treasure internet diary!

The Beginning: 

Obstructions: This play will have…a song, a resolution, a crazy adventure, at least two more well-crafted monologues, several recognizable popular figures.

 

The play begins with a classical ballet partner dance. Three figures, dressed in deep, rich colors (the colors we most often associate with love) weave in and around one another to a slow, sweet melody. This dance should look like the way love should be. There is lust, lingering, grief, and finally, sweet recognition. The dancers come to rest at one point in a tableau; the music halts abruptly. EDITH enters stage left, with JANE, her friend, in low light.

 

EDITH

I want to knock them down. Is this an unnatural impulse?

 

JANE

Hush. This looks like the way love should be.

 

EDITH

I know. And I hate you for saying that. What a clichéd, over-romanticized thing to say.

 

The dance continues immediately, the music is a little lower, Edith and Jane watch from stage left, huddled against the wings. LUCILLE and MARK enter stage right with no fanfare. The dance continues. In low light, the couple sort of rustle against one another. Lucille looks painfully bored. She yawns. Mark shoves against her. Lucille grins stupidly and the two begin a silly, inelegant game of footsie standing up. All as if watching the ballet.

 

JANE

Is that your mother?

 

EDITH

Where? (Lights come up sharply on Mark and Lucille, now nibbling at one another in a ridiculously flirtatious way. They rustle and make a lot of noise; mime as if they are disturbing other viewers and this doesn’t faze them at all. Jane and Edith start to watch this “dance” intensely. In the background, the real ballet ends, the dancers curtsy and bow, miming as if they see applause, and then they skip offstage. All focus is now on Lucille and Mark, who have just begun to kiss.)

 

JANE

Let’s go, Edie. (Jane moves to pull her transfixed friend away) Come on, babe.

 

EDITH

Look at her. She’s a sloppy kisser.

 

JANE

Edie.

 

EDITH

Tacky, too. I don’t think I could come up with anything tackier than making out during the Joffrey Ballet.

 

JANE

Sweetie….

 

EDITH

I don’t understand her.

 

JANE

Well, that’s how it is with parents, you know? They just…they fuck with you. And then they fuck up themselves.

 

EDITH

Everybody does that. I don’t think you have to be a parent.

 

JANE

Please, Edie, let’s go out tonight. I’ll buy you dinner. (Lights dim on Jane and Edie, who still stand rooted to the spot, and Lucille and Mark keep going. They move center stage and Edie and Jane exit into the shadows; they’re no longer at the ballet. Perhaps a few gestures to indicate fumbling with keys, or lying down, but suddenly the pair are undressing, making love in the center stage space. A few gestures mimic the dance from earlier)

 

MARK

God, you are so beautiful. Why me?

 

LUCILLE

No, no, no. Hush. (She kisses Mark)

 

MARK

Your skin is beautiful. Your eyes are beautiful. You’re soft.

 

LUCILLE

You had me at hello.

 

MARK

You look twenty-five. You really do. Not a day older.

 

LUCILLE

That’s a genetic secret. (She kisses him again) Please stop talking.

 

MARK

I want to write poetry about you. (Lucille visibly falters, but presses on. She mounts him. Grunting, snorting noises. Mark is an awkward partner, his pace is unsteady and his moans over-exuberant. Still, Lucille enjoys herself. They climax together. She rolls off of him, starts to pull her clothes over her head, checks her watch.) Lucy?

 

LUCILLE

I have to go make dinner. (She fluffs her hair, checks her appearance in a compact she pulls out her purse)

 

MARK

For your husband?

 

LUCILLE

(Her eyes sharpen) Yes. Yes, Mark, for my husband.

 

MARK

I’m jealous of your dinner, that’s all. (Beat) What will you make him?

 

LUCILLE

I don’t know. Thank you for the ballet. (She moves to leave)

 

MARK

You hated it.

 

LUCILLE

I didn’t hate it. I didn’t understand it.

 

MARK

You didn’t have to understand it. Did it make you feel anything?

 

LUCILLE

(Thinks for a moment) Horny.

 

MARK

That’s a childish answer. (She sharpens her gaze again)

 

LUCILLE

Don’t patronize me.

 

MARK

Baby I know you’re smart, I’m not patronizing you. I just…this is my…livelihood? Passion? Too trite. Art and love and the middle-ground they make. I think if you look you’ll find something to see. (He gesticulates, genuinely but overexuberantly, throughout this staggered speech)

 

LUCILLE

(Lucille holds Mark’s gaze for one moment. It’s etched in her face that she finds him a pitiable fool) Goodnight, Mark. (Lights down on Mark, Lucille gathers herself, smooths down the front of her suit, dials a number into a cell phone as she walks, in circles, around the space. While she walks the world changes: the sound of crickets builds slowly, twilight appears. A scrim lifts and we see the façade of one of those terrible, new age flimsy houses with a bad and hasty design) Honey? I’m late coming home from the office. Yes, I still love you. (She snaps off the phone and stops, pulls a grotesque looking mashed packet of cigarettes out of her purse, sits on the porch, breaks down. The door opens, MYSTIC enters and exits out to sit on the porch besides Lucille. She moves oddly and quietly, not entirely human, sits a few spots away from weeping Lucille)

 

MYSTIC

Do you believe in plagiarism?

 

LUCILLE

I’m not sorry.

 

MYSTIC

That’s not what I asked, my dear girl.

 

LUCILLE

You don’t even live here.

 

MYSTIC

I don’t live anywhere.

 

LUCILLE

Are you homeless?

 

MYSTIC

Why don’t you treat me like a diary? I will go away very soon, and no one will know me, and you’ll feel better.

 

LUCILLE

I feel fine. I’m not sorry.

 

MYSTIC

The worth of a man is not from his pitfalls but his prowess.

 

LUCILLE

…I’m sorry?

 

MYSTIC

Benjamin Franklin may or may not have said that.

 

LUCILLE

I think in words. I’m not sorry. I just wish I could have the sentences in my head, I wish I knew the reasons…(she’s exasperated, she stops. Sort of being silly, she pulls out three cigarettes from the mashed back, sticks them all in her mouth, and attempts to light them with a plastic Bic she pulls from her purse. Successful after a few tries, Lucille coughs maniacally. Her cigarettes create an enormous mass of smoke, an unreasonable amount of smoke. They engulf the Mystic. She disappears. Enter LARS from the house)

 

LARS

Lucy? Lucy? (Seeing her, she hastily stubs out her make-shift cigar thingamajig) Do you have any more of those? (Not waiting for a response) No, I’m just kidding. Don’t smoke. Edith has asthma.

 

 

LUCILLE

I know that. How was your day?

 

LARS

It was long. (Beat) Kevin wouldn’t let me leave until around six p.m today. Latest I’ve ever stayed, maybe, which isn’t so bad because I should stay till six every day—but there was an enormous brief due. Enormous. Make or break the company enormous. It wasn’t my responsibility but I did it anyways, I wrote this bad play. (Fumbling) I turned in that big, fat, sweaty brief.

 

LUCILLE

Did you take your medication today?

 

LARS

No, it’s just me. My character is slipping. I’ll do some focus exercises to get back into it. (Outward, to audience) I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to see this.

 

LUCILLE

It’s alright, they make mistakes, too. (As Lars in the background is launching into a very thorough and noisy vocal warm-up, Lucy calls to him over his din) I had a nice day at work. (Beat, noises from Lars) I fucked another man today. (Lars makes no notice of this, but keeps going on with his mad gesticulating) Jesus, you’re not doing it right! (Suddenly exasperated, Lucille hops up and rights Lars’ neck on his shoulders, faces him forward, repeats a few of his exercises) Now, keep going. I have shocked you. Respond accordingly.

 

LARS

(Breathing deeply, centering himself) I’m not surprised. I’m not sad. I don’t care if you tell me or not.

 

 

LUCILLE

Tell you what?

 

LARS

How big his dick is, how sweet his smile his, how endearing his poetry…

 

LUCILLE

I hate poetry. (She looks out at audience, suddenly jaded) They’re not even paying attention. What are you doing after this?

 

LARS

My daughter has a recital at school. (He finally finishes his warm-up. Looks out at audience tentatively, reassures himself he’s not being watched, eases down on the porch) She hates ballet, but Karen makes her do it anyways. I’m bringing her a basket of candy afterwards so she can eat it smugly in front of all the other anorexic twelve year olds.

 

LUCILLE

My mother made me do ballet, too. It’s something about mothers.

 

LARS

Grace, maybe? Karen says she wants her to be graceful.

 

LUCILLE

What, so she can snatch a husband later?

 

LARS

(hurt) No. So she won’t stumble as much, so she can walk around easy. I think she’s beautiful up there, anyways. I’ll let her play baseball, fuck it, she makes me proud whatever she does.

 

LUCILLE

Let her play baseball! Tatum O’Neal turned out alright. (Lars doesn’t get this reference)

 

LARS

Ha-ha. Did you hear that English actor died?

 

LUCILLE

How?

 

LARS

They say he took a bottle of something. To sleep. He was playing that awful…

 

LUCILLE

Don’t even tell me, I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been to go there—poor guy.

 

LARS

Poor guy. Go there. Funny, huh? (Simultaneously, both shade their eyes to the back of the theatre, nod as if listening, then suddenly perk up and go back to the top of the scene)

 

 

LUCILLE

Are you playing it weird this time?

 

LARS

How’s that?

 

LUCILLE

Do you know what I’m going to tell you, or are you oblivious?

 

LARS

(thinks for a moment) I think I know. But I’m a buffoon, right? I’m a fool?

 

LUCILLE

You’re definitely a buffoon. (The two give a botched secret handshake together, begin in their opening places) The mystic has just left.

 

LARS

Lucy? Lucy? (Entering again) Do you have any of those? No, I’m just kidding. (Oddly drawn out) Don’t smoke. Edith has asthma.

 

LUCILLE

(entirely different than before) I know. How was your day at work?

 

LARS

Oh, absolutely wretched. (He comes and sits beside her) I want to quit.

 

LUCILLE

You do?

 

LARS

I do.

 

LUCILLE

You can’t quit.

 

LARS

I know I can’t, I know I can’t. But soon, I hope to.

 

LUCILLE

We have to wait until Edith finishes her first year—

 

LARS

I know that. I’m not quitting. Forget I said anything. (Beat) Where is she?

 

LUCILLE

Who?

 

LARS

Edith?

 

(Beat. Someone has forgotten a line)

 

LUCILLE

Whoa, that was different.

 

LARS

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

 

LUCILLE

Is that…?

 

MYSTIC

(wandering upstage) Jonathan Swift. (Cackles mirthlessly, lights fade.)

 

 

This is Inspiring Me Tonight: (The Love Song, K-Os)

Contrary to popular belief, know what yo
This is not a lovesong
It's a sonnett
Damn if feels good to have people up on it but
I'm just a fool playing with the masters tools
Learning how to break the rules of this record company tool
Hallucination - I see with my eyes
But my heart's telling me lies
Why do I fantisize?
Why am I telling lies to the people from the stage
Pretending it's all good when inside it's fire and rage
Cuz I can't understand how a man lives off the life of another man
Tryin to pimp the universe - that's a joke
I stay rockin the boat down on my last note
It's murder she wrote
Assassination vocabulary
I see your termination is heavily necessary
I should have known - they do it for Forbes alone
I do it to break the walls if I fall off then let me know people

CHORUS
It's funny how life can go
First you ride high then you might lay low
Don't get high off your own supply
Someone said first before a fall comes pride
This is my message to the world
Just tryin to reach every boy and girl
Not tryin to say if it's right or wrong
This is just a love song

Lyrical optometrists with 20/20 vision
Are serving rhymes like my granny used to serve provisions
Chaotical amneotical fluid
The rap druid is fluent in the art of onomatopoeia
Metaphysical microscopic topic dropper
When I was a kid I wanted rollerskates and a bike chopper
But alas, pop, pop never thought to keep me in style
Thats why I'm schizophrenic now
So God bless the child that has his own
The harvest we reap is what we sow
Chrome microphone - shoot it
Towards a dome of computer digital clones that mimic philosopher stones
Sayin a style's their own when they bite like Mike Furounsville
The sounds ill
Relationship is a mirror
That you see yourself up in and the picture is clearer
Thats why I'm on the scene with a mike like Ernesto Guevara
Why I may exploit with lights like Geraldo Rivera, they just.

CHORUS(again)

It's easy not to care what people say
It's harder to pretend and try
Cuz they can only love you from yesterday
I'm looking at them now they pose high
I'm just a man who's walking
They stand around and keep talking
They tried to clip my wings
But wisdom fills so many things
Say it again
I'm just a man who's walking
They stand around and keep talking
They tried to clip my wings
But wisdom fills so many things

It's funny how life can go
Dont get high off your own supply
This is my message to the world...

Bolder

Listening to El Scorcho, feel like yelling into the attic air (which is sultry, unfortunately)

TAKE ME NOW and reciting poetry while everything happens FUCKING very quickly and very very...angrily and is all full of regret and mess and banging pots and pans and shrieks. It has been such a very long time.

I think you know what I'm talking about.

Wrote this at work while I ought to have been shoving moderately-priced "French" salads into the willing mouths of rich, doting Suburban Bethesdites who gladly assume that the entire waitstaff of Francophone Africans at La Madeleine are in some kind of Horatio Alger program, smiling, doting and wide-eyed when I say "It's my first day." But I am being harsh and predictable, this is not the point:

Breakfast:

we are background noise

you are evidence

dirty dishes

clinking forks (*cling-queen, hehehe)

characters in someone else's bio-flick, anecdotes, half-baked ideas

Smart Choices:

come in from the rain

shake water over ratty old china tea-cups

smooth wicker flesh

sand man.

drink me!

put me to your lips and sipppppp

we'll be damp from the outside, blind from the fog 

since we have such a lifetime, you and 

I suggest we twitch into infamy

endearing and chastising

no day, even, to waste-

let us imagine away disease and cockroaches

as we wait for a table

--picnic, lightning; moon, overture; timpani, tiramisu

Thought: The loneliest sound in the world is a solitary clinking fork.

Savoury Entrees:

I might predict the way you run your fingers over the smooth polygon of a dessert case. I might have, I ought to, have predicted, predilected, seen that coming. You'd be lusting after some sugar-glazed treasure, idle, bouncing on your toes for circulation purposes. Two eyes on the clock but still somehow enough gaze to spare for me--just outside your periphery. We grin together.

Should it, could I, does it shock you, you imagine, I write poetry, someone, you wish, someone, expect/imagine/is thinking you stand like a triangle, think like...someone in charge. 

I read in "Ballistics" by Billy Collins this whole poem centered around that quote by...someone...it says that poems are never finished, merely abandoned. I tend to agree. Also, if you have the book, you should read "Four Moons" because it's my favorite. Or, you know, just solicit me for no-strings-attached...artistic reckoning. 

Two Contrasting DRAFT Samples From My Ill-Fated "Write a Poem a Day!" Project:

RIDICULOUS:

I decided on your smile first from my elbows,

I liked it and liked it more as it crept up to my face 

LIKE a welcome caterpillar, spreading LIKE hot, poured lemonade, itchy LIKE a tweedy embrace

odd

silly

the other day someone told me that Tennessee Williams wrote compulsively--now isn't that funny?--and I just had, HAD, to say

for what it's worth...

you are better than sunshine because you don't end in the evenings, you could light up this whole city, you could set the opposition giggling, you could break everyone's heart, you could make a marshmallow explode with glee, you could give snow days and crisp dollar bills and cracked tea cups and dogs all a run for their money...

so why don't you? I'm watching.

MOROSE:

I think, I am pretty sure, that I have forgotten how you smell:

And sometimes, only sometimes,

At night mostly, or in crowded rooms, cinderblock stairwells,

this makes me think I no longer have a heart

You know those days when you feel funny? Want to confess everything to everyone about everything you know to be true, and shed your skin but walk out into the city streets and let them wrap their arms around you (assuming they will, I guess), and just bask is your newness and the strange way old fruits taste...now. All I can think about is music, and myself, and I wish I wasn't so self-involved but it's there, it's a gaping wound that won't close, a door that won't shut, the sun streaming in my windows like it always does, in the morning, while I'm trying to sleep, but it doesn't bother me anyways because I plan to sleep when I'm dead, I guess. Getting lost. So many people to tell "I love you" and so many secrets to keep and hands to hold. The world is so big, doesn't it ever just shock you?