richfarrell

[richfarrell]

No title

I met Chet one evening coming from the library. I was using the space to write something, but it wasn’t working out. I ran away from the business and Saul and spent some hours wandering the museum then I tried to settle down in the library and write. But everything I did seemed pale, lame, crap. So I went to the bar a block away, had a drink. Then decided to go on the prowl like I used to. 

He was wearing a plaid red and white shirt and jeans. I’d seen him before when I met him with Saul the day my book got accepted. But now he looked sexier. 

[richfarrell]

I’ve always loved words. I wrote poetry when I was a kid. My brother used to make fun of me.

Winter, winter

How you glinter

With holidays’ array

And the snow

We all know

Is here all day.

It was a late afternoon just before sundown and the sky was intensely blue and intensely cold and you could see the stars already. For some reason, nobody was home when I came back, so I stood at the stamped enamel top kitchen table, dripping in my corduroys, and wrote that poem. 

I was a good kid but I was lonely and scared all the time. I was so desperate to find people like myself that I would look for them in the indexes of books under h. I eventually found them.

And the next thing you know, I moved to the city. I became the typical officer worker slash writer. I hated my job. I grew my hair long and started to wear sandals hoping they’d fire me. I wanted to stay home in my apartment and drink and write poems. I did that for a period. I loved it!

The apartment got fithy. And so did I. I’d go out only at nights to pick up guys. Then I found you. And we semi-settled down. You photographed me, I started jogging. We bought a place and loved each other. But that wasn’t enough for me. I don’t think you understood this. You were never my muse. You were... Saul. I loved you, but I wanted someone I could write poems to. During our marriage, I almost stopped writing. I felt stifled even though our place appeared in several magazines. 

Then I met Chet and left you in the lurch and moved in with him. He was shallow, and callow and I loved him too.

We did a lot of coke, I wrote a lot of poetry. The catering business was booming. A newspaper published a story of mine. I ran a marathon. I was on a roll. 

I remember the first time training. I didn’t realise how dark and narrow the streets of the city were until I got to the river and suddenly there was the river. The sky was the same colour as that twilight from my childhood. I’m running downtown and I make this bend, and out of nowhere, straight ahead was the first bridge, then the second bridge, one after another, and my earphones are playing Handel’s “Royal Fireworks Music”. It can’t get better than this. I’m running and I’m laughing and crying with gratitude. I came from the darkness into the light. I’m running and telling God I didn’t realise he was this big, this good, thank you Jesus, thank you, thank you....

The next morning I woke up with the flu and stayed at home for a couple of days and felt much better. But my throat stayed a little sore and my glands we swollen.

[richfarrell]

A dream

Had a dream about Mom and Dad again, back when we used to go camping and Dad would fish in the river. I’d catch tadpoles with a jar and collect rocks in a red bucket I always had. I loved Dad, but I was always closer to Mom. I remember making cakes with her. I think I got my love of cooking from just being in the kitchen with her, wearing her apron, that smelled of her jasmine perfume. We’d sift flour and fold in the ingredients gently. Some days she’d be tired and let me do the work for her, giving me the instructions. I never recovered from her death. And Dad and I never had a good relationship after it either. I blamed him. I think he blamed himself. It would have been nice to have another brother, yes, but not at the cost of my mother’s life. 

[richfarrell]

I sometimes like to indulge in this cocktail, one of my favorites. Here’s a recipe for The Judy Garland: http://www.acocktailrecipe.com/judy-garland/

[richfarrell]

Guys, here’s another version of the cover. I really like this one but Chet’s not sure. 

[richfarrell]

Spent the afternoon listening to my favorite opera! 

[richfarrell]

Guys, this is definitely an issue in the community!

[richfarrell]

Pied Beauty

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Glory be to God for dappled things –   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange;   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:                                Praise him.

[richfarrell]

The Afternoon Sun

BY C. P. CAVAFY

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY

This room, how well I know it.

Now they’re renting it, and the one next to it,

as offices. The whole house has become

an office building for agents, businessmen, companies.

This room, how familiar it is.

The couch was here, near the door,

a Turkish carpet in front of it.

Close by, the shelf with two yellow vases.

On the right—no, opposite—a wardrobe with a mirror.

In the middle the table where he wrote,

and the three big wicker chairs.

Beside the window the bed

where we made love so many times.

They must still be around somewhere, those old things.

Beside the window the bed;

the afternoon sun used to touch half of it.

. . . One afternoon at four o’clock we separated

for a week only. . . And then—

that week became forever.

[richfarrell]

Paul Cadmus was so brilliant! I’m a huge fan of his art, and have a few of his paintings.

[richfarrell]

Love this Paul Cadmus drawing.

[richfarrell]

I’m so excited about my book! I’ve already begun to design possible covers (it’s a small publisher so they have no budget and they’ll let me design it, I don’t mind because I’ve always loved art!). What do you guys think of this one?

[richfarrell]

The Music for the Royal Fireworks (HWV 351) is a suite for wind instruments composed by George Frideric Handel in 1749 for the fireworks in London's Green Park on 27 April 1749. It was to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) in 1748.

I love listening to this when I go jogging!