#I’m not sure if I’ve just been Pavlov-ed but I feel like they are the perfect end to any Americanized chinese

[caterpillarinacave]

gonna be controversial on main panda express is pretty much mid

[immodestmussorgskyy]

hot chocolate

I pour one cup of milk into a small saucepan. 

It is cold, white as the moon, and sloshes around as I set the saucepan on the burner. It is purportedly lactose free. My stomach is a great lie detector when it comes to the lactose free-ness of things. 

 The burner putt-putt-putts to life and spits a small blue flame. I go about gathering the rest of the ingredients I need: cocoa powder, brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla extract, and salt. I have memorized my hot chocolate recipe by heart. It is one of the things that has not been lost to dissociation, absentmindedness, or time. 

It’s strange to look at the things my mind has decided to hold onto. Sentences of books I finished reading years ago. No shortage of song lyrics. Snippets of melody that play in my head over and over. The amount of lime juice to put into the dressing of my quinoa salad. But the hour-long calculus lesson I sat through? Or that really creative story idea? Not even a bit committed to memory. They gradually erode until they are just a vague shape in my mind-- do I remember what an integral even is? 

Little domes of cocoa powder, scooped and shaped by my trusty tablespoon, float on the surface like islands. The sugar sinks straight through it. It’s heavy. I stir my potion and watch the islands crumble and collapse into the white sea until the cocoa has lent its color to the milk. Little cays survive and swirl around my whisk, refusing to sink. They are stubborn. I toss in a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla extract and lean against the counter, waiting for it to heat up.

I think I have Pavlov-ed myself into wanting to write every time I make hot chocolate. It’s only natural; hot chocolate is the anchor that moors me to my desk, makes me feel like a movie character tapping away at a keyboard and sipping on a hot beverage. I even have a favorite mug I like to use. It’s small, black, and covered in the titles of banned books. BANNED is raised in relief on the center of the mug. It makes me feel like I’m a maverick, look at her, she’s drinking from a mug with banned books all over it, isn’t she a well-read rebel, she’s into classic literature, ooh, ahh. Nevermind the fact that I have not read a single book listed on this mug. No, not even Les Mis. I’m a poser, I know. 

The foam begins to shiver on top of the milk, which is how I know it’s time to take it off the heat. I pour the hot chocolate into my mug through a sieve-- gotta catch those little stragglers of cocoa, or it’ll be lumpy-- and toss things into the sink to wash. I know exactly how full the cup will be when I pour my hot chocolate into it, every time. It is a tiny, satisfying piece of my life that is both predictable and exciting. 

The sponge smells weird. I scrub things in the stream of tepid water as fast as I can (or my drink will get cold, and there’s nothing more disappointing than that), set my drink-making instruments all on the rack to dry, and then make a tactical retreat to my bedroom. I don’t bother with the marshmallows this time. We don’t have mini marshmallows and I don’t feel like butchering a jumbo marshmallow into little drinkable pieces. I don’t think it even adds anything to the flavor and it means I’ll have to bring up a spoon to stir with. No thank you. 

I kick my door shut and it rewards me with a half-inch long splinter driven straight through the skin of my foot. Ouch. The powers that be really don’t want me to have a nice, peaceful, quiet night of writing, huh?

The fairy lights are on, casting a comforting warm glow over every inch of my crowded, messy room, and I feel myself deflate as I sit down in my chair and set my drink on the desk. There are many things I would change about my room. My desk is one of them. It’s not so much a desk as it is a huge, decommissioned drawing table that has lost bits and pieces of itself over time. It’s a sickly shade of lime green and spattered on every inch of its surface with ink and paint. It’s endearing and familiar and I love it, in a way, but would it make me a better writer if I had a sleek, dark, handsome desk with a million drawers and an extending surface? It sure would make me feel more professional. 

There is an idea of who I want to be buried under layers and layers of introspection, self-doubt, and embarrassment. She’s a writer, a successful one, and a painter too. She plays cello every night and she’s amazing at it. She wears trendy hipster togs like vintage mom jeans and black turtlenecks. She has those Doc Martens Leona boots that I’ve been eyeing for months now. She has a minimalist workspace with a cool gooseneck lamp and a little black bookshelf full of her favorite novels. She knows how to use Paint Tool SAI. And she speaks like a lawyer, sure and confident, with an excellent vocabulary. Need I go on?

But then there is me. Just me, normal me, who often doesn’t have the energy to put on anything more than sweatpants and a fleece in the morning. Just me, who lives in perpetual mess, who says cringey things all the time, who can’t summon the motivation to sit down and write or draw or play music. Me, fallible and human, severely lacking in hot leather boots. 

The hot chocolate feels warm in my belly. I sit beside the idea of myself and think, “She would love me, too.”

[daegunotes]

hold me by the heart || {2.5}

What: BTS Fic Genre: Angst Pairing: Min Yoongi x Reader + Jung Hoseok Words: 2k+

I’m a hoe for feedback so if there was something you liked about this series or something you hated, something you’d like to discuss, send me a message!!! You will have my heart foreverrrr

You’ve been seperated from Yoongi for 3 months, but fate keeps throwing the two of you in each other’s paths. Even when you’re not aware.

Chapter 1 - x Chapter 2 - x

Suggested Listening: Happier - Ed Sheeran

Yoongi sighed as he made to get up, when Slow Rabbit was dedicated to something, he was immovable. Whether it was in music or in personal life. If he had said 15 mins, he would be here in 13, it would be best to hurry.

Yoongi opened his closet to grab at the nearest clean piece of clothing. It was grey shirt, a dark palette much like 90% of his wardrobe. Much like 100% of his life. Bright colours repelled him, he physically ran in the other direction if accosted with fluorescents or any shade of VIBGYOR.

Slipping his head through the neck, his eyes caught sight of a tiny speck of royal blue peeking out of a forgotten corner of his closet. After lowering the shirt rest of the way, he pulled at the offensive piece of clothing. It was a tie, a very nice one at that.

It’s as if he’d been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog because the sight of the tie brought back a set of memories that he was sure he had buried deep under layers of regret and hate.

“Yoongiiii-babe- please just one tie, it’s not even that colourful, look it’s a blue, a royal blueee oooohhhh.”

“Don’t think you can get your way just because you’re using that voice - stop with the big puppy eyes, I’m not budging.”

“Pleaseeeee- for me, I already bought it look at how pretty it is, look how it shines in the light! It’s real silk!”

“First, why did you buy such an expensive tie? Second, where would I possibly wear this? Do you see a pair of sweatpants that the tie would go with?”

“Fine ugh you ruined it. I’ve set up a meeting between you and a few venture capitalists that are very interested in DaeguBeats, they are Big Money so I thought maybe you could crank up that devilish charm in some good clothes. Now hurry, we also have an appointment at the tailors…”

“You really like rubbing this ‘I have my shit together’ thing in my face don’t you?” “Forever and always….”

The memories faded like the sound of your laughter as you left the room.

Yoongi crumpled the tie in his hand and was ready to throw it away in the depths of his trashcan, but somehow his hand seemed to disobey its owner and refused to move. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his free hand, deciding to chuck the tie into a deeper part of his closet, fervently praying that that was the last he saw of it.

He was at the door of his loft when Slow Rabbit texted to tell him that he was waiting for him downstairs.

Yoongi climbed down the 2 flights of stairs to the main lobby. He walked towards the exit and realised it was pouring. “Great.” Yoongi cursed under his breath and opened the door to quickly climb into the SUV parked in front of the gates.

As the door opened, the first thing he spotted was her, full face of makeup and dressed to the nines. She looked amazing he couldn’t deny, but the anger that bubbled in his heart because of her just increased. “I’m glad you decided to join us Grumpy. Sun-mi was so upset when you said you wouldn’t come. Look at how her mood changed now.” Slow Rabbit said in a cheerful voice from the driver’s seat while PDogg sat beside him and chuckled knowingly.

“Can we just go get drunk?” Yoongi said in a low growl, silently swatting away the hand Sun-mi was trying to creep up his thigh. Clearly his abstinence pledge was going to have to be martyred today.

“That’s my boy!!” Slow rabbit said as he put the car into gear and sped off in the rain, towards their favourite watering hole.

“Aaahh the old faithful! Oh how I love thee, please never change!” Slow Rabbit said as he inhaled his beer, letting out a loud and unapologetic burp right after

“If you gave a woman, half the love you have in your heart for this goddamn pub, you’d be a married man by now.”  PDogg said with humorous distaste on his face.

“Find me a woman that can provide me with cheap ass beer and excellent but questionable snacks, then we’ll talk.” Slow Rabbit replied without missing a beat.

The entire table erupted in laughter and even the sullen Yoongi managed to crack a smile. Being out in a loud group wasn’t his thing but he owed a lot to the people at the table and they were one of the very few people in this world, for whom he would make an effort.

“I’ll get the next round” Yoongi declared, he had to get away from the raucous crowd. “About time CEO! Stop being a cheap asshole.” PDogg slurred and then laughed heartily at his own quip.

“I’ll come with you, you can’t carry all of it alone.” Sun-mi said to Yoongi, her tone dripping with insinuations. “No thanks, it’s your night. You sit here and enjoy. I’ll be right back.” he replied curtly.

Yoongi made his way through the crowd and towards the bar. He could navigate this path with his eyes closed, maybe he needed to spend some time outside the pub.

He waited as Hyun-jae, his friend and the owner-bartender of the pub went around the back to grab their usual order. His head did a sweep around the pub half concentrated, half distracted. It was the usual crowd of regulars. He caught a familiar swish of hair whip past the main doors and his head whipped in that direction.

It couldn’t be. Yoongi could’ve sworn that he saw your caramel-brown head of hair rush inside from the rain into the pub. He blinked a few times and you were nowhere to be seen. Must have been a trick of the light. It wasn’t the first time he’d imagined you in places where there was no trace of you. Places like his bed and his arms.

He turned back to the bar as he heard Hyun-jae’s voice. “Here you go Hotshot. This one’s on the house. I heard the good news. I’m proud of you boy.” the bartender exclaimed proudly giving Yoongi a few congratulatory thumps on his back.

“Thanks hyung, I really appreciate it.” he replied politely as he picked up the drinks and returned to his table.

“The prodigal son returns! And he’s armed with drinks!” Slow Rabbit all but yelled as he saw Yoongi approach the table with a tray of shots.

“Yeah drink up guys. This is the last night of partying. It’s back to the grind tomorrow.” Yoongi said in a mock stern voice as he sat back down in the booth.

“Yes boss! You heard him boys, drink up!” Slow Rabbit yelled again clearly not willing not lower his volume.

Yoongi smiled a hollow smile and lowered his head towards the half empty bottle of beer in front of him. He took a swig from it when a painfully familiar sound hit his ears. It was the sound that plagued his dreams, the one that he couldn’t get stop thinking about during quiet nights alone.

The sound of your laughter.

He immediately looked up to search for the source when his eyes fell on you. There you were, a vision in gold and white, you were wearing one of his favourite dresses of yours, “The Goddess” dress he had oft called it.

You were sitting a mixed crowd of people Yoongi didn’t recognise, throwing your head back in laughter like you often did in the good times. Before he realised, Yoongi was smiling too, your laughter always had that effect on him. It was unconscious but his actions began mirroring yours until his eyes fell on the reason of your laughter.

The same man who was in your apartment that night was making you laugh with his antics. The smile on Yoongi’s face quickly faded and his eyebrows knitted together in a frown. He couldn’t believe that someone else was making you laugh like that. Was it childish of him to expect you to as sullen and broken as him? Absolutely. That didn’t change the fact that seeing you laugh so unabashedly with another man, felt like a several punches to his gut.

He looked away slowly, in case you turned your gaze and caught him staring at you. He needed more drinks, yup that was the answer. Getting up slowly he dragged his ass back up to the bar and motioned to Hyun-jae and asked for 4 shots of his cheapest vodka.

Hungry for the oblivion that lay within the depths of the shot glasses, Yoongi downed the 4 shots feral, hissing every time the harsh liquid burned his throat. This was good, he need to feel this sensation. He needed to forget.

Considerably more inebriated, Yoongi stumbled on back to his booth, ignoring the questions his friends threw at him. His eyes ran over the room again till they came upon the subject of their search. You were smiling softly now, talking to some girl who sat beside you. “Good, the bastard’s gone.” Yoongi’s thoughts said. The delight was short lived however as the aforementioned bastard returned right away with some drinks in his hand.

Yoongi snorted as he saw the man passing out drinks, he knew you only drank premium beer and there wasn’t anything remotely close to that on the man’s tray. The man handed you a glass of what Yoongi assumed was coke. You took the glass from him with a grateful look on your face and the most beautiful of smiles. Something was wrong and it nagged at Yoongi, you loved your drink and could drink most adult men under the table. What had changed?

As several scenarios ran through his head, Yoongi didn’t realise that he was blatantly staring at the group that included you.

Hoseok turned his head to catch Yoongi staring at them and realization dawned in his eyes. He turned back to you and made sure that Yoongi caught the arm he slipped around you. As you instinctively leaned into him, Hoseok started slowly rubbing his hand up and down the length of your arm.

This tender scene was too much for Yoongi to watch without emptying the contents of his stomach, so he turned away. His eyes began to sting and he knew it was going to be one of those nights.

Yoongi quickly took his leave of the group who weren’t happy with his sudden desire to leave. “Sorry guys, not feeling to hot. Going to call it a night. I’ll see all of you tomorrow.” he said while gathering his hoodie off the chair.

Walking hurriedly towards the exit, he couldn’t help but steal another glance in your direction. You were laughing again and the laughter pricked at the young man’s heart.

He made his way out of the pub and into the rain, “Fuck I forgot.” he cursed at himself for being so hasty, he had no protection against the rain save for his light hoodie.

“Don’t worry, Yoongi oppa, I have an umbrella, we can share it.” a sickly sweet voice called out behind me and Yoongi felt his toes curl. The urge to break out into an Olympics worthy run had never been stronger.

“Listen Sun-mi, I’m going to say this for the last time. What happened was a mistake. IT. WILL. NEVER. HAPPEN. AGAIN. This” he said as he waved a hand between the two of them, “is not something that will happen. You’re really talented and I respect you a lot, as an artist. But that is it. Never has been more, never will be. Stop wasting your time on me.” Yoongi said with finality hoping that the young ingenue got the the message.

“I knew you’d be like this when I first started liking you, I’ll wait. You’ll come around to me don’t worry.” Sun-mi replied cheerfully and turned back to head inside the pub again.

“Fuck I need to get out of this town.” he said towards her retreating figure.

As he half-jogged half-ran towards the nearest bus stop, words kept forming in his mind. With the wind and rain beating down on him, his brain was working in overdrive. The words kept coming to him, as if pleading to be let out into the world.

He finally reached the bus stop which provided much needed shelter from the rain. Quickly taking out his phone, he wrote down the words that were threatening to consume him whole.

“오직 너 하나만 보여 나 오직 너 밖엔 안보여 봐 공정하지 공평하지 너한테 빼곤 다 이젠 단 하루도 너 없이는”

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

How Clark sees the writing process

Clark Allison

Born 1961 Glasgow. Attended Glasgow University 80-81. Resident in California 83-92. Studied further at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Took up library studies at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen 93-98. In continuing education in Aberdeen 2000s. Moved to West Lothian 2015. Publications include two pamphlets ‘Temporal Shift/Daubs’ (Trombone Pr 98), ‘Unspoken’ (Smallminded Books 17). Reviews and poems in Shearsman, Robert Sheppard’s Pages blog, Tears in the Fence, Stride particularly. More limited work experience, though trained in librarianship. Continuing regardless with periodic reading/studying and a varying amount of writing.

Links

Stride stridemagazine.blogspot.com/

and archive https://www.stridebooks.co.uk/archive.htm

Shearsman www.shearsman.com

Robert Sheppard Pages robertsheppard.blogspot.com/

Tears in the Fence https://tearsinthefence.com

The Interview

1.What inspired you to write poetry?

I might prefer a term like ‘persuaded’ or ‘conduced’, since I didn’t have to write. However, I put a lot of it down to social adjustment, and how one chooses to think or behave. The short version would have to cite the anthology ‘Poetry 1900-75’ (Longman 80) ed George MacBeth, which was read and studied in high school, including such poets as Eliot, Yeats and Edwin Muir (no MacDiarmid incidentally).

Having become acquainted with poetry especially in high school, but also essay writing generally, I took it upon myself to continue with a significant amount of reading and writing after I left high school. I wanted to, and did read more by Eliot, including a biography of his early years by Lyndall Gordon. I thought Prufrock and The Wasteland set the bar for short form poems, real set pieces, other instances being Olson’s ‘Kingfishers’ or Apollinaire’s ‘Zone’, though this type of poem is actually quite rare, and maybe even ill advised! And yet equally I’m altogether out of the kind of class consciousness Eliot presented or inhabited, my parents were not well to do, it was a sense for me of being inspired by the writing.

I did write poems after high school. These were decidedly not modelled on Eliot, nor really on anybody else particularly. I’d say my earlier poems were much more influenced by what I might term phenomenology or psychoanalytic association, since I was, equally, very interested in psychology, not at high school, but at university. I thought poems might engage, express and reveal what happened to be going on in my mind, but these were uses of language, too. I was getting a kind of ‘subjective’ orientation from psychology and an ‘objective’ one from Eliot, but I really wasn’t writing poems of that kind. I took up more of his critical ideas fairly seriously, the ‘objective correlative’ and the ‘dissociation of sensibility’, notably. My awareness of behaviourist social conditioning psychology (Pavlov, Skinner etc) had quite an effect, the stimulus-response school.

So, one could either write for an audience, wherein I just didn’t have one. Or one could write as an inquiry into self awareness via language, which is what I found myself doing.

Who introduced you to poetry?

Well, this goes back to the first question, that was high school English classes and mainly the MacBeth anthology. We studied Shakespeare too, ‘Lord of the Flies’, Grassic Gibbon. Memorable teaching sessions included whether The Beatles ‘She’s Leaving Home’ counted as poetry; and whether John Cage’s ‘4’33” counted as music or art of any description. I think I was early on struck by the seeming inconsequentiality of writing much. But what I called my writing exercises and reading material continued on, even after I left Scotland in 1983 for the US (until 1992). I really wasn’t sharing my writing much at this time. I found one small magazine called ‘Outposts’ that looked promising and John Calder’s ‘New Writing’ series, but I never took to sending them anything, ie where would that get me anyway?

3.How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Well, part of this was that I didn’t encounter any poets in person. On the other hand we did have a lecturer in film studies who had published a new book, John Caughie ‘Theories of Authorship’, and he was very engaging and down to earth, while warning us that some of the film/social studies theory was difficult.

The key poets for me, Eliot and Yeats, were long gone. In terms of successors to them, I wasn’t really coming up with a lot. I went off to the States and found that they were much more interested in Pound and Olson rather than Eliot, too Anglophile, likely. In Los Angeles, where I lived, I did encounter Holly Prado’s writing group in person. She’s a fine poet I think, married to Harry Northup an actor and fellow poet, published by Bill Mohr’s Momentum press, and I think I gained a lot from her seminars. She was unintimidating. One felt mostly an invitation to try to comprehend the process, which for her certainly included classical myth like Orphism and Thoth (kind of the Egyptian Hermes) and a kind of sensibility question where one would be taking off from certain themes, eg Robert Bly and masculinity. Holly Prado has a wonderful essentialist work called ‘Word Rituals’ (Boxcar 2). Meanwhile I was if anything more interested in the journals Temblor (ed Leland Hickman) and Sulfur (ed Clayton Eshleman), to whom I submitted but was not published. Hickman encouraged me to send work on, even though as it turned out he didn’t use it, and there was a short correspondence. Paul Vangelisti who had been in Temblor was also running seminars, but I felt it beyond me, and not altogether reasonable, to attend both.

I also submitted work to Barrett Watten at ‘Poetics Journal’ (co-ed Lyn Hejinian) and James Sherry at Roof publishers, which they did not use, but were considerate and respectful in responding. I continued writing exercises on my own account, feeling it, as I said, possibly revelatory or therapeutic, part of the process of getting through things. Reading Kerouac and Burroughs helped a little too. But I had little cognisance of any eventual reader.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I effectively don’t have one. I try to set aside time for writing, and try to write down anything halfway important that pops into my head. My appetite for writing exercises has reduced, whereas I might formerly write 3 pages a week, now it might be less than one even. I guess I try to establish where it fits in in terms of psychological need. I don’t set a quota.

5. What motivates you to write?

I guess this is back to the psychology. I’d maintain there is a revelatory aspect to writing, ie going through the act of doing writing changes something and it can be personally enlightening and perhaps socially too if you share your work. It might be a bit like thinking and feeling out loud. Write it down! even if for personal reference.

6. What is your work ethic?

I studied continuing education philosophy. Ethics is exceedingly complicated. More than anything I’m a bit of a Darwinian, ie the survival and preservation of the self and of those others in the collective you happen to identify with. Compared say with crop failure and starvation writing poetry can seem like very small beer. On the other hand writing creativity can be inculcated in the education process. Writing surely has an ethics if we seem to mostly be disagreeing just what that is. Art for art’s sake has an argument behind it, but does not seem to me fully defensible, but then neither is Soviet style social realism..

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Here I could perhaps mention that there were a few writers very relevant for me early on, and they still are. All that has happened is that some of my more youthful enthusiasms have worn out to an extent, so that I’ve diverted attention more latterly to such poets as Charles Bernstein, DuPlessis, Silliman and Nathaniel Tarn. I think that High Modernism is on the wane, and we’re diverting more attention back to the Romantic poets like Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley etc. Ah, did ‘Ancient Mariner’ in high school, but I don’t think it’s at all Coleridge’s best; I look more to the ‘Biographia Literaria’. I think accepting the claims of new writers is a cause for some perplexity; they have to persuade and convince, always that problem of the primacy of first acquaintance.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

This overflows from the last one. One could get quite caught up in a long list. Trying to keep it short. Among contemporaries, usually older, I would include people like Bernstein, who’s a bit of a spokesman for the Language school, Silliman, Bruce Andrews, DuPlessis, Hejinian, in Britain more ‘innovative’ poets like Robert Sheppard, Maggie O’Sullivan, who actually I struggle with, Ken Edwards, Denise Riley, Peter Riley (no relation as he keeps saying), Prynne, Wilkinson, Drew Milne, Andrew Duncan, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk, Rupert Loydell, Martin Stannard, Charlie Baylis, Allen Fisher, Rod Mengham, David Rushmer, Kenneth Goldsmith (the Conceptual school), another struggler for me Vahni Capildeo, also poets in translation, but there it tends to thin out, Raul Zurita etc or Zizek’s latest pronouncements on theory and crit.

What I admire most is a sympathy with the innovative and progressive, and addressing writing to the realities that confront us today. However, I don’t think we have to be loud or confrontational, a lot of what’s effective comes out of the words themselves.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

Well, everything in a sense surely comes down to communication and behaviour, of which communication is a part. Communication can take numerous forms, and indeed many writers now are trying to experiment with other artforms besides, like installations or video etc. I just regard writing essentially as part and parcel of communicating., and that includes the likes of social theory, in which I’m also very interested (eg structuralism, Frankfurt School, narratology etc).

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Here I think early education is very important, preschool and primary school included, literacy. Where you have a certain fluency with words it becomes a possibility. But it ties in with motivation. What do you want to do, or achieve? What are your better skills? What is the best use of your time?

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

Here it becomes a bit indeterminate. I’ve just had a few book reviews posted or due to appear online, of writing by Wilkinson, Richard Gwyn and Vicente Huidobro. There may be some more poems, but I have to say the muse is not entirely with me at present. I seem to have gotten into a pattern of writing responsively to other things I’ve read. I like Terry Eagleton’s phrase, ‘hope without optimism’.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Clark Allison Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.