Ron Padgett has a small book titled Poems I Guess I Wrote (2001), with poems that he does not remember writing. I just found these lines, which I guess I wrote, in a text file of odds and ends:
When? Why? I have no idea. Just fun with words.
[The sources: Ludwig Wittgestein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 7: “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” And William Butler Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”: “unless / Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing / For every tatter in its mortal dress.”]
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Something I guess I wrote
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comments: 5
Oh, wow, that's excellent.
The tatters in our mortal jeans.
Yes, indeed.
I guess all jeans are mortal. But Carhartts wear really, really well!
"Genes" are mortal too, although they may get passed down more times than a pair of old Carhartts.
I have a scrap of paper I've held onto for more than thirty years. I remember writing down the words, remember putting it in my folder of story ideas or phrases I wanted to use sometime. I had been mentally writing the beginning of a short story which I have forgotten. I keep this scrap of paper around as a reminder to write a few more words or at least the theme of the story.
The scrap is a section of an envelope's flap, aged and stained with tea. It contains three words: "...like Huck, he..."
That scrap, those words, nag at me every time I find it again. And will until the day I die!
@Chris: if the do jeans last longer, they’ll end up with someone else’s genes.
@The Crow: That sounds like a good exercise for a writing class: finish that sentence and see how many different ways it comes out. It reminds me of a lost novel by the poet David Schubert, which (I think) began, “Outside it was Tuesday.”
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