DISCLAIMER : I DO NOT OWN THESE CHARACTERS ..BUT LIKE AUTHOR OF -REUNIFICATION- I WOULDN'T MIND OWNING ERIC STOLTZ.
REVIEWS: PLEASE REVIEW ..FEEDBACK WOULD BE HELPFUL.I CAN TAKE CRITICISM AND OPEN TO SUGGESTION. FEEDBACK PLEASE !!! !! ANY IDEAS FOR AFTER EITT , CAUSE I HAVE A FEW BUT ALTERNATIVE IDEAS GOOD. READER PARTICIPATION GOOD.
CHAPTER SUMMARY: TIME BETWEEN GSA AND EITT. LEADING UP TO THAT BITTER GOODBYE ,HMMM BUT THERE NEVER WAS A REAL GOODBYE WAS THERE? ....APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW FOR ALL THE MUSICAL REFERENCES BUT WAS INFLUENCED BY GOO GOO DOLLS NEW CD GUTTERFLOWER.
EMAIL; jeanl2@sympatico.ca
A SHIP IN A BOTTLE
The poetry unit was almost concluded. Dimitri sat on his bed ,papers shattered around him. Black sheets, the room smells like the ocean. Piles of student "work" in unexpected places. Russell's essay on the book shelf balanced unstably on top Catch 22 and They Came to Baghdad. Alexa's paper in the bathroom on the counter near the mirror. And Grace's poem in his hand.
An empty classroom
A chair sits empty
but never vacant
the owner never leaves
I watch the chair
it belongs
Among the dust, the clutter, the chaos
a chair sits
Inanimate,cold,remote
same time warm
I try the chair
It fits.
He flipped through the page searching for the other one. It was there some place. Untitled.
An umbrella opens
Metal is cold and hard
but in this case it bends
A bearly perceptible click
Watch don't pinch the fingers
Safety,security,warmth
Danger
Lightning
Sparks
Metal on metal
Still you hold the umbrella
You have to hold the umbrella
A red umbrella waving in the wind
Isn't life a beach
Keep on the shades
Red marks, imperfections -blemishes the pen scribbled but still he thought as he smiled, her poems they made you smile and maybe that mattered somehow. They made you question but did they give the answers. He had asked them to pick an object as the focus, it had been more an exercise as an introduction to poetry then anything else. Before the romantic poets and the incomprehensible arrived. His mind went to her story, What You Need to Know. He thought about it more than he cared to admit. To be part of the creation of something was exciting and a long forgotten feeling. This exercise would have helped her he thought.
~************************~
Next day in class,Mr.Dimitri stood at the board. With chalk in one hand and with other running through his hair he wrote:
1. Identify the poem's situation
2. Articulate yourself what the title,subject and situation make you expect
3. Be willing to be surprised
4. Remember that poems exist in times and times change
5. Take a poem on its own terms
6. Argue
7. Assume there is a reason for everything
A.D- These are the points I suggest you keep in mind when either reading or critiquing a poem. Then at the same time throw them out. Make your own judgements.
It was quiet that day, pens on paper. That sound repeated twenty times over. The bell rang. After class Grace had stayed back.
G- Can I ask you something and you won't be totally offended.
D- [with raised eyebrows and hint of joke] I can try not to be, not totally anyway.
G- Why did you decide to write poems, you know ..over stories or even books. Is just odd you know [slight smile]. Was it the challenge.
He paused a moment before answering. He touched the cleft in his chin ,then lowered arm.
D- The thing that always drew me to poetry. I don't ...[he stopped] .That a poem can seem to suggest one thing at first then persuade you to its opposite.
G- You mean false leads.
D- No, I think I mean that with a poem, it's like you are alone out there with somebody else's feelings. Poetry is emotion. With a story the stage is set that there is a plot,characters and you grow with them. But poetry? Poems are not stories, but they could be the beginning,middle or end of one. With poems were not told what happened. All there is, is the expression of the emotion itself.
G- Does that mean that poetry is more truthful then the story.
D- [slight laugh, condensending? ] Truthful? I don't know. But it matters to a story. The poetry of a story can be the story. Have you ever read Chetkov? He said "bend the notebook in half and tear off the first half." And let what remains..the conversations, the actions tell the story. Don't always give everything away Grace.
G- And your poems?
D- I think I learned the hard way. Besides libraries are filled with failed ideas they don't need mine.
Lost in thought, he looked at her without seeing. She watched him.
D- You know you really should read Chetkov.
~**********************~
Parent Teacher interviews were that friday. Lily came right from the radio station. She had a list of things that need done and this was one of them. Most of the interviews were dull. The expected good student, pleasure and solid consistency remarks. Not unexpected. She met with Mr.Dimitri last. That morning Grace had asked her if she would be going and when she had said right away when school ended. Grace had offered to stay at school and wait , they would meet up there. Les would expect her back for six and she could stop at Booklovers on the way. Maybe Judy...
her head was filled with more thoughts and demands that needed attention. Walking through the hall towards the class she thought of cookies, Rick and research on depression. Too many callers called about that she really did need to study up. She entered the class. Grace was there waiting sitting on the edge of the desk. The interview didn't last long,much he same as the others. Lily remembered Mr.Dimitri from the play. He was better looking then she remembered she realized. Maybe it was the green shirt, or faint aroma of Tommy Hilfiger.
Grace had waited in the hall for the interview and as Lily moved to the door. She moved to meet her.
L- You ready to go sweetie. I can drop you at home then I have to go back to work..
G- But there's an alliance meeting tonight, I know I told you this morning and you said that...
L- I know but I didn't know I would need the car and I'm sure you can miss one meeting. Mr.Dimitri wouldn't -
August Dimitri had moved to the door. Ever so casually his arm resting on the door frame.
D- I'm actually done with interviews today, at least with all the parents that indicated they were coming. If Grace needs a ride-
L- You are an absolute Godsend [Lily smiled at him]
Dimitri shrugged. Smiling ackwardly.
~***************************~
Outside Grace and Dimitri started to walk towards his car. Lily driving towards them paused for a second. She smiled. It was such a relief, yes a relief she realized surprised. But a relief that what. That Grace had finally found that mentor? Maybe it was to realize that Grace, always so fearcly independant was after all human. She needed people and praise too. There was a vulnerability. Suddenly Lily felt very close to Grace. Are we ever all the things we try to make believe we are.
Lily pulled her car up alongside Dimitri's.
L- See you at home Grace.
G- Ok
L- Thank you again Mr.Dimitri.
She smiled and waved.
In the car Grace adjusted her seat belt. As the key turned in the ignition the radio came on. She leaned forward to turn up the radio. Upbeat, poignant.
"Now your world is way to fast
Nothings real and nothing lasts
And I'm aware
I'm in love and you don't care
Turn your anger into lust
I'm still hear but you don't trust at all
And I'll be waiting...
I'm torn in pieces
I'm blind and waiting for you
My heart is reeling
I'm blind and waiting for you
Still in love with all your sins
Where you stop and I begin
And I'll be waiting
Living like a house of fire
What you fear is your desire
It's hard to deal
I still love the way you feel
Now this angry little girl
Drowning in this petty world
Oh who you run to
Swallow all your bitter pills
That's what makes you beautiful
You're all or not
I don't know need what you ain't got...."
G- I've always loved the Goo Goo Dolls
D- I can't say I've ever heard of the Goo..
[ Grace laughed]
G- Well you should.
D- Then show me.
G- Show you? I'm not sure what---
The car was changing lanes. The turn signal came on.
D- We need to stop and pick up a few things. I hope that's ok. You know rabbit food and pellets for the guests, that kind of thing. Why don't you go check out the music store. If this cd is recommended then I mean clearly I need it. [He laughed]
What was he doing. Why had he offered her the ride. Why did he suggest that ? Was it so they wouldn't be seen together. No it couldn't be that after all what guilt was there, Lily -her mother had let her go. His head hurt and he couldn't stop talking. Was what he was saying making sense. He stopped, just in case.
Pulling into the mall parking lot Grace's own mind was reeling. I can't believe this is happening it. Actually to be there with him it was something she had never expected. Something so ordinary and yet. It was too prosaic ,too too normal? Normal. That word just didn't fit with her conception of August Dimitri. Mysterious it had always been. But suddenly there next to him it was almost like , they were a couple? She felt her cheeks getting hot, flush. God don't start grinning like an idiot. But try as you might a smile cannot be contained. The reality of the here and now.
~**********************~
After the meeting she put the cd on. While August did the dishes and straightened up the room and Grace sat on a stool at the kitchen counter working on her story, corrections, revisions - concentration- the music played. The first released single familiar from radio play came on. Slowly the music building ..
"You and I got something
But it's all and then it's nothing to me
And I got my defenses
When it comes to your intentions for me
And we wake up in the breakdown
Of the things we never thought we could be
I'm not the one who broke you
I'm not the one you should fear
What do you got to move you darling
I thought I lost you somewhere
But you where never really there at all
And I want to get free ,talk to me
I can feel you falling
And I wanted to be all you need
Somehow here is gone.."
~*************************~
That night when he got back after dropping Grace off ,he started searching. The place was a bachelors disaster. The front room he kept trying to paint but never finishing. Maybe at the end of the school year. Sometime. Three hours of looking finding forgotten pieces of himself. Long unlooked at documents,pictures- memories. All a part of himself. On the bookshelf, near his book his elbow touched dropping the ship in a bottle that had rested on his shelf (a gift from a friend on the coast) to the ground. Glass shattered. Finally he found what he was looking for.
He had bought the book in New York, in the eighties. He had gone there one summer way back when. Rented a basement apartment with pretentions at artist fulfillment of course. He laughed basement apartment. It was a real basement part cement part dirt floor. But it had a great tin ceiling and brick wall. In the heart of the Village and hey it was only $110.
It was an important book. It had been to him. And the giving of it had to be important, the work deserved that. Picking up the pen he opened the cover. What did he think of when he thought of Grace? What was the essence of Grace to him? He wrote.
for the girl with the loneliest eyes, Love Always August.
He read back what he had written. Was it too much. Maybe. But it was honest. The one thing he had tried so hard to find. Honesty mattered. He wanted to erase it banish it from the page and he couldn't. He couldn't move. He closed the book.
~*************************~
In another house- another place,the radio played. Elton John. Grace sat on the couch next to Zoe. They were laughing. It the background the music played on.
"It was carnival night and they're stringing the lights around you
Hanging paper angels, little devils on the roof
Oh the furnace wind is a flickering of wings bout your face
In a cloud of incense
God it smells like heaven in this place
chorus
I can't eat,can't sleep
Still I hunger when you look at me
That face, those eyes
All the sinful pleasures deep inside
Tell me how,you know now,the way ,the means of getting in underneath my skin
Oh you were all in my original sin
A dream is just a riddle goes from every corner of your life
Up in the balcony all the Romeos are bleeding for your hand
Blowing keyeta he says
Reciting lines they don't understand..."
REVIEWS: PLEASE REVIEW ..FEEDBACK WOULD BE HELPFUL.I CAN TAKE CRITICISM AND OPEN TO SUGGESTION. FEEDBACK PLEASE !!! !! ANY IDEAS FOR AFTER EITT , CAUSE I HAVE A FEW BUT ALTERNATIVE IDEAS GOOD. READER PARTICIPATION GOOD.
CHAPTER SUMMARY: TIME BETWEEN GSA AND EITT. LEADING UP TO THAT BITTER GOODBYE ,HMMM BUT THERE NEVER WAS A REAL GOODBYE WAS THERE? ....APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW FOR ALL THE MUSICAL REFERENCES BUT WAS INFLUENCED BY GOO GOO DOLLS NEW CD GUTTERFLOWER.
EMAIL; jeanl2@sympatico.ca
A SHIP IN A BOTTLE
The poetry unit was almost concluded. Dimitri sat on his bed ,papers shattered around him. Black sheets, the room smells like the ocean. Piles of student "work" in unexpected places. Russell's essay on the book shelf balanced unstably on top Catch 22 and They Came to Baghdad. Alexa's paper in the bathroom on the counter near the mirror. And Grace's poem in his hand.
An empty classroom
A chair sits empty
but never vacant
the owner never leaves
I watch the chair
it belongs
Among the dust, the clutter, the chaos
a chair sits
Inanimate,cold,remote
same time warm
I try the chair
It fits.
He flipped through the page searching for the other one. It was there some place. Untitled.
An umbrella opens
Metal is cold and hard
but in this case it bends
A bearly perceptible click
Watch don't pinch the fingers
Safety,security,warmth
Danger
Lightning
Sparks
Metal on metal
Still you hold the umbrella
You have to hold the umbrella
A red umbrella waving in the wind
Isn't life a beach
Keep on the shades
Red marks, imperfections -blemishes the pen scribbled but still he thought as he smiled, her poems they made you smile and maybe that mattered somehow. They made you question but did they give the answers. He had asked them to pick an object as the focus, it had been more an exercise as an introduction to poetry then anything else. Before the romantic poets and the incomprehensible arrived. His mind went to her story, What You Need to Know. He thought about it more than he cared to admit. To be part of the creation of something was exciting and a long forgotten feeling. This exercise would have helped her he thought.
~************************~
Next day in class,Mr.Dimitri stood at the board. With chalk in one hand and with other running through his hair he wrote:
1. Identify the poem's situation
2. Articulate yourself what the title,subject and situation make you expect
3. Be willing to be surprised
4. Remember that poems exist in times and times change
5. Take a poem on its own terms
6. Argue
7. Assume there is a reason for everything
A.D- These are the points I suggest you keep in mind when either reading or critiquing a poem. Then at the same time throw them out. Make your own judgements.
It was quiet that day, pens on paper. That sound repeated twenty times over. The bell rang. After class Grace had stayed back.
G- Can I ask you something and you won't be totally offended.
D- [with raised eyebrows and hint of joke] I can try not to be, not totally anyway.
G- Why did you decide to write poems, you know ..over stories or even books. Is just odd you know [slight smile]. Was it the challenge.
He paused a moment before answering. He touched the cleft in his chin ,then lowered arm.
D- The thing that always drew me to poetry. I don't ...[he stopped] .That a poem can seem to suggest one thing at first then persuade you to its opposite.
G- You mean false leads.
D- No, I think I mean that with a poem, it's like you are alone out there with somebody else's feelings. Poetry is emotion. With a story the stage is set that there is a plot,characters and you grow with them. But poetry? Poems are not stories, but they could be the beginning,middle or end of one. With poems were not told what happened. All there is, is the expression of the emotion itself.
G- Does that mean that poetry is more truthful then the story.
D- [slight laugh, condensending? ] Truthful? I don't know. But it matters to a story. The poetry of a story can be the story. Have you ever read Chetkov? He said "bend the notebook in half and tear off the first half." And let what remains..the conversations, the actions tell the story. Don't always give everything away Grace.
G- And your poems?
D- I think I learned the hard way. Besides libraries are filled with failed ideas they don't need mine.
Lost in thought, he looked at her without seeing. She watched him.
D- You know you really should read Chetkov.
~**********************~
Parent Teacher interviews were that friday. Lily came right from the radio station. She had a list of things that need done and this was one of them. Most of the interviews were dull. The expected good student, pleasure and solid consistency remarks. Not unexpected. She met with Mr.Dimitri last. That morning Grace had asked her if she would be going and when she had said right away when school ended. Grace had offered to stay at school and wait , they would meet up there. Les would expect her back for six and she could stop at Booklovers on the way. Maybe Judy...
her head was filled with more thoughts and demands that needed attention. Walking through the hall towards the class she thought of cookies, Rick and research on depression. Too many callers called about that she really did need to study up. She entered the class. Grace was there waiting sitting on the edge of the desk. The interview didn't last long,much he same as the others. Lily remembered Mr.Dimitri from the play. He was better looking then she remembered she realized. Maybe it was the green shirt, or faint aroma of Tommy Hilfiger.
Grace had waited in the hall for the interview and as Lily moved to the door. She moved to meet her.
L- You ready to go sweetie. I can drop you at home then I have to go back to work..
G- But there's an alliance meeting tonight, I know I told you this morning and you said that...
L- I know but I didn't know I would need the car and I'm sure you can miss one meeting. Mr.Dimitri wouldn't -
August Dimitri had moved to the door. Ever so casually his arm resting on the door frame.
D- I'm actually done with interviews today, at least with all the parents that indicated they were coming. If Grace needs a ride-
L- You are an absolute Godsend [Lily smiled at him]
Dimitri shrugged. Smiling ackwardly.
~***************************~
Outside Grace and Dimitri started to walk towards his car. Lily driving towards them paused for a second. She smiled. It was such a relief, yes a relief she realized surprised. But a relief that what. That Grace had finally found that mentor? Maybe it was to realize that Grace, always so fearcly independant was after all human. She needed people and praise too. There was a vulnerability. Suddenly Lily felt very close to Grace. Are we ever all the things we try to make believe we are.
Lily pulled her car up alongside Dimitri's.
L- See you at home Grace.
G- Ok
L- Thank you again Mr.Dimitri.
She smiled and waved.
In the car Grace adjusted her seat belt. As the key turned in the ignition the radio came on. She leaned forward to turn up the radio. Upbeat, poignant.
"Now your world is way to fast
Nothings real and nothing lasts
And I'm aware
I'm in love and you don't care
Turn your anger into lust
I'm still hear but you don't trust at all
And I'll be waiting...
I'm torn in pieces
I'm blind and waiting for you
My heart is reeling
I'm blind and waiting for you
Still in love with all your sins
Where you stop and I begin
And I'll be waiting
Living like a house of fire
What you fear is your desire
It's hard to deal
I still love the way you feel
Now this angry little girl
Drowning in this petty world
Oh who you run to
Swallow all your bitter pills
That's what makes you beautiful
You're all or not
I don't know need what you ain't got...."
G- I've always loved the Goo Goo Dolls
D- I can't say I've ever heard of the Goo..
[ Grace laughed]
G- Well you should.
D- Then show me.
G- Show you? I'm not sure what---
The car was changing lanes. The turn signal came on.
D- We need to stop and pick up a few things. I hope that's ok. You know rabbit food and pellets for the guests, that kind of thing. Why don't you go check out the music store. If this cd is recommended then I mean clearly I need it. [He laughed]
What was he doing. Why had he offered her the ride. Why did he suggest that ? Was it so they wouldn't be seen together. No it couldn't be that after all what guilt was there, Lily -her mother had let her go. His head hurt and he couldn't stop talking. Was what he was saying making sense. He stopped, just in case.
Pulling into the mall parking lot Grace's own mind was reeling. I can't believe this is happening it. Actually to be there with him it was something she had never expected. Something so ordinary and yet. It was too prosaic ,too too normal? Normal. That word just didn't fit with her conception of August Dimitri. Mysterious it had always been. But suddenly there next to him it was almost like , they were a couple? She felt her cheeks getting hot, flush. God don't start grinning like an idiot. But try as you might a smile cannot be contained. The reality of the here and now.
~**********************~
After the meeting she put the cd on. While August did the dishes and straightened up the room and Grace sat on a stool at the kitchen counter working on her story, corrections, revisions - concentration- the music played. The first released single familiar from radio play came on. Slowly the music building ..
"You and I got something
But it's all and then it's nothing to me
And I got my defenses
When it comes to your intentions for me
And we wake up in the breakdown
Of the things we never thought we could be
I'm not the one who broke you
I'm not the one you should fear
What do you got to move you darling
I thought I lost you somewhere
But you where never really there at all
And I want to get free ,talk to me
I can feel you falling
And I wanted to be all you need
Somehow here is gone.."
~*************************~
That night when he got back after dropping Grace off ,he started searching. The place was a bachelors disaster. The front room he kept trying to paint but never finishing. Maybe at the end of the school year. Sometime. Three hours of looking finding forgotten pieces of himself. Long unlooked at documents,pictures- memories. All a part of himself. On the bookshelf, near his book his elbow touched dropping the ship in a bottle that had rested on his shelf (a gift from a friend on the coast) to the ground. Glass shattered. Finally he found what he was looking for.
He had bought the book in New York, in the eighties. He had gone there one summer way back when. Rented a basement apartment with pretentions at artist fulfillment of course. He laughed basement apartment. It was a real basement part cement part dirt floor. But it had a great tin ceiling and brick wall. In the heart of the Village and hey it was only $110.
It was an important book. It had been to him. And the giving of it had to be important, the work deserved that. Picking up the pen he opened the cover. What did he think of when he thought of Grace? What was the essence of Grace to him? He wrote.
for the girl with the loneliest eyes, Love Always August.
He read back what he had written. Was it too much. Maybe. But it was honest. The one thing he had tried so hard to find. Honesty mattered. He wanted to erase it banish it from the page and he couldn't. He couldn't move. He closed the book.
~*************************~
In another house- another place,the radio played. Elton John. Grace sat on the couch next to Zoe. They were laughing. It the background the music played on.
"It was carnival night and they're stringing the lights around you
Hanging paper angels, little devils on the roof
Oh the furnace wind is a flickering of wings bout your face
In a cloud of incense
God it smells like heaven in this place
chorus
I can't eat,can't sleep
Still I hunger when you look at me
That face, those eyes
All the sinful pleasures deep inside
Tell me how,you know now,the way ,the means of getting in underneath my skin
Oh you were all in my original sin
A dream is just a riddle goes from every corner of your life
Up in the balcony all the Romeos are bleeding for your hand
Blowing keyeta he says
Reciting lines they don't understand..."