Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Heart prose


Jacob is a writer. (You know, Jacob. The short one, who plays the guitar really well. The one everyone likes.) From the first moment I stumbled upon his blog, his words wrapped themselves around my heart, and I was a hopeless case. Beautiful words enslave me. He writes things like this:

"Somehow Sara’s brown is more valuable to me than the choir-woman’s gold. But in either case I am hopeless. The separations are wide. They both dwell now in the core of the earth, and I am alone with one shovel starting on top of Everest in the stratosphere, breaking every couple of minutes short of breath and suffering in the cold. Time now to find someone else’s hair to die for."

And today, I found this gem on his NEW blog, which I had never before read:

"Today, Ted, the dog that lives with us, noses past my door and looks up at me on my bed. His ears look lank and stringy, hang down far past his head, moptop. He’s older than some of my books, but even though his cataracts are visible down in his eyes, the thing that grips you like death is the blackness of those eyes. They could bury you alive. He jumps up onto the bed and steps up to my face, and we look at one another, eye-level. 'I’m here,' he’s saying. 'What are you going to do about it?' He thinks we humans were placed on earth to scratch him behind the ears. Not much complaint is put up if we don’t, but you can sense his smug, righteous disappointment. 'You simply don’t understand. Infant.' I sometimes yell back in his face something about basic human freedoms being, like, way different and more important than basic dog freedoms, and his ruffled brow tells me how much of a dent I’m making."

My soul is eternally dented, Mr. Chapman, in the most delightful of ways. Marry me. Let's make a new universe and fill it with words and words and words. 

1 comment:

Petey said...

Shucks Liz. You always praizin' me. "Oh God I'd lay me down and die, if I could be as sweet as that to youuuu... Mah little Lizzy Louuuuu." Your "words words words" at the end evoked Hamlet, which was exciting, though no matter how much I love ambivalent Shakespeareans, I love you ever so much more. Thanks.

"nogers" was my word verificant.