F**k Paradise

Man, I don’t know. It’s been a s**t week, full of broken toes and a dead f*****g rabbit. Don’t ask me to explain. I feel lost and disconnected. Not that long ago everything was in freefall and it has both stabilized and gotten worse. I’m at the edge of the rabbit hole. I’m standing at the top of the mountain with blank stone tablets. I’m making myself of clay finding life where there shouldn’t be any.

I wish I could explain. Maybe it was the break up of the blues band. I had a lot invested there. A fuckload. I loved the music, and I loved what we had going. My brothers. And when Jake took off blaming me it struck something inside and broke it. Bands, I’m discovering, happen like tides. They ebb, they flow, they receed, and sometimes they drown your a*s. I’m drowning in a sense. I’m poisoning myself nightly which really clashes with my Buddhist beliefs. I’m choking on the spring because everything is flesh and I am bone. Do you get it? Do you dig? There is want in every angle of my vision and yet no fire.

I’m stripped and I’m afraid everyone can see it.

I’m worried about Drake. Something tells me I should be worried. Probably the same thing that tells me I should give a f**k. Never met. Yet I feel I’ve known him all along. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe that’s what’s down. Maybe I give a f**k in a world that doesn’t. Maybe I should just allow myself to give in. To give over. To light the cigarette I still crave every f*****g day. To make that call I’ve never made because no matter how much I’ve tried I can’t get the number.

Yeah. That’s it.

I spend my drunken nights flipped through my nostalgia. I feel I’m old enough to care and young enough to realize I’m old. There’s a break in vision while I flip through photos that aren’t my own. She makes me write because there’s no other way I can touch her. Let’s face it. Even that doesn’t work. But it doesn’t keep me from trying. I guess I’m a liar in a cheater’s mask. It’s free form hell. Like reading Ginsberg while on psyilocybin, treed by a f*****g cow. F**k Paradise.

Why do I feel there’s a direction I should be going? Why do I feel I can’t go? Why is there that shadow that dances just beyond where I’m willing to go? Just beyond the bounds of my own moral forest? If I could just do it. If I could just make a call to that unknown number... what world would I create? Nothing. Maybe. Paradise. F**k Paradise.

Reviews

[Emily Rose]

Somehow I get the sense that you're holding back. This is clearly a poem that's holding its breath. Waiting. The whole thing seems to be teetering on the brink of some unseen edge - I get the feeling it's more disconnected than you're letting on since somehow it feels connected despite how often your thoughts skip around. That's normal, too, in a stream-of-consciousness poem. Great choice, using prose poetry, by the way: I personally find it ridiculously hard to write since mine always comes out sounding too much like prose, but you did it incredibly well, using just the right amount of description to shade your meanings and broadcasting your thoughts in what seems to be an open manner, even though so much of this seems closed off.

I love the references in the beginning, particularly "I'm making myself of clay finding life where there shouldn't be any" (although that could just be my Adam and Eve obsession kicking in). They give it a weird sense of balance even though your tone is so unbalanced - you give us references to cling to, to ground us while the ground itself slips from under our feet.

I can actually relate to some of it, too - bands are hard to lose, especially close ones. They're like your family (or in some cases, they ARE your family) and it's hard to see them go. Strange how we value the criticism or praise of some people more than others, like it's more important coming from someone we love and respect. It hurts us more when they chataise us; it elates us more when they compliment us. That's what I thought of in your second stanza.

As personal as it is, though, there's a bigger message too. While you question the existence of Paradise your readers are forced to question it too. Do we believe our senses? Should we? It raises a lot of great questions that are hard to face and impossible to answer. Well done, and hang in there.

[Lee E. Powell]

WOW, There is so much about this that i like.
"They ebb, they flow, they receed, and sometimes they drown your a*s."
"There is want in every angle of my vision and yet no fire."

I wish i knew how to write a review, but honestly i suck at it. But you do so well at describing the dark side of music!!

[Satine]

I agree with Emily Rose, there is a dull edge here that the write seems to teeter on beginning with the line;

"I feel lost and disconnected."

from this point on all the kick-a*s lines only confirm this feeling almost as if the author really wants to f*****g explode all over the page but then doesn't...I guess I'm looking for more anger, razor-edge rage as the piece unfolds...I mean there is a glimmer here and there such as this bit in the Drake stanza;

"Maybe I give a f**k in a world that doesn't. Maybe I should just allow myself to give in. To give over. To light the cigarette I still crave every f*****g day."

That's what I'm talking about! But then you're back to feeling lost and disconnected again within the lines that follow, until at least this last bit which would ALMOST be perfection;

"If I could just make a call to that unknown number... what world would I create? Nothing. Maybe. Paradise. F**k Paradise."

But I think the use of "F**k Paradise" earlier in this piece as well as it's also the title prevented the phrase from knocking my socks off...

There you have it...lol...or not

Mad Respect,

Satine

[Jessica J]

There is want in every angle of my vision and yet no fire.

I love that line...and connect with it wholly. I find it so interesting that even though we as people rarely meet, we can have the same exact feelings. The free-form of this is exactly how I would like to write someday...Breathtaking and brilliant. Thank you for sharing!

[Gandré]

this society is fragmenting itself. I saw it.
great write. one has to tell it.

[zig]

hi jr

i like this

"There's a break in vision while I flip through photos that aren't my own. She makes me write because there's no other way I can touch her. Let's face it. Even that doesn't work. But it doesn't keep me from trying. I guess I'm a liar in a cheater's mask. It's free form hell. Like reading Ginsberg while on psyilocybin, treed by a f*****g cow. F**k Paradise."

this was the most powerful section of the poem, and the reason why is because you didnt stop to justify any of it. the feeling was clear, the images carry enough concrete detail.

" full of broken toes and a dead f*****g rabbit. Don't ask me to explain." another great line, but comes to a dead halt with "dont ask me to explain"... too much justification. existance is justification. if an object is present in your poem then it is there for a reason, any other justification is unjustified... sorta speak, heh.

i would go thru this a trim the explainations out. it seems you are going for a "flood" effect, i could be wrong (please tell me if i am), keep the momentum up, otherwise its jsu a wash.

"Do you get it? Do you dig? " this is good. some writers will say dont beg a question. but if art is to communicate, to be expresive, if we are to express our frustrations and misconnections and desperate attempts to reconnect, then doesnt begging it express it to the fullest? i would say yes.

enjoyed your work here, and will definitly come back for more. enjoyed this very much. zig

[Tai Chi Italy]

Great read, I love this sort of spontaneous outbursting of the soul work. I am sure now the problem will resolve....Good to read such gripping prose. smiling at you, Tai

[Orlando Murcia]

A dead fucken rabbit, that s**t is tight. I like it bro, its always good to have different styles in writing. I like your style it has a lot of greatness. Keep up the good work bro. And thanks again for your help

[gmwoody22]

Swim through the morass of the minutia of life. "I feel I'm old enough to care and young enough to realize I'm old." We all feel like that at a certain age. Write, write, write. Your work is solid. Forget the people who tell you your voice is too strong for certain audiences...it's your voice!

[JohnL]

Thanks for the review of my poem which I consider to be fair when looked at from a certain point of view. Certainly, having felt the stones, heard the tones and spent much time in 'Goya Land', (not what he describes in his Black Period, I add) I feel it sums up my feelings, and judging by the reviews of some others, theirs too.
Non-contextual? Well, ignoring all the old jokes about rabbits, why was 'dead rabbit' not adequate? If further description was required, 'stiff dead rabbit', or did it actually die during copulation, using the true and archaic meaning of the word. I'm confused, and good writing should't do that. Should it? What is a fuckload, should it be hyphenated, perhaps. Does it mean an overloaded brothel? A romp in the hay-wain? The word is being imposed upon, forced upon a context that doesn't need it. True, modern dictionaries have accepted the word into the vernacular, and true Joyce and Salinger use it to some effect, but usually in reported speech and dialogue, more rarely in narrative. If it is used, it should carry impact; it should say "This is a particularly potent point I am making!" It is not a generic adjective or noun, verb even, as the case may be; it is not all things to all men dotted in like unsure punctuation.
By the way, don't ever think that sort of language shocks or offends me personally. Without going into detail, I have travelled and I have lived a full and broad based life close to some pretty rough characters at times. I am not shocked - just disappointed that language is descending to this level. I know that most young people have heard the 'crude vernacular' - it doesn't mean they should be encouraged to use it and there is a difference between setting the tone and lowering it.
One of your questions to me in response to my original review is, "Where's the movement, the change, what am I supposed to take away other than a good feeling five inches above my bowels."
Standing still and thinking is no bad thing, and with a life such as I have had, there is much to reflect upon and now to enjoy, or perhaps to regret, in retrospect. I hope you do look at some of my other work - I'm sure you'll find a variety - don't judge me on one poem, as I won't judge you. Some of my work on ageing is certainly going somewhere - where I don't particularly want to go - old age frightens me to death!
Finally, please do review as I find it refreshing to have another and perhaps more strongly critical angle on my work and am quite enjoying the discussion though perhaps we're going to agree to differ but at least we are thinking.