They Called Me The Hyacinth Girl (1229 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.93 on 15 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by SpikeGoddess (View user info) at 2004-09-29 00:24:21 EDT
"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers."
~The Waste Land
*Tonight New York City is getting the faint aftertaste of a hurricane. It's been humid and soggy most of the day, and now the sky is dumping water on all of the New Yorkers who defiantly refuse to sleep. Like me.*
"Rain makes me remember," Sean said as he looked out the window at nothing in particular. "It wakes up my memories."
I smirked, "You stole that from Eliot."
He gave me a look as if he hadn't the slightest clue what I was talking about.
"The Waste Land? Come on, don't sit there and try to be a writer with your fancy journal and your pensive looks and forget the references to water in The Waste Land! That's waaay too NYU cliche!"
He looked a little hurt. Oh well, I didn't have the energy to get into one of our verbal sparring matches anyway.
"Sorry. I'm not being fair...There's only one quote I can remember accurately from that poem anyway." He went back to staring at his journal. "And it's not one about memory or water either..."
We passed twenty minutes in silence as I tried to keep my brain engaged. It was all I could do to let my eyes glide over the lists of geneologies of the Patriarchs. Stealing glances at Sean every once in a while was all I could do to keep the blood flowing to my brain. His glasses were always crooked. His spine was always straight. I wish I loved him.
*Tonight my mouth tastes metallic. The rain in this town will do that. This is the only place I've lived where I feel dirtier afer having rain kiss my face. It leaves a residue that's almost visible. Good, hard, dirty New York rain. I missed it when I was away and long to escape from it now that I'm back. I can feel the molecules from Florida that were swept up with this storm. They're seeping into my skin and reminding me of places I've been. *
"Sean, what are you thinking about?"
"You."
"What do you expect me to say to that?"
"I expect you to try to be clever to avoid feeling uncomfortable. Like you do with everything."
"What would I do without you, Sean? To think that I pay people to psychoanalyze me when you do it for free!"
He adjusted his glasses a little. He'd always refused contacts because he liked his eyes to be able to 'breathe'. One of his little quirks, I guess. Once I told him a dream I had where I couldn't see anything because my vision was blurred. It terrified me. He told me that his life felt like that every morning when he woke up until he put the glasses on.
We sat quietly for a few more minutes, the rain gathering in droplets on the window until they swelled to their full capacity and coursed down along the watery paths traced by other raindrops.
"Sean, do you think it's weird that the air that's here now has been other places? That the air inside of you has been inside of other people, or inside of a tree or a pipe?"
"No."
"Or that when you smell something it's because the molecules of that thing are becoming part of you? I've been thinking about that ever since I watched "Angels in America." God...I'd give anything to have a voice like Emma Thomps-----"
"Don't take the Lord's name in vain while holding a Bible."
"Don't talk to me right now, Sean. Let's just-----Just don't talk. We're just picking at eachother like old fogies."
"Fogies?"
He won't give me a moment's peace. I wish I loved him. I wish the rain weren't waking up memories of other men, memories of sobs that pressed my naked stomach into warm bricks as the sky broke open into a summer flash-flood, memories of wet flowers...after the storm had gone.
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.
~ The Waste Land
User Reviews
Submitted by shitfuck (user info) at 2004-09-29 12:56:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Eliot was my first introduction to Modernism--specifically its effect on literature. I still read him, but I find myself more interested in the Beat writers--Bukowski, Ginsberg most prominently.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2004-09-29 10:04:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice.
Submitted by whataefag (user info) at 2004-09-29 09:54:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
T.S. Elliott is perhaps the most brilliant poet of this century.
Although, he has nothing on Milton.
This was a touching story though, strangely poetic. Well I guess not strangely considering who wrote it, but poetic nonetheless.
Submitted by Julia (user info) at 2004-09-29 09:03:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by lojope (user info) at 2004-09-29 08:39:40 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2004-09-29 04:09:47 (#)
Ranking: 1
Sometimes love is just not enough.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Someone please tell me that's not true.
*******
No, it is true. And this piece was lovely.
Submitted by shandythedog (user info) at 2004-09-29 08:53:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
memories of sobs that pressed my naked stomach into warm bricks as the sky broke open into a summer flash-flood, memories of wet flowers...after the storm had gone.
don't like that bit. like the rest.
esp good point re. the air and smells etc
Submitted by Badlands (user info) at 2004-09-29 08:52:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-09-29 08:49:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by lojope (user info) at 2004-09-29 08:39:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2004-09-29 04:09:47 (#)
Ranking: 1
Sometimes love is just not enough.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Someone please tell me that's not true.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2004-09-29 04:09:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Sometimes love is just not enough.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2004-09-29 04:02:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This reminds me a little of 'The Stand' when Franny is watching her 'poet' boyfriend sit on a rock.
Influence there for sure.
This is brilliant, it could almost drop directly into R&V.
Submitted by Durae (user info) at 2004-09-29 02:41:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's too bad we can't make ourselves love someone. I know the feeling.
Submitted by Creepy_guy (user info) at 2004-09-29 01:32:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent, Spike. Really excellent.
Submitted by dakingisdead (user info) at 2004-09-29 00:35:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Lucky you. I usually just get called arsehole.
Submitted by steph (user info) at 2004-09-29 00:34:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by tinactin (user info) at 2004-09-29 00:27:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Damn you for posting right after me!