Author: tiphane

Christmas Morning

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In every major town of France and most of Europe, the pharmacists take turns at staying open all night and on holidays.  In a similar way, Berkeley Espresso is the de facto café on guard on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I discovered that this morning, as I looked out the window this morning of Christmas, the street at its quietest, but the purple neon sign lit, and the only possible destination of walkers. Not one minute after I arrived, a long line of people formed behind me, as if I had attracted them like a magnet on my short wandering.  Perhaps we were all mysteriously synchronized, but for a minute I didn’t know whether to take my coffee to go, because a couple had entered and decided to reserve the counter stools for their own sense of security.  Fortunately, the man grabbed a table as soon as its current occupant showed signs of liberating it, and I could continue my plan of sitting in a corner of the counter to write this. This café …

Puzzle (revised November 20, 2008)

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There he is, dead, alone Silent and undisturbed And you think that’s how he wanted to leave it. You look above for signs of an angel Taking away his soul As in the image in catechism And you see the image of an angel Cleaning the slate of your soul Showing indelible cracks From your fall Causing eternal pain Causing unmanly tears always retained. Your head bounces on an aluminum locker Spins about unsaid words and questions, Fragments of life locked in forever, Mysteries unsolved Wanting of Faith and Honor. You venture the back of an index finger On his one-day beard Remembering lips prohibited long ago From the freshly shaven cheek Reserved for the good housewife Now watching your gesture And deeper you withdraw Into the heap of puzzle pieces That will never come together To complete your picture.

Departure (a revision of “Ashore”)

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The deserted pier floats away In silence And the town shrinks behind Soon a model in a museum Then blurred impasto Destined to decorate memories and The traveling theater of your dreams. For now there is only doubt In the silence of your mind For even the seagulls have left. You navigate on seas now calm then rough Counseled by ghosts and gods Against pirates jealous of your light purse Guided by the stars Confused by the clouds Siphoned by currents You reach A new port, outside your map Charming you with strange music To set foot on dry land Behind you the horizon Absorbed your history and silenced the voices of the past So far away now That you take a new name.

Autumn

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I didn’t see a fallen tree today Or the sun’s trajectory But leaves dropped at the first rain Sunk under wet air On the sidewalk Where my soles warned of slippage Paused and watched Each new drop at the end of a long journey On denuded branches Like a snail following a trace Drawn by the ineluctable force Of gravity To dive, once more, and collide With the fallen leaf Releasing on impact a whiff Bouncing back to my nostril Suddenly aware of the new autumn.

Ashore

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Ropes curled, neatly inside The disenchanted serpents of your skiff Floating away in the silence of a deserted pier The town shrunk to museum size Then blurred impasto Destined to memories and The traveling theatre of your dreams You navigate on seas now calm then rough Counseled by ghosts and gods Against pirates jealous of your light purse Guided by the stars Confused by the clouds Siphoned by currents You reach A new port, outside your map Charming you with strange music To set foot on dry land Behind you the horizon Absorbed your history and silenced the voices of the past So far away now That you take a new name.

Puzzle

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There he is, dead, alone You cannot disturb him any more And you think that’s how he wanted it And you think your puzzle is incomplete. You look above for signs of an angel Taking away his soul As in the image in catechism. As in the image in catechism You remember the angel busy cleaning your soul But yours had cracks in it Caused by a fall Caused by you Causing eternal pain Causing unmanly tears retained Your head bounces on an aluminum locker Your head spins about unsaid words and questions Locked in for eternity Another mystery, as they had many You had to take for granted Your finger ventures its back On a one-day beard Your lips prohibited long ago On the freshly shaven cheek Reserved for a good housewife Now watching your gesture And you withdraw deeper Into a mound of puzzle pieces That will never come together.

The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer

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I live on the other side of the bay from San Francisco, so I listen to KALW radio. That’s how I heard his name, and his voice I think. So when I stood in front of his book at Moe’s one Sunday afternoon, an autographed copy, I thought I might be missing something if I stopped at the suggestion of the title: it would be a boring story of some successful marriage by perfect people. I read the first page, and thought this might be good. “We think we know the ones we love.” Okay, whatever, it’s still a happy marriage story. “Our husbands, our wives. We know them — we are them, sometimes; when separated at a party we find ourselves voicing their opinions their taste in food or books, telling an anecdote that never happened to us but happened to them.” I was ready to put it back on the shelf. I think I did. I took a walk to the literary remainders, you know, the $6 Everyman Library classic that you’ll get …

On Chesil Beach

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On Chesil Beach: A Novel by Ian McEwan I love it, first because I could read it in two seatings (big novels are, how can I put it, intimidating, and lose me in the middle). OK, seriously: this is the second McEwan that I read (the other was Saturday), and every time I am enchanted by his craft, i.e. the way he forms sentences that flow and go back deep in the train of thought of his characters to tell you how they ever got where they are now. So, would anyone say, how can he keep you reading this story about the failure to have sex on the night of one’s honeymoon? For one, it talks about a huge myth, the one that makes people hang soiled sheets at the honeymooners’ window in Sicily. While reading it, I thought, “shouldn’t they just relax about it and talk, maybe see a counselor?” And that is what people don’t do. People assume they’re deficient. They build tension on trifles just because Love was suddenly distilled to …

Becoming a Writer

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I’ll participate in a panel at Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Literary Festival called “Becoming a Writer,” in which I should talk about my experience with self-publishing and all the steps of the seemingly infinite ladder towards making one’s name emerge in a very crowded and noisy market. Of course, I’ll talk about having the book on lulu.com, more as something anyone should do if they’re not going through getting their work torn apart at an MFA program to shake them out of their bad habits. We always question that, we, the beginners. We don’t like to have our egos deflated as an exercise. Perhaps that distinguishes the hobbyists from the wannabe professionals. All the same, I feel that with the Internet and people’s changing habits, an Internet presence is necessary if you want to be an author and it doesn’t seem you’re in line any time soon for major recognition. Anyone can start a blog like this one on any free service currently available (if you don’t like google, try wordpress). The harder part is to …

sharing in the writer’s market

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OK, I’m probably not reporting anything new by telling you about newpages.com because if you just google “literary magazines” or “online literary magazines” it shows up at the top of the results. I may even have heard about newpages.com, and it may even be in my browser’s bookmarks for what I know. Except that today, faced with another rejection letter and faithful to my promise to just keep submitting the same story to other magazines, I felt overwhelmed by the number of literary magazines out there. It became even more overwhelming once I found the lists at newpages.com A few days ago, I thought: I’ll start my own! I know how to make websites, and since I even own the web site, litbazaar.com, I might as well use it. That will take a long time. And there are so many out there! How many writers can there be? Some of the most obscure (to me until now) online magazines already post “no more submissions for now, please,” and it feels like arriving in a town …