by RadialMonster | Oct 12, 2003 | General
For the past few days, i’ve turned the site into a memorial page for my late good friend Marty Williams. In case you didnt know, marty had been battling Hodgkin’s disease for a good 6 or so years now. I received a phone call at work tuesday oct 7 at about 9:30 that i needed to come back to the hospital. So that i did, called who i could call, went to pick up my mom and scott and got to the hospital shortly thereafter. We come in and sit down in the already crowded room. and wait. and talked and said prayers and all sorts of things. and this woman who comes in, a black middle aged nurse leans over above marty and breaks out in prayer. o heavenly father we love you, o heavenly father, we love marty, o heavenly father take marty to a good place, o heavenly father we love you heavenly father, o heavenly father we pray for marty. for like 5 minutes. about everyone in the room is crying and i felt chills down my whole body during this procession. she slows down, and eventually quits, leaves the room and marty is still there hanging on. eventually, we all hold hands, about 25 of us, and we all say something to marty. i said something to the effect of There’s a lot of people in this room, and there’s a whole lot more people thats not here thats thinking of you and praying and rooting for you. me, scott, john and lisa took a lunch break together. and we had a good old time, as much as we could i guess. we came back to the room and sat there for a while. it was getting late, and we decided to leave the room save for a few people at a time. so that we did, i went downstairs with a bunch of people, and we sit there for a few minutes. Then Chasity comes running out the door, almost falling over and she tells us Marty has passed on. Official time was 7:55 pm. so we all go back into the room and see marty there, motionless. and we have a seat. and we sit there and talk for like 30 minutes. and it was almost comforting. even though we’re 3 feet from a dead person, he’s not suffering anymore and thats comforting to know. we gather up his things in the room and sneak them out to the car. i can officially say i’ve kissed a dead person now. i hope it doenst go much farther than that. Thanks for all the people who’ve stuck around marty, and thanks to all the friends i already had and have gained from this experience.
by RadialMonster | Oct 7, 2003 | General
at 26 years old, i shouldn’t have to call up my friend and say it’s time to go. be ready in 5 minutes cuz we got to be in the hospital as soon as possible. and he gets ready without question. at 26 years old, my friend shouldn’t have to have surgery to put a feed tube directly in his stomach. he should be conscious, able to move his fingers. able to look at me and say he’ll be alright and tell me about the nurse he cares so much for. at 22 years old, she shouldn’t get a lesson in what it’s like for someone our age to lie on their death bed. i shouldn’t have to go thursday night after his most recent surgery and wait around till 11:00 pm to see him and he still hasn’t recovered yet so we never get to say hi. Go back friday and stay till 12:30 am with Scott and see Marty getting better and horsing around in the best way he can which includes a raised eyebrow and the occasional smile. and sunday to be awoken by his mom crying and saying if i have any last words to say to Marty, i need to go now. So i call scott and say its time to go and we go immediately. arrive at about 1:00 pm and enter the room of about 15 people gathered around him already in prayer. all these people i dont know, all these people marty doesn’t even know. pastors and deacons and aunts and great nephews and what not. and people saying aloud it’s time for god to take you, you’re going on a better place. we will all meet you again there. and watching his whole body raise as he takes a very short breath in and immediately lets it out. then lie still for a few seconds. then another quick breath in and out and laying still. through time, the whole process repeats, only each time a little bit slower. people come and people go. hold his hand because they are afraid to hug him and mess up his tubes. because his arms are just laying on the bed motionless, hands and fingers extended. and to see Chasity, the nurse that marty cares so much for by his side as well. he smiles at her voice and when she leans in to speak with him he raises his arms to hold her hand which she quickly accepts. for everyone to leave the room and leave scott, chasity and myself in there alone with him and without the grownups there, we tell all sorts of secrets and jokes and things and i think we eventually got another smile or two out of him before it was all done. I shouldn’t of had to leave that night, expecting to receive a phone call in the morning that he had moved on. instead i received a phone call that he’s in a coma. and it wouldn’t be until lunch time when he would awaken. Still, when we went to see him tonight, his progress had not improved, yet it had not worsen. i’m not sure if he made any smiles and remarks to me tonight. he slept mostly. i shouldn’t have to beg a certain someone special to visit him with me so they can meet before it’s all over. and i shouldn’t have to be here at 1:00 am writing about one of my best friends.
by RadialMonster | Jun 19, 2003 | General
My writing is hard
to understand, i know. i am a member of a writers group, thanks Bev! and i
submitted a poem the other day. same one i put here the other day. last
night. no one understood it it seems, so i decided to write about it, and
while at it introduce myself and writing style to the group. i think it
may be a good read for you, so i’ll post it here too. enjoy:
Ok, let me do some introduction stuff then. Perhaps I should never have pointed
out my confusion on the technicality of breasts, breast’s or breasts’ because
that set the notion that I was trying to be technical, or am a technical writer.
But, I particularly wanted that word to be correct because it would change it’s
meaning depending on where the ‘ was. I actually rarely use punctuation in
poetry. My punctuation is a line break, or a rhyme scheme breakdown, if there is
a rhyme scheme. Or a word or phrase that would catch you off guard. It pauses to
make you think for a second about what you just read in some way.
I have always been told my writing was confusing, cryptic even, and I’m not
quite sure how to take that. i’m not a technical writer. I have written some
technical things before with funky rhyme schemes, lines per stanza, things like
that. but it’s not my normal. I attempt to write to convey a particular feeling,
emotion or idea. I consider my poetry a riddle, and if you are successful in
reading it, you would ideally have the exact feeling, image, idea so forth I had
when writing it. however, as you guys have pointed out, my portrayals hardly
come off as obvious. But then I think that’s a good thing.
I write just before I go to bed. I’m already half asleep. If I have an idea or
feeling I want to express, I break out my notebook and pencil and begin writing.
It take about 5 – 10 minutes. Rarely any longer. I write the entire thing, and
within the first 2 or 3 lines, I know if I like it good enough to continue it or
just stop while I’m ahead. I cant say that I sit down and already know what I’m
going to write, or have it planned in any way. I just write. Free association I
think is what you call it. and once I reach a line where I can sum it all up in
some way, or throw a kicker into the entire poem, and I suddenly have the
feeling ‘that’s it!’ then I simply stop. Date it, fall asleep and that’s the way
it stays unless I see something just plain wrong or something. If I were to
change it later, then I’ve changed the meaning of the poem, I’ve ruined my
attempt to make the reader feel the exact feelings I had when writing it.
This being said, let me do a self explanation of my poem:
this sweet caress
of eyelash possess
– the idea I want to portray here is the same as the phrase ‘apple of my eye’ i
think is the best way to describe this set of lines. An admiration for someone.
cat like pounce
of your breasts’ every ounce
– according to Bennett and Monte’s descriptions, breasts’ is correct here. There
are 2 of course, and they possess pounce. How’s that? 😉 what I mean is not
‘nice, big, round’ ones, but the way little firm ones sorta jiggle when walking.
As far as rhythm or syllables, I’m from the south. Here, we (or I anyway)
pronounce breasts’ not like breast ess eees, but as breas (as in that’s a silent
ts’) ehe
these walls are oiled
with your buttercup lotion
– imagine a nice smelling lady (via lotion for instance) walking down a hallway.
As time (days, weeks) goes by, the walls absorb her scent. Now that you mention
it, it could be considered rather nasty. But it was not my intention at all to
portray that feeling. You’re right. oiled doesn’t rhyme up. I did think briefly
of that as I was writing it. I had a rhyme scheme going. but at that point, I
didn’t know what to rhyme with oiled, and I felt no matter what I chose to rhyme
with it, it wouldn’t have portrayed the image I wanted to in these 2 lines. But
that’s been a trend lately, to start a nice rhyming scheme, then have it all
fall apart, or even into just a prose piece at the end!
catch that motion
appease my emotions
– the (n)motion of her walking down a hallway with her pouncing and the like is
appealing. A trick to my writing: I don’t even know the real meaning of
‘appease’, it just crept in there and sounded good, so its there.
held tightly at night
until morning light
– this lovely image, if not the lady herself, laying in bed beside me. able to
hold and touch all night until morning.
a quick vanish upon awaken
my heart with you have taken
– this is the ‘kicker’ I was mentioning about. Here, the idea is that this lady
is wonderful, but in reality, she actually only exists in my dreams. You’re
right, the wording is old school. Would comma’s have made it better? My heart,
with you, have taken? Doesn’t look right though. Yea it’s outta place. But it
portrayed the feeling I wanted, and it rhymed.
6-17-03
– uhh this is the date I wrote it 😉
trust me, I’m not downplaying your critiques, and I greatly, greatly appreciate
them. but I also wanted to explain my writing ‘style’ to you guys too so maybe
you can see where I’m trying to come from and where I’m trying to take the
reader. All this being said, yes technically, my poems are a nightmare. Maybe I
could better describe my poetry as ‘inside jokes’ 😉
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 – 11:13 pm – just a quick note
to note i have noted some new poetry here. send me a note and let
me know what you think
by RadialMonster | Jun 15, 2003 | General
I have returned
safely from the trip, everything went wonderfully. about 1500 miles round
trip. i’ll post a video when i can get it done. the highlight this
past weekend was my trip to the landfill. I load up my trash into the car,
and haul it to the local landfill where there is an old guy there all the time
who watches the things you throw away. i pulled in saturday, got out and
proceeded to get the trash out of my car. he is sitting in the shade next
to a dumpster nearby. “got you a new one there?” He always asks me that.
I’ve had my car for 2 years now and he always asks if i have a new one. so
i said “yea, well my other one just gave out on me.” “If i were your age
i’d get me a new car every 2 or 3 years anyway. just get you a new one and
trade the old one in. then you’ll always have a new car, just put oil in
it and dont worry about fixing it up.” yea, that would work, lease
payments are half the cost of purchasing a car these days, i said. “yea,
if i were your age that’s what i’d do. i tell ya, i picked up a hitchhiker
the other day. i was going down the road and saw this girl on the side of
the road walking so i stopped and asked if she needed a ride and she hopped in
the truck. cute young thing. Mexican. she said she needed to
go pick up her car and she said to go on past the walmart. so we did, and
i started to turn in there and she said no, keep on going. she said go
down to the food lion. and we did, but she told me to keep on and turn at
the light so i figured we’d go in the back way, you know down by the old folks
home. but she told me to still keep going and she told me to turn down
this little road and it was one of them mexican trailer park places. so i
took her to the crack house down there and she asked how much money i had and i
told her 2 dollars. of course i had more than 2 dollars you know, i just
didnt want her to know that. and she pulled up her shirt and flashed me
her titties and i said damn! those were some little perky things just
pointing right at me and damn i said so i gave her one of my dollars. then
she asked if i wanted to come inside and i said naw, i better not do that and i
told her i had to go so she flashed them titties at me again and those pointy
things just staring at me and i said here you go and gave her my other dollar.
yea, if i didn’t know her mom and weren’t in the middle of the mexican trailer
park crack house i might of gone in with her. but you know, my wife might
not like that anyway.” this entire story while i’m attempting to unload my
car but i cant continue because this guy is so unbelievable i just stopped and
set my trash on the ground and propped against a nearby dumpster. “yea, i
had this guy the other day, he’s about 38 years old and his wife is 26. he
said him and his wife were going down to myrtle beach for a vacation and wanted
to know if i would go down with them. free room, free food all i could
eat, everything he’d pay for it. he had the money. but i got to look
after his wife, take her down to the beach and swim with her because she likes
to swim, and her old man cant swim. so he’s paying me to go down and make
sure she dont drown or anything like that. and then he said she might want
to have some suntan lotion put on her too and he gave me a little wink. so
uhhh i dont quite know what to make of that. right cute young thing.
but i dont know about all that. my wife told me i ought to go down there
with them it’s a free vacation, but i didnt tell her the whole story either.”
by this point i’m just hauling my trash away and laughing this guy was
crazy. i’d seen him there for years, but he has never been like this.
i got in my car, turned it around rolled down my windows and told him to tell me
all about his beach trip next week.
