there are things too terrible to say but this is not that

this post is for the 7th Language/Place Blog Carnival. it is mama's meditation on the novel she's working on called The Hater's Winter. the novel has a hater & in at least one chapter there's winter. mama may have been huffing things while meditating on her novel. she may not have. she doesn't remember. it was just another monday evening down in the bamas...


oh, & check out the previous Carnivals. 


there is too much narrative and it is buzzing

there is too much narrative and it is a-rodeoing

there is too much narrative and a stranger comes to town

when the stranger comes the town rubber bands

when the stranger comes there's an increase in kool-aid & dope fiends

oh, yeah

that might be too narrative; that might equator

there are kool-aid & sex fiends in your winter

there is a winter and there is a hater

the hater lives. she lives in the winter. she breathes it in & the winter congeals

the winter tumbles. the winter corpuscles. the winter tongues.

the laws of physics do not apply to some narratives...

                    especially when there's too many kool-aid strangers

the only equation here was stolen from a blog

when strangers come to blogs there is sex-doping

this only equation has nothing to do

this only equation has nothing to do with narratives or strangers

the winter breathes in the hater and she goes dope-sex carnivaling

she goes doping she goes sexing she leaves you fiending on your couch

you drink kool-aid and you tumble

you drink kool-aid & your tongue's now her hater

it is snowing

it is snowing & there is a stranger

it is snowing & there's a hate in your winter


yours w/ luv,
mama

mama has to go deep & go dark

mama has just finished Barbara Browning's The Correspondence Artist & yes, mama reads & no, mama is not just all body body...

this bit killed mama:

(wait - spoiler, alert...

if you haven't read Browning's book click click away now, chilluns...)

"I mean, I'll miss the fiction, I'll miss Tzipi and her cruelty and her hair, I'll miss Binh's images and his beautiful cock, and Djeli's angelic voice, and Santuxto's hypochondria. I'll miss waking up every morning and running to the computer so I could be with them again. And I cried a little, again, writing the end."

that little bit made all the games, all the postmodern slippage, all the simulacra worth it for mama in the end.

cos I cried when I was done writing Homegirl! and then I cried some more when I finished the re-writes & now I'm crying cos I know mama has to go deeper & darker at the end & sometimes mama wonders just how much art wants from her. couldn't art just leave her alone to watch her stories & then every now & then drop by for some moon pies?

couldn't art just call, every now and then, even tho mama doesn't have a landline?

couldn't art just text & be like, how u doing?

couldn't art just turn up in a pocket of mama's housecoat, cos she bought it from the goodwills, & just be there, waiting?

couldn't art just come by with the sheriff & be all, this one yours, too?

mama knows better & when art calls mama lays out the good jelly jars, the ones without the chips, & she serves cava & the hummus cos she knows the arts probably likes to pretend its cruelty free even tho art is the first one to smash your face into the pillow ant take you from behind while wearing newly-skinned veal calf boots and baby seal furs.

yours,
ryder

This is mama’s home, this is mama’s skin

This is a guest post by Caleb J Ross as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He will be guest-posting beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of his second novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin in November 2011. If you have connections to a lit blog of any type, professional journal or personal site, please contact him. To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the Caleb J Ross blog RSS feed. Follow him on Twitter: @calebjross.com. Friend him on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb

Mama said I like what you done, thanks for that, you write all those books? yeah, any good, no. I like what you done though. My writing? nope, everything else though. Like Saramago you write on and on and on with barely a breath. Just for this blog post, I said. Very meta. Saramago doesn’t do meta.

Mama welcomed me, said I could stop by this blog of hers and did so without stipulations. Bad news for me. See she’s done some things, witnessed some things too, and at the end of all these things she’s still standing. Not true for those she’s witnessed doing those things or those she’s done those things to.

She creases back Stranger Will, her knuckles and fingernails still bloody from those things she’s done. I read some of this, she says. I read the part about finding the lady in the basement, about taking her to the hospital, about finding out she’s been pregnant, but isn’t any more, about finding out that doctors told her she’s just got to wait until the rest of the baby pieces come out naturally. Naturally, she says pulling up from the book, not funny.

No supposed to be.

Then I like what you done, she says.

I read the part about the kids hugging that tree, all covered in poison-

Phenol, I correct her.

That stuff really burn through clothes like you say?

I didn’t say. I wrote.

I done some things too, none of this garbage you write about, but real stuff. I’m gonna look into that phenol stuff. Can I keep this book?

I’m not taking it away.

tomorrow: guest post; today: hate

tomorrow: caleb ross's stranger will tour stops here! mama's so excited cos someone's actually stopping by & doesn't mind the chilluns & the empty highball glasses & the mama's in a housecoat cos all her mumus got burned up by her last ex right before he left cos alagasco shut off the oven again & he needed somethings to start a fire cos he lost his lighter & you know...

today: hate
mama did the hate fucking once. only once. she left her boots on. this was way back when mama was a willow & a teen & she had the passions for more than just the muscly men in her stories...

mama's lying here; mama's always got the passions cos she's like mel gibson minus the christ & equal the crazy & minus the misogyny and equal the drunk dialings...

mama once had a guy say, i think i'm beginning to hate you...

mama appreciated the honesty. for realsies.

& that's when mama finally gots the allure of films like casablanca and an affair to remember. it took mama a long time. before she always wanted to share. she craved intimacy: the hairs all over the bathroom counter. the burnt toast scrapings. the beer bottle caps underneath her feets. the sheriff knocking at her door & asking, this one yours? the sheriff knocking again and again.

mama's lying again. mama's got more class than you think. she's drinking cava. from a jelly jar. but cava nonetheless, you snobs.

(mama didn't mean it, babies. mama loves you all.)

yours,
ryder