Wedge of Light

Last night Ryan asked me if I’d been writing. I felt guilty when I told him no. But, that is weird because while I write with others in mind, ultimately, it is for me. So, guilt is irrelevant; I should be angry, not guilty; angry at myself for failing to practice.

So, that is why I am here in the dark with a good buzz and an itchy idea to scratch out. I need practice, and a thought blossomed while the credits from Thor rolled. (I liked the movie by-the-way; I’m a sucker for Marvel Comic movies.) I was thinking about the story’s Bifrost Bridge (explained as a worm-hole or Einstein-Rosen Bridge.)

Television and movies always seem to show a similar, tubular worm-hole. From Bill and Ted to Deep Space Nine, if you have an idea what a worm-hole is, you probably have a popular image in your head. It is like aliens … not the Sigourney Weaver variety but: little green men. Our culture has a popular image of little green or grey men like those in Fire in the Sky, X-Com, and Signs; and, we have an image of what a worm-hole looks like … at least those of us that like science-fiction do. The Thor movie makers put their own twist on it, but it is nothing revolutionary. Now, I can’t offer a better way to show what a worm-hole looks like, and as far as I know, nobody else gives a shit, so here is the point: This worm-hole thing was on my mind.

I watched the movie, thought about worm-holes, and realized it was cold in my house. But, before I get to the cold house: the “worm-hole in popular culture” idea branched out. I started thinking about how hard it must be to write about something so conceptual. I remembered part of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. The book described the gunslinger’s journey through space, time, and transcendence after he spoke with the Man in Black. It has been too long and my memory is too cloudy to quote passages, but it was awesome and confusing, but in a good way. I felt like: when I am older and wiser I’ll understand. Now, I am older and wiser, but I don’t know if I would understand.

When I saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, (I never read the books.) and Gandalf described what happened after he finished off the Balrog, I was reminded of that part in The Gunslinger. Later, I gleaned: King took much inspiration from Tolkien, so the gunslinger’s spiritual/consummate transcendence was probably directly influenced by Gandalf’s. Thinking about it now, I want to go read Tolkien’s work … but I won’t. The point of all of this is to show examples of literary situations that are purely conceptual and thus difficult to write … like worm-holes.

I was thinking about those literary-worm-hole-difficulties and, it was cold in my house. But the cold part still has to wait. I began to think about writing something which would be difficult, say: clouds of dust swirling in wedges of light. It seemed poetic so I pressed on. (The drinking was well underway, another writing technique gleaned from King … ha! He mentioned the author’s taste for drinking and I blame him, how slippery of me.) (I stole the use of ‘slippery’ from Hannibal Lector  ... for total disclosure.)

Now that this page is on the verge (maybe past) of slipping into stream-of- consciousness blather-of-a-drunk, I’ll try to bring it all together, and finally explain where the cold house fits in. I was done with the whole “worm-hole” idea, when I realized how cold it was. Then I thought: The thermostat is set at 72, it isn’t cold. How is it that my wife and I can sweat and feel it is hot when our house is 74 degrees, and we can feel so cold when it is 72? It is only two degrees difference. Then I thought about how far 72 from 74 degrees is after a million miles. I thought: an equation could answer it. But, a poem can illustrate it in a different way ... so; all of this set-up/brainstorming/preface became part of a poem. Hope you like it!

Lint swirls in secret pattern

Shining and hiding in wedges of light

Like rove-dancers flourishing within stark geometry

Angles through the pane heat the floor

But beyond common ground

Adjacent and hypotenuse deluge

And opposite balloons

And that distance is hard to make