Oracular Radiation and The Young Orator

2 poems:

Marc Jacobs designs clothes or his team does or whatever. And accessories. And many new stores which are polluting Greenwich Village. So that's the background to "(Marc Jacobs to the West Village.)" And, yeah, I did feel an elephant trunk brush my calves, but that was as I crossed Third Avenue, near 26th Street. See, "As She Crosses." Both poems are in Other Rooms Press' latest issue, Oracular Radiation. That is such a great name I'm not sure poems are necessary. Oracular Radiation conjures old movies and visions of what could be.

Co-editors of Other Rooms are Ed Go and Michael Whalen. Ed Go is a poet and artist - I've oogled with much respect his collaborations several times at the Center for the Book in New York City. He wrote "Heaven, Hell & Middle Earth," an essay about three poems in my collection, The Future Is Happy.

1 story:

Last year my story "The Young Orator" was published as a fiction chapbook by Winged City. The publisher and editor, Teneice Marie, has revamped so Winged City is now under Argus House Press. "The Young Orator," about an eight-year old who spouts quotations from Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The story also features a '57 Chevy Bel Air with pinstriping.  

"Who's for Jesus" on 14th Street {story by Sarah Sarai} at Unlikely Stories

Thanks to Jonathan Penton, editor of Unlikely Stories, for publishing my short story, "Who's for Jesus." Click here to read it!

I'm Writing Faster: The Force That Won't Take No for an Answer

If you are reading this, I will have found it.  An image of the speed of light, the illustration, however quirky, of my writing faster.

I may have mentioned this before, but it hasn't stopped. If my experience can get anyone out of writing doldrums I'm willing to repeat myself. Fiction, is what this pertains to, short stories.  In the past I had trouble ending fiction. I struggled to for the "perfect" solution so "the end" was earned. I was pretty insecure, too.

Sometime in a late-winter haze I read Maxine Chernoff's Some of Her Friends That Year: New & Selected Stories (Coffee House Press).  (Which is back on library shelves so I can't be more specific; it's not, however, the specificity of naming any one story but the aha that matters here.)

I remember being upset with her.  She ended that story too soon. (I said to myself).  And it works! (I added.)  And so I realized I could leave my stories "open" in the way a poem is left "open."  Leave them wanting more. Or maybe I was simply ready to realize.

This year I've written five (5) new short stories and started the sixth yesterday.  The first five are "go's." They work, although are not finished.  This year line-ups of authors' names have returned come to me from my vigorous and loving reading qua devouring books in my teens and twenties:  John Cheever, Isaac Singer, Flannery O'Connor, F. Scott Fitzgeral, Isaac Babel, Peter Taylor; many others but all from, say, twenty and thirty years ago.  I can't know their exact influence but I know they are my foundation. 

The End.

Fiction: The Devil Is Her Friend

Yay! "The Devil Is Her Friend" is available for your reading pleasure.

Go to: stonesthrowmagazine.com. Click on "fiction." Go to end of list (saving the best for last or so I tel myself). There I'll be. Click. OR:

http://www.stonesthrowmagazine.com/pdf/sarai_the-devil-is-her-friend.pdf

I am very excited this story was accepted and out there, and here. Opening paragraph:

Pearl Miller can’t positive-think her way out of anything, not split ends, not adolescent obscurity, not her parents’ fights. Not even a flaming heat rash. Worse for the increasingly gloomy teenager is her observation that her mother Angelette’s religion, Christian Science, a New England concoction, makes her body seem like a detachable accessory to life, like there is the Real and Eternal, as Mary Baker Eddy wrote, and there is Pearl’s life. So Pearl takes a stand. “This isn’t making sense, I don’t want to go to Sunday School any more.”

What does Pearl do? Read on at the above url!

My Snowflake Rocks: perfection and art

Funny. On my way to get coffee this morning I thought about many extremely gifted poets whose work I admire greatly but who I might bypass in my search for inspiration (in art, life, death). I thought about me, more than twenty years ago, when I began writing fiction.

I spent a few years trying to write my first mystery novel that didn't fly (tried a few others that didn't fly), and found short fiction in the process. Being in love with Cheever's stories, Chekhov, Flannery O'Connor and others I am slighting only because I have the memory of one hand clapping, I felt honored, heck, relieved, to even be involved the process. The crossover from ne'er-do-well to writer, reckless and easy, justifies an oddlife.

I was in love with the smallness of the form, the Indian minature-ness, the possibilities a small story held for perfection. I crafted and rewrote, in hopes I could like God create a jewel. I don't say that's the case of the poets I allude to above, that they spend years rewriting or foolishly attempting to sing as an angel, but their end product, however wonderful, can't compare with my snowflake. This does not, and should not, bother any poet or writer. This is about acceptance appreciation and love of my voice. If I don't love it, how can I nurture it?

This is an assessment of my goals, not of others' goals. My goal in poetry is to find God, to heal the world, to create consciousness. I don't mind if my poems, carefully wrought though they are, or at least labored over, get wild and strange. I'm a little wild and strange and okay with it. Hey, I'm stuck with it.

(Caveat. I can only labor or a word in a poem if I am able to stay alert. I wonder if I don't sleep through some phrases, or give up, or OCD my way out. Total consciousness work, a perfection of its own.)

White paper snowflakes dangle by the counter and float on the walls at my coffee place. I asked about them this morning--when I came in it was just me and two kids behind the counter. They told me I'd get a free small coffee if I made one. As Jama handed over a piece of paper and scissors I felt a jolt from space. I'd been listening to Sun Ra at home. That'll prepare your mind to be a landing strip for the ships. I knew mine would be different and that if I TRIED to make it look like every other, or any other snowflake, I'd fail. It's been that way my whole life.

My snowflake looks like a tribal mask, simple, rectangular, jagged and if you don't mind my saying so, arresting. Yes. I'm bragging about my paper snowflake. It is, as one esteemed journal wrote in their we're not taking this batch but send another as you have an original voice note, different.

The short stories I wrote in the past are wonderful and careful. I futilely hope they can be collected and published. Whatever. But my poems are channeled. That's that and Merry Christmas, my children of light and affection.

Fiction: Washing, pub. in Webster Review, 1988

Washing

by Sarah Sarai
published in Webster Review, 1988

I saw this guy at the laundromat, an older guy, fifty or something, using up about ten washers. I watched how he worked them and I could tell someone had packed him off to do the week’s wash because there were little notes. ‘Blues together. Warm regular. Dry polyester.’ ‘Bleach. Whites. Hot.’ ‘Gentle cool. Dry five minutes only.’ And such. I didn’t know if it was his daughter or wife or if he was nuts and being taken care of by a stranger who used him to get the clothes clean.

He said something to me and I was polite but didn’t answer back. I never do right off. I saw a book in his back pocket. I figured this guy was kind of solid to bring a book to the laundromat. I was determined not to leave with any damp clothes this time and you know how it takes years for jeans to dry so I was socked in and I watched him deciding if he would snap or not if I talked to him. People are snapping left and right and probably not entirely in laundromats but they seem to feel more comfortable in laundromats after they snap. You know that if you don’t have your own washer.

“How do you like your book?” I asked. Let me tell you. This guy didn’t bat an eye. We could have been in bed, close, with me asking him to please move his arm a bit, he was that relaxed.

“Well, I like Mr. Thoreau,” he said, moving in front of my face. “I think we should all go to the woods, don’t you? I read this once a year. I read all the time, don’t you?”

I shrugged. I remembered Thoreau because my English teacher in high school was this ex-hippie who got wet-eyed when he read the stuff out loud. I don’t read that much. Magazines. And if a book looks like it’ll go quick, then I might pick it up.

“I’ve been reading about the effects of light,” he said. Then he went over my head with candle power, but I didn’t mind because I knew he wasn’t snapping, he was just probably smart.
“And space. I’m reading about space.”

I’m no expert here either but, “I’ve seen Saturn up at Griffith Park telescope,” I told him.

“That’s wonderful,” he said. “That’s marvelous.” He had a pleasant voice—and was my height, 5’-5”, with a paunch that was hard, strong arms and short hair. “I’ve been reading about personal space, you know.” He touched me, my arm, with a finger.
Normally I cringe into my shoes when people get near and I’m not ready but I didn’t feel my body jolt and I didn’t have to give him any kind of angry look. He wasn’t trying to move the conversation because most guys would dive in after a lead-in like that. I was leaning against a folding counter, my arms resting on my plastic basket full of clean sheets. They were warm and I wished I could rest there forever. I kept an eye on the dryers. One stopped. I dumped the damp clothes in with the other drying clothes. This guy had his notes to read and he worked the dryers and then was back. I shook out a few blouses with the underwear that had clung to them.
“And what do you do, my dear?” he asked.

I had some old cotton underwear that I kept even though they had holes, because you have to have underwear. I put them under the blouses real quickly. I had the black underwear my girlfriend told me to get, because it would do the trick, she said, and I folded these. I looked at him to see if he noticed and his eyes did and I tucked them into my basket. They were pretty.

“I work with my cousin,” I said. “She runs a day care center. I help with the kids.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “the children.”

My jeans were still whirling in the dryer. “Yup, the children. They’re sweet. It’s okay.”

“My wife teaches.” He mentioned a grammar school in Hollywood. “She loves it. Those children charm her. Do you have a few who charm you?”

I smiled because of course the kids were dolls. I’m not a maniac.

“I knew it,” he said and got red. “You’re good with them.” He got white again. He was pale and showed red easily I realized. He had a stubble and his eyes weren’t so clear, but then I have to tell you I was no gem. I’d had a few drinks the night before which I’m not supposed to do because they make my allergies worse. The Santa Anas made my allergies flare, so I was bleary-eyed and confused in my head. October’s a pisser in L.A.

“I’m okay with kids.” Work is never my favorite subject. I’ve lived alone since I kicked my boyfriend out and I have discovered that the more I live alone the more I get used to it. I’ll probably end up like some ghost lady in a movie who wears wispy dresses and roams, eyes staring like a punk dancer. I wouldn’t mind if I kept my apartment clean. Every day and night for two weeks I’ve filled my sink with water so the dishes wouldn’t draw roaches and the food on them wouldn’t get hard. There’s only about ten dishes. I don’t like to cook any more. The water seeps out and the dishes stay in. All ten or so with my forks and spoons and knives.

“This town was great when it was a company town,” he said.

“You in the industry?” I asked.

“Not now, no, not now. But when I was a boy, on my way home from school on Halloween, two friends and I tied up a girl and left her. It was at Yucca and Cherokee.”

Now here he had me. I mean I thought my radar was out-of-whack for years. I could almost hear the snap the mind must make when it goes under. Then he saved the day.

“And it was just a prank.” He sighed. “She told on us and the police talked to my mother and all of us ended up having to divert ourselves after school so we wouldn’t get in trouble. I had to take ballet. I was the only boy.” He was getting into it, moving his arms around, getting red again and I could see how his spirit was into ballet but I didn’t see his body at it. But really, who cares. I know he didn’t always have a paunch.

“I could do everything better than the girls - the jumps, the spins. And when I stopped resisting the girls, growing boy that I was, it was wonderful. They all wanted to dance with me.”

“So, what, you danced?”

“I did everything.”

“Were you in the movies?”

“I was under contract. The dancing led to that. It was nothing then, really. You just walked in and signed up.”

I’d seen old movies about that and I nodded.

I was pleased my clothes were getting good and dry. When they stopped whirling I knew it was time to fold, time to go. I said, “excuse me,” and pulled the last of the lot from the dryer. He brought his own armful in a metal cart. Probably the five-minute bunch. We smoothed and creased.

“You’re a classic,” I said.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Yes.”

I was considering sitting on my basket to make my clothes fit. I had a three-block walk home. That’s not all that bad, but who needs to lose clothes? He still had clothes drying and I couldn’t see prolonging the whole thing. Besides, he had a wife. I thought she’d be nice and I thought about seeing if there would be some invitation. Maybe I would get asked over for coffee and they would be this nice warm couple and I’d get that home feeling I always think would satisfy. But then I thought the whole thing could go real bad quickly and I thought if I went home right then I’d wash my dishes for sure.

“Well, I gotta go."

“Yes." He seemed surprised. “You take care of the children. That’s important.” He looked at me. “I think you know that.”

I said, “yes,” although I wasn’t so sure. Everyone says kids are important, but what do they do? They become adults and they leave their sinks full of dishes. What’s so important about that?
I walked along Franklin two blocks and then turned right and soon I was at my apartment, or at the walkway. I wished I had to keep walking up the hill where the people have money. It seems to me if you have money you can go to clubs and meet nice people. My old boyfriend wasn’t that great. I ended up going inside. Put down my basket. Things were quiet. Real still, like some of the air had been sucked out and what was left was pulled too thin. I left. I grabbed my keys and I walked down the walkway and to Franklin and to the laundromat. He was there, putting clothes on a hanger, doing a better job than me. I don’t bother. I’m not much for all that.
“Hello.” He said it brightly and I didn’t have to feel foolish. “Glad you chanced by,” he said. “Help me load all this up in my car.”

“Sure.” It sounded fine.
His car was old, a bug. We were careful with the clothes, laying them on the back seat.
“Well,” he said. “Where shall we drive to?”

“Why don’t you come over?” His eyes moved weird like I had pinched them. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I just thought we could have some coffee.”

He looked straight forward. Beats me what he was thinking. “Coffee would be wonderful. Let’s go.” I gave him directions and we were there in a minute and I apologized for my mess before I unlocked the door, and he said he didn’t mind which is what I had thought he would say.

I told him to sit when we were inside, but he wanted to help me in the kitchen. I just didn’t want him to see the sink. He wouldn’t know how long those dishes had been there, but still. He insisted he had a knack with coffee so to save myself, I said, “Let’s have a beer.” That sounded fine. I got cans from the refrigerator.

He sat on the couch. It had stubby wooden legs and came with the apartment. I sat on a wicker stool. “There were sixty of us on contract,” he said.

“What did you do? I don’t get it. Were you in the movies?”

“We did anything. It was a broad contract. We just did anything.”

I moved next to him on the couch. I surprised myself.

“I’m married,” he said.

“I know you’re married.” I’d seen his wife’s clothes. She wore a lot of jersey tops. “A lot of people are married.” It doesn’t mean much, you know. Single or married, it doesn’t mean much. And maybe his wife wouldn’t be nice after all.

He turned to me so we were shoulder to shoulder and he touched my arms. He still had a stubble and I remembered how I looked. I wouldn’t have blamed him for leaving.

“It’s true,” he said. “I could kiss you.” He didn’t move. He let go of my arms and sitting there, finished his beer. It went down fast. “You just wait. We have to discuss this.” And then he was in my kitchen getting another beer from the refrigerator.

Who needs this, I thought. Where he had sat was his book, Thoreau. I opened the book and I tried but I couldn’t understand a word. I drank some. I felt dumb and generally not so good. I had this book in my hand and nothing else. I heard noises in the kitchen. It was water and dishes. They were finally getting done. I took my index finger and put it on a word. “The.” That one I knew. I figured if I kept moving it along and reading, something would get through. I did for several pages and finished my beer and finally I saw sun: “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.” I understood what was being said and I decided not to press my luck. I read that sentence a lot of times and then closed the book.

“I hope you don’t mind.” He was back, drying his fingers on his pants. His fingers were short.

“I’ve been reading Thoreau,” I said. “‘I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.’”


“Splendid.” He pointed. “Now, let’s put your clothes away.”

We did that and made the bed up, with my clean sheets and hung towels in the bathroom.

“Do you like these?” I held up a pair of the black underpants.

“They’re splendid,” he said. “More than that and you know it.” He sat on my newly-made bed, grabbing my hands as he did so and drawing me close. “You’re young,” he said. “But we have met. Our souls have met and I like you. I know you.”

“You know me,” I said. “What do you know? Tell me.”

“I know you’re a woman who is,” he paused, “her work. Who is ... the children. Who craves companionship,” he paused again, “union with a man,” he finished.

I sighed. He was off the mark. In the shadows. I sighed once more and then I spoke.

“That’s neat,” I said. “But I have things to do now.”

“You and I and Thoreau,” he said. “We are bedmates.”

“Huh,” I said. “But I want to be alone.”

“Bedmates of the heart and soul.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “But would you please leave?” I stood, zipped out to the living room and opened the door. He followed.

“This isn’t what I expected.”

“Me neither,” I said. “But I don’t expect much.”

“You’re young. I’m married. All is foolishness.”

I thanked him.

He kissed my forehead and left. I went into the kitchen. It looked nice. He’d even scrubbed the sink. I took a beer out of the refrigerator and brought it to the living room and sat on the couch. I didn’t open the beer. I just held the can to my forehead where he’d kissed me. I pulled back the curtain so I could see a sliver of the way up the hill. I felt lonely, of course, but the hill was green and those houses were inspiring up there. I made it through that Sunday in better shape than I’d been in for a while.


_______________
"Washing" by Sarah Sarai was published in Webster Review, 1988, vol. 13, no. 2.

Ray Carver: short stories follow the heart

I loved Ray Carver's work but I had to be won over.

In L.A., in the eighties, I heard an editor from Black Sparrow Books praise his spare, lean prose and remember—quite distinctly—thinking: Yeah, right—spare, lean—load-a-crap. Not long after, I bought Where I'm Calling From—the cover art was so cool—at Chatterton's on Los Feliz, was home by 11 p.m. and didn't go to bed until I finished reading, which, given its slim volume-ness didn't take all that long, I suppose.

But still. I sat in bed turning page after page, marveling at the stories as works of art. I had begun writing short stories and aimed for each to be the equivalent of an Indian miniature or emerald or string quartet. Given that it is now 2009 and I've not had a collection published (though about a dozen have been in review), I don't know if anyone cares about my efforts. If they don't they don't. I have some faith in the market (no faith in the crooks who manipulate it).

A fairly recent New Yorker article set right or claimed to set right Gordon Lish's intrusive editing of Carver, thus making Lish the kingpin of the spare, lean rep. Maybe, maybe not. But Lish wasn't the kingpin of Carver's uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist and he was not the one to make palpable American hope and American despair.

Carver did that. His characters are not memorable as individuals. They are a series of husbands and wives who drink and smoke and cheat. Sometimes they encounter the miraculous as in "Cathedral" where a blind man reveals his understanding of gestures of visual art. Or opposite of the miraculous, the chilling, as in“So Much Water So Close to Home,” in which the the body of a young woman is left like a case of beer in a cold river while a group of men have their weekend in the wilderness.

Between the two stories, God is present or God is present in Her absence.

A slew and then another slew of Carver fans have published affective appreciations. So why me, now? Because of Beethoven's late quartets. I heard mention of his late sonatas and remembered something I read in an interview with Carver. He said the late quartets were for the young and the early quartets to be savored in old (relative, of course) age.

And I recalled I was a little embarrassed when I mentioned my trendy affection for Carver to a brilliant journal editor I happened to meet when I was at a summer seminar for secondary educators. This editors discovered new voices and he made great choices. He seemed surprised I was of the masses, with Carver and also with my then affection for The Color Purple, which he perceived not as bad but as mass market and not sophisticated.

Sad truth: Back then more than now but I still struggle to like who and what I like and not think of anyone else, not try to please.

I will have more to say about Raymond Carver. After all, I ruined a great pair of truly sophisticated dark glasses because of him. But that will come on another day. Today I am remembering what is is like to be a fan. I am in the stands and cheering out my heart.

My heart is strong and my cheers are loud.