So I know this is overkill, but as I was sitting down last night to write about just why you should let me in your club I went out and got drunk instead. This morning, hungover, I write about how that happened. I am fully aware that in the time it took me to write this I could probably have given actual reasons as to why you should pick me.
The Undergrad's Tale
-- Prologue --
"Praye tell" so said our Hoste
"Whither did go thy moste
Weighty plea to join this band
Of learned men hither at hand?" ...
-- The Tale --
A girl while in her room a'write
At reasons wherefore she might
Mete with group of men genteel
This girl, whilom filled with zeal
Felt she could there pen no more
And presently fell a knock adoor
And therewith entered in a maid
Knowne to the girl who her bade
Go to tavern hence, for merryment
So thus was that girl's eve spent
***
Once upon an eve of waiting, while I sat procrastinating,
Avoiding penning letters for post I was applying for.
In my chamber, nodding off
I received a call to quaff
Dropping here my quill and off, I headed out the door
Abandoning my penmanship and heading out the door.
And left was this: and nothing more.
***
being (as i was) oh
-so thirsty;and but while
there (always was to
do words and allthings:
i Took my coat phone face
book keys and
Left shutting the door
leaving
in
stead
this.
***
A Stygian quake in bones and sinew
Arch-aching to succeed, and join you
I can sew I can cook I can talk
I’m a woman-deluge, distracted, called away, and put on shoes
Submerge myself in swill, chug and shut out
What remains, contains me, neglected naked page.
***
At desk my head bellowing burping writhing trying to knock out the sense meaning who am I where do I a short notice utterance missed missed me like the jusshquoi of millions I will forge this heavyheaded tight pen writing writing nothing and purloined by friend of ourn unnamed to pointandplace to drink drink drink and plod home along grafton prumptly trailing garliccedchips and overlooking to write to employ to mean.
***
The ivory-laid pen lay still upon the desk and as she mused upon its scratchings, her gaze was drawn back to when the whole carrel belonged to her grandmother. The family would visit her house in Fleet Street every Noel, the only time of year that she would take it upon herself to risk inhaling the effluvia secreted by her penurious relatives and open her door to the whole greedy lot of them. In those Winter months when for everyone else the pipes had frozen over and the price of coal driven up so exorbitantly that children perished like matchsticks in their mothers arms overnight, the old woman’s chimneys perpetually belched smoke as she sat couched by the fire drinking scotch with freshly made ice. Blanketed inside, the girl would, for the most part, sit in the window seat and think of others suffering outside. She would sit unstirringly, that is, until both generations of parents began to snooze by the embers, whereupon she would take it upon herself to steal upstairs to the study and examine the bureau. She was always intensely impressed by its magnificence; it seemed to carry a mystic feel to it, with its ornate legs twisting right down to the carpet like the branches of some beautiful knarlled oak with dark whirls peppering it surface. The myriad letter slots and shelves were entirely foreign to her then, much like the flecks of gold engraving on their brass handles. She would stare into its knots and escape into worlds of epic quest, diving into the fountain of knowledge, swallowing all that she could, and then would steal back out again and write about all that which she had seen in the folds of that ancient rolltop on the back pages of her Bible, the only book she owned in that time. She was now staring straight into those same knots, devoid of inspiration. Her fountain pen still lidded, the crystal decanter winked and whistled, fluorescing in the lamplight.
Apologies to Geoff, Ed, Ed, Sylvia, James and Charles.
Love.
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