Comments on: beautiful

By: heather

heather — Thu, 31 Oct 2002 14:42:40 +0000

you’ve heard it before, i’m sure. but you write beautifully.

By: ron reinoehl

ron reinoehl — Mon, 28 Oct 2002 13:28:00 +0000

Brendan -

It’s 4:20 of a Monday morning, just awakened
from some emergency sleep after a bizarre day
in the Market- was it the three 9th street tenors,
the Aqua String Band or the lady asking if she
could still strain pasta in a colander clock?

Anyway, I thought I would see what good old
Brendan-baby was up to.

Well! Ho-ho-ho.

Your piece certainly lives up to its title, a faire
blend of tension and restraint. In the end, does
he get laid or not.?

Ah well, another time, perhaps.

Best wishes to the Bard of Beijing.

Regards,
RON

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 24 Oct 2002 14:48:11 +0000

wow

so when’s this book getting published?

By: Uncle William

Uncle William — Thu, 24 Oct 2002 09:39:19 +0000

Brendan: I enjoy reading your postings very much. Could you repeat (or send me) your phone
number as well as a good time to call you (converted to easter US please).

Thanks

Take care

Uncle William

By: Bridget

Bridget — Thu, 24 Oct 2002 08:05:23 +0000

My father used to know a woman named Bernadette. She would come by his office from time to time, looking for the things that people typically look for at State Rep’s offices: help with her rent, food stamps, just the basic things she needed to keep living. She walked Kensington Avenue, so she should have been someone he never would have helped–one of the people ruining the neighborhood, you know? Drawing in the johns from Jersey and Montgomery County who only come into the city for their jobs, their drugs, and their whores. He always helped her, though–he had this eternal hope that one day she would be able to walk away from it all. He offered to help her into rehab, or find her a half-way house. She was someone whose fundamental goodness seeped out, no matter how much effort she put into covering it with fishnets and miniskirts and track marks.

She disappeared a few years ago–just stopped coming into the office. At first he wasn’t particularly concerned–she could go a few months without coming in, if business was good. She hasn’t been back, though. He’s put out feelers–asked around the police stations, so on, but nothing. He would always go on about how she was fundamentally a good person, just needed something to help her make one clean break.

We hope that she’s gotten out of it somehow, and just didn’t stop by to say that she had–why would she?–but we all know it’s more likely she finally overdosed in some slum or dark corner.

By: meg

meg — Wed, 23 Oct 2002 19:29:41 +0000

wow, brendan. that is very deep… very profound… you’ve managed art with philosophy. this is why i like reading you. ;)

later

By: Vlad

Vlad — Wed, 23 Oct 2002 18:13:50 +0000

This brings to mind an Oleg Gazmanov song I’m in the middle of translating.

Ti sluzhish ukrasheniyem stola
Putana
Tebya kak pivo k ribye podayut
Lyuboi kto zaplatil imeet vse prava
I vot nochnuyu babochku vedut

You serve as a table ornament,
Putana,
You’re served like beer with fish.
Anyone with money has full rights,
And, lo, they lead the night butterfly away.

It later goes to this….

A pomnish shkolu, perviy potselui
Ya imya tvoye v parte virezal
Stikhi tebye pisal, i na uglu vstrechal
Shto budet dalshe ya togda ne znal

Do you remember school, your first kiss
I carved your name into my desk
I wrote you poems, I waited for you on the corner
But what the future held I did not know

And it goes on to talk about how fate had sent him off to war, and her, to the “currency bars”; the bars frequented by foreigners with international currency.

A sad, sad affair.