David Mamet"s Memo: To the Writers of The Unit

If you’ve never read David Mamet’s memo to the writers of The Unit, prepare to be amused.

The author of 50 plays and 25 screenplays, Mamet is a study in why playwrights often dazzle when it comes to screenwriting. They learn to move the plot forward dramatically, scene by scene, through character and dialogue, without the help of Lizard men descending from the ceiling or massive car chases.

Known for his witty, acerbic style, staccato musicality of dialogue and ability to render the dynamics of complex human emotion into nuanced, yet dramatic turns, Mamet’s writing is sometimes surprising and often lovely. His dialogue is so distinctive, it spawned the slang phrase Mamet Speak.

But in 2006, Mamet was working in the Hollywood Dream factory at the breakneck pace television demands,  as executive producer on a weekly drama for Fox called The Unit, based on his co-producer’s book Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counter terrorist Unit. The show ran for four seasons.

In this letter, David Mamet’s frustration with his writer’s is apparent, but between the lines his love for them, the written word and the process of writing is clear. Enjoy!

 

TO THE WRITERS OF THE UNIT

GREETINGS.

AS WE LEARN HOW TO WRITE THIS SHOW, A RECURRING PROBLEM BECOMES CLEAR.

THE PROBLEM IS THIS: TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN *DRAMA* AND NON-DRAMA. LET ME BREAK-IT-DOWN-NOW.

EVERYONE IN CREATION IS SCREAMING AT US TO MAKE THE SHOW CLEAR. WE ARE TASKED WITH, IT SEEMS, CRAMMING A SHITLOAD OF *INFORMATION* INTO A LITTLE BIT OF TIME.

OUR FRIENDS. THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE *INFORMATION* — AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US.

BUT NOTE:THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION. YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL. THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNE IN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA.

QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, *ACUTE* GOAL.

SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES *OF EVERY SCENE* THESE THREE QUESTIONS.

1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?

THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS ARE LITMUS PAPER. APPLY THEM, AND THEIR ANSWER WILL TELL YOU IF THE SCENE IS DRAMATIC OR NOT.

IF THE SCENE IS NOT DRAMATICALLY WRITTEN, IT WILL NOT BE DRAMATICALLY ACTED.

THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. *YOU* THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE *EVERY* SCENE IS DRAMATIC.

THIS MEANS ALL THE “LITTLE” EXPOSITIONAL SCENES OF TWO PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD. THIS BUSHWAH (AND WE ALL TEND TO WRITE IT ON THE FIRST DRAFT) IS LESS THAN USELESS, SHOULD IT FINALLY, GOD FORBID, GET FILMED.

IF THE SCENE BORES YOU WHEN YOU READ IT, REST ASSURED IT *WILL* BORE THE ACTORS, AND WILL, THEN, BORE THE AUDIENCE, AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE BACK IN THE BREADLINE.

SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THE SCENE DRAMATIC. IT IS NOT THE ACTORS JOB (THE ACTORS JOB IS TO BE TRUTHFUL). IT IS NOT THE DIRECTORS JOB. HIS OR HER JOB IS TO FILM IT STRAIGHTFORWARDLY AND REMIND THE ACTORS TO TALK FAST. IT IS *YOUR* JOB.

EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HER TO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE.

THIS NEED IS WHY THEY *CAME*. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR ATTEMPT TO GET THIS NEED MET *WILL* LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE,TO *FAILURE* – THIS IS HOW THE SCENE IS *OVER*. IT, THIS FAILURE, WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPEL US INTO THE *NEXT* SCENE.

ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE *PLOT*.

ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STANDALONE (THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN.

YES BUT YES BUT YES BUT, YOU SAY: WHAT ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF WRITING IN ALL THAT “INFORMATION?”

AND I RESPOND “*FIGURE IT OUT*” ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER”, AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE *ABOUT* HIM”.

WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN IS HAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE *WILL* BE OUT OF A JOB.

THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. *NOT* TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO*SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAME”

WE ARE NOT GETTING PAID TO *REALIZE* THAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS THIS INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT SCENE, BUT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WRITE THE SCENE BEFORE US SUCH THAT THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED IN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

YES BUT, YES BUT YES *BUT* YOU REITERATE.

AND I RESPOND *FIGURE IT OUT*.

*HOW* DOES ONE STRIKE THE BALANCE BETWEEN WITHHOLDING AND VOUCHSAFING INFORMATION? *THAT* IS THE ESSENTIAL TASK OF THE DRAMATIST. AND THE ABILITY TO *DO* THAT IS WHAT SEPARATES YOU FROM THE LESSER SPECIES IN THEIR BLUE SUITS.

FIGURE IT OUT.

START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE *SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC*. it must start because the hero HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.

LOOK AT YOUR LOG LINES. ANY LOGLINE READING “BOB AND SUE DISCUSS…” IS NOT DESCRIBING A DRAMATIC SCENE.

PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR OUTLINES ARE, GENERALLY, SPECTACULAR. THE DRAMA FLOWS OUT BETWEEN THE OUTLINE AND THE FIRST DRAFT.

THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH, *YOU* ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO *NOT* WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR *AND* HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.

REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. *MOST* TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE *RADIO*. THE *CAMERA* CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. *LET* IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS *DOING* -*LITERALLY*. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY *SEEING*.

IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.

IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION,INDEED, OF *SPEECH*. YOU WILL BE FORGED TO WORK IN A NEW MEDIUM – TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURES (ALSO KNOWN AS SCREENWRITING)

THIS IS A NEW SKILL. NO ONE DOES IT NATURALLY. YOU CAN TRAIN YOURSELVES TO DO IT, BUT YOU NEED TO *START*.

I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE *SCENE* AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT *ESSENTIAL*? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.

IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT. IF YOU’VE GOT ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME UP.

LOVE, DAVE MAMET
SANTA MONICA 19 OCTO 05

(IT IS *NOT* YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW THE ANSWERS, BUT IT IS YOUR, AND MY, RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW AND TO *ASK THE RIGHT Questions* OVER AND OVER. UNTIL IT BECOMES SECOND NATURE. I BELIEVE THEY ARE LISTED ABOVE.)

David Mamet"s Memo: To the Writers of The Unit

Giant Squid: The Kraken Revealed

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Remember those spooky artists renderings of sperm whales battling Giant Squids? Or the 19th century illustrations of boats being pulled down into the depths by tentacled arms?

Well, it turns out, those stories were true.

Image from Discovery/NHK funded mission

A crew of Scientists, funded by Discovery channel and Japan’s NHK TV,  just filmed a bus sized Giant Squid in its natural habitat for the first time. As a writer, this intersection of mythology and reality is particularly fascinating. Writers deal in myth and story and we rarely get to see a creature emerge from the crucible of legend into cold, hard reality.

For 3000 years, the giant squid was mythology; codified by sailors, deified as The Kraken, dramatized by Jules Verne in 20,000 leagues under the sea and sung into existence by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The slumbering giant moved with us through history, glimpsed in pieces, with no more substance than a dream. But now, recorded in digital perfection, the Giant Squid, Architeutis dux, is visible and unquestionably real. “Then once by men and angels to be seen,”  Tennyson wrote. And now we can see the creature for ourselves, not red and decomposing, rising to the surface in its death throes, but vibrant and alive,  clothed in silvery beauty and otherworldly strangeness, tentacles snaking out beneath the ocean’s surface— Lovecraft’s Cthuthu come to life.

Of course, people have seen this creature all along. The Giant Squid was recorded by Homer’s Odyssey as the Scylla, in Viking legends as The Kraken and was sighted by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder. The threads of the legends came from real encounters. This fact alone should make us wonder what other mythological creatures in this world are true. With the rise of Zoology in the 18th and 19th century, evidence began to mount about the reality of the Giant Squid’s existence: Squid Sightings

With the advent of movable type and newspapers, Squid sightings were being reported by sailors. Beached squids were measured, beaks, tails and tentacles were preserved in alcohol or honey and sent to scientific societies around the world. By the 19th century, a few European Zoologists speculated the creature might actually exist. Still, despite the evidence, there was enormous resistance in the Scientific community. In 1857, Japetus Steenstrup, a Danish zoologist at the University of Copenhagen, postulated the Squid was real, based on a beak and past sightings, “From all evidences the stranded animal must thus belong not only to the large, but to the really gigantic cephalopods, whose existence has on the whole been doubted.”

Japetus Steenstrup named the creature: Architeutis dux.

Giant Squid Sightings

In 350 B.C. Greek philosopher Aristotle first described greater and the lesser squid. He called the great squid teuthos. “The Teuthos is much larger than the Teuthis, for it reaches the length of five cubits. Some species are two cubits long, and the tentacula of the polypus are as long and even larger in size. The class of Teuthos is rare and differs in form from Teuthis, for the extremity of the Teuthos is wider; and again the fin is placed round the whole abdomen, but it is wanting in the Teuthis. ” So Aristotle had seen a Squid the size of a man or longer.

Pliny the Elder, living in the first century A.D. described a gigantic squid in his Natural History, with the head “as big as a cask”, arms 30 feet (9.1 m) long, and carcass weighing 700 pounds (320 kg).

With the onset of the Industrial age and steam ships, Giant Squid sightings changed in tone. Instead of being beached or washed ashore, men not only encountered the animal on the seas, they were no longer subject to the capricious winds.

Illustration of the Alecton’s encounter with a Colossal Squid.

In 1861,  the  French dispatch steamer Alecton, sighted a “sea-monster” off the Canary Islands. They pursued, harpooned and shot the animal then tied it with ropes and tried to haul it on deck. When the ropes sliced the monster in half,  they managed to acquire the tail. (From the artists rendering of their eye-witness account, the monster was probably a Colossal Squid: Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni.) The Commander of the Alecton contacted the French consul and filed an account with the  French Academy of Sciences, showing the spear-shaped tail as proof. A member of that august body, Arthur Mangin, summed up the Scientific response, saying no “wise” person, “especially a man of science,” would “admit into the catalogue those stories which mention extraordinary creatures like the sea serpent or the giant squid, the existence of which would be…. a contradiction of the great laws of harmony and equilibrium which have sovereign rule over living nature as well as senseless and inert matter.”

Baroque Pauline Squid Sighting

 

On January 8th, 1875, the Baroque Pauline sighted a Sperm Whale battling a “Monster Sea Serpent.” The crewman carefully described what he observed, making  a rendering of the whale’s battle with the serpent.

“The weather fine and clear, the wind and sea moderate. Observed some black spots on the water, and a whitish pillar, about thirty-five feet high, above them At the first glance I took all to be breakers, as the sea was splashing up fountain-like about them, and the pillar, a pinnacle rock bleached with the sun; but the pillar fell with a splash, and a similar one rose. They rose and fell alternately in quick succession, and good glasses showed me it was a monster sea-serpent coiled twice round a large sperm whale. “

Size Matters

During World War II, a British Admiralty trawler was lying off the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean. One of the crew, A.G. Starkey, was on deck late at night when he saw something peculiar in the water. “As I gazed, fascinated, a circle of green light glowed in my area of illumination. This green unwinking orb I suddenly realized was an eye. The surface of the water undulated with some strange disturbance. Gradually I realized that I was gazing at almost point-blank range at a huge squid.’ Starkey walked the length of the ship finding the tail at one end and the tentacles at the other. The ship was over one hundred and seventy five feet long.”

On November 2nd, 1878 a Giant Squid was beached at Thimble Thickle Bay, Newfoundland. The  dying squid measured 20 feet in length from tip of the head to bottom of the beak. The longest tentacles were 35 feet, making the creature 55 feet in length.

Giant Squid Attacks

The most remarkable account of a Giant Squid attack took place in 1874 in the Bay of Bengal and was reported by a number of Indian newspapers and the London Times ( a few years before Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the sea was published). The attack was also witnessed by a passing steam ship, the Strathowen.

Illustration from 1st edition of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, based on the Giant Squid attack on the Schooner Pearl

In 1874, three days out of Galle, the 150 ft long Schooner Pearl was attacked by a Giant Squid. A second ship, the steamer Strathowen, watched the Pearl go down. One passenger who witnessed the sinking testified,“As I watched, the mass was set in motion. It struck the schooner, which visibly reeled, and then righted. Immediately afterwards, the masts swayed sideways, and I could clearly discern the enormous mass and the hull of the schooner coalescing – I can think of no other term. Almost immediately after the collision and coalescence the schooner’s masts swayed towards us, lower and lower; the vessel was on her beam-ends, lay there for a few seconds, and disappeared, the masts righting as she sank, and the main exhibiting a reversed ensign struggling towards its peak.”

Captain James Floyd describes the attack, “a great mass rose slowly out of the sea about half-a-mile off on our larboard side, and remained spread out, as it were, and stationary; it looked like the back of a huge whale, but it sloped less, and was of a brownish colour; even at that distance it looked longer than our craft, and it seemed to be basking in the sun.”

“‘What’s that?’ I sung out to the mate. ‘Blest if I knows; barring its size, colour, and shape, it might be a whale,’ replied Tom Scott; ‘and it ain’t the serpent,’ said one of the crew, ‘for he’s too round for that ‘ere critter.’”

Crew member Bill Darling recognized the shape in the water closing in on the Pearl. Many historical sightings had taken place in his native land of Newfoundland. Darling identified the animal as a Giant Squid, warning the Captain not to fire on the creature. But Captain Floyd chose to ignore the warning and shot at the advancing Squid.

Floyd gave the following account, “By this time three of the crew, Bill included, had found axes, and one a rusty cutlass, and all were looking over the ship’s side at the advancing monster. We could now see a huge oblong mass moving by jerks just under the surface of the water, and an enormous train following; the wake or train might have been 100 feet long.

“In the time I have taken to write this the brute struck us, and the ship quivered under the thud; in another movement, monstrous arms like trees seized the vessel and she keeled over; in another second the monster was aboard, squeezed in between the two masts, Bill screaming ‘slash for your lives.’ But all our slashing was to no avail, for the brute, holding on by his arms, slipped his vast body overboard, and pulled the vessel down with him; we were thrown into the water at once, and just as I went over, I caught sight of one of the crew, either Bill or Tom Fielding, squashed up between the masts and one of those awful arms.”

Only four members of the crew and Captain Floyd survived.

This astounding attack influenced writer’s Jules Verne, Peter Benchley who wrote Jaws and Beast and Arthur C. Clarke who wrote a paper on the subject titled Reflections on Squid.

Giant Squid and Sperm Whale, the squid’s natural predator.

In the 1930′s, The Brunswick, a royal Norwegian Navy ship reported being attacked by Giant Squid at least three times. The Giant Squid pulled along side of the ship, pacing it with their jet propulsion, then suddenly rammed into the ship and wrapped its tentacles around the hull. Unable to keep a grip on the steel hull, the animal slid off and fell into the ship’s propellers.

During World War II (in 1941), survivors of the troopship Britannia sunk by a German raider The Thor, clung to the sides of the life rafts. Survivor Lieutenant R. E. G. Cox, told author of The Kingdom of the Octopus, Frank Lane, that on the first night a man was plucked from the raft by a large squid. Later that same night, Cox himself was attacked. A tentacle wrapped around his leg, then released him leaving  painful scars.

In January 2003, French veteran yachtsman Oliver de Kersauson’s ship was attacked by a giant squid while ironically competing for the Jules Verne trophy. “I saw a tentacle through a porthole. It was thicker than my leg and it was really pulling the boat hard.” The squid released the boat once the motor stopped. “We didn’t have anything to scare off this beast, so I don’t know what we would have done if it hadn’t let go. We weren’t going to attack it with our penknives,” he said. Kersauson says the squid must have been 22 to 26 feet (7 to 8 meters) long. “I’ve never seen anything like it in 40 years of sailing,” Kersauson said.

(Don’t ask me what Giant Squid have against the French…)

The Giant Squid or Architeutis dux is the largest of all invertebrates, reaching lengths of 60 feet (18 meters) and possibly, if the WW2 witness is correct, 200 ft in length.

 

 

Millennium: Song of a New Year

Tonight, the moon is divided—half loss, half hope

An hourglass or a clear luminosity diving through light-flecked clouds

Low and golden, the way long-ago fish broke into the air

the sky is restless tonight, like a sea mourning waves tossed carelessly

on an abandoned shore of tumbled shells and scuttled ships

 

Behind me, the hills are somber milestones

my car is a ghost rushing past gas pumps, cantinas and fast-food grottos

past gluttonous palaces and stoic churches, past neon signs that barter lust

the world is intoxicated, mad with its own reflection,

As slot machines echo divinity and release a cascade of tiny moons

pressed with the faces of forgotten heroes

 

The world is senile, filled to the gullet with sentiment and butchered flesh

and the promise of more trinkets—Love has become anonymous

an apocalyptic lullaby, a keepsake from a mythical land

the radio sings and hisses and cajoles and like an interpreter of Pythian verse

I’m listening for my redemption, listening hard, the way a leper clings to hope

 

Even children are sinister now

their delicate lips and reflective eyes wizened, measuring the cost of things

the land suckles seducers who unwind desire like silver thread through a forest

leading the unwary to a mystery—where aerialist’s caper

their tiny umbrellas incapable of breaking any fall

and rodeo clowns eerily mock death

 

A thousand voices drone like bees in lazy sunlight

so many wings and claws and sensual, black eyes

time cuts away the useless flesh to play a harmony of bones

nothing exists except us— the room is empty

Cards crack beneath old fingers, changes are stirring there, like clouds threatening rain

let it sting, let it be cold and awakening, let it bind us

 

Tonight, the centuries whisper our names, syllables twined the way serpents mate

we are a hollow wind, a page torn from a book, an empty promise of immortality

God blossoms in your eyes—there in a garden of fear and remorse

and terrible beauty where the secrets of love and death are kept

your heart is burning into cinders— and in that heat we are born

 

© amy eyrie 2013

 

 Image: Darkness on the Surface of the Deep by Valerie Alon

 

Millennium: Song of a New Year

Millennium: Song of a New Year

Tonight, the moon is divided—half loss, half hope

An hourglass or a clear luminosity diving through light-flecked clouds

Low and golden, the way long-ago fish broke into the air

the sky is restless tonight, like a sea mourning waves tossed carelessly

on an abandoned shore of tumbled shells and scuttled ships

 

Behind me, the hills are somber milestones

my car is a ghost rushing past gas pumps, cantinas and fast-food grottos

past gluttonous palaces and stoic churches, past neon signs that barter lust

the world is intoxicated, mad with its own reflection,

As slot machines echo divinity and release a cascade of tiny moons

pressed with the faces of forgotten heroes

 

The world is senile, filled to the gullet with sentiment and butchered flesh

and the promise of more trinkets—Love has become anonymous

an apocalyptic lullaby, a keepsake from a mythical land

the radio sings and hisses and cajoles and like an interpreter of Pythian verse

I’m listening for my redemption, listening hard, the way a leper clings to hope

 

Even children are sinister now

their delicate lips and reflective eyes wizened, measuring the cost of things

the land suckles seducers who unwind desire like silver thread through a forest

leading the unwary to a mystery—where aerialist’s caper

their tiny umbrellas incapable of breaking any fall

and rodeo clowns eerily mock death

 

A thousand voices drone like bees in lazy sunlight

so many wings and claws and sensual, black eyes

time cuts away the useless flesh to play a harmony of bones

nothing exists except us— the room is empty

Cards crack beneath old fingers, changes are stirring there, like clouds threatening rain

let it sting, let it be cold and awakening, let it bind us

 

Tonight, the centuries whisper our names, syllables twined the way serpents mate

we are a hollow wind, a page torn from a book, an empty promise of immortality

God blossoms in your eyes—there in a garden of fear and remorse

and terrible beauty where the secrets of love and death are kept

your heart is burning into cinders— and in that heat we are born

 

© amy eyrie 2013

 

 Image: Darkness on the Surface of the Deep by Valerie Alon

 

Millennium: Song of a New Year

Endings

In the horror of the hour

the clock tower chimes a note of dread

as stars and moon and sweet desire

are swept away into the fire

of the living and the dead

for those of us who watch and see

ghost flowers piled high, in palest snow

with frozen breath, we tend the pyre

for endings come and go

The fragile pane of memory

the dangling button at your sleeve

soon to be lost forever

the careless echoes

the sad goodbye

the moment missed

the day you cried

Shadows flee and clouds conspire

to break us from the life we knew

your hand was curled around a leaf

with sorrow waiting underneath

the blackest of taboos

drift silently in opium haze

Is that really all that’s left of you?

There was a moment when I knew

The sirens cleaved the world in two

time dissolved —a public wake

questions that will have to wait

answers you can never make

no second chance, or tethered hour

nowhere to run

or place to cower

This is the end

the goodbye we fear

the black tide rising

the broken year

the winter seed on hardened ground

the moment when we’re lost, not found

the waving hand above the waves

the helpless feeling when we cave

our longing for the one betrayed

and buried in a shallow grave

Everything you were to me

the day, the night, the morning sighs

the whys, the ifs, the sorry lies

the puzzle of your broken mouth

the crypt you tried to call a house

the white wrapped burial at sea

the corpse bride you brought back to me

It all unravels like the hours

falling, sinking, ticking, tossed

a raft, on which you’re finally lost

ahead, a light breaks through the loam

voices urge us to come home

but no matter how hard I try to bend

there’s no way back

from the end

© amy eyrie 2012

Image by h.koppdelaney

Endings

L-O-O-K

Some memories are like mile markers on the road.

I remember the moment distinctly. Sitting at my desk as my teacher ran her finger under four white letters. Until that moment, the letters were separate and unremarkable. Each had a sound of course. We’d even learned an alphabet song to memorize the letters. We’d traced the shapes again and again, repeating each consonant and vowel. But now, as my first grade teacher spoke aloud, my world shook to its very core.

L-O-O-K, she said­, tapping the L, two O’s and the K with her chalk. Look.

The familiar word I’d heard a thousand times had a form, a way to be communicated on the blackboard or on paper. The mangle of markings that filled the books in my father’s library were suddenly accessible, it was only a matter of time.

I was about to learn to read.

The word look still haunts me. It was a portent, a command. Be a watcher. See the world as it is. Look deeper, past the tricks and illusions, past the lies and distortions. Look and see the truth of things. After that, I loved writing and I loved writers. Writers were the masters of this new world. They knew the rules and could create something out of nothing. Writers could conjure the needed words to bend perception, to create worlds.

Even though the class started with Dick and Jane, I was impatient. All those books stacked around the house and filling the attic, I wanted to see the words for myself. I started with Dr. Seuss and drove my parents crazy reading The Cat in the Hat aloud. Each word was a revelation, a gateway to a thousand objects and thoughts. I grew an appetite for reading and my eyes sought out the words on signs, advertisements, cereal boxes, magazines and the dense topography of books.

As I got older, I came across shocking revelations.

I remember reading a newspaper article of what I now know was the murder of Sharon Tate. The killers chased their victims into the yard. The police found words written in blood on the walls. The raw power of words was clear. Words could cut you, damage you or even destroy you. The bloody word “Pig” on the wall of the crime scene stabbed me deeply and irrevocably. Part of my innocence died the day I read that word.

Maybe because people are a mystery, unknowable—I looked harder. My Dad was a voracious reader. The attic was filled with science fiction and pulp novels mixed together with the classics. I read about monsters and heroes, Martians, plagues, artificial realities, kings and pawns, telepathy and possession. Each book held a piece of the puzzle; good vs evil, power, humility, self-sacrifice, betrayal, desire, loss, triumph and the meaning of love. These were the secrets of adulthood, filtered through the prism of a thousand minds. And as my appetite for the written word grew, everything became clear.

Writers were magicians of words and I wanted to be one. I wanted to spend my life learning how the trick was done.

So here I am, committed in every sense to being a writer, to the magic of creation.  Like every writer I spend a lot of time in secret worlds and other dimensions where my characters and stories live.  Now and then that first word comes back to me, that seed of wonder that started it all.

Look.

 

Illustration by: Calamity Meg

L-O-O-K

Scribblings, writings, musings

Scribblings, writings, musings

Delectable delicacies for your mental palate

Lovely lashing of cherry picked pronouns

Minty fresh dollops of creamy connotations

Vichyssoises of various verbs

Sweet spoonfuls of nouns to nibble upon

With only a sprinkle of ambiguity

And for desert

Alluring alliterations

Meaningful metaphors

With a dash of chocolate verisimilitude

And a heady apéritif of flaming myth

Bon appetite

Scribblings, writings, musings