Jan 2016
GETTING 22
A glance
told me all
I needed to
know.
The room had been
Chandlerised.
A bishop was kicking a hole
in a stained glass window
whilst eating a pearl onion
on a banana split
but not the angel cake 'cos
it had a tarantula on it.
Everywhere there were
kangaroos in dinner jackets.
Somehow Raymond's words
had escaped the constructs
of the language
&
similes and metaphors
had become real
realer than real.
I kept walking
in ordinary prose
each footstep
a boring report.
trying not to break
into a metaphor
or smile in simile
or anything similar.
I made it to
the last page
and dived into the dark hole
that opened at my feet
into
THE END.
I had managed to make it
through these mean pages
( it's hard being a linguistic
private **** in one's mind )
when one is falling
asleep and
the Chandler
( the studied text )
fall out of
the too tired hand
but oh no
I had somehow entered
the realms of one
Dashiell Hammett.
Me...I
felt like somebody
"...had taken the lid off life
let me see
the works."
"The problem with putting..."
( I thought to myself )
"...two and two together..."
"...is that sometimes you
get four
& sometimes you get
twenty two."
A glance
told me all
I needed to
know.
The room had been
Chandlerised.
A bishop was kicking a hole
in a stained glass window
whilst eating a pearl onion
on a banana split
but not the angel cake 'cos
it had a tarantula on it.
Everywhere there were
kangaroos in dinner jackets.
Somehow Raymond's words
had escaped the constructs
of the language
&
similes and metaphors
had become real
realer than real.
I kept walking
in ordinary prose
each footstep
a boring report.
trying not to break
into a metaphor
or smile in simile
or anything similar.
I made it to
the last page
and dived into the dark hole
that opened at my feet
into
THE END.
I had managed to make it
through these mean pages
( it's hard being a linguistic
private **** in one's mind )
when one is falling
asleep and
the Chandler
( the studied text )
fall out of
the too tired hand
but oh no
I had somehow entered
the realms of one
Dashiell Hammett.
Me...I
felt like somebody
"...had taken the lid off life
let me see
the works."
"The problem with putting..."
( I thought to myself )
"...two and two together..."
"...is that sometimes you
get four
& sometimes you get
twenty two."
***
Sometimes study and sleep don't mix and I tell myself: "If you don't leave, I'll get somebody who will." These were just some of the quotes from Mr. C and Mr. H that were floating about in the old noggin as sleep and study fought to a stalemate for the mind of this poor student.
“The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
“He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window."--Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 13)
“He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.”
--Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 1)
“There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket.”
― Raymond Chandler, Playback
“I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Sometimes study and sleep don't mix and I tell myself: "If you don't leave, I'll get somebody who will." These were just some of the quotes from Mr. C and Mr. H that were floating about in the old noggin as sleep and study fought to a stalemate for the mind of this poor student.
“The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
“He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window."--Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 13)
“He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.”
--Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 1)
“There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket.”
― Raymond Chandler, Playback
“I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
