Maybe it’s simply good timing. Recently I stumbled across the poetry of the not-too-well-known poet Paul Muldoon. On the surface his poetry isn’t especially alarming, and happily conforms to everything I hate about the medium (which, to be honest, is everything except for silly rhymes and limericks). And yet there is something arresting about his work. The best way that I can explain is that it was obvious that he has some thought lying underneath his work, something that is on the tip of my tongue. I feel as though I know something without the ability to explain it. It makes me see things. This is probably the goal of all poetry. It is terribly rare. I found a better explanation in an anonymous blurb about the author, which says:

“His passion for exact description grows from his awareness that what is apparent often contains a deeper, stranger story.”

Which is something I feel a kinship with. This poem, “Holy Thursday”, I like:

They’re kindly here, to let us linger so late,
Long after the shutters are up.
A waiter glides from the kitchen with a plate
Of stew, or some thick soup,

And settles himself at the next table but one.
We know, you and I, that it’s over,
That something or other has come between
Us, whatever we are, or were.

The waiter swabs his plate with bread
And drains what’s left of his wine,
Then rearranges, one by one,
The knife, the fork, the spoon, the napkin,
The table itself, the chair he’s simply borrowed,
And smiles, and bows to his own absence.

Although not as obscure as most of his others. He’s been described as obscure for the sake of it, and of not accomplishing enough with his talent. I personally think he’s attempting something original, a new and difficult mode of expression.

Recently I have recommended many games to many people: instead, let them come here, and see the definitive list, which also serves as Sheldon’s Best Games Ever List:

1. Planescape Torment. (The best written, best thought out game ever)
2. Deus Ex (This game is just dripping with intelligence and good writing)
3. Fallout 2 (One of the best worlds ever)
4. Baldur’s Gate Series
5. Anachronox
6. Morrowind
7. Mafia
8. Max Payne 2
9. Kotor 2 (If it had been finished, would likely have been higher)
10. World of Warcraft (the ultimate MMORPG)
11. System Shock 2 (too dated now, but the precuser to many great things)
12. Kingdom of Loathing

Read their reviews at the best review site on the internets.

Until very recently Bartleby was employed by a well-known, well-entrenched company specialising in the energetic sale of trivialities. Actually no. It was a wonderful entry level oppurtunity for an enthusiastic young salesman to enter to the job market. It was a fantastic oppurtunity to provide a valuable service to our customers and facilitate their enquires in the most expedient manner. It was an oppurtunity to learn valuable life lessons in relationships and teamworking. It was a place in which a sentence was not valuable or oppurtunistic if it did not have the words “valuable” and “oppurtunity” in them at least once. Your attitude is most important. We are to “choose” our attitude. Because it is no good being unhappy, because life is too short! It’s about having fun, meeting your sales targets, and toeing the company line. And liking it, bitch.

I got into an argument with a customer over coupons. This customer had neglected to inform me that he had a coupon and was therefore horribly offended at the quote I’d just given him. Next he failed to find the code printed in plain sight on the coupon. He then told me our policies were awful, because he wanted to do X, and I told him we couldn’t do that. He wanted to argue, and I hung up on him because he was the fifth person in a row who wanted to tango with me, and I just didn’t feel dancing no more.

I walked outside for a few minutes and the breeze smelt of nighttime lavender. I couldn’t think of a clear reason as to why I should go back inside, but after a while I did so anyway. I was called into the managers office, asked if I was feeling well. I informed her of my numerous problems with the company and told her that I’d like to quit. And what she said to me was poetry:
“There is no reason to stress. You need to calm down. I realise we have a long call queue at this time of day, but that is the reality of our busy company. Everyone else has to deal with this too. Even I had to take some calls tonight. And look - the queue is gone now. This is the reality. This is what we do here.”

So I didn’t have much to say to that, except give her my key and leave.

And pokes his nose squarely up it’s arse. Trouble turns out and gives him a slap. I am such a bad dog.

So tonight has a thoroughly unpleasant evening. I imagine that we were actually in a sci-fi series and that my character’s development over time has been a slow melt into goo. Afflicted by a hideous alien disease which renders one unto cheese. I am watched sadly by the other members of the crew who urge me to seek out a physician. But I am so very afraid of needles. And the physician is a lunatic, homicidal scotsman. “He is a Scotsman of the mind!” they rant, but I do not believe it. I see only a demon with exceptionally pointy teeth. And why should I retain my humanity? For what? What am I doing with? What purpose do I serve? Someone else can toil with the warp drives, and fix the transmographonic degregulgausserisers. Becoming cheese is an interesting and artistic process. I am Anakin Skywalker the performance artist, dabbling with the dark side as a means of reflecting societies taboo upon itself to make itself aware of it’s inadequacies. But then I discover that cheese is by it’s very nature quite sticky, and so I become stuck to the floor and cannot move anywhere. This presents numerous problems. I am struck often by the desire to be in numerous locations over time, and so must pull upon the collective sleeves and skirts of peers for a quick scrape and flick in a general direction. And because I see the same images and faces for such long periods of time, I stop looking deeply into them at the visions they return to me, but instead only start to see what is projected within from expectation, like when you read too fast over a sentence poorly written because you’re just looking for the gist. But I cannot just get the “gist” of warp drive mechanics. I cannot fudge quantum mechanics. To reply “I don’t remember… I think you stick that thingy in the red bit” is generally frowned upon. And I realise this. And I realise how pungent I am (because I haven’t been where I should have been, which is the fridge) and spent too much time insisting that I am watch, and survey, and slowly am melted by the heat and friction of the whirling activity around me. “Guys” I spluttered, drowning in my own quicksand. “Guys, I’m…” and that’s it. My last words as I drown in my own flaccid cheese-skin.

I don’t especially want to have anything to do with cheese, ever.