From CHASING VICTOR

Or rather not really. This is a very rough description of a few lines I would like to include in Chasing Victor, the current verse novella of my dreams. In other news, I'm reading Sharp Teeth, itself a verse novel, the first book by Toby Barlow about werewolves. (Imagine I could add a semicolon into the last sentence so that you would know this is Barlow's first novel and is about werewolves and not his first about werewolves.) Consuming art is becoming more and more a way of realizing all my ideas are taken. A Seamus Heaney poem or a random blog post from someone I'm never going to meet will strike me oddly and I'll realize that what some original (or what I thought was original) thought, poem, story was trying to say has been better stated here. Maybe that's one of the jobs of the writer. Realizing that everyone's better than you are. Maybe not. I mean, probably not, but I'm not going for pity so I tried to add an optimistic edge to that statement. And anyway that's enough here...



On drugs the world became a music video
and he knew his dance routine well,
a perfectly placed joke, a stunning smile,
on drugs life was all that much easier.

And this had a way of self-perpetuating:
he was cool enough on drugs
to get more drugs
and continue to be on drugs,

even the dregs of the drugs
would be enough to get him
in someone's bed for the night,
which was the point, because he was trying to piss someone off

and knew he would fail.
Knew that it wouldn't matter to anyone
but himself
and half a dozen less popular people

that he was going to break into pieces.
But on drugs the world became a music video:
he could lie, cheat, steal, kill, and fuck
as long as he sung the chorus just right.

***

A hole in one
(cheek)
on the putt-putt golf course
(from her tongue dug in
too deep
and out into the air).

Love,
it had turned out,
was just another trap,
trick of the mind,
and her heart only pumped blood.

Suddenly the world seemed ripe for the taking.


EDIT: cropped from this second poem is this initial second stanza (in place of current second with no initial third stanza), here for archival reasons;

I had thought her someone different,
intially,
but the art had its way,
held sway in the argument
that was following
that dot in the far-off distances,
that was
chasing Victor.


***

Victor was crazy in the sense that he would be able to implant himself in your memory. We use to shoot it around in advertising workshops: his madness had to be an act, not only was there method in it, but the man showed motive and results. No one took over the world as quickly while also imperceptively. One day the most recognizable face in the world was the President of the United States or some Chinese dictator, you know? The sort of people who had power so, yeah, it was important to know who they were and it was productive and it was hard to get through life without these people being jammed down your throats. Victor came on television the next day and took over. It was like neurolinguistic programming, subliminal messaging his way into all our heads and the most astounding part is that we have no answers to any of the questions about this phenomenon. Why? We don't know. How? We have no fucking clue. Where? Several initial locations have been proposed. A tweet from Victor confirmed his location at the time of instantaneous mass popularity was "in some jungle somewhere." Many small countries and/or non-state groups would claim to have begun the craze, but no one had proof on account of the fact that there was absolutely no evidence, whatsoever. When? Also sketchy. There's a three-hour block where Google trends for Victor increase exponentially ending approximately half-a-million times more powerful than when this period began, but with no historical rise documented, we have no way of understanding this rise and cannot tell if it was a cause, effect, or simply a visible result. Who? Victor. And is even that distinction clear? What? Victor termed his popularity "victory" early on in his cultural hegemony. He began writing his name in a lowercase fashion to simply describe himself as "the victor." Eventually he would change this to "a victor." All of these questions swirling in a whirlpool around themselves would be continuously asked on internet forums or in college courtyards--Victor surprisingly ubiquitous on the web and the world wide around it--were not the sort to gather any legitimate answers, but rather pick up Chinese whispers, like the meanings of song lyrics would and do occasionally still. He was an alien with technology to take over the human mind. He was the sexiest thing anyone had ever seen. He was ugly and yet proud. He was a robot with technology to take over the human mind. He wasn't. Not anything. Simply a rumor, like a Milli Vanilli live performance. And all the while somehow Victor had found himself (itself? the question on rumor mills spread) reformatting the global culture's brand new operating system, placing a little bit of the man into every byte of data there was, making it apparent that to wipe him clean from the world, one would simply have to blow up everything. Kill us all. And then plant new people. But who could have the ability to do such a thing other than perhaps an enigma like Victor?

***

Victor, the great myth of the last decade, was seen removing himself from camera coverage today with a young couple who appeared fed up with themselves and overjoyed with him (don't we all?). I caught a glimpse of him through my lens at the far edge of the stage and I saw him shiver. His image, that is; he is simply a projection onto the substance that is our world. I blame some five-plus dimensional freak for all this. Or someone with way too big a dick and way too much time on his hands. Those are generally the ones you can get away with blaming the most.