Review: Fjords Vol.1

Fjords Vol.1 by Zachary Schomburg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



My final take: the book suddenly became a tarot deck in the remaining pages. That's the best I could explain it. Abstract, surreal, and just on the edge of sense, just about to tell you something about your life, if you let it.



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Lots of Books Have Been Written

Violent and unintentional

Acquaintances from Shanghai, India, Japan

Unbreakable codes

Rampant insanity

New friends, old stories

The translating will never end

Rows upon rows of lives upon lives

We once feared the mail would never stop, huddled over our sorting tables in the cost-efficient fluorescent light

You were trying to cut back on coffee -- unfortunately tea leaves me feeling dehydrated

You were quitting smoking

You were trying to eat healthier and exercise

You were trying to live on less, eat local, cut out wheat, vote your conscience

Choices, choices everywhere

Now we fear the day the mail stops

We'll be left to figure out what those lights did to us

And how the sorting changed us forever

Look at all this gray

Look at these medical bills

There was a creek we used to fish in back in Massachusetts. We'd ride our bikes there and we'd rarely catch anything.

The fish are gone now

The creek is gone

And bikes are extinct at last.

Location:Portland St,Baltimore,United States

Everything, Everything

The sum of time

The son of the valley

The alley of our youths

The plane.

The plane.

Plebiscite for your thoughts

Lobster of your desire

Longevity for a horse for an hour for a broken down windmill

+++

They ring the valley and they plod

They exchange

They never had the chance for perfection

Hold so still the world will never end; or

Move so fast you never will

+++

It doesn't get any easier

It doesn't get any bigger

And then breathing

+++

The shiny school

The patent clerk

The forgetful one

+++

For here?

No. I gotta get back.

The game's on.

Location:Portland St,Baltimore,United States

This Day Is For Fortune; This Day Is for Everyone

Trayvon Martin's on my mind

And chanting and basketball players in protest hoodies and what's next

See shivers in your spine and go at them

Because go at them hard is our son

Senseless shit's gonna happen is our son

Sense of justice is our son

Wear a helmet learning to ride a bike is our son

Driving while black is our son

Hold the line and not on my watch is our son, too

I love this country and I do believe justice will be able to legally marry forgiveness in every state some day

I believe you can hold a picture in your head and then bend the whole world to it

It's been a while of too much bending to bad pictures

Hold onto good pictures is our son

Will you help me raise him?

I believe it takes faster-than-light light and I believe you can do it

Is our son in America today?

Is our son saving daylight?

Does our son know courage?

Does he know the many faces of conviction?

Stand up and be counted with our son

Always more standing up, always too few helmets to go around, but also setting bones and always Saturdays

I don't even know what I'm getting ready for

I didn't bring any facts

I'm trying my shoes

Location:Portland St,Baltimore,United States

The Wicked and the Dead

Sleep is for

Foolish consistency is for

Idle time is for

Yesterday's paper is good for

And good for various kinds of analysis -- qualitative, quantitative, verbal, specific, numeric, etc.

"I didn't intend what I said to be real"
And / or

"I didn't mean that as fact"
And / or

"I was trying to be true"

Or True or the Truth

Does the Answer play for Boston?

The Answer. The Truth. Beast. Big Man. Timmy. Yaz. The Iron Man. Dr. J.

Nicknames are the best. They're the real deal.

Dear sirs and madams,
Bees, in fact, don't have knees

Sleep is not for meth addicts
When they are in the throes of the demon synthetic

Reminder: Organic solvents were what used to make decaf coffee a bad idea and dry cleaning iffy

But I love a good hook like everyone else

I really don't believe there is a hidden meaning we should be looking for, but I struggle to take that feeling all the way to the ground

Sorta like ground and round have no connection outside of a butcher's shop

Well, more likely a butcher's counter in these parts

And French for ground and French for round have even less connection

Less than no

You know what I mean

And that I mean it from one way -- the kind of way that leads you to have your minions excise the excess words from Shakespeare's sonnets

I mean, how foolish is that?

How foolish is every tree? Every dogwood. Every skyscraper.

I am really starting to think I'll never get to visit an asteroid belt in this lifetime -- and I've never really thought there'd be another

At least I believe that you're you

And you're not out to get me, no matter what time it is or what dumb-assed thing I've managed to say

Dear OED explorer trawling the web. I hope you find this note and add "shit-ton" to the dictionary. It is such a great phrase-cum-word. It does such a great job of conveying an idea, an attitude, a cultural moment. What more do you want? I know, right? I don't doubt Google will show off its popularity and utility if you have reservations.

If you already have it on the docket. Excellent! I should check that OED more often (aka ever aka Little Johnny One Note aka the Brockton Bomber aka Sweet Cheeks aka the best damned cat I've ever known).

Sleep tight Spooky. Sleep tight Zelda. And sleep tight all the other animals great and small that I've loved and who have shed their living selves. You guys were awesome.

Location:S Hanover St,Baltimore,United States

Got My Eyes On Right

Quickly, right.

Effect, right.

Barter quickly, right.

The circles say attack, or more likely "pounce first, pounce hardl

Hospitals on every block.

Funeral homes on every other

Spells Philadelphia

Leaves

Spells daffodils, goes to Oxford on leave

Lifting upwards

The difference between the roof and the ceiling

The space between the spacer and the fire

Beautiful house, how did you get so beautiful?

Can you sunder ice?

Can you smite a virus?

Can a blind telepath see through someone else's eyes?

Pools of blood

The mad scientist using this particular moment and this particular card game to finally tell the truth, but you've treated him the other way for so long

Like too strong to the rim and/or anticipating the blow and/or the pendulum

The deepest pit of inertia

Your favorite gravity well

The hottest new heat sinks

If I told you it was thermodynamics all the way down, you'd call me a liar

Nobody ever expects 2 + 2

And I've got all your nobody right here

Location:Dover St,Baltimore,United States

There Is Ice Cream Dripping from the Ceiling and Butterflies in Your Eyes

From good at everything to bad at everything in seconds

Survivors all around us, and I never got you the right backpack

Sideways glances are a map of my failures

We listen to experts and they teach us expressions

We listen to experts and they help us see the world better

We pay them or pay them off every day so we can continue on our merry way

There will be lunch

There will be dinner

There will be a third line with an extended phrasing that's the crutch cliché

Crutch as a cane to hold up your ear or a conveyance to keep your wholer head moving down the road

Your body follows as the crutch flips from one to the other and then it's both

The color wheel spins itself into white

It is not a winter's day

It is not a lion's day

I can't possibly wrap a blanket around all this

I can't buy enough helmets or mats or antibiotics

***

There is the evil you can't beat because in beating it you become that evil

There is the evil you can't beat because in beating it you create another and greater evil

You crush all the embodiments and vehicles

You disrupt channels and stunt waves

There is the evil you can't beat because even though it is small, it never rests and yet you must. And someone will eventually doze off on the watch no matter how elaborate and double-proofed your buddy system

There are inhuman evils and you are human

There is the evil you can't beat because it's just so damned big and better and stronger

The evils that scare you

The evils that lull you into taking them lightly

The evils that are invisible, undetectable

There are evils you invite into your home unwittingly and the evils you welcomed with open arms knowing what they were and, god, what were you thinking?

If you were created in anyone's image, that's where you learned resting

That's where you learned breathing

That's where you learned to convert sugar into ATP and power this very dynamo

The ghost of citric acids

The Kreb's Cycle round and round forever passed on to children or the many many things and systems and processes that will feast on your flesh when you're gone

***

Your mind is the cage

Your body will set you free

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Sunlight somethings

Soaked in, scared, the scars will come

The flesh will envelop, the flesh will yield, the flesh will overcome, the flesh will melt

The flesh will burn and tan and blemish and cancer up

The eyes will tear and close and see and witness

The witness will buckle and doubt and stand firm

Four on the floor

Can you help you?

Moving forever

Location:W Cold Spring Ln,Baltimore,United States

There Will Always Be a Winner and There Will Always Be a Shadow Except in Cases of Complete Darkness

Shadow after shadow

Day after day

I'm standing at a safe distance where I'll be safely unaware of the results

Forced marches. Thought patterns going extinct every day.
This very day just disappearing without so much as a poof.

Pixels on pixels vs. the quiet and the loud

The quietest sound ever sounded archetype

The loudest sound ever ignored cliché

Fingernails soothing your still-beating heart

Trickeries of lighting and make-up and costumery and editing and montage

Your head is putting it all together
Sugar burns. Oil burns. Grease burns. Third degree burns. Burnsides' best work. Behest a burn and behest it well.

Deep burnt trenches. Burnt sienna. Brown and brown followed by more brown still.

In-jokes vs. irony? Nobody wins.

Stand up comedy vs. stand-up guy? Depends on what you're looking for.

Mr. Right Now? Depends on whether a pile of insecurities on your couch at 3 in the morning is the kind of right now you are looking for.

Or digestive disturbances.

Or psychotic episodes.

Or a skull-drenching fear that knows to hide in the corner of his eyes whenever you're around

What with your decisions

And your smart scarves

Sunglasses, handbags, shoes, meals at regular hours, laundry done, laundry folded, alarms sounding, showers, more meals, travel.

Travel, travel, travel, travel.

Travel, travel, travel, travel.

Breathe deeply.

Count up the miles.

Let it begin.

When Your Gifts Come Home to Roost from Another Direction and Nobody's Happy With It

Full plane on the way to Dallas and then on to Austin

That guy is sitting next to me

That guy is sitting next to me, but I'd hoped burying myself in this great Sunday Times Magazine story about these girls outside Rochester with tics and seizures would carry me through

But you know where I'm going with this

And I'm too tired to read to much

And I just kinda have to pee enough that I can't really quasi-sleep or rest or whatever

And I'm in the window seat and don't feel like making two people get up to resolve that

I think everyone has a little algorithm I their head that balances their own discomfort against the imposition it would be on folks around you to resolve said discomfort

This gotta-pee discomfort is wicked mild

I've said it before, I've driven across six states needing to pee before

So I can surely fly across six

I think my algorithm is for shit, though and I shouldn't sweat a little more harmless disruption for strangers a little more often

Shit I disrupt the hell out of people I know all the time -- why not share said gift with the wider world

"The wider world" sounds real nice -- I bet it'd feel nice in my mouth

"Hypermarché" nice? Doubtful. Few things feel that nice.

Mabeline. Navel orange. Ice cream just starting to melt. The patient tongue of someone you're digging hard. Just about anything in the right amphetamine moment -- but especially your own tongue.

Heraclitus? Maybe.

Orientalist? In more than one way.

Does xenophillic have an organic chemistry or internal medicine meaning? I'm going to start using it to mean "orientalist" in a positive way cuz I don't think you can get away with positive orientalism in 2012

But mayhaps losing the capital O softens the blow.

There is entendre all over the place

Is that guy's incessant app advice to that other guy rewiring pathways?

That other guy is off to the bathroom

Maybe I should make a move

Too late

Blessed silence

I'm guessing this is worthless, but I'm to blame

My bad

It Winds in Both Directions

End. Madness. Ice. Signs. Singing. Deluge, deluge, deluge.

Deee-sexy in the heart.

Deee-scrumptious in my belly if my belly weren't so sad.

A weekend of ideas that could power an entire year.

Monkeys. Typewriters. Handcuffs. Ash trays. The 70s.

Blot out your tremors.

Did a stentasaurus ever walk the earth?

I've walked many miles in my shoes, but not this particular pair.

I've never had these shoes on Bourbon Street either.

I bought them with euros.

Can you see me kicking back on a yatch in a Polo windbreaker? It'd have to be yellow. And aviators. No shoes. Turks & Caicos. Dollar bills -- lots and lots of 'em.

I just don't see it.

I want to be seafaring people. But more I want to be good people.

I'm not built for single servings.

If famine comes, I usually tell people within a year of meeting them, kill me first. I burn hot.

I'm a waste machine.

I'm telling you this now to save time later.

Time we'll use on shared strengths or foraging.

I wish I had smarter shirts.

I wish I was comfortable wearing a hat.

But at least I have these eyelashes and a gift for gab.

Location:S Greene St,Baltimore,United States

There Is Nothing Instant

Not here, not now

Not your first born and frogs and sacred meals

Not living in Paris with a nanny and a personal chef

Not feeling so hot, but looking forward to early morning coffee and comfy clothes

I've spent my day in Baltimore and D.C.

I wrapped up the Oregon trail at the zoo, because this is the 21st century

I'll need the weekend to figure this week out

In my bones

Get some sushi

Watch king fu movies

Feel the wind wrap around my body and then it is gone

The wind

And there is my body. Blinking

Location:Emory St,Baltimore,United States

Updated Updates Up in Here

You feel it coming on

There is knocking and then there is a door

Knock, knock, knocking, as they say

They are right, they are the smartest room, they know the secrets of the pink moon and blue moons and the too tired stories about studies of crime waves in London

If you ask me, they have nothing better to do

Aka All They Want to Do Is Dance (and make sweet romance)

You can't kid a kidder

You can't even kid a kid if she isn't in the mood to pay attention

There

You see

It all comes down to attention

Flashing lights, a handful of wit, a winter-shortened day

Witchcraft vs. aircraft, who wins?

Withcraft vs. hovercraft. No brainier.

The artificial heart vs. messenger RNA?

Christ almighty vs. lord bless us and save us?

I don't even know how to spell Aramaic so there goes that even if the robots are gonna swoop in and save the day.

Peace be with you robots.

Think on photosynthesis.

Totally. Badass.

Location:Portland St,Baltimore,United States

Let's Keep This

The plural of deer

The plural of country

The plural of everything

Let's keep this sweet

Keep it moving until we find the newest circle

Ring around the things you care about

In writing

In the Wish Book

Remember the winter creeping in, and your new sneakers getting less new every day

From white to any hundred off-whites

First real scuff you couldn't wait for

They pile up and dirt on laces

Thin, glossy pages full of possible dreams

When did flowers enter my life?

When did I first want everything?

Location:W Pratt St,Baltimore,United States

Surely Not the Last Story on Tails

"Poker face" is apparently Japanese for "poker face"

There are things you know and then there are things

There are tails you have and understand and wish you never had

These tails follow us, of course, and they rarely help us balance

You tear a weed and try to capture all its roots

There are irises in my eyes

Childish drawings, fallen trees, snowfall, endless tomorrows like sunsets like my hunger for mochi

Not a northern state full of lakes

Not of hidden notebooks

The shape, the size, an island city built on an island built in far more than a day

Hundreds of years pass: flowers, silt, tectonic movement, cultures come and go, vocabulary mutates

Safety pins, sliced bread, the World Series, the search for Big Foot

It keeps going on and on

Foie gras on Sunday

Graduations on Saturday

Always pals

Forever pals

Location:Melvin Dr,Baltimore,United States