Tomic Riter

Tag: literature

  • They are here again.

    Here’s another herd of sheep. They’re looking at each other’s faces. They are all seemingly lost. They don’t seem to figure out where to put their next step. They’re afraid. They think somebody’s out here to kill them. They are the crazy anxious lot. They think anxiety is a part of their personal. They are convinced that’s how it is. They think that every man or woman is anxious. They’ve been shouting at the too of their lungs for no reason. Is it anxiety or old age? It could be old age as well. I had always thought that with age man became quieter and wiser. Looking at these crazy anxious people, I’m convinced it isn’t so.

    It’s hard to find a man of patience.

    – Tomic. All rights reserved.

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  • The first night of this year.

    As I lay down, the first night of this year, I tell myself that there’s so much to do. So so much. One step at a time. This year be a year of creating. For now, I can’t walk, can’t even keep my eyes open. My throat is a bit dry. My stomach a bit empty. Things have to wait until morning. A day over. Soon, this year will be over too. And hopefully I come out a bit wiser and all alive!

    – Tomic. All rights reserved.

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  • An evening and Kafka.

    Cold evening. Early return from work. Nothing to do until tomorrow morning. I had this urge to read Kafka again, and so this evening, I began reading his diaries. Some music in background kept playing. It was slow music. Not classical though. It might have been blues. On the other side of street, one man talking loudly to another. I can hear his coarse voice despite all the windows and door of my bedroom staying shut. What’s the point in talking so loudly. People often mistake loudness with clarity. It’s foolish.

    An excerpt from the diary –

    “Finally, after five months of my life during which I could write nothing that would have satisfied me, and for which no power will compensate me, though all were under obligation to do so, it occurs to me to talk to myself again. Whenever I really questioned myself, there was always a response forthcoming, there was always something in me to catch fire, in this heap of straw that I have been for five months and whose fate, it seems, is to be set afire during the summer and consumed more swiftly than the onlooker can blink his eyes.”

Excerpt From
The Diaries of Franz Kafka
Copyright protected.

    Approaching night. Red glow on my face. Itch in my hair. How much more will be read this night. How much more will be written before the morning knocks me down once again. It’s something even time cannot tell.

    – Tomic Riter

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  • Diarrhea diaries.

    Woke up with a terrible diarrhea. Ate too many chocolate cookies last evening. I couldn’t help it. It was raining and raining and there was nothing else to do. Also, I forgot to smoke yesterday. How could I forget that. I guess I just didn’t feel the need to smoke otherwise I would have smoked at least two. Couldn’t eat anything all day today. Around three noon, drank three glasses of lemon juice and that’s all and listened again to my Spotify playlist. My playlist has got everything – blues, jazz, some country, some rock, classical. Mostly blues and jazz. My playlist is my crutch. Without it, I cannot walk too far. Without my music, I tend to lose my head sooner than usual. Without my music, I lose connection to life. Music keeps my spirit alive and awake, even when I have diarrhea!

    Evening now. Back at home, listening to instrumental jazz. It hasn’t rained today, and I think it won’t rain tonight. Outside, quite windy. I can see the shadow of trees on my window swaying violently. Knock at the door. Must be the old woman bringing me dinner. Yeah, it’s her dressed in an orange blue printed gown, her white hair tied in a ponytail hidden under a veil. I could never understand culture, and how it has kept men and women, especially women, bound since centuries in the most absurd of ways. I am glad that I am uncultured. People say that culture preserves. Well, fuck that. We need more destruction than preservation.

    Now that I have opened the door, a little walk outside in the front lawn. The sign of no rain gives me joy. The winds are chilly but bearable in this t-shirt and these shorts. I walk back inside to my bedroom, pick up the keys to the main gate, walk outside to the main gate, lock it. A dog wailing, running in circles. I watch it for a moment, locate the moon in the sky, and then walk back inside. I open the container in which the old woman brought me food, look at the contents. Not bad. Not too warm, but it will do.

    Copyright © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

  • Work work work.

    Work work work work work work all week all day until evening. At night, it just rains and rains. It rains a lot. Too much rain to go anywhere or do anything other than sit in chair, drink coffee, smoke cigarette, drink beer, listen to music, read a little, think about the unfinished story, think about having no time. No time at all. Whatever the little time I get is spent getting drunk. But look at the irony. The drink is spent but I am still going on. How much can a man really take. A lot, I guess. A lot. A man can take a lot until he realizes there’s no point in taking anymore. As I write, it keeps raining, the roads wash anew, the potholes fill to their necks, snakes run out in the garden, moths circle around the lamp glowing in my porch, lizards run away, garbage in my kitchen rots, cigarette waits for the spark, old wounds run dry as the body waits for new.

    Copyright © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

  • I feel alright.

    Eating breakfast and typing shit again. Went out to buy breakfast a while ago. These days, I myself do not do much cooking. Discovered a good small joint not far from here that makes really delicious breakfasts and meals. I just go there and buy and bring food home and eat. Saves my time. Gives me more time to read and write, especially write. I am looking forward to publishing at least two more books this year. One is already published – Red Room Bar – a collection of 50 poems written in and around bars over the course of six years. The paperback version of the same should be made available in 2-3 days. Submitted the manuscript of the same only yesterday night at around 3 A.M. It became a long night. Fell asleep some time after 4. Wake up at 8:30 to the usual morning noises of birds and people and garbage truck. Missed the garbage truck again and now, the garbage will stay here for another week. Shit. SHIT!

    What are the odds of this being a simulation – my life and everything happening in it? I think zero. This life is as real as a life can be. Took so much shit today morning, my stomach sank a mile. Had to run out for breakfast at once. Crazy. And the day has barely begun. If I sit down and think about what all happened since the time I woke up, I realize that a lot has already happened. A LOT! Me waking up to the nauseating smell of garbage everywhere in my home, the garbage truck getting missed, me taking so much shit, me running out for breakfast, me thinking about paying all my dues to all the people I owe, me thinking about the paperback version of my book finally going live, me thinking about finishing my book of short stories, me taking out an apple and an orange, instead of a beer, from my fridge and placing them on my table, me checking my earnings so far from my books and realizing there’s a long way to go, me thinking about the Independence Day in America, and how silly the idea of independence day really is. It doesn’t matter what country we talk about, the idea is always so silly.

    Got a big stack of books waiting to be read – Murakami, Kafka, Camus, Celine. A lot of writing to be done. Heading to it straightaway. Have a good time.

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  • Tomorrow is just another day.

    No idea what my landlord is doing in the garden at 8 at night because at 8 at night, really nothing is visible here. By 8 at night, it gets really dark, so dark you can’t see even your own dick were you standing in the garden. Ding Dong. The old woman has arrived with my parcel. I throw the parcel away on sofa and head back to my bedroom and sit in my chair. It is Friday and I am thinking about Saturday already. It is Friday and Friday can go to hell as well. All days are the same and I am dead. Thinking about opening the beer bottle. Tomorrow is just another day and the landlord will be back in the garden with or without his dick, doing some shit around just like he did today.

    Copyright © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

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  • Dire Straits playing.

    Dire Straits playing. Walked downstairs with an empty can of beer. Sat in my chair. Dire Straits playing. All the booze gone. All the evening almost gone. Feels too hot in this t-shirt. An urge to remove it and sit naked under the fan and feel an erection. Looking at the empty beer can on my table, Dire Straits playing. It’s dire times and Dire Straits is playing. The problem with being less foolish than the ones around you is that sooner or later, you would have to carry a lot of shit that you’re not supposed to carry. The problem is people doing favors to you. The problem is you getting crushed under the burden of those favors. Better to stab everyone from the front, right in their ribs or better, right in their foreheads, than take shit from anybody. A long pause. A long long pause. Dire Straits is gone. What the hell is this playing on my speakers? No idea. I keep listening anyways. Maybe it will turn out to be something good, and if it does not, then so what. A bad song cannot bring this world to it end. Or can it?

    Copyright  © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

  • It is time and time it is.

    Almost missed sunset. Now, time to drink Budweiser. Time to spend my evening and my night in my way. Time to forget mother and father and friends and brothers and sisters and servants and landlords and caretakers. Time to tear open the sack of chaos. Time for music and drinks and Van Gogh and Murakami and nothing else. Love can go to hell. Friendship can go to hell. Work can go to hell. Everything else, well, is already in hell.Time to sit back in my chair and wait for the end of the world, hoping it’s tonight. Time to fill my room with smoke as I take another sip. Time to forget the wounds in my leg and at the center of my chest. Time to keep my legs on the bed and my heart in my grave and take another long drag of cigarette. Time to forget the doorbell and the dinner. Time to forget hot black coffee because tonight, I’ve got chilled beer stacked in my fridge. Time to listen to the same song aloud and on repeat until my head begins to fall apart. Time to take another sip of cold beer and watch the night enter through the open window and spill its rain-filled blood on my pillow. Time to forget about the goddamn poetry and the goddamn poets because nobody gives a shit anyways.

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  • Or maybe I am just talking shit again.

    Life is a labyrinth. Sometimes, it’s just too clouded inside the goddamn head. The goddamn head. The questions are many, the answers nowhere to be found. Maybe life is just about asking more questions. Maybe life is about wanting to find answers and never about really finding answers. Maybe life is about sitting somewhere and watching everywhere and wondering all the time about all the things watched and not watched and felt and not felt. Maybe I fell down on the wrong planet. Maybe I popped up in the wrong universe. But as far as I have seen myself and known myself, nothing with a person like me can always go completely alright. There will always be something missing, some kind of unrest within, something that’s completely out of order. As I sit in my chair, the smell of antiseptic spilled on the floor filling my nose, the June sunlight trying to break through the steel layer of dark clouds, the wounds in my leg turning black from red, Dylan singing and Townes singing and Dave singing and the great Mary of Jesus singing, all singing all through the morning. Not anything to eat but a lot of good music to listen to. It’s always like that. Always. Maybe life is about listening music all day and night and one day, falling dead. Maybe life is about earning just enough money and working only so much to earn the money that would be enough, and devoting the rest of your time to something where your passion lies. Maybe life is about going through all and feeling all kinds of feelings and dreaming and forgetting and remaining here in the now and remaining as stable as one can even in the face of total destruction.

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