Sdoic, the lava lamp
12/11/2002 01:51 a.m.
Why Sdoic is the poet I'll always strive to be, but probably already am to a lesser extent...

She's my twin gone sane, the reason I'd drive cross-country in one day if she ever needed me to, the metaphorical yin to my yang, the only reason Montana is cool in my eyes (well, except for maybe Frontier House)...ya'll get the point, on with the show.


I had never read a style quite like the one I was developing when I first came to Spyder's a few years ago. I wasn't sure then whether that meant that what I was doing just plain sucked, or if all the published works I had been reading were as awful as I thought they were. But I was on a mission, after years of literary quarantine, to find the newest, hottest, most cutting edge poetry I could find. I obviously wasn't finding it in published works, so I turned to the internet.

After many maddening nights at the keyboard wading through the inane scribblings of 16-year-old girls with crushes and men of retirement age who thought they would have made a fine contribution to the Beat era, I nearly despaired. (No offense to either of the afformentioned groups, by the way. I've known a few young girls and old men with exceptional talent) Then one night, a stroke of luck, the hand of fate, god's intervention--whatever you want to call it--led me here.

I remember when I first read Sdoic, I was disheartened. I couldn't believe it. That style, the pacing, the use of decorative rhyme, the imagery...everything. It was like I had written something and tucked it away and forgotten it, but now there it was. Only, I knew it couldn't have been me. These works were more clever, more vivid than anything I had ever managed before. And what was even more amazing than finding a poet with a style that fit somewhat with mine was the realization that this poet, whoever he or she was, had gained the respect and adoration of nearly everyone on the site.

I was fearful. Having just been reamed by Michael C for a newbie offense, I wouldn't dare post a piece that was near to my heart lest someone (particularly Sdoic) pick it apart; or worse yet, if it was ignored and no one posted a reply to it at all. But the more I read and was inspired, the more my need to be included consumed me. Finally, I posted a piece called "About 5'9"...and waited. And do you know who posted back to it? Yep, that's right. And we lived happily ever after. Well, after the initial discoveries that Sdoic was a girl, and learning the basics like the math stuff and that whole business of living on the coast.

We never did a whole lot of that getting to know each other stuff. We never really had to, I guess. From the moment I first started really reading her stuff, I knew what she was all about. I was hooked, like a crack addict. And in a sick kind of way it was really a self-centered thing for me to do, being a fan of Sdoic. We were so much alike in our writting, but so very different in our lives. It's a weird thing, and something that I don't think happens to many people--to love someone you've never seen with your own eyes and call them friend from a thousand miles away, to find a carbon copy of your values imposed on a life lived so unlike your own that you begin to wonder just who you would be if you hadn't made the choices that you did at the very moment you made them. It's a weird thing.

Here is where I don't have to say how much inspiration and support I've gotten from Sdoic. I don't have to. But I think I'm gonna go ahead and say it anyways: That night we talked on the phone for a little while, and it was just like old friends catching up, not at all like a couple of awkard strangers meeting for the first time. And your voice sounded just like it had in my head all those times, and I didn't even get embarassed when you complemented me flat out. And how I can absolutely picture you walking naked through the Castro (whatever that is) muttering a recitation of Hank, and thinking you're so *brave* to do that, and aren't you cold? And brave, too, for letting a man in your life the way I was never able to, and actually *trusting* him. How I didn't know your real name for so, so long and it never really bothered me until Andrew pointed out that I didn't know it; and then I just HAD to know, but would NEVER ask. And even when I did know it, I couldn't remember who had told me, but I know it wasn't you 'cause I guess you just assumed that I had always known. And then I forgot it, after all that trouble, until you e-mailed me from your school account. I'm laughing at myself now. How Tom Robbins is just as great as you said he would be. And how "Bay Poem for Berkley" is just about the most perfect thing in the world when I wasn't thinking of anything in particular and then there you were, waving out of the pages of Cisneros with a big cheesy Montana smile on your face. And how do you pull off a cowboy hat in California? Only you.

And since I can't find that phallic poem, here are two others. At one point, the poems of Sdoic's that were the most impactful on my little virgin ears were the dirty ones, the ones that revealed her to be a sexual being. There was this one about a man eating out his girl while she was on her period that was just about the most hillarious and oddly touching thing in the world. I still remember Michael C's reply to it being something snide about earning his 'redwings'. God, I laughed for days. Then the Sdoic poems that got my attention most were the one's about being emotionally screwy. And then there are the ones about the plain old shit that happens in life, and how fresh and imaginative it all becomes when described in the right way, Sdoic's way. Those are my favorites now.

The third stanza of "Only Crazy on the Outside" is about the best metaphore ever, but who needs metaphores when you can create imagery like that?


I am currently Festive
I am listening to Josh Groban