brittle stone

Photo by Sam J on Pexels

I am most comfortable in the night, 
where the ease of life settles on me 
I’d like to bring a light to all the poets 
of love and show them someone cares 
for the work they do… 
it’s sad, but the people in the world 
seem to prefer artifice — 
they like the shine of a slick veneer… 
but our walls are brittle stone 
and crumbling concrete, dull as dust 
our floors are broken tile, 
and you see our pipes have gone to rust… 
but have faith, my friends, 
and trust in me — I know what I’m doing 
because the act, it does itself in me, 
and motivation from the outside 
is of no consequence — that sort of thing
will get us nowhere… 
the fire burns even if so few people can see it 
and the warmth has a knowledge of its own, 
one that no one can deny

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“I don’t know what it is I’ve turned into, 
but whatever it is, it has to be able to take on 
anything it wants.” — Paul Hewson

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Garbage Notes:

Let’s break this one up a little. The first two lines are about the feeling I get at night, after everyone else has gone to sleep, after the world has quit trying to do things and everything just sort of settles down into stillness. This is my calmest time. I get a lot of great writing done around midnight.

Then the poem shifts into the positive feeling I get when I read and engage with other writers. I feel like the support I give to other people who are at various stages of their careers is very important to me. It’s a feeling of love. It’s an expression of gratitude. And I think the more people get acknowledged for the work they do, the easier it can be for most of us to get through the day.

My favorite lines of the poem are right there in the middle:
“it’s sad, but the people in the world 
seem to prefer artifice — 
they like the shine of a slick veneer…”
If there’s something I can’t stand it’s when people use glitz or cheap enthusiasm or anything bright and shiny or ostensibly fake to mask how truly shitty they are. I feel like a lot of the world does this and it’s nauseating.

The rest of the poem goes on to describe my feelings about creating a space for other writers in Scuzzbucket. It’s something that sort of started on a whim as a mildly selfish thing—I wanted a place to showcase a lot of my stuff that wasn’t selling—stuff that I thought was too angsty or emotional. And it ended up being the cornerstone of a community of writers that now means a great deal to me.

Scuzzbucket (and now by extension, Garbage Notes) is kind of like the core of what I do. And it’s all about allowing yourself to be vulnerable and ugly and using creative writing to connect with others in solidarity and with the understanding that life can be brutal and punishing, and though we may often feel like falling apart one minute—like some kind of brittle stone—we can still somehow be redeemed.

So to me, the true expression of that inner feeling is The Word. That’s what it’s all about. Writing is life-changing. It’s life-saving. And my poetry, my fiction—it’s all about chipping away at the pretense and getting to what really matters to each human being, each individual person who dares to tackle the page.

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Franco Amati 2023

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