On the Nose: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Oh ... fuck!

Your opening line is absolute genius:

As I scratch away at the
innards of a
sickening shock yellow
spiral-bound notebook on my
tiny desk in the
corner

UGH! THIS! IT'S AMAZING. The yellow shows wear, age, the use of scratch is dismissive. All of your descriptive language is dismissive really, "Sickening, scratch, tiny, small" all of it shows this is something unimportant, it's all reductive -- in a way.

Or at least doesn't have the importance it used to.

The yellow paper really is a fucking dynamite. It explodes. That paper was once white, and this image leads the reader to pick up that there is something lost, something aged here.

But the tiny and small are also telling, especially when you segue to a gnat.

The metaphor extention from the small inner feelings on a writer to that of a gnat is GLORIOUS. That was such a smooth transition. like BUTTER, bay-bee.

of a small bedroom,
a gnat buzzes about the bulb of an incandescent
lamp.

BOOM. Right there.




The ending execution was flawless. The gnat's endless quest to get to the light. The writer's endless quest to say the same fucking thing in a new way.

An incessant search for a
new
angle
from which to attack the
Same
light.

Love it.

This is the most engaged comment (with respect to the work at hand) I've had in my short tenure on this platform, and I can't possibly articulate how thankful I am for you taking the time to write this. I truly don't care whether your remarks were positive or negative, as the otherwise apathetic regard in which my poems have been received has been truly eating me alive.

I thoroughly enjoyed how you started this.  The way you worded writing into a notebook is truly one the most unique ways I've read.  I enjoyed how you and the gnat had something in common, it attacking the light (usually a yellow color) and you attacking that yellow notebook.

LJ

This was a very astute observation in all its simplicity and reflects being in the moment. The imagery of the gnat stops the reader flat. Is there a particular reason Same is personified? Or is it just part of your style?

Mea Culpa for not seeing this and replying before. "Same", capitalized in context serves as a subtle means by which to edify the notion of the light being unchanging in the senses both literal and subtextual. If anything, light may have been capitalized instead, though ever in step with our affliction, I'm preoccupied with the next word more so than the last on that front.

Apologies for the belated reply,
-Alois

Ya know it's the damndest thing; if my grandfather didn't have the same fuckn story!! I'll be a rat's ass- what a small world.

Keep that same energy Joker; best regards for your engagement,
-Alois