Letter to Francisca:
wombat_part - third book of a letter to Francisca.
Living to find the right letter to write.
Finding one to love.
wombat_part_01

Book 3

Nov. 20/93. Where was I? New book now. Something about this time of year the sun goes down behind buildings shortly after it gets up above the building’s. This book doesn’t have lines like the other books. There is a light shading like lines but they don’t seem to demand strict adherence as do the lines in most books. I may like this better. As I think on it, it may well be that the complete omission of lines is what I may seek if I come to the end of this book and should chose to carry on.

I may try to have paragraphs in this book. Maybe I attempt to make subject matter and direction.

First of all, now that a few hundred page have been scribbled out, I shall see if I can recollect, if the word isn’t too colloquial, who I think I’m writing to. I don’t want to think of you as an old lover for that may cause jealousy for my most loving Wiebke. I will have to think of you as a friend. This may be a little awkward for you since we, in real life, hardly got to know each other.

I remember a few moments that were quite delicious, yet they were few and you denied there was any true passion when you shortly sent me packing. I mentioned that to Wiebke last night. We were talking about the dead chimp baby and my love experience.

My love experience, although well liked by most excellent friends, was limited. There were some short romances that I was glad to have experienced, there were a few most short flings. There was only madness in two. The madness that I need to appreciate the lust for love.

At the time I was becoming mad over you, I lived with Brent. He wanted me to take some sedatives. I was also working with him so all he saw was Steve being most frantic. Of course, as you know, it was one sided, so soon to die. If I wasn’t so crazed, maybe I could have had a little sense. But I didn’t.

In the end, which was only a couple months from the start, you told me you had made a mistake. You never liked me. It just happened.

Wiebke thought that a little odd that you should take two months to realize you just needed a few fucks. That’s not quite how she said it but she was disappointed in you that you were either so dumb as to be with someone for 2 months and not like them and not know it or think about it.

Like the dead chimp, there are many ways to try to reason, yet reason doesn’t change what has been. The events take place and those involved must accept his or her place in it. I don’t know what you think about the thing anymore. I’m sure you seldom do. I was one of many boys who wanted to love you and I’m likely quite forgotten but for my name among common friends.

I like to believe that I was too madly in love with you and you feared I was wanting too much. You weren’t prepared and thought it was better to send me out before things got messy.

But what do I go on about it now? I think I intend to make a little description of you to remind me who I was writing to. If I try to reason everything out, I’ll miss getting to any points about other things that also lack in worth. So why do I go on writing? Sometimes I like to believe that it’s because I’m a writer so I have to write. Even more, I like to believe I have to write and so I have to be a writer.

It’s a romantic notion. Any artist, maybe as should everyone, wants to believe he has the magic or madness or genius or passion that makes it impossible not to do that which he has decided he wants to do. I also like to believe I have to play the blues and I most certainly believe I have to paint. I so much want to draw on the madness from within. I hunger for my madness. I want to express it. Clayton suddenly reminds me of Strickland’s character as depicted by Maugham. Although I hope he doesn’t, for his wife and children love him, I could see Clayton snap the same way. Just pack it in and go paint. I think Clayton will find a middle ground though. He’ll build a studio in the back yard and lock the door and come out when it is time to sleep. He may be luckier than Strickland for Clayton may well have sellable art straight off. He may later develop the true madness for masterpiece work. I hope he does. Shit. I have something of his somewhere. I’d like it on my wall in our new flat.

New flat. In 1 and a half months, we will have our own place. I’ve never done that before. I’ve lived with women and had lovers but never have I lived with a lover.

Wiebke wants me to have a wallet. I haven’t carried one for 20 years. What made me think of that? I thought weather or not she’d want to go to the movie Bleu tonight so that made me think of her carrying Knut’s student ID so I could get Student rate because we have to watch our money and so I thought she would rather I carried it and to do that I’d have to have a wallet. I could add much more detail to the explanation but mainly I wanted to demonstrate that when I jump from one subject to another, usually there is connections. I just do them quickly and don’t care to record them.

Now I am thinking of my cousin Janet. She is possibly more mad than I. Certainly in a different direction does her madness run. A quick side thought. I wonder how learning German may affect my writing. Their grammar is similar to older English Grammar much as Shakespeare had written. I like it. Maybe I shall incorporate it on occasion in my own writing. It’s good to vary sentence structure to keep interest up. I want to mention sex now but I won’t. I’ll go straight back to Janet, say what I wanted to say then get to another point.

Janet and I used to be good friends and pen pals. I still have the letters she wrote to me. A tension started to grow between us and eventually it lead to her writing to tell me I was sick and deranged and don’t write anymore. So that was at least 5 years ago. Now the tension is gone. I’m not even sure what it was. She will be a mother soon. I know the baby will not be torn from her by a angry primate. Nanny will have one more great grandchild. Think that will be the fourth.

Wiebke and I may start on that same thing soon so the count could get up to half a dozen. I don’t think they have dozens in Germany. No feet or miles.

The reason I thought of Janet was that she sent Wiebke a copy of a Tom Stoppard play. Night and Day. I will likely hear her read it soon. I enjoy her reading to me. She doesn’t enjoy me reading to her, which disappoints me a little but when I know German a little better, I’ll force her to listen to me practice.

And so as usual, I have strayed from my topic. I have a hard time staying on track. I have been derailed. There’s a German word for that: verruckt or something. Anyhow, now that we’re here, did you ever get to here?

I was going to describe you a little so the other readers, if for some unforeseen reason my being a famous writer allows me the liberty to publish something as hackney as this, would care to know what you are like.

Why did I continue to think about you? Why am I such a fool?

Maybe I should first explain my character a little so as to show why I was so mad over you.

I’m desperately mad about beauty although I’m not sure what it is. I hunger for trouble and adventure. I love the foreign and exotic. I long for an intellectual challenge and lust for madness. I must have a blond. Well okay. That’s not true. Don’t throw the book down in disgust. But Wiebke also has pretty blond hair. So Did Heather, so pretty. And Chris, one of the Katherines, there was... Woops. Am I writing with my dick now? Okay. Here it is. I was living in Toronto. Franny is beautiful and has that thing about her top lip that I have such a weakness for, the over done a little construction. She had and maybe has, long blond hair. She is voluptuous and has such soft white shin. I want to put a disclaimer in here about skin colour but I don’t think we need draw attention to it. I can like soft white skin without being politically incorrect. I also like dark brown skin such as would be found east of here. Here being Europe now. But this isn’t a pornography book so let me get back to Franny’s skin. She had yummy skin. She was and likely still is, most delicious. I crave that and my explanation for that is my hunger for natural aesthetics. It could be argued that I spent too much time masturbating with Playboy and Penthouse. As Franny suspected and Wiebke also worried about, too much of that can distort your ideas of what a woman is. Women certainly have a reason to get a little upset about man’s ignorance. But don’t let me get on about sugar, cigarettes and cars and TV’s. Besides being the 4th most beautiful woman, that’s after my grandmother, Wiebke and my mom, I’d ever seen in day light so far, she was an Auslander. She came from Chile. I like that. I long for a woman to be from far away. Now this could also be a fantasy problem. A compromise for the woman from another planet who I could have completely to my own wishes. Now this is sick and perverted and shall remain for my second novel that I can’t seem to find. Where was I? Wiebke came home from Karate. She is practicing up for her yellow belt test nest week. I hope she gets it. I hope she sticks with it for a couple reasons. Selfish reasons: I want her to be strong and tough for I think that is sexy. I want her legs strong. I want her confident. I want her protecting me in street fights. The unselfish reasons I’d have to deliberate over too much to fabricate so I get back to explaining to Franny about Franny. Franny. Maybe that’s enough. I’m sure it shouldn’t matter for when someone loves someone, usually the love captures you then you reason out the reasons. I’m sure if I was in love with someone from my home town who was of a different character, I would be most excited about that. Of course you have to have common ground, such as belief and interest but most of all common love and a desire to be together.

I don’t want you, Franny or anyone, to think. That’s it. No thinking. What were you not to think, I forget? I shall rather stop for now and join Wiebke for lunch. I shall enter more unrelated dribble another time. Maybe tonight. Maybe next month. Maybe next year. Maybe a big land fish! Spatter.


It’s only the next day and I feel I shall write a little more. A heavy sadness has me in its grip this day. It’s another cloudy Sunday. I don’t like anything. I have no patience for Cretans. For no particular reason aside from loathing their way of being. There is no reference for my hostility. I simply hate the way some people are. That is pretty low of me. Since I will only be a bastard cynic if I continue to write now, I shall stop with one parting thought. Communism can only work with a dictator and the use of terrorism.

Look how fast the ink comes from this pen. I’ve written only a few pages and it’s down three eighths of an inch. What is three eighths of an inch in today’s world. In England and North America I suppose it’s a reference. Almost a centimeter. 8 mm maybe. Well fuck ya. You, everyone that looks like you and the horse you rode in on. Later.


Still not much later. I’m guessing just now that I have a strong urge to write and an equally strong fear that I have no place to go in my novel quite yet so I spit dribble into the book that needs no point since this is a letter and on top of that, a letter which will likely never be sent, I can write as I choose and not become frustrated if I can’t get my heroin to remember her trip through the desert. She won’t even talk about her childhood or her - her anything; she just waits in that room for something to happen. She thinks she wants to go to the Castle City but the author hasn’t had the courage to transport her, the narrator, out of the sloppy environment she continues to dwell in. She’s been there months now. There’s no need for it. She has to get to where the story starts. The story has many events awaiting, she can’t be pissing about in unproductive thought. I actually like my handwriting. It has become quite refined. It is a good sign. To have a good writing style is a sign that you have a direction with your mind. Are you aware that many things can be detected about you by analyzing your handwriting? My dad studied it a little as a hobby. A friend of his is considered an expert at it.

And so what? Well, I’ve also decided to use the word ‘fuck’ less frequently. I may attempt to cut it out of my speech and use it only if necessary in a dialogue in writing. There are many other word in English. It is not necessary to use a word that doesn’t really even have meaning anymore.

And by the way. I’ve accepted the notion that I shall continue to write until I can’t write anymore. It is the median where I am most crippled yet it won’t let me be. I’ve gone months without writing at times but I never feel good about - whatever it. Now I see, now as in this moment, I have nothing to add today and am simply wasting dead trees. If some greedy bastard hadn’t been so myopic and evil, I would be writing on hemp. A weed that also requires less energy to change from plant to paper. And why? Because the wood industry is too big. Big industry is dangerous because there is an attitude of inflexibility. But I’m sure I’ve raved about cars and fossil fuel and sugar before and it is bloody well time that I get on to something else. So if I think of something, I’ll let you know. I’m going to read or learn German now. Spater.



It is now Dec. 5 on a Sunday night. I don’t have the urge to write but I want to take a few minutes away from German words and I figured I could find a little of nothing to dribble about. As this letter gets larger, Franny, I believe I may also be thinking of my friend Brian as I record thoughts. Brian moved to Victoria BC the same week I moved to Germany. I was so happy to hear that he had, for the life in Brantford was not any good for him anymore. I could say the same of Toronto. I was getting stale - spelling - I am slow to pick up on it. Some words I know. Kugelschreiber and Lebensmittel. Both are important to me for I can’t go long without taking advantage of either. There are many things that you have to have no matter what you call them in what language. I would have never suspected that I would one day live in Germany and learn their language. I want a few other languages as well. Spanish for sure. Fucking crazy sometimes to think where you are. And there are so many things I want to write about aber ich habe kein lust. So - no, just one thing more. Stereotypes are funny. We are quite crippled by them. Let’s look at a few typical ones. Let’s start at home with, raw fish eating, snow shoe wearing, lumber jacket touting, bear herding, moose fucking, igloo making cowboys. And for a trip south of the boarder it would go something like: fat assed, donut eating, coffee drinking (double double), pickup truck with shot-gun driving, big Mac gobbling, TV watching, magazine reading, tourist shooting, drug dealing, world policing, debt accumulating, war mongering, energy wasting, garbage making, loud mouthing, shouting, dull headed, sack of arrogant trash. There is also the skin colour relation to penis size stereotype. The brain capacity hair colour relation stereotype may be well known to you. Now before I do a blurb on Deutschland, I’ll slide over the colour thing. I’m reminded of the bubble headed, shit for brains, reaction hungry, soggy, festering mound of diseased ridden dog vomit that came out with his Asian, African, White brain size - intelligence thesis. He made it clear as Mexico city’s air, that we should think about the situation. I think he ranked Asian num. 1, Whites num. 2 and Blacks num. 3. I’m not sure if he researched his information from Brave New World or from his library of child and animal porno video’s. Since he failed to put white on top, not even the Nazi, shit for brains, supported his notion. Not only is there only one species of humans, some scientist believe they can follow our genes, everyone’s, back to one woman out of Africa. Linguist, who contemplate the thing, show how language has developed and moved out of Africa. Now I’m not sure about this kind of thing, but if there is relevance to it, it would make us all very related. And it all seems so bafflingly amazing when you consider that one day humans will live on every inhabitable planet they can get to. Unless we blow ourselves up, it won’t be long before pilgrims leave the Earth. Shit, I’m already thinking about my fourth book too much and I haven’t edited the first two or written much of my third one. Lately, I’ve neglected all writing but to you. and maybe you never get it and no one reads it but me. And so what? And something else. Being in love is a good way to be. I’m in love with a most yummy woman who loves me madly. Spater.



Well, Spatz, it’s the night before Christmas eve. I’m 33 years old and I’ve never had a Christmas with - never mind, I don’t want to yag about that. But I’m quite used to a warm and beautiful body beside me now that I’m not so big on sleeping alone. Christmas doesn’t mean much to me and likely won’t unless I get excited when we have children. We might start making them in the next little while. And now that I have pen in hand and this book in front of me, I’m not sure I care to say anything. I have no thought of the human condition. But, let me tell a little of the flood. When I went to school Monday, I noticed the Autobahn had water on it and no cars. It was more pleasant that way. Rain has fallen more often than not since I came to this country. The last little while has been all gray sky. Monday, I bid farewell to Wiebke and told her to forget about taking the city Autobahn. She had just heard it on the news. First let me tell you I was 2 hours late for school because I didn’t want to get up at 7:30 and when I got there, no one was there. The teacher took the day off. It worked out fine because I went straight home and spent a good hour with my lover before she left. She’s up north with family. I don’t feel comfortable with them, so I didn’t go. One other thing. I love to look at beautiful women. I was most excited when I got to look at you a few times. I most like holding a woman. Lucky for me, Wiebke is most beautiful and loves to be held by me. That’s the way I most prefer to go to sleep. Although I wouldn’t want the confusion of sex with another woman, I might consider having someone in my bed with me. But you know and I know it won’t happen. Wiebke wouldn’t be upset if it was just a friend and not a lover. Francisca, what was I talking about? What if I’m mentally incorrect. No. Not possible. History shows, you can chose any way of thinking. Some work better than others but even good ideas only work for a shot time. The flood. Tuesday when I went to school and walked over the pedestrian bridge to the castle, the situation had become desperate. The water was licking the bottom of the signs that read 60, as in km./hr on the off ramp. When I returned home a few hours later, it was noticeably higher. The news told us that it was now raising 10 cm./hr. There were generators pumping the day before but now the whole down-town was humming with the sound of hundreds of pumps. The air was thick with the fumes of the noisy motors. In the market, the water was rising and store owners were piling sand bags along doors and windows. All the store owners were told to get all stock out of the basement and off the floor. By night time the water was slightly over the second bank. 25 or 30 feet it had come up in 3 days. Catastrophe. The worst was in other cities. Only a small area in Saarbrucken was affected. I don’t know what happened in Köln, but apparently it was far more damaging. Today it has gone down a couple or 3 meters. The panic is over here. The Autobahn is still submerged but the businesses are able to open and clean up now. Germans are good at that. They get right at it. They had practice after the last war. They rebuilt the country from complete devastation. That you can read about in history books. I don’t know much about it and you likely don’t care. You might not even care that I’ve been writing a letter to you for 2 or 3 years. When I get a computer, I may stop to print it out and send you a copy. If I do, I most certainly will. But I may just put them away and forget about it and get on to using my writing time for things like books. So for now I bid Thee farewell and if you didn’t care to read this then maybe you should go to hell. I wrote that last sentence only because it rhymed. I actually hope you find some joy in life. Bla bla bla.



Well well well. Happy New Year ya old whore. I suppose that could only be said to Tom Wishnowsky on account anyone else may find offense. But for Fuckin’ Franny I should be more civil. I was thinking just a few minutes ago as I was listening to Bob Zimmerman on the stereo, that I would either like to masturbate or make some art. Is there a correlation there? I’m sure early Freud would have the solution. But solutions, as I’m sure I’ve hinted at before, hold little merit for me. Although I’m yet to become a nihilist, however it might be spelled, I have nothing much I believe in. Not Christmas, Santa Clause, Christ, Fucking New Years, the date, the star configurations, Buddha, Bubo, Mohammed, Media, and much more, all has no meaning beyond the contrived. Maybe some would pity a fellow like me. But a true non-believer can never be saved by Jesus, justice, TV or beer babble. And so this isn’t even what I has intended to write. I had full intentions of a poetic masterpiece. I have admiration for Bob’s writing, as we all know his singing is a little short of soothing. Okay Franny and friends, here is the first attempt at the masterpiece:
Obsession lacking and head full of distraction
Sound from the plumbing, music still humming
Meaning shall be strained, logic may be pained
I want to talk of the weather, maybe a girl named Heather
Already is there a tired beat coupled with dull rhyme
Reminds me of the book Shona gave me one time
My friends thought her a thoughtless bitch
I was in danger of thinking only with my prick
Again this is not what I want
I want deranged, abstract, other dimension relation
I crave that other place we aren’t supposed to know sensation
The joy of madness not knowing
The fear of sorrow ungrowing
The universe of wonder, all meaning asunder
Words without rhythm, is there a word like splithum
Have I become to silly to be as I thought I ought
Has my sensibility left me a victim to plot
Red would rhyme in German
One thing I can say
If I would think to
Have put it some other way
I’ve written before and had better luck
My mind right now is sluggish in a rut
Where are the dragons and beast of woe
Where must the mind for terror go
What if it’s here, right where I sit
Many times I have come to think of it
This confinement to space and those things to do
My utter frustration trying to reach out to you
You who are out there, all who I fear
All who have madness and don’t seem to care
A spieces that has been wasted by clever corruption
An animal gone mad in search of one destruction
Bring all the force of life to an end together
Why do I keep thinking of the young woman, Heather
Obviously this has gone to far, shall I rhyme with car
Tonight is not the night, my madness not quite right
Things I say have all been said, same thing over until I’m dead
I want to scream like a chicken, dance like a hen
Scribble down more foolishness with my green pen
Rave about nothing, any whatsoever nothing at all
We don’t yet have a phone, I can’t be interupted by a call
I’ve no reason to stop unless I get board
I’ve no reason to continue on this accord
Suddenly.

It’s over, my attempt at poetic genius. It’s a funny thing. Maybe I should think about what makes a poet. Or I could think of something else, like how come, why is?



by Joanne B. Washington

read on. wombat_part_02



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