Cam Scott
ROMANS (2020)
What could be romantic to Cam Scott? He’s just a skeleton, a cloud in corduroy, a stop sign. Silence isn’t silent. Aimless brooding heats the blood. Proofreading robot hasn’t heard of Binion either. You learn a lot from faces at attention. It’s a bit sweet and a touch grotesque. But I find everybody charming by decree; charm as the irreducibly disgusting sweetness of a singular existence, a heavenly currency of evenly distributed allure. In an early interview, the disavowed M. names charm as the opposite of flash; a free quality in common that anyone can circulate and share. “I would go out tonight, but I haven’t got a stitch to wear.” The last time I was at home, my mother made me leave my rapidly disintegrating Levis for her to repair. Some things I never change. Some new shoes cost ten dollars I instantly miss. You need money to be rich. What time is it? Same time as it was two minutes ago. The bag is some musician that you hate, someone who can’t swing. Cool as in forgiven. Someone vandalized my car. Luck is a class accessory, and all the fasting artists talk like lusty theologians. There’s one in every crowd, who harmonizes Happy Birthday. Give that person the option of having access to the frog. I heard him singing, should we kiss/behind the Cindy Klassen recreation complex? Keep expectations at a simmer. It was a long month in a year foreshortened. Most of humanity was under some sort of movement restriction. I was in a bowl of bad Scheer, a domestic impanation. I didn’t want to banter breathily. But what could the chair refer to if not sodomy? Honey, we’re all classed somehow. Steadfast but unbased. Touching the phone obsessively, afraid to miss a thing. Everybody thinks their own vendetta is the cutest. I can’t hold that anger for you, it would sink me to my scabby knees. You have to be the right amount of tired to make it work. I’ve this epic problem, see. Espresso citizen. I always have to pee. Torn flier advertising open mic for Tories! Music! Poetry! Bowling down the avenue of pines. Like filling an invisible balloon, fitting a trumpet to a fist. Written equivalent of pulling faces. It’s difficult to think what happens next. I hate to throw a single wrench, but I can headbutt with the best of them. This solitude is unlike truancy. Audible time, involuntary memory. A regular disease of meaning, which is different from the truth. Proudly interpellated; which side are you on?