journal features

smashed my beater watch

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Kokubunji, 2020.11.08

I caught the edge of the glass on my beater watch on a surface while taking The Girl out to the park today. Mari had taken The Boy to Harajuku for a haircut-which he enjoyed because it's an area with lots of young adult stuff. It was only in the evening that I noticed that the ding on my watch had broken the crystal in a couple of places: the point of impact had an impact fracture and the inside surface had a wide scallop-shaped crack.

I hate to just throw stuff away, but I could see the broken bits of glass rattling around with the watch hands and I reckon that after six and a half years my $50 watch has served its purpose.

rand()m quote

Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

—T.S. Eliot