Jun
28
Overheard: A stall filled with human things
June 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I’ve been absent. What’s my deal? I haven’t been reading much either, experiencing a cocktail of real busyness, cluttered mental busyness (my specialty), mild socializing, lap swim, and Netflix Instant Watch.
There’s a poem in the newest New Yorker by American-via-Trinidad poet Yusef Komunyakaa called “Orpheus at the Second Gate of Hades.” Here is the closing:
I saw a stall filled with human things, an endless
list of names, a hill of shoes, a room of suitcases
tagged to nowhere, eyeglasses, toothbrushes,
baby shoes, dentures, ads for holiday spas,
& a wide roll of thick cloth woven of living hair.
If I never possessed these reed flutes
& drums, if my shadow stops kissing me
because of what I have witnessed,
I shall holler to you through my bones,
I promise you.
Apr
4
Love is the way we boil
April 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Oh, Bukowski. You rip-roaring belligerent drunkard. It’s okay, I love you anyway, and here’s one of my favorite poems. I can never decide whether or not it’s a spin on those terrible Love Is… comics.
(This man is definitely one of my Favorite Things but that post will come sometime in the future.)
a definition
love is a light at
night running through the foglove is a beercap
stepped on while on the way
to the bathroomlove is the lost key to your door
when you’re drunklove is what happens
one year in tenlove is a crushed cat
love is the old newsboy on the
corner who has
given it uplove is what you think the other
person has destroyedlove is what vanished with the
age of battleshipslove is the phone ringing,
the same voice or another
voice but never the right
voicelove is betrayal
love is the burning of the
homeless in an alleylove is steel
love is the cockroach
love is a mailboxlove is rain upon the roof
of an old hotel
in Los Angeleslove is your father in a coffin
(who hated you)love is a horse with a broken
leg
trying to stand
while 45,000 people
watchlove is the way we boil
like the lobsterlove is everything we said
it wasn’tlove is the flea you can’t
findand love is a mosquito
love is 50 grenadiers
love is an empty
bedpanlove is a riot in San Quentin
love is a madhouse
love is a donkey standing in a
street of flieslove is an empty barstool
love is a film of the Hindenburg
curling to pieces
a moment that still screamslove is Dostoevsky at the
roulette wheellove is what crawls along
the groundlove is your woman dancing
pressed against a strangerlove is an old woman
stealing a loaf of
breadand love is a word used
too much and
much
too soon.
Jan
29
Mailer? I don’t even know her.
January 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
today i spent probably five hours reading through page 500 of normal mailer’s the executioner’s song for my upcoming enormous project. my point in mentioning it really has little to do with the book itself but more with some of the patterns in it — mailer mentions truman capote and in cold blood; gary gilmore quotes percy bysshe shelley to his girlfriend. at the capote bit, i said, aloud, to myself, “oh man! intertextuality!” (thankfully i was the only person in the room.) the shelley was this stanza from the conclusion of “the sensitive plant”:
I dare not guess; but in this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream.
it was a whole day of remembering people and music that i’d left somewhere else, on a broken hard drive or in the part of my mind where i put friends who aren’t friends anymore. just now, someone sent me a copy of the neutral milk hotel album in the aeroplane over the sea, which is absolutely a tremendous thing that i have missed. how strange to miss something when you don’t realize you miss it — to go from no expectations to blissed-out gratitude like turning a light switch.
the other day, my friend steve was in my room while i moped around sick before top chef came on at nine. i have a giant playlist of upbeat songs that i put on shuffle most of the time, and mary chapin carpenter came on — probably “passionate kisses,” which is one of my favorites by her. steve laughed and said he hadn’t heard this song in ten years, that it reminded him of his parents.
Oct
17
Pablo Neruda stands on a corner
October 17, 2006 | Leave a Comment
“Pablo Neruda” by Stephen Dobyns
Pablo Neruda stands on a corner next to a poster
advertising quick weight loss diet aids when I
happen by with half my creative writing class.
He wears a black boating cap and blue cloak draped
loosely over one shoulder, and he stands very still
staring at the clouds where he probably sees the profiles
of famous poets. At his feet lies a small brown dog.
We had heard he was dead and so are surprised and
walk around him several times. He has nice fat cheeks
and after a moment I reach out to touch one, but
gently and he doesn’t notice. I look at my students
and I can tell they are ready for anything so I
take out my Swiss Army knife, open the littlest
blade and cut Pablo a tiny bit on the left arm.
He doesn’t even blink but I think he begins to
concentrate more intently on the clouds. By now
my students are becoming excited so I open a bigger
blade and carefully cut a sliver of flesh from his
shoulder. I put it on my tongue and it’s very sweet
with a faint taste of smoke. I chew it slowly.
Glancing at the sky it now seems a deeper blue.
My students see me smiling and licking my lips
and they too take out Swiss Army knives and start
cutting off small slices, although they don’t stay
small for long, because suddenly we are ravenous.
It feels like I haven’t eaten for days. I barely
pause to chew my food and I grow angry at my students
for pushing and getting aggressive over the more
succulent bits. One even eats the brown dog.
In practically no time there’s nothing left but
a quickly folded pile of clothes on the sidewalk
with the black cap on top. Then we all become
embarrassed and won’t look at each other because
we’ve eaten this famous poet, and even though he
tasted great and we could probably eat another,
and even though the city seems brighter and more
exciting than before, we still feel ashamed to have
surrendered so completely to such animal passions
so we point to our watches and make excuses and
stroll off in our separate directions, but shortly
outside a movie theater, I see one of my students
offering herself to the people waiting in line;
then I see another accosting a crowd at a bus stop;
and a little later in the lobby of a convention hotel
I see a third bothering the legionnaires. And you,
now that I have your attention at last, ignore these
imposters. They’re too hungry to be telling the truth.
Feel this arm, this fat thigh. Why would I cheat you?
Even now the moon grows more swollen and the stars
throb deep in their black pockets. Bite me, bite me!
Apr
9
what you feel that’s lacking
April 9, 2005 | Leave a Comment
“sometimes when you get the blues there’s a reason.”
by charles bukowski.
it only takes 6 or 8 inept political leaders
or 8 or 10 artsy-fartsy writers, composers and painters to
set the natural course of human progress
back
50 years
or more.
which may not seem like much to you
but it’s over half your lifetime
during which time you’re not going to be able to
hear, see, read or feel that
necessary gift of great art which
otherwise you could have experienced.
which may not seem tragic to you
but sometimes, perhaps, when you’re feeling not so
good at
night or in the morning or at
noon,
maybe what you feel that’s lacking is
what should be there for
you
but is not.
and i don’t mean a blonde in
sheer pantyhose,
i’m talking about what gnaws at your guts
even when she’s
there.
Jan
13
all self-important and lonely
January 13, 2005 | Leave a Comment
today they waved at us for fun.
i wouldn’t have any of it.
that’s me, all self-important and lonely.
(joshua beckman.)
Sep
3
Ode to my Socks
September 3, 2003 | Leave a Comment
Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
(pablo neruda, “ode to my socks.”)