Wednesday, November 17, 2004

To be continued

Ok, I'm down to the last two episodes in Buffy, season 2: "Becoming," parts 1 &2. Tomorrow, I'll treat myself. I'll have to write up my thoughts on this first full season, which has always been entertaining, often excellent, and a good handful of times something really special. I've been in a kind of agony over certain plot lines, happenings. Stories! The power they hold.

***

I'm feeling quiet these days. So, talk to me, draw me out, engage me. Poke the monkey with a stick. Tell me something secret.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Something secret: I have performed a poem in only a Russian flag once.

Jenny

http://www.xanga.com/skin.asp?user=mywordsarebetter

Anonymous said...

I have to go visit the public clinic today because I'm too poor to see my doctor. I feel nervous about going downtown and sitting with crazy people for 3 hours while I wait for my name to be called, even though I'm crazy too.

Oliver de la Paz said...

My uncle has bullet hole scars given to him from a scorned police-woman ex-lover in a fit of rage.

I, sadly, have not been touched by the Devil.

When I was a child, I would mix shaving cream, orange juice, and windex together and feed it to the neighborhood children.

Suzanne said...

There's a beauty mark on the sole of my foot.

Eduardo C. Corral said...

One year at band camp...

Jennifer said...

No secrets today -- but I thought this was cool: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65428,00.html

Congrats on the Pushcart nom.

cornshake said...

Ohio State will whomp Michigan soundly on Saturday.
I just ordered Masaman Curry Soup from the internet. First time I placed an order for food online. But where else am I gonna get decent Thai food in rural Western NY? Also? I can't find a decent shade of lipstick to save my life.

Those are my secrets for today. Enjoy.

Anonymous said...

In Response to Your Query

My secret? I've got a small crush on you.
Notice the qualifier: small. No cutting

your face out of magazines and plastering
it on my bedroom walls. No tattooing

your lines high on the inside of my thighs
where only a man going down could read them.

No. My crush on you is as secret and small
as the bud of a rose, the last of a dozen

that refuses to open, the petals tightly wound
around an unreleased perfume. Forgive me.

I'm no schoolgirl. Still, I can't help myself.
There's a kindness in your eyes, a looseness

to your smile that make me want to walk
through a muddy November field, unleash

my imaginary dog and let him chase Canadian geese
across the broken stalks of harvested corn.

Paul said...

Oh my...

color me curious....

Anonymous said...

Consider your monkey thoroughly poked.

Now, what shade is frisky, I wonder?

Paul said...

Hmm. Red, classically.....

Anonymous said...

Red? Surely, you jest. Red's so common, so boring, so unfrisky. Cerise, perhaps. Cerulean, maybe. Chartreuse. Yes. Chartreuse is frisky.

Now, name your hue, sir. Just what color IS curious? (and don't say red!)

Paul said...

Vermillion, then.

Anonymous said...

Mood Ring

“Stubb longed for vermillion stars to be painted upon the blade of his every oar.”
--from Moby DickVermillion, he said. From the Old French vermeillon,
an adjective: Bright red. What color is curious,
she perplexed as she twirled a curl around a naked digit.
Vermilion from the Late Latin vermiculus kermes,
from the Latin: Little worm. When she was a little girl,
she’d stand in the rain without an umbrella forming pink rings
around her fingers. Alas, they always wriggled free. How apt,
she observed, resisting the urge to giggle. Little worm.
After the storm, robins always swarmed, gorging on the moveable
feast. Regarding the color of their breasts, he repressed comment.
Instead, this: Red sky at night; look how the sun sets like a salmon
taking its last breath. Is that warning or delight? He didn’t say;
she didn’t ask. Already the boat was adrift, seriously off course.
She would not admit to having said: If you painted stars
on my oars, I’d never row away. But he swears he heard it.

Anonymous said...

Well, that's not how the formatting looked in the preview, dammit. Obviously, there should be a line space between the epigram and the word: vermillion.

Paul said...

Ooh, very nice. What a mystery....

Anonymous said...

Oh, sigh. Now, my monkey needs poked (and yes, I realize just how grammatically incorrect that is). I don't suppose you'd be so kind as to oblige?

C'mon, crush. Tell me a secret.

Paul said...

I'm not even certain how to interpret that. Hmm, a secret?

Where to even begin?

Anonymous said...

Nothing to divulge? (god, I love that word)

No great weight you'd like to ease off your chest? Even Atlas grew exhausted from the world's weight upon his shoulders, no?

Well, I do respect your self-discretion. In this Jerry Springer age in which everyone's dirty laundry hangs unashamedly in the front yard flapping its stained arms and legs (crotches and collars...) at every passerby, a bitten tongue is refreshing.

So, no kiss and tell, then? How 'bout this instead: Remember when you were a kid and you blew out all the candles on your cake in one breath? When you closed your eyes, what did you wish for?

If not a secret, tell me a wish.

Paul said...

Oh, I've plenty to divulge. Aye, there's the rub.

I wished for flight, motion, speed, the abolition of gravity, blue sky, spring, girls in sundresses and out. Smile. Maybe that last I wish for now...

Anonymous said...

Oh, my.

My monkey thanks you.

The Tongue, Bitten

It trickles down his chin, a rivulet of vermillion—
scarlet, he interjects, cerise—-that worms
down his neck and burrows under his collar.
He masticates the meat until it’s bloody
as steak tartar, raw as a California roll. Beg him
to divulge. He’d rather swallow his tongue
and grin, smug as a Cheshire belching the feathers
of a canary. Oh, be wary of him. He’ll never pin
his laundry out, crotches and collars flapping
in the wind. Pause for a moment. Take a breath.
All those limbs a-writhing can make a head spin.
Remember what your mother called the silent
ones: Splinters. Sugar, he’ll slip under your skin
so invisibly you’ll never feel the entry. By the time
you’re conscious of the dig, of the throbbing,
it’ll be too late: He’ll be a tree growing inside you.
And you’ll be his charwoman scrubbing out the stains.

Paul said...

I wonder, I wonder....

Hmm. I wonder if we don't know each other.

Anonymous said...

Do you know me? Do I know you?

Fly, Boy

First, the scent of wish: Wick, just extinguished
by the shut-eyed huff and puff, smoke ghosting
up up up the nostrils---shhh! You know the drill—
not a single word. Then, the stench of wish: Sweat
and cigarettes--booze wafting from a brown-bagged
bottle like a genie, old men—they looked old to you—
sprawled on park benches shrouded under yesterday’s
news. Too young to hear desperation beneath the birds’
twittering you pumped your legs and flew. Years later,
you still don’t know why those bums scared you.
And now, the briefest interlude: Mister Sandman,
send me a dream. A boy closed his eyes and blew:
I wish for flight. The abolition of gravity
is what the man calls it now. Not the sputter of moths
battering themselves against the light, not the adrenalined
hover of a hummingbird—can wings or pulse really beat
that fast?-- not the owl’s silent swoop, taloning the night,
not the hawk’s glide, soaring above it all, calm and eagle-
eyed. Not a bird at all but a boy perched upon a cliff flapping
hapless wings, wax trickling down his spine slow as tears.
Now close your eyes and blow: She strode into the room
and you flew out the window. That’s all the heart is—
an Icarus, she was heard to murmur. And love, candle smoke.

Paul said...

These poems are lovely, flattering, intriguing, if not revealing. Torture!

Anonymous said...

I could go on and on. And probably will. (smile) Heck, at the rate I'm going, I could write a book.

You're proving to be an unexpected and lovely muse, crush.

Now, tell me something. Anything. Provoke another poem from me.

Incidentally, this song just popped into my head:

I Could Write a Book

If they asked me I could write a book
About the way you walk and whisper and look
I could write the preface on how we met
So the world would never forget

And the simple secret of the plot
Is just to tell them that I love you a lot
Then the world discovers as my book ends
How to make two lovers of friends

Paul said...

Oh, what to tell when I know so little? It's all a mystery.

But here you have me following each clue. ;)