Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
POEM AT ALTITUDE
Whatever you take with you into ascent,
whatever you bring with your body
into the half air, the world above this one,
whatever you carry, whatever is
the design of your needs, take
these, too, these words which weigh nothing,
can’t be forbidden, won’t be
detected, confiscated, stripped
from you in the naked light
of security, which at the end is a lie,
whatever is left behind, missed
when it’s too late, in motion,
going and gone and up and away,
whatever you shed with speed,
keep with you this knotted
up bundle, made of air, these words
which are falling out of
the world like the sun,
because I can’t go or follow or trace
or point to the sky
with the blessed certainty
in the folds of every accordioned map,
because I am thinking
of a bird’s hollowed bone,
because all I once wanted
is not what I want
now, keep with you
whatever you want,
want these words
which are a prayer
to your return,
your safe return,
to your nearness.
Whatever you take with you into ascent,
whatever you bring with your body
into the half air, the world above this one,
whatever you carry, whatever is
the design of your needs, take
these, too, these words which weigh nothing,
can’t be forbidden, won’t be
detected, confiscated, stripped
from you in the naked light
of security, which at the end is a lie,
whatever is left behind, missed
when it’s too late, in motion,
going and gone and up and away,
whatever you shed with speed,
keep with you this knotted
up bundle, made of air, these words
which are falling out of
the world like the sun,
because I can’t go or follow or trace
or point to the sky
with the blessed certainty
in the folds of every accordioned map,
because I am thinking
of a bird’s hollowed bone,
because all I once wanted
is not what I want
now, keep with you
whatever you want,
want these words
which are a prayer
to your return,
your safe return,
to your nearness.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
INVITATION
One more wrench lobbed into the gears of time
won’t seize up a single thing: not
the rain pounding at my door
like an aggrieved neighbor
whom I can’t help but offend.
I have been good, a long time I have been
the model citizen slash inmate
here in the kingdom of karma,
though I hardly cared: dawn
set the birds singing their odd hymns,
to which there were no
human lyrics, nothing to pretend
to others I knew beyond
reasonable doubt. Nothing
to tell you that I am
haunted by. I have been
waiting for the phone to sing out,
though the odds are
good it is not you
robotically attempting
to sell me wood laminate for these floors
which aren’t my own,
I should probably tell you,
in case that is important
in some way I can’t yet understand.
A long time it seems
the rain has been trying
its liquid way in
and I have been good enough
to listen to it all
and say this is music
you should hear beside me.
Even the dark has come,
the whole night,
all itself unbroken,
the sartorial stars and the sky which is unbearable.
There is something
I mean to say
just so
but it breaks apart, it breaks apart,
it breaks.
One more wrench lobbed into the gears of time
won’t seize up a single thing: not
the rain pounding at my door
like an aggrieved neighbor
whom I can’t help but offend.
I have been good, a long time I have been
the model citizen slash inmate
here in the kingdom of karma,
though I hardly cared: dawn
set the birds singing their odd hymns,
to which there were no
human lyrics, nothing to pretend
to others I knew beyond
reasonable doubt. Nothing
to tell you that I am
haunted by. I have been
waiting for the phone to sing out,
though the odds are
good it is not you
robotically attempting
to sell me wood laminate for these floors
which aren’t my own,
I should probably tell you,
in case that is important
in some way I can’t yet understand.
A long time it seems
the rain has been trying
its liquid way in
and I have been good enough
to listen to it all
and say this is music
you should hear beside me.
Even the dark has come,
the whole night,
all itself unbroken,
the sartorial stars and the sky which is unbearable.
There is something
I mean to say
just so
but it breaks apart, it breaks apart,
it breaks.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
ELEGY FOR THE LUMBERING MONSTER
Vaya con Cthulhu is what I always say
in moments like these though
it tends towards wasted sentiment
in the best, most literary ways,
and, anyway, I’m struck by your end,
your unremarked end, your ragged
fin de siecle demise, and I wonder
if you have even been informed
that all your shambling power is gone—
that nobody thinks of you anymore,
abject blips of terror pinging
about in the catacombs of the heart.
From your cheaply adorned sarcophagus,
a word which means flesh
eating, you stumbled out
as though you were in no hurry
except to make your listless, plaintive hymn.
And this was supposed to be
an eternal horror, but to us
now you’re plucky more than evil,
determined in a way that
Americans can never get enough of,
zombified in the brine
of our own apocalyptic zeal.
I wonder if you know,
if you understand your fallen place,
now that all our beasts,
our lithe undead, our sprinting succubae,
have broken away, aerobic,
clawing at the sub-compact
in wild reverse, the steering wheel slick
with undetermined blood,
the tires smoking sickly on the black
ribbon of asphalt,
which I cannot help but remind
is made of other dead
beasts: the allosaur, the brachiosaur,
the suddenly wiped-out
for reasons we don’t know
and so are fascinated,
imagining the black horizon’s end.
My own end is what
we don’t speak of,
though in the marbled blindness of your eyes
it’s easy to imagine.
And I do but away from me I run.
Vaya con Cthulhu is what I always say
in moments like these though
it tends towards wasted sentiment
in the best, most literary ways,
and, anyway, I’m struck by your end,
your unremarked end, your ragged
fin de siecle demise, and I wonder
if you have even been informed
that all your shambling power is gone—
that nobody thinks of you anymore,
abject blips of terror pinging
about in the catacombs of the heart.
From your cheaply adorned sarcophagus,
a word which means flesh
eating, you stumbled out
as though you were in no hurry
except to make your listless, plaintive hymn.
And this was supposed to be
an eternal horror, but to us
now you’re plucky more than evil,
determined in a way that
Americans can never get enough of,
zombified in the brine
of our own apocalyptic zeal.
I wonder if you know,
if you understand your fallen place,
now that all our beasts,
our lithe undead, our sprinting succubae,
have broken away, aerobic,
clawing at the sub-compact
in wild reverse, the steering wheel slick
with undetermined blood,
the tires smoking sickly on the black
ribbon of asphalt,
which I cannot help but remind
is made of other dead
beasts: the allosaur, the brachiosaur,
the suddenly wiped-out
for reasons we don’t know
and so are fascinated,
imagining the black horizon’s end.
My own end is what
we don’t speak of,
though in the marbled blindness of your eyes
it’s easy to imagine.
And I do but away from me I run.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Can I get a
I think, maybe, I am not going to die. Two weeks now some sort of something has been gnawing at me. At first, I chalked it up to allergies but last week everything worsened: coughing, lethargy, my voice croaking, rattling. I've tried to sleep as much as possible. I may be on the mend.
Fittingly, we were watching Sicko in class this week.
***
I am overworked.
***
Saw a glimpse of page layouts for My Index today. Very cool.
Fittingly, we were watching Sicko in class this week.
***
I am overworked.
***
Saw a glimpse of page layouts for My Index today. Very cool.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
ditty
COUNTRY MUSIC
In the theory, then, of dimmed light and music
chosen for its winsome longing, brushed
snares, fiddles stitching the air, we'll dance.
Maybe poorly. Laughing, trying to avoid
injury if not the infamy of memory—
or saying almost nothing, except this song
and this song and this song. Saying
all our lives we are captive
to an idea in which we will not
much figure. At your neck, your hair
rests in ways that would craze
my own skin. How soon I send
my body up an elm-lined hill
to have my hair trimmed
close. Maybe you'll approve
once more the girl's chatty way
with scissors. Maybe we'll dance
at night, your clock radio
keeping an amber time
and bad, tinny sound,
country music ambling out into the air.
Maybe we'll dance
at noon, thinking of the porch
and the sunflowered thicket rolling downhill.
Maybe we won't. Yet
I am so sad without you
I sing, sing along, the one song I know.
In the theory, then, of dimmed light and music
chosen for its winsome longing, brushed
snares, fiddles stitching the air, we'll dance.
Maybe poorly. Laughing, trying to avoid
injury if not the infamy of memory—
or saying almost nothing, except this song
and this song and this song. Saying
all our lives we are captive
to an idea in which we will not
much figure. At your neck, your hair
rests in ways that would craze
my own skin. How soon I send
my body up an elm-lined hill
to have my hair trimmed
close. Maybe you'll approve
once more the girl's chatty way
with scissors. Maybe we'll dance
at night, your clock radio
keeping an amber time
and bad, tinny sound,
country music ambling out into the air.
Maybe we'll dance
at noon, thinking of the porch
and the sunflowered thicket rolling downhill.
Maybe we won't. Yet
I am so sad without you
I sing, sing along, the one song I know.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
June
FORGET
I just want to tell you
what I read about Einstein’s brain,
how it was scooped from his skull when he died,
chopped into cubes, soaked in
formalin, only to go missing
for how long I can’t remember
before surfacing in Wichita,
floating in Mason Jars, jars
from which I have sipped sweet tea.
Something ailed me or was fractured more than
whatever its usual status was and there
I was in a doctor’s office, waiting, bored.
But that was a long time ago.
Let’s say it was my ankle,
ruined in some spectacular
moment, the sort one is amazed
and dazed by, walking away,
the warm pressure of conflagration
leading you away into the mausoleum
of night. Let’s agree upon
this story. Let us make this compact,
one to another. Doesn’t it seem
important, vital somehow,
that I forget what then was wrong
with my life, flipping through the disconsolate
pages of ragged magazines, all their never-
to-be tried recipes and exposes and sex
secrets for the terminally dull?
Feathered in my boredom,
my ankle throbbed
whole dreamless nights away.
Except neither ankle keened
and most nights slept
like peace if not loneliness.
The stars through pine trees
were never visible. I looked anyway.
I just want to tell you
what I read about Einstein’s brain,
how it was scooped from his skull when he died,
chopped into cubes, soaked in
formalin, only to go missing
for how long I can’t remember
before surfacing in Wichita,
floating in Mason Jars, jars
from which I have sipped sweet tea.
Something ailed me or was fractured more than
whatever its usual status was and there
I was in a doctor’s office, waiting, bored.
But that was a long time ago.
Let’s say it was my ankle,
ruined in some spectacular
moment, the sort one is amazed
and dazed by, walking away,
the warm pressure of conflagration
leading you away into the mausoleum
of night. Let’s agree upon
this story. Let us make this compact,
one to another. Doesn’t it seem
important, vital somehow,
that I forget what then was wrong
with my life, flipping through the disconsolate
pages of ragged magazines, all their never-
to-be tried recipes and exposes and sex
secrets for the terminally dull?
Feathered in my boredom,
my ankle throbbed
whole dreamless nights away.
Except neither ankle keened
and most nights slept
like peace if not loneliness.
The stars through pine trees
were never visible. I looked anyway.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Its meaning has not been erased
OK, so I've been a bad blogger of late: in truth, I've been busy, sure, but mostly I've not felt that great, overworked, tired, run-down. Turned inward.
Still, good things have come to me: spring with its gold green, sunlight, warmth. R.E.M.'s new Accelerate, which is pretty fantastic, kind of finally giving up on mourning drummer Bill Berry's departure from the band. Three albums and about a decade they spent as though it'd be impolite to rock again. Good stuff.
And to address the previous post: the image with all those luminous names, Ashbery, Hass, Gluck, Graham, etc.
They have all written blurbs for My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge. To say that I feel a painfully keen and acute sense of unworthiness would be a giant understatement.
The image was put together by Ecco as a cover for the bound galleys of Index.
And, tonight, I received what may be the cover design for the book. It's very different, very bold in its way. Almost pop-art. Which is a vibe I like for this rude collection.
Still, good things have come to me: spring with its gold green, sunlight, warmth. R.E.M.'s new Accelerate, which is pretty fantastic, kind of finally giving up on mourning drummer Bill Berry's departure from the band. Three albums and about a decade they spent as though it'd be impolite to rock again. Good stuff.
And to address the previous post: the image with all those luminous names, Ashbery, Hass, Gluck, Graham, etc.
They have all written blurbs for My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge. To say that I feel a painfully keen and acute sense of unworthiness would be a giant understatement.
The image was put together by Ecco as a cover for the bound galleys of Index.
And, tonight, I received what may be the cover design for the book. It's very different, very bold in its way. Almost pop-art. Which is a vibe I like for this rude collection.
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