| The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator |
[23 Jul 2008|08:29am] |
The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator by Anne Sexton
The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Finger to finger, now she's mine.
She's not too far. She's my encounter.
I beat her like a bell. I recline
in the bower where you used to mount her.
You borrowed me on the flowered spread.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Take for instance this night, my love,
that every single couple puts together
with a joint overturning, beneath, above,
the abundant two on sponge and feather,
kneeling and pushing, head to head.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
( I break out of my body this way )
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|
| A Happy Birthday |
[23 Jul 2008|09:44pm] |
This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone
and the book was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could have easily switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day
down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.
- Ted Kooser
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|
| Dennis Scott, "Riversong" |
[23 Jul 2008|08:45pm] |
RIVERSONG
Sun up, she ben down
there, wash at the riverside
(ribber come up, ribber deep)
the boy a fish
and the man there bathing
(lang time, run hard,
ribber doan sleep).
The woman beating
the clothes like bread
for the dunny short
again this year
and the rock is hard
but a man must wear
clean, the boy have to show
good, bring up decent and straight, even
if him black.
(Wha de use? Wha him ketch?
Doan de line still slack?
All de same - check de man,
ketch him ead, look him back.
Im stan free. De wata like it
deliver him, dough it look like it move so slow;
de current strang.
Wait. Nat lang.)
DENNIS SCOTT
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|
| Emily Dickinson - 804 |
[23 Jul 2008|12:37am] |
(it's just such a lullabye...)
Ample make this Bed -
Make this Bed with Awe -
In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and fair.
Be its Mattrass straight -
Be its Pillow round -
Let no Sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this Ground -
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|
| loooove |
[22 Jul 2008|10:23pm] |
The Warning
For love – I would
split open your head and put
a candle in
behind the eyes.
Love is dead in us
if we forget
the virtues of an amulet
and quick surprise.
- Robert Creeley
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|
| Reading Aloud to My Father by Jane Kenyon |
[21 Jul 2008|11:28pm] |
Reading Aloud to My Father
by Jane Kenyon
I chose the book haphazard
from the shelf, but with Nabokov's first
sentence I knew it wasn't the thing
to read to a dying man:
The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began,
and common sense tells us that our existence
is but a brief crack of light
between two eternities of darkness. The words disturbed both of us immediately,
and I stopped. With music it was the same --
Chopin's Piano Concerto — he asked me
to turn it off. He ceased eating, and drank
little, while the tumors briskly appropriated
what was left of him. But to return to the cradle rocking. I think
Nabokov had it wrong. This is the abyss.
That's why babies howl at birth,
and why the dying so often reach
for something only they can apprehend. At the end they don't want their hands
to be under the covers, and if you should put
your hand on theirs in a tentative gesture
of solidarity, they'll pull the hand free;
and you must honor that desire,
and let them pull it free.
|
|
| A Red, Red Rose |
[21 Jul 2008|08:49am] |
July 21, 1796: Robert Burns dies at 37 of a combination of a rheumatic heart condition, starvation, sepsis due to a tooth extraction, and alcoholism.
O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it ware ten thousand mile.
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|
| A small epistle to the fading weekend |
[21 Jul 2008|12:25am] |
Dear weekend,
You were sweltering and you have left me a really weird shade of hot pink, only in select areas of the shoulders, the parts that were not under the shade of the bus stop this morning when it was too early and i wasn't paying attention to my poor skin. Culinarily, you were satisfactory - at moments, inspired - you brought spicy garlicky borscht, which, while seasonally appropriate, did the trick at almost every meal You brought two delectable types of homemade cookies which, contrary to popular expectation, turned out to be a hit among the Park Slope stoop-sailing masses (quoth This One Lady: "How much would I need to give you to clear you out?"). You brought late night pizza, lots of iced coffee, summery salad, and a really really disappointing manifestation of something masquerading as 'guacamole' in something that was supposedly a 'guacamole-themed birthday party.' I did not know this birthday person, and was resentful that you, weekend, steered me to somewhere in Williamsburg for sub par mashed avocado. But I forgave you, since it meant catching up with dear old friends and spending lots of time outside which, despite the heat wave factor, always makes it seem like all the most exciting things about summer.
You brought some extremely unfortunate broker-debacles, and some more disheartening apartment visits, followed by a visit to a whimsi-cottage that I hope hope hope will be the one! I have been knocking on various wood things all day in the hopes that - weird tour schedule and all - the nice landlady person will take me for my charm and good fashion. Also, you brought a great combo of a good deal of socializing and a fair amount of solitude - way to go, weekend. Sadly, you brought not nearly enough sleep and not nearly enough writing and for these things, I - now and forever - resent you. You brought a strange combo of Patty Griffin - The Magnetic Fields - Andy Statman on various loops, and a taste for lemonade. (Especially after, during my stoop sale, the girl from the Lemonade For Obama operation down the block walked all the way over with the express purpose of handing me a dixie-cup-full.) You brought reminders of weird old crushes and the strange satisfaction of suddenly recalling a latent crush, some strong scent or particular song or word or whatever it is that reminds you, and just brings you right back.
You made me flirt with a gay dog walker extensively as he was buying an old rainbow-striped shirt of mine, and you made me read a lot of bizarre and extensive classic rock articles. Unclear why; most likely brought on by a wee bit too much time spent on public transit.
You came complete with lots and lots of lists, strange coincidences, reminiscing, some treasure-hunting, and some agonizing. Also, thanks for the alcoholic punch. I don't know what was in it but it was perfect and tangy and sweet and cold, and I like that in a weekend drink.
xo
Me
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|
| Rachmaninoff on the Mass Pike - Rhina P. Espaillat |
[20 Jul 2008|11:46am] |
Rachmaninoff on the Mass Pike
-- Rhina P. Espaillat
It calls the heart, this music, to a place
more intimate than home, than self, that face
aging in the hall mirror. This is not
music to age by - no sprightly gavotte
or orderly pavane, counting each beat,
confining motion to the pointed feet
and sagely nodding head; not Chopin, wise
enough to keep some distance in his eyes
between perceiver and the thing perceived.
No, this is song that means to be believed,
that quite believes itself, each rising wave
of passionate crescendo wild and brave.
The silly girl who lived inside my skin
once loved this music; its melodic din
was like the voice she dreamed in, sad, intense.
She didn't know a thing, she had no sense;
she scorned - and needed - calendar and clock,
the rules, the steps, the lines, Sebastian Bach;
she wanted life to break her like a tide,
but not too painfully. On either side
the turnpike trundles by, nurseries, farms,
small towns with schools and markets in their arms,
small industry, green spaces now and then.
All the heart wants is to be called again.
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|
| To The Whore Who Took My Poems - Charles Bukowski |
[19 Jul 2008|08:44pm] |
|
some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be mony and whores and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.
|
|
| A Meal; Margaret Atwood |
[19 Jul 2008|06:04pm] |
We sit at a clean table
eating thoughts from clean plates
and see, there is my heart
germfree, and transparent as glass
and there is my brain, pure
as cold water in the china
bowl of my skull
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|
| saturday fun page |
[19 Jul 2008|04:35pm] |
|
What was your first internet handle? Mine was (the screamingly embarrassing!) "Vampyress," created in 1994, in Mrs Butterfield's 7th grade computer lab at Albuquerque Academy, where Lily Maase and I would occupy illicit chatrooms that someone, somehow, had showed her how to access. The entertainment value of chatrooms definitely trumped Mrs Butterfield's lab's other charms, including Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Life and Death. Our favorite chat was called "UK Surfers," and Vampyress enjoyed looking on as Lily Maase carried on a cyb3r-intensive flirtation with a UK Surfer called "ScrewboyT." "I check my email every day," sighed the twelve-year-old Lily, "If I'm really bored, sometimes every hour." Vampyress was duly impressed.
|
|
| Shabbos |
[18 Jul 2008|08:29pm] |
|
Shabbos can officially start now, as I have made a stunning pot of borscht. There are like 40 heads of garlic in there. And more hot sauce than there should be. So it's actually *subversive* borscht. As well as being delicious. Mm.
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| Fours and Their Lyrics on a Friday Afternoon |
[18 Jul 2008|06:02pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 silly |
] |
"But she is hoping someday somebody will take her away."
-amanda palmer
"I don't believe in the sun
How could it shine down on everyone
and never shine on me?
How could there be
such cruelty?"
-stephin merritt
And found myself alone
Alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me
-robert smith (the cure)
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|
| A question |
[18 Jul 2008|07:14pm] |
What poems have made you cry, or have altered your life, even just in the slightest?
[EDIT] You've all been so wonderful to respond so well to this. I love seeing poetry in action - not just on a page, or on a computer screen, but as a living, breathing thing taking root in living, breathing people. (There's no non-corny way of saying it, so you'll have to excuse me as words fail.) Thank you so much to everyone.
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|
|
[17 Jul 2008|11:23pm] |
|
You know when you go somewhere to 'work,' and you literally run into EVERY AWKWARD PERSON you've EVER MET since the dawn of time? And thus work is rendered impossible? Also, your brother is playing the oud in the background.
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|
| Measuring the Tyger -- Jack Gilbert |
[17 Jul 2008|04:02pm] |
Barrels of chains. Sides of beef stacked in vans.
Water buffalo dragging logs of teak in the river mud
outside Mandalay. Pantocrater in the Byzantium dome.
The mammoth overhead crane bringing slabs of steel
through the dingy light and roar to the giant shear
that cuts the adamantine three-quarter-inch plates
and they flop down. The weight of the mind fractures
the girders and piers of the spirit, spilling out
the heart’s melt. Incandescent ingots big as cars
trundling out of titanic mills, red slag scaling off
the brighter metal in the dark. The Monongahela River
below, night’s sheen on its belly. Silence except
for the machinery clanging deeper in us. You will
love again, people say. Give it time. Me with time
running out. Day after day of the everyday.
What they call real life, made of eighth-inch gauge.
Newness strutting around as if it were significant.
Irony, neatness and rhyme pretending to be poetry.
I want to go back to that time after Michiko’s death
when I cried every day among the trees. To the real.
To the magnitude of pain, of being that much alive.
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|
| some more Kay Ryan |
[17 Jul 2008|05:09pm] |
The Niagara River
As though
the river were
a floor, we position
our table and chairs
upon it, eat, and
have conversation.
As it moves along,
we notice—as
calmly as though
dining room paintings
were being replaced—
the changing scenes
along the shore. We
do know, we do
know this is the
Niagara River, but
it is hard to remember
what that means.
-- Kay Ryan
& you can hear her reading it here.
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|
| The Hollow Men - T.S. Eliot |
[17 Jul 2008|01:17pm] |
Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
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|
| John Keats |
[17 Jul 2008|01:02pm] |
The Human Seasons
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honeyed cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto Heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook:—
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
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