I'm preparing myself for an extended period of loneliness
That will begin very soon I think
I've illegally downloaded two new depressing songs
I've placed a copy of 'good morning, midnight' under my pillow for easy reference
I've printed out the tablature for every Morrissey song I know so I can sing them
To myself alone in my room
Just a few things are needed really
To make me calm
While I figure out a simple, clean, and effective way to kill myself,
With minimal stress for the person who has to find and dispose of my body
But I'll probably never think of a way
Because I'll probably never kill myself
I'll just lie in my bed suffocating myself with my pillows
While listening to the four songs you said were your favorite
And maybe burn myself a little with the iron
On special occasions
And the next time I'm in a subway station,
I'll stand a little further on the yellow line
Or maybe the next time I'm at your apartment
I'll try a little harder
Thursday, May 7, 2009
I Am Hurting The World And Everyone I Know Because Of The Following Reasons by Ellen Kennedy
1. If I do not change, I will continue to lie, therefore causing others to lose trust in me,
therefore preventing myself from ever having a successful and honest relationship with a
person, therefore reducing meaning in my life.
2. If I continue to lie, I will continue to avoid taking responsibility for my actions.
Therefore, I won’t understand why my actions are harmful. Therefore, I won’t understand
how I need to change my thinking.
3. If I do not change, I will continue to base my thoughts off of other people’s feelings,
therefore not think on my own, therefore not being able to control my life.
4. If I do not change, I will continue to lie, therefore causing the people in my life to lose
trust in me, therefore making them feel manipulated and mislead, therefore putting them
at risk for feeling insignificant, therefore causing them pain and suffering.
5. If I do not change, I will continue to eat animal products, therefore I will be financially
supporting companies who hurt animals and cause pollution through raising animals,
therefore I am increasing their ability to continue their business, therefore I am aiding the
pollution of water, degradation of the soil, pollution from the fumes of their transport
vehicles, interruption of the natural food chain, creation of more ammonia in the
atmosphere.
6. If I do not change, I will continue to eat more foods that aren’t organically grown,
therefore causing pollution from pesticides, therefore causing rapid degradation of the
soil, therefore reducing the amount of land that can be used to produce food for people
who don’t have enough food to keep them alive, therefore aiding in high costs of food
productions, therefore making it harder for people to afford food, therefore aiding in the
starvation of others, therefore causing more pain and suffering.
7. If I do not work, I will always be expecting other people to do the work for me, therefore
I will be hindering my ability to work on my own, therefore I am proving that I am trying
to change for other people instead of myself, therefore I’m putting myself at risk for
basing my thoughts off of other people’s feelings, therefore I won’t be thinking about
what I want, therefore I will only do what other people tell me, therefore reducing
meaning in my life.
therefore preventing myself from ever having a successful and honest relationship with a
person, therefore reducing meaning in my life.
2. If I continue to lie, I will continue to avoid taking responsibility for my actions.
Therefore, I won’t understand why my actions are harmful. Therefore, I won’t understand
how I need to change my thinking.
3. If I do not change, I will continue to base my thoughts off of other people’s feelings,
therefore not think on my own, therefore not being able to control my life.
4. If I do not change, I will continue to lie, therefore causing the people in my life to lose
trust in me, therefore making them feel manipulated and mislead, therefore putting them
at risk for feeling insignificant, therefore causing them pain and suffering.
5. If I do not change, I will continue to eat animal products, therefore I will be financially
supporting companies who hurt animals and cause pollution through raising animals,
therefore I am increasing their ability to continue their business, therefore I am aiding the
pollution of water, degradation of the soil, pollution from the fumes of their transport
vehicles, interruption of the natural food chain, creation of more ammonia in the
atmosphere.
6. If I do not change, I will continue to eat more foods that aren’t organically grown,
therefore causing pollution from pesticides, therefore causing rapid degradation of the
soil, therefore reducing the amount of land that can be used to produce food for people
who don’t have enough food to keep them alive, therefore aiding in high costs of food
productions, therefore making it harder for people to afford food, therefore aiding in the
starvation of others, therefore causing more pain and suffering.
7. If I do not work, I will always be expecting other people to do the work for me, therefore
I will be hindering my ability to work on my own, therefore I am proving that I am trying
to change for other people instead of myself, therefore I’m putting myself at risk for
basing my thoughts off of other people’s feelings, therefore I won’t be thinking about
what I want, therefore I will only do what other people tell me, therefore reducing
meaning in my life.
A Certain Lady by Dorothy Parker
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, --
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, --
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.
The Constant of the Universe by Andy Weaver
I
And under the stars tonight
I wonder if someone cares.
I’m lonely, that’s the way I feel.
(Frank Black, “Man of Steel”)
And so it’s springtime
and every fool has his lips
pursed for the kiss,
the world has spattered
on love like a cheap cologne.
But let’s chop through the false fronts,
peel off the plaster and open the walls
to the bare slats—the meat of the matter,
as they say. Loneliness is the only constant
in this universe
because your head is weighted to fall forward to the ground.
because Layton lied to us; death is never a name for beauty not in use.
because the dog keeps humping your leg and licking his balls and humping your leg and licking his balls and...and, let’s be honest, you’re starting to look forward to it.
because if you say Heraclitus too quickly while contemplating sex he’s bound to become your favourite pre-Socratic.
because people die on the last day of every war.
because of telescopes and the long gaze into darkness.
because Picasso had his blue period.
because there are parts of your lover’s body you’ll wish you hadn’t memorized: the shallow cup at the back of her knee, the soft hills of her resting palms, the galaxy of bone and muscle surrounding her ribs.
because you’ll forget the slow changes in her day-to-day scent.
because memory is a glass filled with earth.
because if loneliness wasn’t the constant, rubber consumption for condoms would destroy the rainforest, pro-sports leagues would collapse, Madonna’d be elected President, and everyone would need constant spine re-adjustments.
because Gould was humming just to himself.
because Bach, on the quiet afternoons, doubted.
because if life were an instrument, it would be a single cello.
because there’s nothing metaphysical about tears.
II
Every song has a you
A you that the singer sings to
(Ani Difranco, “Dilate”)
Ah, where are you, my
ocean, my sapphire, my lovely spring robin,
my flood, my hawk, my scarlet ribbon;
why aren’t you here in the night, my seashell,
taking my hand and whispering
“Bloom”?
because I’ve been raised in a language with no words to give her.
because of the airplane trip, the clouds stretched out like quilts over rolling lovers—and the empty seat beside me. I'm gone and her rhythms go on without me.
because I’ve flown 3000 miles only to ask the hotel clerk for a corkscrew, missing my dark beauty who is not my dark beauty at all.
because the opening of flowers after an eclipse is nothing like her quick, dark, brown eyes.
because we’ve all lived through these country songs.
because I’d welcome birds into my house, hear their tired wings flapping against the windows like heavy rose petals, and wait.
because if she and I were birds, we’d be great and terrible one-winged eagles.
because I’ve read my future in the long dark tunnel of the beer glass, and because I’ve forgotten to write it down.
because of this wanting, and because we’ve forgotten the true meaning of the word: to lack, to wane.
because Tarzan is the perfect metaphor for love: we’re all stuck in a jungle and love is the only vine—we grab hold and are in motion, but its arc ends and we must reach out, fumbling, blindly, knowing there might be nothing to grab in your hand. That anyone ever lets go of the old vine is the miracle.
because there can be no metaphor for loneliness, the form forbids it; and no simile—loneliness isn’t even like loneliness.
because I’m finally ready to buy that “Too Fucked For Zen” bumper sticker.
because love is a knife: love triangles, rectangles, pentagons or octagons—more people means more angles and more angles means more cutting edges.
because I am not a swinger of birches.
because you run and run, not away from or to something, but at, at exhaustion, throwing yourself at it like wind at a candle-flame.
III
You’re the sweetest thing, darlin’
I ever did see,
Really like your peaches
Want to shake your tree.
(Steve Miller, “The Joker”)
And maybe all this is silly,
this courting of the double edge of love
and loss. Maybe it’s a changing of priorities
that’s required; forget about falling in love,
concentrate on tripping head-first into lust,
because her body is the evolutionary tigress of love.
because the bed’s starting to creak and my hands are getting calluses and good God what if my roommate hears me moaning alone up there.
because there’s kumquats all over the place.
because I’d lounge with her through the night like a cat in a window facing east.
because we’ve all heard the crowing of the cock.
because of the press of lips into the soft rippling flesh of the belly, the slow curve of hands around thighs, the sudden blossom moist on the tongue, the taste of birth in your mouth. Because after this, all your words are bruised by the new language of her body.
because the lonely have always spoken in tongues, dreaming of speaking with hands, with lips.
because I’ve seen a mole on her thigh and almost asked to touch that darkened ruby.
because all the Elvis in your hips is awful forced, pretty mama.
because it’s been a long time since I’ve rubbed the magic lamp and let loose the genie, went fishing with the flesh pole, set up the tripod and used my telescope to explore the milky way, if you know what I mean.
because you all know what I mean.
because I have no right to read her love poems.
because I’ve forgotten the geography of a woman’s shoulder, how hard and brittle in places, how supple and stemlike in others.
because my desire alone isn’t enough for both of us.
because if I showed her the stars at night, she might see them as nothing but light cracking through a frail wall, and I’d have no words to comfort her.
IV
These words are dedicated to those who died
because they had no love and felt alone in the world
(Irena Klepfisz, “Bashert”)
And there is no hand
to reach for mine, to take
this pen from me, stop it from reaching
the end.
And so loneliness, in the end,
is the dotted yellow line you follow, mindless,
because it’s there, that desire to gut every painting of lovers, to poke your fingers through their eyes, and, maybe, touch your tongue to their cheeks, taste that permanence just once.
because there are days when the birds turn their backs and sing their songs away from you.
because of the bad jokes: Beethoven’s ears, Rembrandt’s eyes, Thomas’s parched Welsh tongue.
because I’ve lost hours at work from trying to picture the exact tilt of her head when she laughs.
because there was another a young woman once, with delicate, deep, deep scars on her wrists and an emptied bottle of pills and I loved her very much.
because now I don’t, and a friend has called that progress; because he’s probably right, and a part of me hates him for that—just hold your tongue and let me love.
because I’ve cut my wrists and don’t even have the scars to show for it, the unstoppable betrayal of healing.
because we have all entered rooms and wept.
because sometimes you’ve got to cry to keep from laughing.
because it’s not abstract at all.
because love, at times, isn’t either.
because of the marble in your mind you can’t get aligned to centre that tells you you’ve lived in this city two years and still don’t call it home, that it’s over, chewed up, time to move on.
because you’ve seen the clouds pulse into the sky like opened veins.
because you’ve been nothing but a visitor, an anomaly, a passing train to everyone you’ve met.
because we’re not Degas’ dancers, our bold strokes don’t blend easily into grace.
because I’d like to fall asleep and wake up someone else, watch everything that I am blow away in the wind like smouldering ash.
because only fire makes dead flowers bloom.
because fuck this prissiness. I am lonely, you are lonely, there is nothing pretty to say. Because fuck the stars, fuck the metaphors, fuck me, fuck you, fuck the walls, fuck it all. We’re all just characters in a nursery rhyme waiting to fall down.
because this is over, and I throw away all these pointless, stupid words except one.
Why?
And under the stars tonight
I wonder if someone cares.
I’m lonely, that’s the way I feel.
(Frank Black, “Man of Steel”)
And so it’s springtime
and every fool has his lips
pursed for the kiss,
the world has spattered
on love like a cheap cologne.
But let’s chop through the false fronts,
peel off the plaster and open the walls
to the bare slats—the meat of the matter,
as they say. Loneliness is the only constant
in this universe
because your head is weighted to fall forward to the ground.
because Layton lied to us; death is never a name for beauty not in use.
because the dog keeps humping your leg and licking his balls and humping your leg and licking his balls and...and, let’s be honest, you’re starting to look forward to it.
because if you say Heraclitus too quickly while contemplating sex he’s bound to become your favourite pre-Socratic.
because people die on the last day of every war.
because of telescopes and the long gaze into darkness.
because Picasso had his blue period.
because there are parts of your lover’s body you’ll wish you hadn’t memorized: the shallow cup at the back of her knee, the soft hills of her resting palms, the galaxy of bone and muscle surrounding her ribs.
because you’ll forget the slow changes in her day-to-day scent.
because memory is a glass filled with earth.
because if loneliness wasn’t the constant, rubber consumption for condoms would destroy the rainforest, pro-sports leagues would collapse, Madonna’d be elected President, and everyone would need constant spine re-adjustments.
because Gould was humming just to himself.
because Bach, on the quiet afternoons, doubted.
because if life were an instrument, it would be a single cello.
because there’s nothing metaphysical about tears.
II
Every song has a you
A you that the singer sings to
(Ani Difranco, “Dilate”)
Ah, where are you, my
ocean, my sapphire, my lovely spring robin,
my flood, my hawk, my scarlet ribbon;
why aren’t you here in the night, my seashell,
taking my hand and whispering
“Bloom”?
because I’ve been raised in a language with no words to give her.
because of the airplane trip, the clouds stretched out like quilts over rolling lovers—and the empty seat beside me. I'm gone and her rhythms go on without me.
because I’ve flown 3000 miles only to ask the hotel clerk for a corkscrew, missing my dark beauty who is not my dark beauty at all.
because the opening of flowers after an eclipse is nothing like her quick, dark, brown eyes.
because we’ve all lived through these country songs.
because I’d welcome birds into my house, hear their tired wings flapping against the windows like heavy rose petals, and wait.
because if she and I were birds, we’d be great and terrible one-winged eagles.
because I’ve read my future in the long dark tunnel of the beer glass, and because I’ve forgotten to write it down.
because of this wanting, and because we’ve forgotten the true meaning of the word: to lack, to wane.
because Tarzan is the perfect metaphor for love: we’re all stuck in a jungle and love is the only vine—we grab hold and are in motion, but its arc ends and we must reach out, fumbling, blindly, knowing there might be nothing to grab in your hand. That anyone ever lets go of the old vine is the miracle.
because there can be no metaphor for loneliness, the form forbids it; and no simile—loneliness isn’t even like loneliness.
because I’m finally ready to buy that “Too Fucked For Zen” bumper sticker.
because love is a knife: love triangles, rectangles, pentagons or octagons—more people means more angles and more angles means more cutting edges.
because I am not a swinger of birches.
because you run and run, not away from or to something, but at, at exhaustion, throwing yourself at it like wind at a candle-flame.
III
You’re the sweetest thing, darlin’
I ever did see,
Really like your peaches
Want to shake your tree.
(Steve Miller, “The Joker”)
And maybe all this is silly,
this courting of the double edge of love
and loss. Maybe it’s a changing of priorities
that’s required; forget about falling in love,
concentrate on tripping head-first into lust,
because her body is the evolutionary tigress of love.
because the bed’s starting to creak and my hands are getting calluses and good God what if my roommate hears me moaning alone up there.
because there’s kumquats all over the place.
because I’d lounge with her through the night like a cat in a window facing east.
because we’ve all heard the crowing of the cock.
because of the press of lips into the soft rippling flesh of the belly, the slow curve of hands around thighs, the sudden blossom moist on the tongue, the taste of birth in your mouth. Because after this, all your words are bruised by the new language of her body.
because the lonely have always spoken in tongues, dreaming of speaking with hands, with lips.
because I’ve seen a mole on her thigh and almost asked to touch that darkened ruby.
because all the Elvis in your hips is awful forced, pretty mama.
because it’s been a long time since I’ve rubbed the magic lamp and let loose the genie, went fishing with the flesh pole, set up the tripod and used my telescope to explore the milky way, if you know what I mean.
because you all know what I mean.
because I have no right to read her love poems.
because I’ve forgotten the geography of a woman’s shoulder, how hard and brittle in places, how supple and stemlike in others.
because my desire alone isn’t enough for both of us.
because if I showed her the stars at night, she might see them as nothing but light cracking through a frail wall, and I’d have no words to comfort her.
IV
These words are dedicated to those who died
because they had no love and felt alone in the world
(Irena Klepfisz, “Bashert”)
And there is no hand
to reach for mine, to take
this pen from me, stop it from reaching
the end.
And so loneliness, in the end,
is the dotted yellow line you follow, mindless,
because it’s there, that desire to gut every painting of lovers, to poke your fingers through their eyes, and, maybe, touch your tongue to their cheeks, taste that permanence just once.
because there are days when the birds turn their backs and sing their songs away from you.
because of the bad jokes: Beethoven’s ears, Rembrandt’s eyes, Thomas’s parched Welsh tongue.
because I’ve lost hours at work from trying to picture the exact tilt of her head when she laughs.
because there was another a young woman once, with delicate, deep, deep scars on her wrists and an emptied bottle of pills and I loved her very much.
because now I don’t, and a friend has called that progress; because he’s probably right, and a part of me hates him for that—just hold your tongue and let me love.
because I’ve cut my wrists and don’t even have the scars to show for it, the unstoppable betrayal of healing.
because we have all entered rooms and wept.
because sometimes you’ve got to cry to keep from laughing.
because it’s not abstract at all.
because love, at times, isn’t either.
because of the marble in your mind you can’t get aligned to centre that tells you you’ve lived in this city two years and still don’t call it home, that it’s over, chewed up, time to move on.
because you’ve seen the clouds pulse into the sky like opened veins.
because you’ve been nothing but a visitor, an anomaly, a passing train to everyone you’ve met.
because we’re not Degas’ dancers, our bold strokes don’t blend easily into grace.
because I’d like to fall asleep and wake up someone else, watch everything that I am blow away in the wind like smouldering ash.
because only fire makes dead flowers bloom.
because fuck this prissiness. I am lonely, you are lonely, there is nothing pretty to say. Because fuck the stars, fuck the metaphors, fuck me, fuck you, fuck the walls, fuck it all. We’re all just characters in a nursery rhyme waiting to fall down.
because this is over, and I throw away all these pointless, stupid words except one.
Why?
Maybe I Need You by Andrea Gibson
The winter I told you I think icicles are magic
you stole an enormous icicle from a neighbors shingle
and gave it to me as a gift
I kept it in my freezer for seven months
until the day I hurt my foot
I needed something to reduce the swelling
love isn't always magic
sometimes its just melting
or its black and blue
where it hurts the most
last night I saw your ghost
pedaling a bicycle with a basket
towards a moon as full as my heavy head
and i wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket
like ET with my glowing heart glowing right through my chest
and my glowing finger pointing in the direction of our home
two years ago I said I never want to write our break up poem
you built me a time capsule full of big league chew
and promised to never burst my bubble
I loved you from our first date at the batting cages
when I missed 23 balls in a row
and you looked at me
like I was a home run in the ninth inning of the world series
now every time I hear the word love I think going going
the first week you were gone
I kept seeing your hand wave goodbye
like a windshield wiper in a flooding car
and the last real moment I believed the hurricane would let me out alive
yesterday i carved your name into the surface of an ice cube
then held it against my heart til it melted into my aching pores
today i cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door
and asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar
I told them I left my sweet tooth in your belly button
love isn't always magic
but if I offered my life to the magician
if I told her to cut me in half
so tonight I could come to you whole
and ask for you back
would you listen
for this dark alley love song
for the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies
I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak
But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace
if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat
So this is my wheat field
you can have every acre love
this is my garden song
this is my fist fight
with that bitter frost
tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath
the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek
as i sang maybe i need you
off key
but in tune
maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea
maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me
give me one room to come home to
give me the palm of your hand
every strand of my hair is a kite string
and I have been blue in the face with your sky
crying a flood over iowa so you mother will wake to venice
lover I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest
now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible
it is the one verse you can trust
so I'm putting all of my words in the collection plate
I am setting the table with bread and grace
my knees are bent
like the corner of a page
I am saving your place
you stole an enormous icicle from a neighbors shingle
and gave it to me as a gift
I kept it in my freezer for seven months
until the day I hurt my foot
I needed something to reduce the swelling
love isn't always magic
sometimes its just melting
or its black and blue
where it hurts the most
last night I saw your ghost
pedaling a bicycle with a basket
towards a moon as full as my heavy head
and i wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket
like ET with my glowing heart glowing right through my chest
and my glowing finger pointing in the direction of our home
two years ago I said I never want to write our break up poem
you built me a time capsule full of big league chew
and promised to never burst my bubble
I loved you from our first date at the batting cages
when I missed 23 balls in a row
and you looked at me
like I was a home run in the ninth inning of the world series
now every time I hear the word love I think going going
the first week you were gone
I kept seeing your hand wave goodbye
like a windshield wiper in a flooding car
and the last real moment I believed the hurricane would let me out alive
yesterday i carved your name into the surface of an ice cube
then held it against my heart til it melted into my aching pores
today i cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door
and asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar
I told them I left my sweet tooth in your belly button
love isn't always magic
but if I offered my life to the magician
if I told her to cut me in half
so tonight I could come to you whole
and ask for you back
would you listen
for this dark alley love song
for the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies
I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak
But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace
if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat
So this is my wheat field
you can have every acre love
this is my garden song
this is my fist fight
with that bitter frost
tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath
the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek
as i sang maybe i need you
off key
but in tune
maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea
maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me
give me one room to come home to
give me the palm of your hand
every strand of my hair is a kite string
and I have been blue in the face with your sky
crying a flood over iowa so you mother will wake to venice
lover I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest
now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible
it is the one verse you can trust
so I'm putting all of my words in the collection plate
I am setting the table with bread and grace
my knees are bent
like the corner of a page
I am saving your place
Beautiful Things by Sarah Manguso
Sometimes I think I understand the way things work
And then I find out that on Neptune it rains diamonds.
On this world you can get out of work early, unclog the drain,
hear music. Any of the above should prove the existence
of God or at least some kind of beautifying engine
but in Germany when they couldn't figure out
how to tranquilize the polar bear and he was standing
in the park, the cage door broken, they shot him dead.
Nine hundred pounds——that's a lot of dead bear.
Neptune's pretty close to immortal,
as we understand the word, and I wouldn't like to be
that planet. But if I had to I would take it,
the decades of punishing rain, and the fires
on neighboring planets I would watch,
thankful I was never touched by them,
and that the diamonds were mine.
And then I find out that on Neptune it rains diamonds.
On this world you can get out of work early, unclog the drain,
hear music. Any of the above should prove the existence
of God or at least some kind of beautifying engine
but in Germany when they couldn't figure out
how to tranquilize the polar bear and he was standing
in the park, the cage door broken, they shot him dead.
Nine hundred pounds——that's a lot of dead bear.
Neptune's pretty close to immortal,
as we understand the word, and I wouldn't like to be
that planet. But if I had to I would take it,
the decades of punishing rain, and the fires
on neighboring planets I would watch,
thankful I was never touched by them,
and that the diamonds were mine.
Space by Sarah Manguso
Moon unfolds like a fan, snaps in, winks out.
In this time you say you haven’t moved,
but a certain wet little planet has spun and spun.
When the plane dips, you hold the arms of the seat.
You say it would make sense to hold
something outside, arms at least,
or a double cumulus handful,
or something higher,
and you wonder about the higher things.
For names abound,
names you don’t have things for.
Recall that the universe
expands slightly more each day,
how each time it rains
the drops are travelling further.
We live in a space
where telescopes impale a moving body
that is stationary in its own way,
as is, for instance, Neptune,
coldest of any planet save Pluto,
whose rings are theoretical
and therefore imaginary,
but nevertheless may spin more quickly
than the body they surround, dressed in winds
and made still by them
and prepared by them
for the faraway naming of seas.
In this time you say you haven’t moved,
but a certain wet little planet has spun and spun.
When the plane dips, you hold the arms of the seat.
You say it would make sense to hold
something outside, arms at least,
or a double cumulus handful,
or something higher,
and you wonder about the higher things.
For names abound,
names you don’t have things for.
Recall that the universe
expands slightly more each day,
how each time it rains
the drops are travelling further.
We live in a space
where telescopes impale a moving body
that is stationary in its own way,
as is, for instance, Neptune,
coldest of any planet save Pluto,
whose rings are theoretical
and therefore imaginary,
but nevertheless may spin more quickly
than the body they surround, dressed in winds
and made still by them
and prepared by them
for the faraway naming of seas.
Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out by Richard Siken
Every morning the maple leaves.
Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts
from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big
and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out
So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog
of non-definitive acts,
something other than the desperation.
Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I couldn't come to your party.
Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I came to your party
and seduced you
and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.
A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.
Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.
What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.
Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly
I can tell already you think I'm the dragon,
that would be so like me, but I'm not. I'm not the dragon.
I'm not the princess either.
Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down.
I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,
I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow
glass, but that comes later.
flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,
shut up
I'm getting to it.
For a while I thought I was the dragon.
I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was
cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,
young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with
confidence
but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,
while I'm out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,
Okay, so I'm the dragon. Bid deal.
You still get to be the hero.
You get the magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!
What more do you want?
I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you're
really there.
Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live?
for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,
you know the story, simply heaven.
Inside your head you hear a phone ringing
only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.
Inside your head the sound of glass,
a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.
Hello darling, sorry about that.
lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell
and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.
Especially that, but I should have known.
You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together
to make a creature that will do what I say
or love me back.
I'm not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not
feeding yourself to a bad man
against a black sky prickled with small lights.
I take it back.
The wooden halls likes caskets. These terms from the lower depths.
Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.
Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something
underneath the floorboards.
Crossed out. And here is the tabernacle
Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all
forgiven,
even though we didn't deserve it.
a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you're washing up
in a stranger's bathroom,
standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away
from the dirtiest thing you know.
All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly
In the living room, in the broken yard,
in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport
bathroom's gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of
unnatural light,
my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.
And the the airplane, the window seat over the wing with a view
I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,
smiling in a way
that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,
up the stairs of the building
to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,
This doesn't look that much different from home,
because it didn't,
but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.
We walked through the house to the elevated train.
All these buildings, all that glass and the shiny beautiful
We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,
smiling and crying in a way that made me
even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I
Actually, you said Love, for you,
is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's
Okay, if you're so great, you do it—
here's the pencil, make it work . . .
If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window
is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing
river water.
Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it
We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not
what we sought, so do it over, give me another version,
a different room, another hallway, the kitchen painted over
and over,
another bowl of soup.
The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell.
Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time.
leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness.
in gold light, as the camera pans to where
the action is,
lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see
I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way,
and I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way.
But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats.
all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas
and the grains of sugar
on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I'm sorry
Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently
we have had our difficulties and there are many things
I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,
years later, in the chlorinated pool.
I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have
these luxuries.
I have told you where I'm coming from, so put it together.
When I say this, it should mean laughter,
not poison.
I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.
Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.
Cascando by Samuel Beckett
1.
why note merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed
is it not better abort than be barren
the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
socketes filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives
2.
saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love
the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words
terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending
I and all the others that will love you
if they love you
3.
unless they love you
why note merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed
is it not better abort than be barren
the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
socketes filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives
2.
saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love
the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words
terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending
I and all the others that will love you
if they love you
3.
unless they love you
Before Everything Is Over by George Wallace
before everything is over i would like to make love to you
the same number of times as a gentleman knocking on a
door that will never open for him.
the same number of times a mirror fails to reflect the spirit
of a ruined man. the same number of times a young woman
discovers in the middle of a noisy party
that she is alone. i would like to make love to you like a man
leaning his face from the window of a passenger train to catch
one more look at the one woman he ever
truly adored, but now he must leave behind. like a circus
performer looking up at a ceiling of trapeze rings, crazy
lights and precarious high wires,
knowing he will never climb that high. like a washed up prize
fighter reaching for the canvas because it is his only friend.
like a bum reaching for a twenty dollar bill
that is blowing across a busy boulevard. o i would like to
make love to you before the passersby pass by before
the falling sun falls out of this world
and into the next, before the brown bear of winter falls
into his magnificent winter slumber. i would like to make
love to you with my forehead
pressed to your naked waist. with my platelets pulsing in
your veins. with my brain on fire and snow falling on your
hissing flames o i would like to make
love to you a hundred times with the shuddering knowledge
of you, with your frozen smile and untraceable fingertips.
you with your indecipherable dreams.
because i am doomed to live with you even when i am
without you -- you with your incomplete shoulders. you
with your rainbow colored lips.
you with your empty hands. your perfumed silence, your
perfect elegance. you, with the sunlight that leaks out of
your darkness and into my world.
the same number of times as a gentleman knocking on a
door that will never open for him.
the same number of times a mirror fails to reflect the spirit
of a ruined man. the same number of times a young woman
discovers in the middle of a noisy party
that she is alone. i would like to make love to you like a man
leaning his face from the window of a passenger train to catch
one more look at the one woman he ever
truly adored, but now he must leave behind. like a circus
performer looking up at a ceiling of trapeze rings, crazy
lights and precarious high wires,
knowing he will never climb that high. like a washed up prize
fighter reaching for the canvas because it is his only friend.
like a bum reaching for a twenty dollar bill
that is blowing across a busy boulevard. o i would like to
make love to you before the passersby pass by before
the falling sun falls out of this world
and into the next, before the brown bear of winter falls
into his magnificent winter slumber. i would like to make
love to you with my forehead
pressed to your naked waist. with my platelets pulsing in
your veins. with my brain on fire and snow falling on your
hissing flames o i would like to make
love to you a hundred times with the shuddering knowledge
of you, with your frozen smile and untraceable fingertips.
you with your indecipherable dreams.
because i am doomed to live with you even when i am
without you -- you with your incomplete shoulders. you
with your rainbow colored lips.
you with your empty hands. your perfumed silence, your
perfect elegance. you, with the sunlight that leaks out of
your darkness and into my world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
