the pages that stick together

What is the vitality and necessity
of clean water?
Ask the man who is ill, and who is lifiting
his lips to the cup.

Ask the forest.

(Comments here, pretty please!)

Mittens are drying on the radiator,
boots nearby, one on its side.
Like some monstrous segmented insect
the radiator elongates under the window.

Or it is a beast with many shoulders
domesticated in the Ice Age.
How many years it takes
to move from room to room!

Some cage their radiators
but this is unnecessary
as they have little desire to escape.

Like turtles they are quite self-contained.
If they seem sad, it is only the same sadness
we all feel, unlovely, growing slowly cold.

Suppose all we know of love
is a tiny greenhouse
falling slowly to bits
between a crab apple tree
and the railway's nettled bank;

a frail rickety eden
where little spiders weave
little dewy webs
on a scrunched-up Silk Cut packet
mouldering in a corner
under the tomatoes.

And suppose all we know of the world
is how the greenhouse creaks and sighs
in the cool dawn rain
and crab apple leaves brush against
the stone-cracked glass
while love grows red and ripe and soft
and summers pass like trains.

The patriarchal bed with four posts
Which was a harbourage of ghosts
Is hauled out from the attic glooms
And cut to wholesome furniture for wholesome rooms;

Where they (the ghosts) confused, abused, thinned,
Forgetful how they sighed and sinned,
Cannot disturb our ordered ease
Except as summer dust tickles the nose to sneeze.

We are restored to simple days, are free
From cramps of dark necessity,
And one another recognize
By an immediate love that signals at our eyes.

No new ghosts can appear. Their poor cause
Was that time freezes, and time thaws;
But here only such loves can last
As do not ride upon the weathers of the past.

Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

black and white or color version?

"You" have transformed into "my loss."
The nettles in your vanished hair
Restore the absolute truth
Of warring animals without a haven.
I know, I'm as pathetic as a railroad
Without tracks. In June, I eat
The lonesome berries from the branches.
What can I say, except the forecast
Never changes. I sleep without you,
And the letters that you sent
Are now faded into failed lessons
Of an animal that's found a home. This.

The man in bed with me this morning is myself, is me,
The same sort of same-sex marriage New York State allows.
Both men believe in infidelity.
Both men wish they could annul their marriage vows.

This afternoon I will become the Evening Man,
Who does the things most people only dream about.
He swims around his women like a swan, and spreads his fan.
You can't drink that much port and not have gout.

In point of fact, it is arthritis.
His drinking elbow aches, and he admits to this.
To be a candidate for higher office,
You have to practice drastic openness.

You have to practice looking like thin air
When you become the way you do not want to be,
An ancient head of ungrayed dark brown hair
That looks like dyed fur on a wrinkled monkey.

Of course, the real vacation we will take is where we're always headed.
Presidents have Air Force One to fly them there.
I run for office just to get my dark brown hair beheaded.
I wake up on a slab, beheaded, in a White House somewhere.

Evening Man sits signing bills in the Oval Office headless--
Every poem I write starts or ends like this.
His hands have been chopped off. He signs bills with the mess.
The country is in good hands. It ends like this.

Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
Of what is true or right or real,
But forced to qualify or so I feel,
Or Well, it does seem so:
Someone must know.

Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:
Their skill at finding what they need,
Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed,
And willingness to change;
Yes, it is strange,

Even to wear such knowledge—for our flesh
Surrounds us with its own decisions—
And yet spend all our life on imprecisions,
That when we start to die
Have no idea why.

A Model Year (Part I)

The ground shifts but no one notices the spinning.
No one notices the stop light or the time I said no.

Three years time folds into a single instant.
Structures re-build themselves & everyone moves forward.

Always wanting what we can't have, we create tension
one word at a time. Pulling the narrative away until we're lost

& it's lost, left behind in the restaurant or on the subway.
The little bird in the tree re-builds its nest, the cat

watches through the window, wanting. Always wanting
what we can't afford, some leisure time or a casual hello.

Attempting to fill an empty space with anything:
yesterday's news, photographs, a box of buttons &

loose thread. Trying to keep my eyes open after a bad dream.
Don't let me fall again. There's only so much a body can take

but still stupid desire. To attempt a composition, a theory
of migration. Hands gathered in the lap, syntax folding

in the mouth. This testament to a year, a document
of your travels. Something to fill the space.

* * *

Something to fill space but still the body waits.
Attention shifts & fills itself with birds in the distance,

a car horn, children throwing rocks in the street.
In the distance, an echo. Thought interrupted by

phone lines. To create structure out of broken pavement,
a cup of coffee or any welcoming thing. Move forward

without hurt. Build your day around re-setting the clocks:
rise & fall & compile a new grocery list.

Sweep the floor on Sundays. It's easy to fall in a dream.
Easy to confuse foolishness for generosity, a bathtub

for a sensory deprivation tank. One day you wake
& everything has changed. Time has erased so much,

taking from you all the people you once loved.
Each movement becomes measured, how

you reach for the change in your pocket.
It's easy for the body to peel after it has been burned.

Easy to push forward & no one will notice
how you reach for change & the leaves turn.

* * *

No one will notice when you fall. The ground
shifts & the pavement catches up with you, meets

your chin. And when it happens, the body ages.
Ten years pass but you think instead of youth.

Afternoons spent dirty & riding bikes, tin cans
tied to tree branches. Where once there was a we

there is now an I, an imagined you.
Where once there was a witness to distance,

time folds into an envelope. I am trying to step
outside the body, for the body to push forward, always.

To take a command & go without injury. As if
following orders were as easy as brushing your teeth

or any domestic thing. To make a space for one's self.
The cat asleep in the window. A new set of silverware,

pictures to frame for the walls. Comfort in the most tedious
of things. A way to make the time pass.



( parts II through V )

i'm switching over to treebaby  because i no longer feel that i identify with this. or whatever. AND I WAS LIKE WHATEVER. i'll add ya'll there n stuff.

I've been so busy this quarter, I feel I've lost a bit of myself in the rush-rush of it all. Between classes and committees, grad school apps, essays and blogs, internships and illnesses, I've lost sight of my friends and family and the nonprofit work I truly feel passionate about. Now, I'm so exhausted I can't muster the energy to find the christmas spirit. I've even lost my words...I've formulated a story in the back of my mind, called Gracie-In-Progress, but now that I have time, I can't seem to write anything other than the random (seemingly self-centered) ramblings. Oh, joy. I'm working my way out of sinus infections and exhaustion.

I'm looking forward to sleep and new Doctor Who and catching up on reading and finally seeing my grandparents (since I missed Thanksgiving) and being able to write fictional stories about broken girls. I'm full of run-on sentences today and I'm thinking that's okay. I'm through with perfect punctuation and grammar, at least for a month.

So, what is new in my life? Let me fill you in.

I applied to University of Michigan, Emory, UCLA and UC Davis. I now wait and wait and wait.

I am (hopefully) going to the National Undergraduate Research Conference in April. I just have to write the paper, comparing the writings of Mary Boykin Chesnut and Harriet Jacobs. Another project that was originally going to be my honors thesis, but I had to drop due to scheduling conflicts.

I will be paid (hopefully) for me Women Studies internship starting in January. Yay.

My kitty is now on daily anti-biotics. Up to three meds now. She's definitely my girl.

I saw the Nutcracker and fell in love. Ballet is beautiful.

I'm still blogging for the school paper, but I've also taken on the role of SEC Women Studies representative. It may be a bit much. EEK! And yet, I'm surviving, I've yet to get the flu and I feel strangely fulfilled.

I truly miss my friends and in thinking about the whole concept of 'friendship' and how I relate to it...

I missed Thanksgiving because I was sick and I'm just getting better. Yay for colds and sinus infections and nosebleeds. Too much info?

I graduate in June and go to London for my final class in July. It makes sense, I swear. I cannot express how ecstatic I am about this. Suffice to say, I am ecstatic.

I'm off to bed...

Come to the edge of the barn the property really begins there,
you see things defining themselves, the hoofprints left by sheep,
the slope of the roof, each feather against each feather on each goose.
You see the stake with the flap of orange plastic that marks

the beginning of real. I'm showing you this because
I'm sick of the way you clutch the darkness with your hands,
seek invisible fenceposts for guidance, accost spectres.
I'm coming with you because I fear you'll trip

over the string that marks the beginning, you'll lie across the border
and with that view--fields of intricately seeded grain and chiselled mountains,
the cold winds already lifting the hairs of your arm--you'll forget your feet,
numb in straw and indefinite cow dung, and be unable to rise, to walk farther.

My fingers weave so close between yours because I've been there
before, I know the relief of everything, how it eases the mind to learn
shapes it has not made, how it eases the feet to know the ground
will persist. See those two bowls of milk, just there,

on the other side of the property line, they're for the cats
that sometimes cross over and are seized by sudden thirst, they're
to wash your hands in. Lick each finger afterwards. That will be
your first taste, and my finger tracing your lips will be the second.


----

(The first line is one of John Ashbery's "37 Haiku" in A Wave.)

I was wondering if anyone would be able to comment with the full text of Stanzas, Sexes, Seductions by Anne Carson. It's in the book Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera. I read it at Powells a couple days ago, but didn't have a pen to copy it down, and it has been stuck with me since. Google isn't being very helpful.

Thanks!

She'll take the keys
without discussion; he'll be content,
unquestioning in the passenger seat.

( Read more... )