certain that it will love your back

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

(at St. Mary's)

[Lucille Clifton, 'blessing the boats', from Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000]

never fool for love, I starved for you

How should I know? The enormous wheels of will
Drove me cold-eyed on tired and sleepless feet.
Night was void arms and you a phantom still,
And day your far light swaying down the street.
As never fool for love, I starved for you;
My throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.
Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view,
And your remembered smell most agony.

Love wakens love! I felt your hot wrist shiver
And suddenly the mad victory I planned
Flashed real, in your burning bending head...
My conqueror’s blood was cool as a deep river
In shadow; and my heart beneath your hand
Quieter than a dead man on a bed.

[Rupert Brooke, 'Libido', from The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke]

a cloud in my own soul

In another country at the river's edge
We lay down in whispering dirt,
Then tried to fix a house with hot hope.
If we live together much longer
I'll become a cloud in my own soul.
Sweet jasmine floats in a bowl,
A keyboard harbours insects
(Mites in secret laying white eggs).
I must light frankincense to smoke them out
Else the alphabets will fail.
It is written in the Kama Sutra--
They embraced not caring about pain or injury,
All they wanted was to enter each other.
This is known as milk-and-water.

[Meena Alexander, 'Closing the Kama Sutra' from Quickly Changing River: Poems]

pleasure is the bait of sin

1. What is the most perverted thing someone has ever said to you?
   today? Oh, 'ever'. Hmm. I think that's probably unrepeatable.
2. When was the last time you were touched emotionally?
   today. A friend needed a favor with which I was happy to help, and her gratitude was heartfelt and lovely.
3. What was the last magazine you read?
   surely something at work - borrring!
4. Do you like cocker spaniels?
   not so much. Dumb as dirt.
5. Do you like being out in the rain?
   I LOVE rain!
6. Do you have a secret crush on anyone?
   yes
7. Do you suffer from eczema?
   no
8. What period do you find most interesting, Victorian or medieval?
   "Most" of two is "More", actually, not "Most." That being said, I'll go with Victorian. I like harpsichords.
9. If you were going to a fancy dress party tomorrow, what would you wear?
   The Ready for Anything Coat Dress from J.Peterman. I'm assuming that anything "fancy dress" to which I would be invited wouldn't be formal, just "nice", and that this would fit the bill. It's gorgeous. The color isn't quite right for me, but I love the cut, so I don't really care.
10. Who do you email the most?
    my gay boyfriend
11. Don't you think that lemon flavoured toothpaste sounds disgusting?
    it sounds great. I'd try it in a minute.
12. Who was the last person who cooked for you?
    Mom. Lasagna for dinner. It was delicious.
13. Do you like bad boys?
    yes, I do. Far too much, in fact. Achilles' heel....
14. Have you ever worn a crown or a tiara?
    not with serious intent. I do have a lovely photo of The Mumbler wearing my tiara, though.
15. What's your favourite flavour of Pringles?
    standard. I prefer the Lay's version of those little pressed snacks, though (called Stax), but I could easily eat a can of either in one sitting. Yum!
16. Who was the last person you couldn't stop thinking about?
    that doesn't much matter at the moment
17. Do you bite your fingernails?
    nope
18. What is something you do when you're alone?
    read
19. How many drinks does it usually take for you to get drunk?
    depends what I'm drinking, and who's pouring. The Beast, for instance, could knock me out with one.
20. What were you doing at 4 PM yesterday?
    working
21. Have you ever tried to climb something but fell off?
    sure - welcome to my childhood
22. Have you ever tripped in public whilst alone?
    yep
23. If so what did you do?
    probably glanced around to see if anyone was watching, and tried to pretend it hadn't happened
24. Do you resemble anyone famous?
    quite so
25. What brand is your hairdryer?
    do I own one?
26. Would you date a guy shorter than you?
    would. Have. It's neither a requirement nor a sticking point.
27. Could you live without sex?
    probably not, if historic trends hold. Mysterious, that.
28. Do you like babies?
    meh. I like some people who have been babies.
29. Do you dog-ear pages of a book or use a bookmark?
    NEVER dog-ear. {{{shudder}}} That's why people hand out business cards!
30. Name three things that are on your bedroom floor:
    heaps of packed boxes, a lavender-scented eye pillow, and a flashlight
31. What was the last thing you dreamed about?
    children in the witness protection program and their experience with Flat Stanley. Don't ask me...
32. Who makes you laugh the most?
    hmm. Good question.
33. Are you stubborn?
    yes, I am
34. Would you rather be a Goddess or a Princess?
    a goddess, I suppose. Princesses don't have to work at it; it's just given to them. Goddesses have earned it, and keep earning it.
35. What scent is your deodorant?
    a surprisingly non-cloying powder
36. Name three people you dislike:
    and render them searchable on my blog? Are you fookin cracked?!
37. Do you believe in past lives?
    only in the sense of "in my past life I drove a racecar, because I can't get out of the habit of trying to shift into overdrive on the tollway."
38. If you could bring one person back from the dead, who would it be?
    Hitler. OK, choke back your fury--I just think he earned some punishment, that's all.
39. What was the last thing you watched on YouTube?
    the extraordinarily Not Safe For Work - and hilarious - "I Just Had Sex"
40. Do you actually pass on chain letters?
    actually, no
41. Can you wiggle your ears?
    no, but my mom can
42. Do you like your voice?
    sometimes. It has a certain sultriness that can be pleasing in small quantities, under the right circumstances.
43. Can you do any good impressions/voices?
    vaguely
44. Are you scared of horses?
    yes. There was an incident at a county fair. I can't say more.
45. What is your favourite weekday?
    favorite...weekday?
46. What two specific colours best reflect your personality?
    black & blue
47. Does it annoy you that some people don't like others because they are vegetarians?
    no. There are vegetarians that I don't like, because they are vegetarians. (There are also vegetarians for whom I would give up vital organs. So there.)
48. What do you think you take for granted?
    loyalty
49. Do you think sex is an important part of a relationship?
    intimate relationships, definitely. People who think that a marriage, for instance, should weather periods without sex (willfully, not by necessity) are deceiving themselves and robbing their union. Not that I have strong feelings about this.
50. Are you taller than your mum?
    yes, by a few inches.
51. Who is the youngest person in your family?
    My niece's baby is only 2 months.
52. Do you have a close relationship with your Dad?
    definitely
53. Do you know anyone who is dying?
    yes
54. What do you think you look like without make up?
    me, ver. "pale"
55. What was the last newspaper you read?
    the local
    
56. Who was your most memorable teacher?
    Seymour
57. Would you ever experiment with an Ouija board?
    have done. Didn't find it terribly amusing/enlightening/frightening
58. Who was the last person you hung up on?
    Johnnie
59. What physical feature do you get complimented on?
    if it's repeatable, it's probably my eyes

***

1. Are there any songs on your iPod that you don't like anymore, but don't want to delete because of the memories attached to them?
   there are some songs that I will skip if they show up on Shuffle, but that I can't seem to delete for whatever reason
2. Who's your favorite character on the last TV show you watched?
   Jimmy Palmer
3. What's the most adorable thing you've seen recently?
   a text wishing me goodnight a couple of days ago
4. Black and white or sepia?
   B&W, though I have a couple of tricked-up sepia photos of my ex-cats that are painfully sweet
5. How do you feel about the song "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer?
   I'm not a big fan
6. Are your subscriptions ordered by the date you subscribed to them, by the date they last updated, or alphabetically?
   alpha
7. Tell me something silly you believed when you were a little kid:
   toads are baby frogs
8. When you have to solve an algebraic equation, do you use X, N, or some other letter?
   solve for X
9. Assuming you know what The Game is, who taught you the rules?
   it just seems like I've always known; must've been friends
10. Have you ever had a guitar solo stuck in your head?
    not likely
11. Do you know anybody who owns a grandfather clock?
    yes
12. What was the last thing you drew on MS Paint?
    I don't think I've ever drawn on MS Paint
13. How old were you when you joined your first social networking site?
    34, give or take
14. Do you ever save any of your AIM or MSN chats?
    only in the program (though I retrieved some of my OkCupid chats when I deleted my profile - it seemed like a good idea at the time)
15. What's your favorite vowel?
    O
16. When was the last time you had a headache?
    weekend
17. Are mashed potatoes better lumpy or smooth?
    some lumps are necessary in order for them to seem real
18. Have you ever been to FailBlog.org? What did you think of it?
    I don't think so? It sounds like something one of my colleagues would recommend as a time-waster, which is a turn-off for me.
19. Does it bother you when survey makers separate questions that could've been combined?
    "bother" is a stronger word for it than necessary, but it definitely doesn't lend itself to making me want to do their surveys
20. Have you ever eaten a chocolate covered coffee bean?
    yep - I suck the chocolate off and expectorate the bean!

***

1. Last time you had sex?
   ...was spectacular, thanks
2. How do you keep your hair "down there"?
   through sheer force of will
3. Ever have sex outside of a relationship?
   once or twice
4. Most embarrassing period story you have to tell?
   ...is obviously not meant for mixed company
5. Favorite sexual act?
   ...depends on the circumstances and would probably vary with the company
6. Ever taken naked pictures of yourself?
   me?! Are you kidding?!
7. Do you like/love anyone right now?
   I do, indeed, like, love anyone. Right now.
8. Spit or swallow?
   ...reminds me of a story of a guy I knew in college, a shy and gentle intellectual in most ways, who had "spucken oder schlucken? - das ist die Frage" carved into the headboard of his bed. Charming fellow.
9. If someone paid you to have sex with them, would you do it? What if it was for a million dollars?
   that depends much on the identity of the "someone." If it was someone I already wanted to have sex with, I might do it for free. Of course, if I wanted a million dollars and I was on the fence about the sex, I'm not entirely stupid about money, either.
10. Ever did something sexual while under the influence?
    uh, yeah. Welcome to my college years.
11. If a taken person pursued you and you were interested, would you do anything with them?
    first, define "taken", "pursue", "interested" and "do"
12. Have you ever cheated or been cheated on?
    of course
13. What's your cup size?
    venti
14. Do you have any self-esteem issues?
    don't we all?
15. Last time you cried, and why?
    a couple of days ago, while reading a book
16. Are you on any medications? What kind?
    yes - migraine prevention, migraine treatment, and allergy treatment
17. What method of birth control do you use?
    my favorite answer to this question, given by a female coworker on a form at the university's health service, was "I only have sex with women." 'Cause, like, sometimes it's a really stupid way of asking what you want to know.
18. Ever tried drugs or alcohol?
    once or twice
19. Ever drove drunk?
    yep
20. Ever did anything sexual at work?
    not exactly
21. Ever met someone from the Internet? How did it go?
    that makes it sound like he was a martian. It went fine...ish. There was a lot more to it than "meeting", randomly, though.
22. Ever have an online significant other?
    not exactly
23. Is there a secret you're hiding from everyone?
    yes
24. Ever been to a therapist?
    yes - it was one of the best things I ever did
25. Worst break-up you ever had?
    ...was one of the worst times of my life, not really blog quiz-fodder
26. Are there any friends you have that you secretly despise?
    nah, I'm not masochistic that way anymore
27. Ever gave someone a lapdance?
    HA, no
28. Ever liked two people at one time?
    sure
29. Is there someone you're lying to at the moment?
    no, I'm alone
30. Would you sleep with your boss to get a raise or a promotion?
    Not. Bloody. Likely.
31. Do you plan on going to college?
    not again, thanks
32. How many kids do you want in the future?
    unless they're inherited, I'll stick with what I've got
33. What age do you want to get married at, if at all?
    no expectations in that realm
34. Will you take your partner’s last name, have them take yours, or just both keep your last names? Maybe combine them?
    maybe make up something completely different
35. Would you use an online dating site to find a partner?
    doubtful
36. Ever been engaged?
    yes, briefly
37. Ever been called a bad kisser?
    only by the one I married (and, by implication, by the animal-brained lawyer)
38. What color eyes did the last person you kissed have?
    brown
39. Is waiting for marriage to have sex a good idea to you?
    no, it's a terrible idea for anyone
40. Ever dropped someone's toothbrush in the toilet and didn't tell them?
    I would never drop someone's anything in the toilet and not tell them!
41. Ever heard/walked in on your parents having sex?
    {{{shudder}}} NO
42. If you had a hot cousin, would you have sexual relations with them?
    no, never, ugh
43. Ever fall for someone who was only supposed to be your friend with benefits?
    no, but I can easily imagine it happening
44. Ever had a friend with benefits?
    yes, I suppose, before it was called that.
    (When I read The Cat's version, I seriously thought this question read "friend with batteries". That made her answer ["Yes, he's called my husband"] unbearably funny.)
45. Opinion on casual sex?
    whatever gets you through the day...

[I caught this, in über-hilarious form, from The Cat, who got it here; title quotation by Plato]

what most deeply connects us

And now I know what most deeply connects us

after that summer so many years ago,

and it isn't poetry, although it is poetry,

and it isn't illness, although we have that in common,

and it isn't gratitude for every moment,

even the terrifying ones, even the physical pain,

though we are grateful, and it isn't even death,

though we are halfway through

it, or even the way you describe the magnificence

of being alive, catching a glimpse,

in the store window, of your blowing hair and chapped lips,

though it is beautiful, it is; but it is

that you're my friend out here on the far reaches

of what humans can find out about each other.

[Jason Shinder, 'Coda', from The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing]

so what could she fear? ... that he will bind her heart too tightly?

1. Make a list of 5 things that you can see without getting up:
   
   1. a couple of things that I need to mail to the 'tucky
   2. a box of candles that are too small for the holders that I have, but so cool that I'm researching holders to buy to fit for them
   3. my phone & iPod, charging side by side
   4. a baseball signed by former MLB/NFL player Brian Jordan
   5. my turquoise-studded cowboy hat
2. How do you style your hair?
   as casually as possible
3. What are you wearing now?
   t-shirt & shorts; it's roasting in my apartment
4. What's your occupation?
   chief of "other duties as assigned"
5. What do you hear right now?
   car driving by, fridge running (it nevereverever stops), clock ticking
6. Who was the last person you hugged?
   that is a mystery that will never be solved
7. What is/was for dinner?
   leftover pizza, in an effort to clean out the fridge prior to a few days away
8. What did you do today?
   overslept (again), worked (gah), ran errands, packed (also neverending), ate dinner while watching NCIS, and...hung around
9. Dog person or cat person?
   I adore cats, but I am more like a dog than I am like a cat, to my eternal shame
10. If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?
    'nobody'. (It's a family joke.)
11. What was the last thing that you bought?
    probably a ruby necklace? Or a turkey sandwich. Depends when those bills are posted.
12. If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
    today, Ireland
13. Where do you see yourself in five years?
    not. motherfucking. here.
14. Where's your birthmark?
    there's one on my right foot, and one next to 'grace'
15. What are you doing this weekend?
    dinner, drinks and a tour on Friday with some friends I haven't seen in like 3 years, and burgers, beer and a movie on Saturday with "meat for sex guy"
16. Which book are you reading at the moment?
    I'm in the third June of Three Junes, and I'm taking four graphic novels by Jeffrey Brown and Blue Pills by Frederik Peeters and The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems, 1980-2010 by Marge Piercy along for the trip.
17. The last movie you've seen?
    Rushmore. Allegedly going to see one at the theater on Saturday, though I have such weird theater karma that I wouldn't bet on it.
18. What are you doing tomorrow?
    driving. I'll bet you'll never guess where...

[from The Cat - welcome back, love! - who got it here; the title quotation is from Three Junes, by Julia Glass]

does heaven not also hang upon your mouth?

1

Does heaven not hang from your mouth?

Likewise my eyes hang upon your lips,

and your voice is the happiness that results.

Even if you say everything, I will never grasp it,

yet between the vowels and consonants

your breath grazes me, a new sign of life.

2

Let my eyes hang upon your lips,

for does heaven not also hang upon your mouth?

I don't ever want to be separated from your voice.

Awaken me from death.

I will not hear it for another year.

Give me words, a year's supply.

No need to grasp anything, for its sound brings belief,

and I believe every day and then some.

Soon it will be mute, you will be more mute to me,

and ever more quiet will be my slumber

in the stillness, the Last Judgment for my ear.

The trumpets are still, without trumpeters

the end is performed.

[Ingeborg Bachmann, 'Your Voice', from Poems 1957-1961 in Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann]

hallucinated heaven and a hell of slow dying

VII

In the touch, in the friction,

in the nameless delight

of the ultimate caress

that empties out in the act,

there's a mysterious pact

in the delirious spasm;

hallucinated heaven

and a hell of slow dying

become one when you are mine

and in the instant I'm yours.

VIII

Even absent you're alive!

I find you in the hollow

of a form and the echo

of some momentary sound;

even my own saliva

tastes of your shadowy taste,

and in exchange for what's mine

you've left me only the fear

of finding even in taste

the presence of this void.

[Xavier Villaurrutia, from 'Death in Décimas', in Nostalgia for Death & Hieroglyphs of Desire, trans. by Eliot Weinberger]

I picture your face in the back of my eyes

    This was an odd weekend, even for someone whose weekends are rarely what I would term 'normal'. It started with a medical emergency (which turned out not to be so dramatic, but still plenty painful), which transformed the following two days from what I'd planned--packing, cleaning, shopping--into something completely different. Most notably, I've slept nearly the entire weekend, easily 2/3 of yesterday and half of today. (Yes, I'm anticipating trouble tonight.) When I was awake, I've done little except make halfhearted stabs at mixes (finishing this one), read (two rather predictable suspense novels, a slim book of poetry [Carl Phillips' Double Shadow: Poems, which was tremendously good], and an overdue re-reading of the National Book Award-winning Three Junes by Julia Glass), and pace. If I was a cat, you'd swear there was stormy weather coming. I cannot settle down.    

    Reinforcing, though not accountable for, the mood are three things. First: I've spoken to no one since Friday evening except for the man who delivered my flowers yesterday afternoon (a wonderful, welcome surprise) and the girl who delivered my pizza last night, and those were not long conversations. This much literal solitude is both instructive and dangerous. Second: although I've been nearly desperate to drink--for no specific reason that I can put my finger on--supplies are low and it was absolutely beyond me to have someone else bring alcohol to me. It's just as well, considering the damage I can do to myself when I haven't been drinking. And third, and probably most significantly: I've been informed just now that a branch has broken off my family tree. Not entirely unexpectedly, but it's still a blow of sorts. It makes me wonder what is real, what is permanent (or even trustworthy), whether anything merits leaning on or if it really is better to be completely self-contained. As much as it is possible to be.

[title quotation from "Anna Molly", one of the songs on that mix, by Incubus]

another day just like this day

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

[Jane Kenyon, 'Otherwise', from The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing]

you don’t need me to stretch out my hand

Right now in the rest area it’s sunny and cold. Someone
is taking a picture of the vending machine. I have
never been sad for appropriate reasons. Never
have I sat in the wet grass looking not at dark sky
but blue paper someone had carefully taken
hours to punch out in a shape invisible
until the flashlight is turned on below. Earlier
when I said everything is a switch immediately
the interlocking gears in the self-hatred mechanism
began to grind. Part of me is always about to turn
in a direction I will never go. Trucks roar
filled with things people need. Sometimes I sound
to myself like a robot. Too many times as a teen
I stared onto the surface of a mysterious
solvable multifaceted cube. I can see you don’t need
me to stretch out my hand to point to dread
and its little button. The door swings open,
one entire miserable summer I should have been happy
flashes in the word molybdenum. I saw people
mining cinder from volcanoes. Cinder
is made into blocks lighter than cement to hold
the plywood shelves holding one or more
than one person’s books. To intermingle
is so difficult to extricate. Shells marine organisms
abandon dissolve into ooze. Goodbye, someday
I’ll invent the magic lantern, then music,
then whatever’s the opposite of the need
to control everything so it can be perfect for you.

[Matthew Zapruder, 'The Painted Desert', from Come on All You Ghosts]

apparently, Carl, when you bought that medium drink, you entered a binding contract that enables them to rip off your dick

1. Do you prefer Disney or Warner Brothers?
   Warner Brothers, by far. Disney is the root of much evil, particularly in my current field of employment.
2. What is the first animal you would run to see if you went to the zoo?
   meerkats. LOVE meerkats.
3. Would you consider yourself to be romantic?
   oh, Hell yeah
4. If the earth stopped rotating would we all fly off?
   no, but we would probably want to
5. What is the one thing that you love to do so much that you would make sacrifices to be able to do it?
   I get a massage every 5 weeks when I get my hair cut. It is a luxury, and I give up other things so that I can afford it. I wish I could do it more often.
6. If you (and everyone) had to lose one right or freedom, but you could pick which one everyone had to lose, what would you pick?
   a Constitutional freedom, or a sort of commonsensical one? Constitutionally, I'd throw out the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, since it could be protected against in other ways (and people are sort of dumb and probably deserve to get stuck anyway), In a common sense way, let's get rid of the freedom to wear flip-flops. The sound...ugh.
7. If you had to choose would you live on the equator or at the North Pole?
   equator!
8. Would you rather give up listening to music or watching television?
   television, in a heartbeat
9. What do you think makes someone a hero?
   standing up for someone else against someone/something stronger, despite the risk
10. What cartoon would you like to be a character in?
    Aqua Teen Hunger Force--I [heart] Frylock!
11. Name one thing that turns your stomach:
    the professional abilities and personal demeanor of the individual with my job at M. Public Library
12. What was the last thing you paid for?
    professional services at the local urgent care, including 2 conversations with an M.D., 3 x-rays, a tetanus booster, and a surprisingly comfortable buddy-tape
13. Are you a coupon clipper?
    yep, not that I often reap the benefits. Call it a leftover hobby of couple-hood.
14. Get anything good in the mail recently?
    yes! This week I got a postcard from London and a package from Alaska. Yay!
15. Which would you rather take as a gym class...dancing, sailing, karate, or bowling?
    karate. It's about damn time I get back to fighting weight.
16. In Star Trek people 'beam' back and forth between different places. What this means is they stand in a little tube and their molecules are deconstructed and sent to another tube somewhere else where they are reassembled. Only problem is when the molecules are deconstructed the person is dead. When they are put back together it is only a clone that has all the dead person's memories. Is the person who gets beamed the same person on both ends?
    no. I could explain, but they would silence me - permanently.
17. What insects are you afraid of?
    none - only weenies (and apparently some tattoo artists) are afraid of bugs.
18. If you could print any phrase on a T-shirt, what would it say?
    please use other door
19. What's the most eccentric thing you have ever worn?
    there was an odd, ill-advised shorts/sweater ensemble that I sported in high school, in all likelihood topped with the off-white lightweight canvas duster coat and floppy painters cap. Where was DCFS when I needed them? And that hair....
20. If you could pick one food that you could eat all you wanted but it would have no effect on how much you weigh, what food would it be?
    bacon!
21. What are your parents interested in?
    computers, walking for health, country music, car racing, and old movies
22. Have you ever caught an insect and kept it as a pet?
    WTF is the obsession with insects? No, I have not.
23. Have you ever caught and tamed a wild animal?
    no. Some of my tame pets weren't even really tame, so I would hardly seek out a wild one.
24. What is more helpful to you, wishes or plans?
    wishes
25. When do you feel your life energy the strongest?
    writing
26. You are spending the night alone in the woods and may bring only 3 items with you.
    
    1. a camper containing an actual bed with a door that locks
    2. super industrial-strength pepper spray
    3. food & water

[from The Cat, who followed the standard naming convention, and got it here; the title quotation is from ATHF, as much as I'd like to claim it's Shakespeare]

what singleness can bear

Action creates

a taste

for itself.

Meaning: once

you've swept

the shelves

of spoons

and plates

you kept

for guests,

it gets harder

not to also

simplify the larder,

not to dismiss

rooms, not to

divest yourself

of all the chairs

but one, not

to test what

singleness can bear,

once you've begun.

[Kay Ryan, 'That Will to Divest', from The Best of It: New and Selected Poems]

she freaked when she tried to stab him with her big fork

My seventh grade French teacher, Mademoiselle Torrosian, kept a pet

rock, Pierre, who looked like an average potato. She made occasional

mention of him, basking in his round holder on her desk, if it meant

including him as an example for that day’s lesson. “Monsieur Pierre

voudrais du bifteck et les pommes frites” if we were learning to order a steak

and fries. Or “Monsieur Pierre aime Juillet mais pas Janvier” if we were

learning to distinguish between the months. Mademoiselle Torrosian

dressed as a tablecloth, wearing a checkered yellow top above her dull

brown pant legs. She had short hair and wide glasses, though I once

caught her stepping out of Kramer Gifts, a shop at the mall where you

could buy dirty decks of cards and fuzzy dice. A neighbor of mine, Kev

Wilson, cooked up the plan to kidnap Monsieur Pierre, out of boredom,

maybe, but it was easily accomplished: I slid the rock off its pedestal into

my bookbag during the confusing crush at the end of class, and we had

him. I’m not sure that Mademoiselle ever let on that Monsieur Pierre had

gone missing, until we left her the first of our many ransom notes. Kev

and I had cut the alphabet out of numerous magazines, the way we saw

in the movies, and glued odd-shaped letters to construction paper, say-

ing, in terrible French, “Nous avons Monsieur Pierre” for “We have Mon-

sieur Pierre,” and if she’d like him back unharmed, she’d give everyone

in the class an “A.” Mademoiselle Torrosian took to reading the notes out

loud, correcting our French as she went, and then would utter pleas for

his return. She would say, in earnest, “Monsieur Pierre est mon bebe, mon petit

oiseau bleu, mon chanson et mon danse” or something like that, and the class

would stare ahead without much sympathy. We, in turn, would write

more and more perverse ransom notes, describing that we were cutting

off Monsieur Pierre’s ears, or putting out his “oeil” or breaking his nose.

Mademoiselle Torrosian’s brow would darken each time she entered the

classroom and saw a new note lying on her chair. It was a small class; fif-

teen or twenty kids, and she probably guessed it was me and Kev, but

then again, there was always that dickwad Marvin DeLeo, that girl,

Angie, who always pronounced besoin as “boz-wan” and was always

peeved when Mademoiselle corrected her, and Overman, too, that big,

crazy, silent loon of a timebomb just waiting to throw someone out the

window. Meantime, Monsieur Pierre resided in my backyard, in a reg-

ular area where many other rocks lived, and sometimes Kev and I would

have a hard time distinguishing him from your typical shale, or quartzite,

or whatever we were learning in earth science. One time, I put him in the

oven, after my mother had begun baking a load of potatoes and she

freaked when she tried to stab him with her big fork, scratching him

mightily. Kev and I used him as a hammer once, when we were trying to

build a wooden ladder in the backyard, and there we chipped him, but

the coup de grace came when we were tossing Monsieur Pierre back and

forth in a game of “you’re it” and he fell onto the patio and cracked in

half, perfectly. We vowed to superglue him back together, a clear thin line

of paste at the fissure, and soon afterwards, I snuck him back into position,

on his little round holder beside Mademoiselle Torrosian’s grade book,

even as Mademoiselle erased the blackboard. “Oh la la,” she said, turn-

ing around a minute later. She held him up to the light, smiling, at first,

then dropped him into the empty metal trashcan, where he landed with

a good boom. “Monsieur Pierre est mort—dead,” she said, then barked:

“Ecoutez!”

[Daniel Gutstein, 'Monsieur Pierre est mort', from The Best American Poetry 2006]

too caught for giving up

Bitten by the electrician's boy--

my shoulder drizzled in his spit, my soul

a porcupine--I stuck one little thumb

into his cheek (to get inside the den, to grab

the guilty tooth). He clobbered me. Oh and Ow

and No around the room--I fought with the son

until he charged into a static hug; we spun

as coupling cats become, too caught for giving up.

He lost his tooth; his tongue kept re-erupting

through the hole--against my neck I felt the nose

of something small and living, a wetter pocking

than my sweat against his shirt snaps. I fastened

to him, we burned against the rug until I dropped.

It hurt to hold the boy--though he was light enough.

[Susan Parr, 'Ecstatic Cling', from The Best American Poetry 2007]

tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill

    The wedding looms, fraught with danger, drama, boredom, frustration, and melancholy. Despite encouragement to ask the delightful pizza delivery guy (yes, that same Chuck, famed in song and story) to accompany me, I've decided to go alone. Given my inability to make even the simplest small-talk with Chuck, an entire semi-formal, and very personally meaningful, event seems far too much for either of us to endure. There had also been some possibility that I would simply go with - not together with, but at the same time as, in a casual and entirely devoid of entendre of any kind way - the Mumbler, but that's been shot to Hell by his current mood. I haven't been able to tell whether he'll smile or snap at me for the last months or so; I'm not willing to take that on. Alone it is.

    In painful truth, though, with all the suggestions (lighthearted, well-meaning, salacious, hilarious, good-hearted, silly, foolish, or hopeful) that have been made on this topic over the past few months, there is one person I've wanted to take with me. Knowing that it won't happen, I can't take any other option too seriously. A loss feels hardest, to me, when I don't even get a chance to play.

[title quotation by Natasha Trethewey]

something to compare

We drove to the world's end and there betrayed

The ones we promised not to. While we drove

We talked about the afterlife and love,

Slowing to an impatient crawl, delayed

By roadwork, in an idling parade

We couldn't see the head or tail of.

We inched past miles of asphalt, reeking stuff,

Stroked by a rake of fire as it was laid.

And we agreed the analogues for hell

Came to us everywhere we looked in life.

But not for heaven. For it we couldn't find

A metaphor or likeness. Not until

We had betrayed our loved ones, at the end,

Did we have something to compare it with.

[Mark Jarman, '16', from Bone Fires: New and Selected Poems]

"Right O!"

AN ELUSIVE ESSENTIAL TO SOCIAL SUCCESS

1. ON ACQUIRING A SOCIAL POSITION

A well-made grilled cheese sandwich can open a vista

leading to popularity and the possibilities

for "a good time."

2. ON THE LIFE OF THE PARTY

Where the perfect grilled cheese sandwich is

the successful party is also.

3. THE MARK OF A SOCIAL CLIMBER

When you see a woman in silks and sables

speak to a grilled cheese sandwich as if it were dirt

you may be sure she hasn't come far

from the ground herself.

4. ON FRESHNESS

"Keep your hands on your own grilled cheese!"

might be the first chapter in any book

on etiquette.

5. ON COARSE LANGUAGE

Coarse slang is beside the mark but a good

grilled cheese sandwich cannot help but elicit

an enthusiastic "Right O!"

6. ON EXPRESSION

There should be a quality of protectiveness

in a man's expression when it falls on his grilled cheese

sandwich. As though so lovely a breath might break it.

7. ON DECENCY

The phrases devised to close a letter to a betrothed

are limited only by imagination

but do not belong in this or any other grilled cheese sandwich.

8. A NOTE TO THE GENTLEMAN

It would be presumptuous to tell any man how to prepare

his own grilled cheese sandwich when the answer is written

in his heart, his intellect, and his ardent civic pride.

[Christine Scanlon, 'The Grilled Cheese Sandwich', from The Best American Poetry 2005]

it's down to this

1. Who are you?
   daughter, sister, aunt, great-aunt, niece, cousin, godmother, former spouse, ex-girlfriend, [redacted], boss, coworker, friend, acquaintance, enemy...
2. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you?
   
   1. I meant what I said.
   2. Your dog is really, really not the one that's going to make me love dogs.
   3. If I seem unnaturally quiet, there's a 90% chance that it's not about you.
3. When you aren't doing memes like this one what are you doing?
   livin' my life.
4. List your classes in school from the ones you like the most to the ones you like the least (or if you are out of school, think of the classes you did like and didn't like at the time).
   BA: best--Historical Attitudes Toward Death (unforgettable); worst--Politics & Society in Sub-Saharan Africa (No. Clue. Why.)
   MA: best--Renaissance & Reformation (terrifyingly difficult and completely worthwhile); worst--Historiography (contextually interesting but the prof took years off my life via boredom and condescension)
   JD: best--Evidence (because I'm a dork); worst--Torts!!! (because OHMYGOD I would rather have spinal surgery without anesthesia than sit through another second of that incomprehensible crap. Even Civil Procedure, which never made a lick of sense to me, was a freakin' walk in the park compared to that.)
5. What is your biggest goal for this year?
   move house
6. Where do you want to be in 5 years?
   in a house that I own. In a career, not a job. At something closer to my "ideal weight."
7. What stage of life are you in right now?
   3 of 7.
8. Are you more child-like or childish?
   depends on the circumstances. Lately I've been forced to deal with an inordinate number of situations with serious financial or legal ramifications, leading me to channel the lawyer side. Ick. I think it's all swinging around, so we're likely to see a phase of unbridled goofiness and rampant misbehavior as soon as I can get away with it.
9. What is the last thing you said out loud?
   Something like "Awesome!", in response to a hilarious TV ad. I know, right? It was Joe Buck & Tim McCarver, advertising MLB on FOX, and I laughed myself silly.
10. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now?
    "Belong" by Cary Brothers or "Away from the Sun" by 3 Doors Down. (The title quotation is from the latter.)
11. Have you ever taken martial arts classes?
    no, but I want to
12. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same?
    yep, depending on the day
13. Does time really heal all wounds?
    no. Humans are finite, and those wounds make it happen.
14. How do you handle a rainy day?
    I revel in them. I love rain.
15. Which is worse...losing your luggage or having to sort out tangled holiday lights?
    losing your luggage, of course. Untangling holiday lights is easy and/or cheap to resolve.
    
16. How is (or was) your relationship with your parents?
    It's somewhat easier from a couple of hundred miles away, but it's still a challenge. I clearly went wrong somewhere in their training.
17. Do you tend to be aware of what is going on around you?
    on some level. Prehaps not the most obvious level.
18. What is the truest thing that you know?
    there's always time to lose
19. What did you want to be when you grew up?
    better
20. Have you ever been given a second chance?
    yep, even though one strike usually means you're out. If I could go back....
21. Are you more of a giver or a taker?
    depends, of course. I love to give gifts. I have incredibly generous friends. I am owed money. I also owe. I've granted favors. They've been done for me. That's life, isn't it, for most people?
22. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind?
    I don't know. I make them with my own heart and mind, and I've never had another's with which to compare. I think I'm probably more loose and feeling-oriented than most people, but who knows how many of us would say the same.
23. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you?
    shots in my toes. It was unreal.
24. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you?
    I loved and was not loved in return.
25. Who have you hugged today?
    no one. It would have been inappropriate, given those with whom I spent time (the clerk at the grocery store is a cutie but he'd have put up a protest, and my potential landlords seem to like me pretty well but not that well). Maybe tomorrow.

[from The Cat - who retained the title "The 5000 Question Meme, Part One" and got it from here]

there was a kiss in the middle of a sidewalk

Two Poets Meet
for Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Elizabeth Bishop
When my two favorite poets in the whole infinitely worded world met,
and they met
only once, it was by chance on the sidewalk at night in Rio

and they had just come out
of the same restaurant, where they had eaten at separate tables. Drummond
had had the humble

tutu, black beans mixed with manioc meal, and fried bananas. Elizabeth the
gringa had wolfed down
a caper and pimento picadinho served with farofa, manioc farina larded

with butter, sausage,
and eggs. Both had drunk cachaça with chasers of beer. The acacias
were in full bloom

and lit the street with their yellow globes. Their faint scent
could not conceal
the smell of urine from the side alley where the drunks would piss

copiously and with great
long-winded sighs. The panhandlers were out with their chorus of coughs
and por favors.

Lota, who knew everybody, introduced them. Elizabeth had not yet
started to translate
Drummond's verse. Drummond had never read any of Elizabeth's

few poems, which shone
like a single strand of pearls against a black funeral dress. Because they were both
"supposed to be very shy,"

they said little and spoke only the formalities
in Portuguese,
which was Elizabeth's third, half-learned language.

But when Lota
had taken Drummond's arm and whispered that there was someone
he must meet,

he was anything but gauche. He bent over Elizabeth's
outstretched
hand and put his lips, which had once murmured, "Love in the dark,

no, love
in the daylight, is always sad," briefly to the dry skin
of the back of her hand.

Let it be recorded that in the life where people meet and pass
there was a kiss
in the middle of a sidewalk. In the middle of the sidewalk, this kiss.

[Donald Platt, reprinted in The Best American Poetry 2006]

you wanted her. I wanted you.

Distance was the house in which I welcomed you.

But it was in the river

that we became cadence, there where the current braided

together again, after the stone bridge stanchion parted the stream.

It was to last only as long as the beauty lasted.

Do you believe in the soul?

Words from the void, wet and mewling.

Where we walked on the mountain, water

poured around us, surging up from springs, seethed

down in rivulets, rocky streams, and one long blinding cascade:

your kisses were an eau-de-vie and as bitter.

I am poured out like water.

Distance is feminine in French.

I held a knife to a man's throat and let him bleed quietly into a cup.

What does "us" mean?

Coiled serpentine headdress of Leonardo's woman:

you wanted her. I wanted you.

Chill sunlight flexing itself on the city river

gave me the emptiness I needed

to write these instructions: Sorrow

is a liqueur. Drink deep. We will all be consumed.

[Rosanna Warren, 'From the Notebooks of Anne Verveine, VII', from Ghost in a Red Hat: Poems]

the soul light in my eyes

How would it be if you appeared

in this open window?

It would be as though my hands and feet

were suddenly untied, and life was pouring back in.

I would say, I have not smiled

or laughed since you left.

Wine has had no effect.

And you would tease, Such melancholy.

It may be catching.

Then I would wrap my shroud around

and offer my neck to your blade.

Cure this headache permanently.

You are the soul light in my eyes.

Words drift out on the air.

Let the musicians play now.

The stringed instruments, the tambourine and drum,

since no reed flute is here today.

[Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, (Coleman Barks, trans.), 'Open Window', from Rumi: The Big Red Book]

he who makes a paradise of his bread makes a hell of his hunger

    Sometimes it's just not meant to be.

    This morning, I was only a couple of minutes late for work. Went into the kitchen to make a sandwich for lunch. As I was pulling the bread out of the bag, I thought, "This loaf has lasted a long time. Nice!" As I dropped it into the container and reached for the peanut butter, my attitude changed; that was when I saw the deep scale of mold reaching across the bottom crust of both pieces. I lifted the bag and inspected the remainder. Unsurprisingly, it was all affected. No sandwich for lunch.

    This evening, I finally got settled enough to bake the cake I've been meaning to take to work for a while. It's a scratch recipe, rather complicated, but I [foolishly] assumed I had all the ingredients, since I'd located the one that I don't usually have on hand--lemon pudding mix. I preheated the oven and started mixing the batter, and while doing so I read ahead to the ingredients for the glaze; damn it, I don't have any orange juice. Since it's poured over the cooled cake, though, I knew I could take the rest of the glaze ingredients, buy orange juice on the way to work, mix it and pour it there, and no one would know or care that it had been freshly done. Problem solved.

    Until, that is, I got to the point in the directions where I needed to add the eggs. It called for four. I had...none. Two eggs' worth of Egg Beaters, but no actual eggs. A glance at the clock revealed that the local grocery store was closed (24 minutes prior). I could change clothes and drive to the chain on the edge of town, to buy two freakin' eggs (and some orange juice, of course, and naturally some bread while I'm there), drive back home, finish mixing the cake, bake it for nearly an hour, cool it, and glaze it--all before going to bed for what would undoubtedly be a restful sleep.

    Or I could do what I did, which was to turn off the oven, scoop the beginnings of the batter into a sealed bowl, plop it in the fridge, and resolve to buy donuts for work. It really, really wasn't meant to be.

[title quotation by Antonio Porchia, from Voces, trans. by W.S. Merwin]

I am what you avoid and what you stop avoiding.

I am not here to ruin you.

I am already in you.

I am the work you didn't do.

I am what you understand best and wordless.

I am with you in your chair and in your song.

I am what you avoid and what you stop avoiding.

I am what's left when there is nothing left.

Love me hard, pilgrim.

[Sarah Manguso, 'Oblivion Speaks', from Siste Viator]

a bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song

1. Do you collect anything? Why, or why not?
   I collect:
   
   • shot glasses (because someone went on a vacation and brought some back for me, and then someone else did the same, and...so on)
   • chopstick rests (because I saw a tiny ceramic fish at the co-op that I just had to have, which turned out to be a chopstick rest, and then someone else found a tiny leaf that they thought I'd like...and so on)
   • hats - with character (because I wanted a pair of Gurkha shorts from Banana Republic, way back in the day, and with the t-shirt I was buying at the same time I was only about $25 from free shipping. Ergo, an Australian bush hat. Once I had that, someone else bought me a large black picture hat a la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman...and so on)
   • tiny ceramic boxes (not to use, just to have)
   • Asian drinkwear (the collection branched from the shot glasses, but took a life of its own during my last trip to Washington, D.C.)
   • interesting rocks (whether natural or the sort with meaningful stuff carved in them. No, I don't mean jewelry - although I do like that, too.)
2. Would you describe yourself as spiritual, religious, or something else?
   Oh, I'm something else, all right.
3. When was the last time you used a telephone book?
   not sure when, but it was definitely in my home town, where it's the best way to figure out where someone lives. (Yep, it's still pretty much freakin' Mayberry in some ways.)
4. Show and Tell. What comes to mind first when you see this picture? Or, tell a story if it reminds you of one.
   Public Domain Photothis is either a large container of some fantastically consistently-cooked French fries, or a flock of long-beaked birds making their collective displeasure known at feeding time

[from the original source; the title quotation is a Chinese proverb]

I cherish only now a joy I was not aware of

The trouble with pleasure is the timing

it can overtake me without warning

and be gone before I know it is here

it can stand facing me unrecognized

while I am remembering somewhere else

in another age or someone not seen

for years and never to be seen again

in this world and it seems that I cherish

only now a joy I was not aware of

when it was here although it remains

out of reach and will not be caught or named

or called back and if I could make it stay

as I want to it would turn into pain

[W.S. Merwin, 'One of the Butterflies', from The Shadow of Sirius]

to stumble on such a love in the middle of her life

These difficult matters of grace and scale:

The way music, our savior, is the marriage of math and antisocial behavior.

Like this woman with a bucket in the morning gathering gorgeous oxymora on the shore...

And my wildly troubled love for you, which labored gently in the garden all through June, then tore the flowers up with its fists in July.

Which set a place for you next to mine--the fork beside the spoon beside the knife (the linen napkin, the centerpiece: a blue beheaded blossom floating in a bowl)--and even the red weight of my best efforts poured into your glass as a dark wine before I tossed the table onto its side.

Just another perfect night. Beyond destruction, and utterly unlikely, how someone might have managed, blindly, to stumble on such a love in the middle of her life.

O elegant giant.

While, outside, the woods are silent.

And, overhead, not a single intelligent star in the sky.

[Laura Kasischke, 'O elegant giant', in Space, in Chains]

reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot

    I just took the Pierley/Redford Dissociative Affect Test. For what it's worth, there is some debate as to whether this is an actual "test", a "quiz", or a complete hoax. Regardless, the results were utterly freakin' creepy:

Blustering through the world with the finesse of a thunderstorm, you are a natural leader, a creator of consensus. You will often plan out the future in deliberate and at times frustrating detail. This ability to create and to plan is sometimes expressed as a facility for the telling of tall tales. Your friends often find themselves assigned tasks or roles within the group. This can be very useful when action is called for and equally annoying when the idea at hand is rest and relaxation. When challenged, however, you can become cold and argumentative. Your understanding of the world is deliberate and well thought out. Your emotion comes in two varieties, either restrained and sincere, or else melodramatic and loud and usually inauthentic. Affection for you is best expressed through action, by doing things for the people you care about. This need to always be proactive can lead you to feel that there is no end to the trouble in your life.

    Although I wouldn't have called myself "a natural leader," that is not inaccurate, and the rest of it is completely true--especially the last line. It's uncanny.
    Now that I'm freaked out, I'm going to try and get some sleep. Ha!

[title quotation from Alan Watts]

the opulent rays pass through me

Beyond the soggy garden, two kayaks

float across mild clear water. A red sun

stains the lake like colored glass. Day is stopping.

Everything I am feels distant or blank

as the opulent rays pass through me,

distant as action is from thought,

or language is from all things desirable

in the world, when it does not deliver

what it promises and pathos comes instead--

the same pathos I feel when I tell myself,

within or without valid structures of love:

I have been deceived, he is not what he seemed--

though the failure is not in the other,

but in me because I am tired, hurt, or bitter.

[Henri Cole, 'Kayaks', in Pierce the Skin: Selected Poems, 1982-2007]

sing or howl

You are, my dear,

a wall of stone:

to sing or howl

behind,

to bash my head on.

[Vera Pavlova, '62', from If There is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems]

quite simple

I dreamed of death and it was quite simple:
a silk thread enwrapped me,
and each kiss of yours
with a turn unraveled me.
And each of your kisses
was a day;
and the time between two kisses,
a night. Death is quite simple.
And little by little the fatal thread
unwrapped itself. I no longer controlled it
but for a single bit between my fingers...
Then, suddenly, you became cold,
and no longer kissed me...
I let the thread go, and my life vanished.

[Leopoldo Lugones, 'Story of My Death', translated by Ilan Stavans, reprinted in The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: An Anthology (Ilan Stavans, ed.)]

nothing left in the tolerance tank

Do excuse the luminous toxin that migrated

from the stash in my handbag to your tuna sushi.

Please accept my condolences on the fatal stabbing

(with a buttercream-encrusted cake cutter)

of the matron of honor at your wedding reception.

Forgive me for introducing your new husband

(the uprooted, sad-eyed Jew) to my stockbroker

as a "forlorn pork spurner." I meant no harm.

I just had nothing left in the tolerance tank.

For 8 weeks now I've been dating a grave robber

who'll never take me out at night. I'm sick

of lunches in broad daylight with this drowsy

guy who has lead-colored dirt packed under

his nails. Waiters stare at his hands like

they've seen a spook when he points out

what he wants on the menu, usually something

drowning in gravy. Most of all, pardon me

for riding roughshod over your tender confession

about poisoning your mother over the course

of a decade, a project you reported the results

of twice daily on your formerly anonymous

blog called Toxicmom.com.

[Amy Gerstler, 'Contrite', in Dearest Creature]

look, all I know is that you're the nicest thing I've ever seen

• Outside my window... it's raining and a strong wind is blowing. People at work were whining about this weather today, but I kind of like it. It suits me, and it's a clear sign of spring.
• I am thinking... about mix CDs (listening to the mustachioed one), pedicures, text messaging, and dates
• I am thankful for... friends
• From the kitchen... I can hear my dirty dishes calling, "Wash me." Yes, it's probably time.
• I am wearing... the home-alone-in-the-evening uniform: PJ pants (rolled up to accommodate the pedicure) and a college t-shirt from a school I did not attend
• I am creating... 17 mix CDs. I usually have at least that many simmering at any one time.
• I am going... to have dinner with a former coworker sometime next week. Looking forward to it. I'm also going to stay the fook away from the bar.
• I am reading... 3 books of poetry and 2 novels. No, 3 novels. And 2 nonfiction (1 for work and 1 because I love the author, though the subject matter is onerous).
• I am hoping... that the Mumbler miraculously pulls his incredibly selfish shit together in the next month - though I'm not really expecting it.
• I am hearing... "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)" by the White Stripes. Man, this is a harsh but brilliant mix.
• Around the house... I've accumulated a couple dozen boxes, and I've started packing. Shit's gettin' real.
• One of my favorite things... is usually something I should avoid.
• I don't understand... ATMs, men, or how to run a cash register.
• I wish... you couldn't figure me out but you always wanna know what I was about
• A few plans for the rest of the week... include taking a warm shower, getting a decent night's sleep (oh please oh please oh please), working tomorrow, maybe hanging around at the tattoo place on Saturday, and otherwise packing books and winter clothes and weirdo kitchen stuff.
• A picture to share...This is home, and it looks pretty damned good right now. I could definitely go for a walk (or five) by the river to clear my head.

[Can you guess where I found this? That's right! And before that, it was here. That "I wish" bit is from Kate Nash's song Nicest Thing, and so is the title quotation.]

each man walks in his own fire

Love is apart from all things.

Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.

It is not the body that finds love.

What leads us there is the body.

What is not love provokes it.

What is not love quenches it.

Love lays hold of everything we know.

The passions which are called love

also change everything to a newness

at first. Passion is clearly the path

but does not bring us to love.

It opens the castle of our spirit

so that we might find the love which is

a mystery hidden there.

Love is one of many great fires.

Passion is a fire made of many woods,

each of which gives off its special odor

so we can know the many kinds

that are not love. Passion is the paper

and twigs that kindle the flames

but cannot sustain them. Desire perishes

because it tries to be love.

Love is eaten away by appetite.

Love does not last, but it is different

from the passions that do not last.

Love lasts by not lasting.

Isaiah said each man walks in his own fire

for his sins. Love allows us to walk

in the sweet music of our particular heart.

[Jack Gilbert, 'The Great Fires', in The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992]

blamelessly

Your toes:
modest stalagmites
sticking up in the ice caves
of the winter bed.

Your toes:
succulent mushrooms,
stumpy chimney pots
rising in their row.

Wee round faces
anonymous as nuns,
callused, worn as coolies
aging in their traces.

Small fry,
wriggling moonbeam
minnows escaped from the dark
traps of your shoes.

Pipsqueak puppets,
piglets nosing,
soft thimbles, dumpy
sofa pillows of flesh.

Love dwells in the major caves of the psyche,
chewing on the long bones of the limbs of courage,
the great haunches of resolution,
sucking the marrow bones, caves lit
by the lasting flames of the intellect,

but love cherishes too the back pockets,
the pencil ends of childhood fears,
the nose picking and throbbing sweet tooth,
the silly hardworking toes that curl
now blamelessly as dwarf cats
in the tousled nest of mutual morning bed.

[Marge Piercy, 'The Back Pockets of Love', from Stone, Paper, Knife--reprinted in The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems, 1980-2010]

without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable

1. Counting paintings, photographs and other artwork, no matter who created it, how many pieces do you have hanging on your walls in your home?
   this room (my office): 8 photographs; bedroom: 8 photographs and 1 print; dining room: 1 photograph and 1 print; living room: 4 prints
2. In which room of your house do you have the most art?
   oops. Um, numerically: my bedroom, though by size and impression it would definitely be the living room
3. 
   Describe the one that you think is the coolest?   Untitled (Green, Blue, Green on Blue [1968]) by Mark Rothko, a print of which hangs in my dining room. I love this style of Rothko's work, and this blend of colors particularly appeals to me. It is soft and soothing, pensive and contemplative, or stormy and unsettled, depending on my mood. More than anything else that I've displayed at this time, I find myself gazing at it now and then, searching for something.
4. Describe the one that has the greatest sentimental value to you.
   The last summer that I was married, my spouse and I took a lot of trips and entertained several guests. I didn't realize it at the time, but we were both in a sort of strange mode, trying to knit ourselves and our relationship together with the help of other things that we both enjoyed and other people who cared about both of us. It may sound strange, but it was not a bad time, overall, in a lot of ways: we were good to each other and took great care of each other.
   One of those trips was a day out with a high school friend of his, along with her new husband. They came to visit us and we showed them around the area. We'd just bought a new camera, so I was taking pictures the whole day. Although it is a little bittersweet to look at them all now--such a dramatic wash in what I used to be--those photos are also a point of departure for me. I was learning to do some new things, photographically, and having a really amazing time taking pictures for the first time in a long time. This photo is one of several taken of a massive kinetic sculpture on campus. I could have stayed there shooting all day. A different shot is framed and hanging in my bedroom. A reminder of who I used to be...and who I was becoming, even then.
5. Take the quiz: What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?
   

   Who Should Paint You: M.C. Escher

   Open and raw, you would let your true self show for your portrait. And even if your painting turned out a bit dark, it would be honest.

   
   
   Blogthings: Cheaper Than a Therapist
   
   hard to argue with that
6. If an artist actually asked you to pose (clothed) for a local artists’ group so that they could all paint your portrait, would you do it?
   only if it paid well. I'm a little twitchy and easily bored.

[I found this thanks to The Cat, surprisingly enough, who got it here; title quotation by George Bernard Shaw]

belly, maybe?

You bore me. So be it.
I bore you and enjoy doing it.
Let us learn to bore each other
without worrying about it.
You act all shy around me,

and that's your prerogative.
If I act shy around you,
it's because you're pretty
and I want to kiss you.
I wish I were Canadian.

If I were Canadian,
I could be boring and
get away with it. You'd say,
This man is from Canada.
He bores me. He acts shy.

He wants to kiss me.
And you would let me
kiss you not only on the lips
but on the cheek, neck,
shoulder; belly, maybe?

Because I would be Canadian
and have scruffy hair
and big eyes. But, alas,
you bore me, too. You
act like you're from Michigan.

[Aaron Belz, 'you bore me', from Lovely, Raspberry: Poems]

we have found that morals are not, like bacon, to be cured by hanging

1. If you could interview anyone on your blog (alive or dead) who would you chose and why?
   David James Duncan (he's my favorite writer of all time), or Ann Beattie (she's the famous writer who--I'm told--writes the most like I do), or Beth Ann Fennelly (her poetry rocks), or Dan Wilson (formerly of Semisonic; his lyrics are twisty and dreamy like I wish I could write)...but really, I think, at this moment, if I could sit down with anyone and "interview" and have the results posted here, that person would be Brian-from-MadTown. I've got some questions that could use some answers.
2. What do you feel is your strength as a blogger?
   er, introspection?
3. Can you share a little bit about yourself that you have not already mentioned on your blog?
   I highly doubt that there's much that I haven't mentioned at some point in the past seven years. Seriously, it's all likely here somewhere, if you're dedicated enough to dig for it and tenacious enough to figure out WTF the abbreviations and nicknames are all about.
   But, yeah, sure. For the sake of being cooperative, I'll finally answer that one burning question that I've been asked many, many times:
   yes
4. If you were forced to change the name of your blog, what would you change it to? Why?
   "70 Bacon Sandwiches." Why? Just to be a provocative pain in the ass.
5. What do you think is the most fulfilling part of being a blogger?
   all the hordes of comments that I wade through on a daily basis. Really, it's the feedback that keeps me going and makes me want to continue.
6. What would you do with your last day if you found you had only one more day to live?
   in the blogging sense, or generally? I'm sure that my last blog post would be, um, frighteningly confessional. But if you mean that in a more global fashion...I'd probably try really damned hard to communicate my feelings to the people who matter the most.
7. You’ve been doing medical research for decades and have finally found a cure. What was it that you found a cure for and why did you choose this particular ailment?
   headaches, of course. Because I've had migraines for more than half my life, I know several others who are also afflicted, and they suck. And once I cured headaches, I could get started on other stuff, like allergies, arthritis, and other autoimmune diseases.
8. What is your most guilty pleasure?
   new books. I don't go very long without acquiring them. I know there are other ways, but I'm incorrigible.
9. Answer only one: what is your favorite book, movie or TV show?
   The Brothers K by David James Duncan. I could read it every six months for the rest of my life and never get tired of it, and always get something new out of it. I always do get something new out of it. Maybe I'll start it again tomorrow.
10. What do you think is the very best smell in the world? The one smell that can take you back to a time and place of a very vivid memory in your past?
    lefse baking. That sounds ridiculous, even as I write it, because I don't even like to eat the stuff, but the smell immediately takes me back to hanging out in the kitchen while my mom and some combination of her sisters and my grandma made lefse for holidays when I was little. It's a big part of holiday meals where I come from, so they made it in massive quantities, which requires an insane amount of prep and perfectly-timed rolling and baking in order to keep the griddle the right temperature and for nothing to burn. The kitchen would get grossly hot--just cooking the potatoes would do that, much less keeping the griddle at 500° for an hour or two--and everyone would be sweating and pink, but I also remember everyone laughing and jostling each other good-naturedly, sneaking pieces of hot lefse to eat while they worked. I miss that, more than I'd realized before I started writing this. It just proves that good smells aren't necessarily just about eating.

[from The Cat, naturally--best wishes for a speedy recovery, you--who got it from here; title quotation by William Cooke Taylor]