truly great

The second-hardest thing I have to do is not be longing's slave.

Hell is that. Hell is that, others, having a job, and not having a
job. Hell is thinking continually of those who were truly great.

Hell is the moment when you realize that you were ignorant of the fact,
when it was true, that you were not yet ruined by desire.

The kind of music I want to continue hearing after I am dead is
the kind that makes me think I will be capable of hearing it then.

There is music in Hell. Wind of desolation! It blows past the egg-
eyed statues. The canopic jars are full of secrets.

I recite the list of people I have copulated with. It does not take long.
I say the names of my imaginary children. I call out four-syllable
words beginning with B. This is how I stay alive.

Beelzebub. Brachiosaur. Bubble-headed. I don't know how I stay alive.
What I do know is that there is a light, far above us, that goes out
when we die,
and that in Hell there is a gray tulip that grows without any sun.
It reminds me of everything I failed at,

and I water it carefully. It is all I have to remind me of you.

[Sarah Manguso, 'Hell', in Siste Viator]

on the blank back side of that poisonous moon

• Summer! 83 degrees, sunny and very windy while I was driving (bat out of hell style) to my appointment with the dentist this afternoon. An absolutely gorgeous day. All is fine in my mouth, too--always a good thing.
• Toe = stiff and aching.
• I am really good at what I do for a living. It would be nice to hear that acknowledged by someone other than my closest friends now and then.
• On the return trip from the home state, I stopped at a rest area to get a Coke. I was surprised to discover that I had no $1 bills, and only $1 in quarters. The machine took bills and quarters. I was forced (by my thirst) to feed it a $5 bill. I was expecting a pocketful of quarters in change. Instead, I got 3 quarters and 3 Millard Fillmore dollar coins. Interesting, isn't it, to get a denomination in change that I couldn't have used for my own transaction in that machine, eh?
• I think I forgot to mention that I've upgraded to 21st century phone service. As of Sunday, I've disassociated with Sprinxtel. My brother was gracious enough to allow me to attach to his Verizon (actually, Alltel) family plan like a long-distance barnacle, and once I completed the arduous task of choosing a phone (which was, in truth, very easy), life was transformed. I now carry a Samsung Alias2, notable for its dual-hinge clamshell design. In English, that means that it flips both (either?) vertically and horizontally, and the keys "repurpose" depending upon in which direction the phone is opened. Geeky, inordinately functional, monstrous learning curve, *very* cool.
• The poem on 4/16/10 ('Honey') was for Heidi.
• Homesick for the River already. Why, whywhywhywhywhy do I live so far from water?! I miss the people back home a lot - some more than others of course - but thinking about being on the levee at twilight and watching (and listening to) the river go by always makes my eyes sting.

turns out the one on trial was me

I showed up for jury duty--
turns out the one on trial was me.

Paid me for my time & still
I couldn't make bail.

Judge that showed up
was my ex-wife.

Now that was some
hard time.

She sentenced me
to remarry.

I chose firing squad instead.
Wouldn't you know it--

Plenty of volunteers
to take the first shot

But no one wanted to spring
for the bullets.

Governor commuted my sentence to life
in a cell more comfortable

Than this here skin
I been living in.

[Kevin Young, 'Black Cat Blues', in Dear Darkness]

ooh *snap*

• Broken [second] toe. Tripped over a book that I'd left on the floor next to my desk (at home). I heard something snap but thought it was just the knuckle cracking. Judging by the bruising, swelling, and distinct pain that's lingered for 2 days, it wasn't just the knuckle. Stooopid toe. Though I do giggle every time I imagine it in a tiny little plaster cast....
  
• 鈺禎 left a comment on the Synthetic Residual Warmth post, which read (in part): 留言支持好作品~來打聲招呼-大家好!!! Relying completely on Google translator and assuming that the text is Chinese, that means that Yu Chen says "Message to support good work ~ to say hello - Hello, everybody!!!" I did not publish the comment because it included (whether intentionally or not) a link to a questionable website with which I was uncomfortable. Still, I wanted to share this message.
• Incidentally, the poem posted in Synthetic Residual Warmth was chosen for my good old friend 'r'. I didn't list any dedications this year--mostly because it would've become nauseating by the end to have seen the same name repeated so many times. Still, I should probably call attention to those that were intended for specific eyes. I'll try to do that over the next few days/posts.
• I sometimes have to spend time with a person who apparently has a very hard time empathizing. This person seems to find it impossible to appreciate the way his/her communications will be understood, and so expresses him/herself in such a way as to be obnoxious, condescending, demeaning, arrogant, and crass. It is important that I rise above this behavior, not only for my own emotional well-being but also for the more practical purpose of maintaining a good relationship with others with whom we both interact. Trust me: it is a struggle. Today, for instance, I was torn between biting my tongue and capitulating to an insolently-worded mini-tirade, and unleashing a well-deserved fury. Since there was nothing to be solved by venting just then, I kept it to myself. Some days, I deserve a fucking medal for keeping my mouth shut.
• ...for which, occasionally, I am rewarded. I was invited on a play-date on Sunday. (Well, sorta. As close as one gets these days.)
• Wonder what season it'll be tomorrow? We've had winter and spring so far this week. I'm voting for late spring/early summer. Who's with me?
• Just realized that there are photos of my feet popping up in strange places again. If this leads where it did the last time, I will not regret it.

a timely, lucky life

I Would Like to Go Back as I Am, Now, to You as You Were, Then--

then when you bagged grit at the sandblasting factory,
loading train cars that took as much as they could stand
and got the hell out of lower Alabama, as you dreamed of doing,
watching them rumble North with your haiku on their dusty sides
written with your spit-wet finger, before changing from your coveralls
for your night school Literature class, your shame, your hope--

Or back, further, to when your mechanic father gave you
a fixed-up car--what you had asked for all through high school,
except it was the first Japanese car the county had seen, a Toyota,
and when you drove by, the boys called it "the rice burner,"
and the girls--pretty, pious, black-and-white as Dalmatians--
wouldn't get inside of it, so you paid five dollars in your empty car
to watch Planet of the Apes at the drive-in alone--

Or back even further to you in your plaid pajamas
sitting up half the humid night because asthma sat on your chest
and crushed no matter how you cried Uncle, so you drew
comic books bulging with muscled heroes until the blue rumble
of logging trucks signaled dawn, and better breathing,
and you could sleep, your chest heaving with its tiny
boy nipples, your legs sticking out with their leg bones--

I have loved you for your shame and your busted body
which aches for three days after we help friends move,
because for years you were valued, like a donkey,
for how much you could carry on your back. I have loved you
for your freakishness, your exile in that homeland
where you hid your paperbacks, spoke the local language,
rose early and carried a gun if you wanted to walk in the woods.

I would like to go back as I am, now, but not as I was then--
unsure what I was prepped for in my Chicago prep school,
where girls skipped Chem to watch boys play soccer, boys
who pulled in our driveways with Benzes then beeped to have us hurry,
I wanted to be one of the thin girls dazzling in their meanness
but learned my tongue's too slow to suck that venom, I needed
to fail before meeting you, before learning myself the lucky one--

I would go back as I am now, bend over your ribs,
lift the damp V of your pajamas and blow on your neck,
blow a breeze smelling like snow, sounding like somebody
whistling far away--I would go back to ride in your Toyota,
beat time to your eight track of Styx with my feet on the dash,
we'd cruise the drive-in and park, back row center,
let the girls gawk at the windows gauzy with heat--

I would go back to find you at the simmering factory
and free your wet curls from the clench of your hard hat
and unlace your boots almost lunar with red mud
and unzip your coveralls, a zipper long as lower Alabama--
go back as I am, now, and reach in, and kneel down,
and lick you to life, the life we couldn't know we were heading for,
a timely, lucky life, just beyond the margins of this poem.
[Beth Ann Fennelly, 'I Would Like to Go Back as I Am, Now, to You as You Were, Then' in Open House]

you have to have good legs

Solitude: you must be very strong
to love solitude; you have to have good legs
and uncommon resistance; you must avoid catching
colds, flu, sore throat; and you must not fear
thieves and murderers; if you have to walk
all afternoon or even all evening
you must do it with ease; there's no sitting down,
especially in winter, with wind striking the wet grass,
and damp mud-caked stone slabs among garbage;
there's no real consolation, none at all,
beyond having a whole day and night ahead of you
with absolutely no duties or limits.
Sex is a pretext. For however many encounters
--and even in winter, through streets abandoned to the wind,
amid expanses of garbage against distant buildings,
there are many--they're only moments in the solitude;
the livelier and warmer the sweet body
that anoints with seed and then departs,
the colder and deathlier the beloved desert around you;
like a miraculous wind, it fills you with joy,
it, not the innocent smile or troubled arrogance
of the one who then goes away; he carries with him a youthfulness
awesomely young; and in this he's inhuman
because he leaves no traces, or, better, only one trace
that's always the same in all seasons.
A boy in his first loves
is nothing less than the world's fecundity.
It is the world that thus arrives with him, appearing, disappearing,
like a changing form. All things remain the same--
and you'll search half the city without finding him again;
the deed is done; its repetition is ritual. And
the solitude's still greater if a whole crowd
waits its turn; in fact the number of disappearances grows--
leaving is fleeing--and what follows weighs upon the present
like a duty, a sacrifice performed to the death wish.
Growing old, however, one begins to feel weary
especially at the moment when dinnertime is over
and for you nothing is changed; then you're near to screaming or weeping;
and that would be awesome if it wasn't precisely merely weariness
and perhaps a little hunger. Awesome, because it would mean
your desire for solitude could no longer be satisfied,
and if what isn't considered solitude is the true solitude,
the one you can't accept, what can you expect?
There's no lunch or dinner or satisfaction in the world
equal to an endless walk through the streets of the poor,
where you must be wretched and strong, brothers to the dogs.
[Pier Paolo Pasolini, 'Lines from a Testament,' translated from the Italian by Norman MacAfee & Luciano Martinegro, in Poems]

unmarked

    Back.
    Unmodified.
    Through conversations with my bff about tattoo design, I realized that my major motivation was external rather than internal. I wanted to turn myself into someone worthy of interest. Someone worth noticing. What a terrible reason to make a permanent change, virtually guaranteeing that it would be filled with regret not too far down the road. I gave myself a pass. No tattoos this time. No piercing, either. Just a lot of talk with my bff. We did look at tattoo designs (mostly what not to wear) and I've made my choice for next time. And we followed another friend's Flat Nephew around, photographing his exploits à la Flat Stanley. Although he engaged in more bucolic pursuits that I will share later, he was also spotted behaving badly:

...emerging from a seedy motel...
...outside the strip joint...
(in case you couldn't read the sign on the other photo--
my hands were shaking! It was so scandalous!)
...and outside the tattoo parlor...

almost appropriate

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why?
And where? Yes, there. That summer in the barn,
he'd spread me on the hay bales, sixty-nine,
oblivious to scratches, clothes half-on,
we'd take forever. Salty, sweaty both,
and kissing back the taste, each other on
each other's avid lips. I learned a truth
perhaps more grown than I was then, so when
a lady I know says she won't do this,
that that's what whores are for, it makes me sad.
It seems a gift, devotion at the source
of all our humanness; best when, instead
of needing gesture, pressure, Please, go south,
he softly asks me, Do you want my mouth?

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why?
Why not's as good as why sometimes, why not
seduce this boy whose face, in candlelight,
looks slightly older, almost appropriate.
Your fingertips might almost brush his hand
as both of you dip bread into the oil.
You laugh and make it clear you understand
he'd rather hang out with a younger girl.
He says he's never had this wine, mourvèdre;
pronounces that he likes full-bodied, strong
and complicated wine (you think educable,
right on) and then his hand is on
your shoulder and he kisses you, his mouth
quite like a warm, mourvèdre fountain of youth.
[Moira Egan, 'Millay Goes Down' in The Best American Poetry 2008]

synthetic residual warmth

We took up for each other where our families left off. Left a mess
of crumbs and beer cans. A pile of laundry. When you left town,
I kept your T-shirt in bed, synthetic residual warmth.

Used to be I'd meet you at the train tracks. My shirt too close
to my skin, my hair cramped with sexy. Used to be at night,
and red lights would come rolling across. The water below
was cut with a hacksaw.

First night in a new city, and you said it wasn't sex. She had her back
to you. When I said I don't care, I was in a parking lot
with my fist on my forehead. With bare feet and a bus ticket.
No ledge. No lock me in the trunk; you'd sooner lock me in the engine.

So much later you found a phone booth. Called me up
on my new red phone. I felt like the Commissioner, or like Batman
on the wrong end of things. I heard the thrum-thrum of your voice,
your lighter click, the little signs. I took off my target T-shirt, I took off
my shiny pants. I stripped down quietly and unplugged my lights.
[Danielle Pafunda, 'Small Town Rocker', in The Best American Poetry 2006]

the ripeness all

Well, who in his own backyard
Has not opened his heart to the smiling
Secret he cannot quote?
Which goes to show that the Bard
Was sober when he wrote
That this world of fact we love
Is unsubstantial stuff:
All the rest is silence
On the other side of the wall;
And the silence ripeness,
And the ripeness all.
[W.H. Auden, from 'The Sea and the Mirror' {a commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest} in Selected Poems]

man rises unexpectedly

There are also men in the world. Sometimes we forget, and think there are only women--endless hills and plains of unresisting women. We make little jokes and comfort each other and our lives pass quickly. But every now and then, it is true, a man rises unexpectedly in our midst like a pine tree, and looks savagely at us, and sends us hobbling away in great floods to hide in the caves and gullies until he is gone.
[Lydia Davis, 'Men' in The Best American Poetry 2008]

always a hand was there

Used together: seasons, books, a piece of music.
The keys, teacups, bread basket, sheets and a bed.
A hope chest of words, of gestures, brought back, used, used up.
A household order maintained. Said. Done. And always a hand was there.

I've fallen in love with winter, with a Viennese septet, with summer.
With village maps, a mountain nest, a beach and a bed.
Kept a calendar cult, declared promises irrevocable,
bowed before something, was pious to a nothing

(--to a folded newspaper, cold ashes, the scribbled piece of paper),
fearless in religion, for our bed was the church.

From my lake view arose my inexhaustible painting.
From my balcony I greeted entire peoples, my neighbors.
By the chimney fire, in safety, my hair took on its deepest hue.
The ringing at the door was the alarm for my joy.

It's not you I've lost,
but the world.
[Ingeborg Bachmann, 'A Kind of Loss,' translated from the German by Mark Anderson, in The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, J.D. McClatchy, ed.]

got it. thanks.

    2010--and April in particular--is about me learning humility. My ego is taking a pounding lately. Guess I needed it. Apparently there were some lessons I needed to learn. Got it hard on Sunday. Twice yesterday. Once today so far.
    Tomorrow I leave for a few days in home state. It'll be good to get away.

reasonable

We learn to live without passion.

To be reasonable. We go hungry
amid the giant granaries
this world is. We store up plenty
for when we are old and mild.
It is our strength that deprives us.
Like Keats listening to the doctor
who said the best thing for
tuberculosis was to eat only one
slice of bread and a fragment
of fish each day. Keats starved
himself to death because he yearned
so desperately to feast on Fanny Brawne.
Emerson and his wife decided to make
love sparingly in order to accumulate
his passion. We are taught to be
moderate. To live intelligently.
[Jack Gilbert, 'The Danger of Wisdom,' in The Dance Most of All]

the little azure fires of the eyes

But first one must free oneself
of the precise greed that produces us,
that produces me sitting
in the corner of a bar
waiting with clerical passion
for the exact moment when
the little azure fires of the eyes
opposite, of the eyes acclimatized
to risk, the trajectory precalculated,
will demand a blush
from my face. And will obtain a blush.
[Patrizia Cavalli, 'But first one must free oneself', translated from the Italian by Patrizia Cavalli & Robert McCracken, in The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, J.D. McClatchy, ed.]

each no we speak is yes

What none knows is when, not if.
Now that your life nears its end
when you turn back what you see
is ruin. You think, It is a prison. No,
it is a vast resonating chamber in
which each thing you say or do is

new, but the same. What none knows is
how to change. Each plateau you reach, if
single, limited, only itself, in-
cludes traces of all the others, so that in the end
limitation frees you, there is no
end, if you once see what is there to see.

You cannot see what is there to see--
not when she whose love you failed is
standing next to you. Then, as if refusing the know-
ledge that life unseparated from her is death, as if
again scorning your refusals, she turns away. The end
achieved by the unappeased is burial within.

Familiar spirit, within whose care I grew, within
whose disappointment I twist, may we at least see
by what necessity the double-bind is in the end
the figure for human life, why what we love is
precluded always by something else we love, as if
each no we speak is yes, each yes no.

The prospect is mixed but elsewhere the forecast is no
better. The eyrie where you perch in
exhaustion has food and is out of the wind, if
cold. You feel old, young, old, young; you scan the sea
for movement, though the promise of sex or food is
the prospect that bewildered you to this end.

Something in you believes that it is not the end.
When you wake, sixth grade will start. The finite you know
you fear is infinite: even at eleven, what you love is
what you should not love, which endless bullies in-
tuit unerringly. The future will be different: you cannot see
the end. What none knows is when, not if.
[Frank Bidart, 'If See No End In Is', in Watching the Spring Festival]

vivid as a dream

Evening that undermined our goodbye.
Steely, enchanted, monstrous evening like a dark angel.
Evening when our lips were alive in the naked intimacy of our kisses.
Time inevitably overflowed
and swamped our useless embrace.
Together we squandered our passion, not for ourselves but for the looming solitude.
Light rejected us; night came rushing down.
We went as far as the gate in that shadowy gravity now lightened by Venus.
As one returning from a lost meadow I returned from your arms.
As one returning from a country of swords I returned from your tears.
Evening that lasts vivid as a dream
among the other evenings.
Later I was reaching and exceeding
mere nights and days.
[Jorge Luis Borges, 'A Leavetaking', in Poems of the Night]

nothing keeps

• Is there a night you would like to put on repeat, and live it forever?  No, thank you. Sometimes part of what is good about it is knowing that it is fleeting.
  What can we take on trust
  in this uncertain life? Happiness, greatness,
  pride - nothing is secure, nothing keeps.
  [Euripides, Hecuba]
• Have you kissed more than 1 person this year?  Not exactly.
• Can you recall the last time you liked someone a lot?  I do.
• Are you cheating on someone right now?  I'm not.
• Anyone of the opposite sex been on your mind lately?  Yes.
• Someone knocks on your window at 2 am, what do you say?  "[#$%&;$%&;;*%^#]! Cat, you've truly learned to fly!"
• Will you be in a relationship next month?  God knows--I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist!
• Ever had a sleep over with the opposite sex?  Um, yeah. {eye-roll}
• Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?  College BFF. La la la la, happy birthday! Two of my best friends' birthdays yesterday, in fact--Heidi's, too.
• Anyone you're giving up on?
  The last week+ shows that gut feelings about female friends are usually right. Some people are destined to be good, close friends, regardless of the shit we can sometimes put each other through. Others, despite efforts to the contrary, will prove themselves over and over to be nothing beyond sparkly acquaintances. Best if I not confuse the two.
• Have you ever fallen asleep with the last person you kissed? No.
• What were you doing at 10:30 last night? Reading, probably?
• What mood are you in right now? Variable. 98% fine, except my left shoulder feels like searing agony and my mouse suddenly doesn't work.
• Will your next kiss be a mistake? I'm out of the game. Fuck it.
• When is the next time you'll hug someone? Thursday, if not sooner.
• Has anyone put their arms around you in the past 5 days? I think I was hugged once or twice in the past week, in thanks for a birthday gift and a random Hello from someone I hadn't seen for too long.
• Is the last person you kissed mad at you? No.
• Does it bother you when someone lies to you? Naturally.
• Do you still talk to the person you were dating 5 months ago? No, but the person who comes closest to that will read this....
• Do you like animals? Yup, especially slow-roasted with BBQ sauce.
• Are you easily bothered? Apparently so, judging by my colleagues' reactions to my results in the "True Colors" quiz at yesterday's training day. Fuckers....
• How long have you been on the computer? Today? Maybe 45 minutes.
• Are you nice to everyone? Ha! Not even close. If I'm nice to you, consider it the huge honor that it's intended to be. [Yes, I'm kidding.] [Well, even so, I'm still not nice to everyone.]
• Have you ever slept in the same bed as your friend? How old are you, 8? I've slept in lots of same beds as lots of friends, in all sorts of permutations.
• Who will you be sleeping with tonight? Depends on which way the coin flips, I guess.
• Do you watch The Hills? Never. Am I missing anything?
• Wearing any bracelets? Nope. I own...maybe 8 chain/beaded bracelets and a couple of bangles (including a solid silver/turquoise cuff from Mexico), which I very, very rarely wear.
• Do you feel awkward when strangers say hi to you? Depends on the stranger and the circumstances. Midday, in my hometown? Not at all. 3:AM at an otherwise deserted gas station in the middle of nowhere while I'm filling my dead-dry tank? "Awkward" doesn't cover it. At work? Sometimes, depending on the strangeness of the stranger.
• Are you any different now than you were a year ago? Yup.
• Are you taller than your mom? Yes. Probably four inches, maybe a little more.
• Is anything upsetting you right now? Shoulder. Mouse. Residual twitchy pointless anger from meeting yesterday.
• What's the farthest away from home you have ever been? It's psychological, not physical. April 2004.
• Do you hate being alone? Not at all. Not. At. All.
• Who was the last person you cried in front of? I cried on the phone with college BFF yesterday. Not big tears, but lump-in-throat. 'Big tears' was probably Fluffy. It usually is.
• What's on your agenda for tomorrow? "Agenda"? Me? Especially for a Sunday--ha! I might go to Moxie. That's the extent of my "plan."
• What are you doing today? You're looking at it. Oh, and someone's supposed to come over to talk strategy and probably have a cool adult beverage or two.
• If you could have one person with you right now, who would it be? I'm not suitable company at the moment, but I wouldn't probably refuse. Probably.
• Does anyone know your passwords other than you? Everybody knows my passwords--they just don't know that they are my passwords.
• Did you have a good day yesterday? Parts of it were fine. Discrete moments were execrable.
• Where would you like to be right now? Hotel Albatros, sitting in my second-floor room, sipping...whatever one drinks down there, contentedly ignoring my travel companion in her fourth-floor (opposite-end) room, contentedly ignoring me. Oh yeah, I think Tierra del Fuego could be big enough for the both of us.
• Could you go the rest of your life without smoking a cigarette? Yes, but. Now and then when I'm in the car with the windows down and someone fires one up from a car ahead, and that distinct sulfur/tobacco scent drifts back to me, I almost, almost miss it.
• Did any particular thing brighten up your day today? Not yet, but the day is young.
• Next piercing? Next Friday, here--at the place where I get my tattoos.
• How has the past week been for you? I think we've already covered this. There's been good (friends, letters, music), bad (headache, crazy work busy), and ugly (parts of that meeting).
• Do you currently have a hickey? Not hardly.
• Pick a word that starts with the second letter of your first name: Meh.
• One thing you're looking forward to? Seeing college BFF next week.
• Could you go out in public looking like you do now? Of course.
• Do you hate the last person you kissed? No, but neither am I thrilled with the situation.
• When was the last time you wanted to punch someone in their face? That would be yesterday, around 4:PM. She would be a little surprised, but rarely has anyone deserved it more.
• Would you rather be a hobbit, elf, dwarf, vampire, werewolf, mermaid, magician or unicorn? Riiiiiiight.
• What's your favorite pattern/print? Giraffe.
• If you could write a letter to your younger self, what would the introduction look like? This blog, and my numerous bound journals, are that letter. No intro necessary.
• If you have a best friend, tell us a little about them:
  
  • college BFF~Knows all the dirtiest dirt, but keeps it to herself. And has the best giggle ever.
  • Fluffy~Has heard the words, "This is probably too much information, but..." more often than anyone ever should, but still stays to listen to the rest. Thank God.
  • The Cat~Shares the micro-level hilarity, annoyance & heartbreak--and has me over for Thanksgiving anyway.
  • Heidi~Communicates on a different wavelength than anyone else, and can somehow manage to be soothing and exhilarating at once.
• Think back on a time when you were really really happy. Can you describe your exact feelings? Probably not. Happy, for me, is a sort of weightlessness, and to apply words, even descriptors, hangs something off the side that depletes its original buoyancy.
• What is your favorite musical instrument? To hear? Classically, oboe or French horn. In rock/pop, I'm drawn to subtle bass solos or songs with an overt bass line. And tangentially, when it was an issue, I always fell for the drummers.
• Who is your favorite fictional character? Everett Chance.
• Why do people watch so much TV? Because reading is hard.
• Why are there so many unsuccessful book-to-movie translations? Filmmaking has become too easy; there are simply too many movies being made. The likelihood of a good one is that much lower now than it used to be, particularly when preconceived expectations are so high. Anyway, when something objective (the look of the characters, the score, the cadence of the film) is overlaid on something so totally subjective (the image that one creates of the characters in a book, the music that would accompany it, the pacing, and so on), it cannot possibly match each viewer's expectations. It will fail to match--to meet--most of them.
• Are you afraid of the dark? No. Nothing exists in the dark that wasn't there in the light.
• If you could, would you become immortal? Not hardly.
• What do you like most about yourself? Given my last answer, I should say "realism." But...my aesthetic. Connections between what has to be and what might be.
• How about something you'd like to change about yourself? My chin and my finances.
• What does it take for you to be happy? I'll take suggestions from the audience on this one. I've no clue.
• If it was a choice between saving a thousand people you don't know or saving your three best friends, what would you do? Yes, my best friends mean more to me, on a utilitarian scale and any other, than do a thousand (or ten or a hundred... thousand) strangers. Such is the nature of personal connections. I'm not sorry.
• What do you hate more than anything? Cooked carrots.
• What would you rather never have to do: sleep, eat, or breathe? Sleep. I have the feeling it's responsible for the stabbing, shooting, horrifying pain in my shoulder/neck today.
• What is a talent you'd dearly like to have? I wish my skill for recalling song lyrics was matched by an ability to sing.
• Compare the love you have (or would like to have) to a famous romance: Read the poetry. That says it all.
• What do you think will happen to you when you die? I'll know when I get there. I'm not too concerned about it, really.
• Do you hate it when you think that someone's calling for your boyfriend/girlfriend across the way when it's really somebody else? N/A
• What was the farthest place you had to travel by foot recently? I wore pinchy shoes one day last week, so every step was a mile.
• Who were the last three people of the opposite sex you hugged? David, Rachel, and the Cat
• Have you ever looked for something that was in your hand? Probably--but I'm quite prone to searching for pens that are already behind my ear or slid into my hair.
• Do you remember the last thing you "aww'd" at? [video link died] It's extremely adorable.
• Why are you feeling the way that you are feeling right now? Shoulder: combination of dodgy posture and overdevelopment of first rib muscle; mouse: excessively delicate design meets indelicate use; meeting: um... I'm just not a meeting person.
• When was the last time you prank called somebody? c.1994
• Have you gotten gum stuck in your hair before? I was a small female. Seems likely, doesn't it?
• Did you have anything to eat for lunch today? Raisin bagel.
• What was the last movie you watched with talking animals? No clue. I'd imagine HJN was involved.
• Can you handle a relationship without amazing sex? Ha! HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
  No, seriously--what's harder is this: handling the nonexistence of a relationship that would involve amazing sex, were it allowed to exist.
• Have you run into a pole before? Only on foot.
• On this same month one year ago, were you single? clearly.
• Is there anyone that you like at the moment? oh yeah
• Was the last animal you touched/pet a household pet? I'm sure it was, though I can't recall the circumstances. Prehaps Ruka?
• What holiday do you always dread the most every year? Much like my coworkers, I dread each in its own special way.
• Who was the last person to put their arm around your shoulder? Probably Rachel?
• Have you ever cried from missing somebody so badly? yes
• What "minor problem" do you have that's been bothering you for a while? I think my gas light--my car has an indicator that lights when the gas tank is below a certain level--turned on yesterday. Or maybe the day before.
• Ever walked into the opposite sex's restroom by accident? No, but I do think that trendy restaurants and darkly-lit bars could be a little kinder to their customers when creating signage. It's never cool to feel like an idiot at a time like that.
• Do you have a "thing" for a celebrity? Prehaps, but I try to keep it professional.
• When was the last time someone said you "looked cute with someone" while near someone? Probably 5+ years ago. I strongly resist "cute" in all its forms.
• Have you kissed anybody today? Enough with the motherfucking kissing questions. The last time I tried to kiss someone, I failed. That hasn't happened since I was first learning how to kiss, first treading the waters of relationships. Just thinking about it--which I naturally avoid--makes me burn with embarrassment and...
  
  *sigh*
  So, NO. I haven't kissed anyone today.
• Is your best friend still a virgin? 3 of them have natural children, and the other...no, not the other, either.
• Where did you last order Chinese food/take-out? Great Hunan or The Garden. Since that's standard post-body modification fare, I might have it again next Friday. Woot!
• What was your dream last night? I was in a dark, smoky jazz club, sitting at a large round table. I was next to the Mumbler, but our chairs were almost back to back. He was with his GF and a few friends, and I was also with friends (including the delivery guy). Now and then, Mumbler and I would lean our chairs back toward each other to compare notes or just have a private conversation. It was entirely odd and would never in a million years happen in real life, but for a dream it was fantastic.
• During this time right now but 24 hours ago, what were you doing? Probably reading?
• Can you recite the alphabet backwards perfectly? No. Why would I?
• Ever liked someone even while you were taken all the while? Welcome to high school. In other words: yes.
• Who is the last person you high-fived? Ironically, one of the people from that meeting.
• What do you feel about "PDA"? Depends on your definitions of "public" and "affection." I know I lean toward the Clintonian at times like this, but I'm really not all that bothered (attitude toward mall-trolling teenagers notwithstanding) by this sort of thing. If it's not intended to be outrageous or distasteful--if it's not aimed outward--then I don't mind it at all. Ever.
• Have you ever tried to push open a door that said pull? Happens pretty much every time I go to a mall with The Cat--fairly often more than once at the same door. We each fall into that "book smart/brain dead" category now and then, especially when we're distracted.
• Be honest, who do you miss at this very moment and would love to see? If I'm Thirteen, then that makes you...?

[from The Cat, who got it here]

it is not humble to ask

I pine. There is an obstacle to our love.

Every time I hear the postman, I think: At last, the letter!
He has overcome the obstacle--

(It is a large obstacle, an actual alp, with a tree line and sheer rock face
streaked with snow even in July)

for love of me! For three years, nine decades, and one century or so, there
has been no letter. I still wait for the letter.

But lately I wonder if my predicament is outside the human,
neither noble nor farcical; if my heart courts pain

because it aims for immortality, something grander
than I can imagine. Most of what I imagine,

what I want, is small: Hands with mine in the sink, washing dishes,
the smell of wool, feet tangling mine in bed. I know

the gods punish the proud, but I do not yet know
why they punish the humble. Although after all

it is not humble to ask, every minute or so, for happiness.
[April Bernard, 'Romance', in Romanticism: Poems]

thanks

Luxury itself, thick as a Persian carpet,
honey fills the jar
with the concentrated sweetness
of countless thefts,
the blossoms bereft, the hive destitute.

Though my debts are heavy
honey would pay them all.
Honey heals, honey mends.
A spoon takes more than it can hold
without reproach. A knife plunges deep,
but does no injury.

Honey moves with intense deliberation.
Between one drop and the next
forty lean years pass in a distant desert.
What one generation labored for
another receives,
and yet another gives thanks.
[Connie Wanek, 'Honey' in On Speaking Terms]

drama magnet

Your Funky Nail Polish Color is Green

You tend to gravitate towards drama. You react strongly to situations, and you can be quite emotional.     You also like to be the center of it all. If people aren't paying attention to you, you feel like you don't matter.     You are a bit of a strange bird, and you're not shy about showing the world how freaky you are.     You do tend to be a bit shocking, and you love to get a rise out of people. You are a natural trouble maker.

What Funky Nail Polish Color Are You?

Blogthings: Learn Something Surprising About Yourself

the gift

When conversing with a fool,
Say nothing smart; there is no need.

When conversing with a tree,
Say nothing wise; there is no need.

When you receive the gift of air,
Say your thanks.

When you are beaten by the wind,
Bow your head.

When you catch another's hand,
Recall the hand is quicker than the heart.

When you catch another's heart,
Recall the heart is quicker than the hand.

If the sun winks at you,
Wink back.
[Sean Soibhan, 'Seven Pieces of Advice']

you could stop

Why is the word yes so brief?
It should be
the longest,
the hardest,
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it,
so that upon reflection you could stop
in the middle of saying it.
[Vera Pavlova, '17', from If There Is Something to Desire]

in through the side door

Aliens and Private Parts

1. The aliens have landed...they have invited you in for dinner....what do you think they are up to?
   I'm probably the main course.
2. Remember that 20 dollar bill you found on the ground a few memes ago?? OK, you picked it up and someone comes to you and says..hey that's mine...what do you say?
   Depending on the situation and their attitude, either "Prove it" or "I found it; here you go."
3. You got offered a part in a movie... they will pay an enormous amount of money....but you have to play the town she-slut/he-slut.. do you play the part or do you refuse to compromise your values?
   Meh. What's 'enormous'? Some of my values pale in comparison to my shaky financial status.
4. Do you have a name for your private parts?
   Wow--if I did, such a thing would be a hell of a lot more private than blog-worthy!
5. You are driving north on Hell Avenue and can only turn west on to Hell Terrace. There is a car coming toward you on Hell Avenue also, which also can only turn west onto Hell Terrace. what does this prove??
   Nothing. Logic games presume, and in the above scenario I could be driving most illogically.
6. Where is the strangest place you ever did the deed?
   "Strangest"?! Guess that depends on your definition of "strange." It certainly didn't seem too odd at the time....
7. Have you ever been caught doing the nasty...who caught you and where were you?
   "Caught" seems to imply that someone intentionally endeavored to locate and perhaps to separate those who may have been party to the alleged incident. It may have been more inadvertent.
   Who? Chuck's girlfriend. I think her name was Leanne...?
   Where? At Steve's, of course.
   
8. What can put you in the rottenest mood ever?
Beyond remembering the more explicit details of question #7? Traffic. If only there were a lane reserved for people who aren't there expressly to get in each others' way.

[from The Cat, who got it here]

to grasp and then let go

You say I tend toward silences;
in these rifts, the world
I inhabit is a visual question,
marked by a balancing line
of light on distant water, a mirror
horizon. We affix binoculars
to what is real in this mirage:
a simple fishing rig, sunlight pouring
a swath of sea. I want your
hand to rest in mine, while I test
the real against the as yet
unknown, the present tense against
its picture: as the boat begins
to drift out of our range of vision,
we struggle to distinguish
the ruffles porpoises raise
from the action of waves.
It reminds me of the way our eyes
will try to meet in rearview
mirrors, of the loss I must suffer
whenever someone points
and I turn, but not in time.
I can feel the tugging
of the past in the way your fingers
almost pull away, then stay
to squeeze, and I know
just what it means
to grasp and then let go.
[Cathryn Hankla, 'The Tautology of Goodbye' from Afterimages: Poems]

the smile no mirror shows

You want her.
You have little to offer:

Your hour under the moon,
The blue asphalt like steel,
The memory you hold of a smile,
Caught like silver in your eye,
A touch of fingers, her hand
Held out from the window
As she leaves (the last time).

A past: dead men, ghosts,
An odor of verbena, "dying thunder of hooves,"
The charge of three hundred men in Peru,
Your father's father wrapped in the hide of a cow,
A soldier shot at Gettysburg,
Caught among boulders, his leg stiff as leather,
The knife his son fashioned,
Touched now with rust, sharp as an eye.

The expression of your books,
The books themselves, green, orange, gold,
The paper stiff as a knee.

Your loyalty
And the fact of your betrayals.

Yourself, the smile no mirror shows,
Safe from time, from joy, from pain.

A glimpse of a yellow rose
In a goblet by the bed.

Your theories of her:
News that opens like a knife, a window,
Authentic and surprising news.

The loneliness that wakes you late and lonely,
The hunger that wakes you,
The lure of uncertainty, danger,
The possibility of defeat.
[R.H.W. Dillard, 'She']

eager to yield

Despite the hard luck
of the ugly stepsisters,
most peoples' feet will fit
into glass slippers.
The arch rises, the heel
tapers, the toes align
in descending order
and the whole thing slides
without talcum powder
into the test slipper.
We can shape to the
dreams of another; we are
eager to yield. It is a
mutual pleasure to the holder
of the slipper and to the
foot held. It is a singular
moment--tender, improbable,
and as yet unclouded by the
problems that hobble the pair
when they discover that
the matching slipper
isn't anywhere, nor does
the bare foot even share
the shape of the other.
When they compare,
the slippered foot makes
the other odder: it looks
like a hoof. So many miracles
don't start far back enough.
[Kay Ryan, 'Glass Slippers' in The Best of It: New and Selected Poems]

you gotta toss and turn

Headache. Grumpy. Winding through a philosophical morass. Nothing good will come from this.

"Mony Mony" [the Billy Idol version, from Storytellers] popping up on shuffle, and that picture--a friend's FB profile photo--brought a laugh, though.

so small

I am so small walking on the beach
at night under the widening sky.
The wet sand quickens beneath my feet
and the waves thunder against the shore.

I am moving away from the boardwalk
with its colorful streamers of people
and the hotels with their blinking lights.
The wind sighs for hundreds of miles.

I am disappearing so far into the dark
I have vanished from sight.
I am a tiny seashell
that has secretly drifted ashore

and carries the sound of the ocean
surging through its body.
I am so small now no one can see me.
How can I be filled with such a vast love?
[Edward Hirsch, 'The Widening Sky' in The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems]

that one / too

But it's not really a date.

But that one, I'll have that one
too if I want (that guy)

they are all of them
needling my love.


You womp my love and you needle my love.
[Catherine Wagner, 'Pro Forma' from My New Job]

*quiver*!

Danielle Steel
Circle I Limbo

Lady Gaga, M#ll#ncamp
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Anyone involved with live music at MVPs
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Catalogers who confuse [245 $b] with [490]
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Ozzie Guillen
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

Slow Drivers in the Left Lane
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Red Menace
Circle VII Burning Sands

S!RS!/DYN!X
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

James Patterson
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

they trembled for you

Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds where you lay,
but also those desires for you,
shining clearly in eyes
and trembling in a voice—and some chance
obstacle thwarted them.
Now when everything is the past,
it almost looks as if you gave yourself
to those desires as well—how they shone—
remember—in the eyes that looked at you,
how they trembled for you in the voice—remember, body.
['Remember, Body...' by C. P. Cavafy; translated by Aliki Barnstone, from The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy: A New Translation]

sorry I put them words in your mouth

1. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?
   Tina Fey. Your 15 minutes are quite over. Please go. Now. Go!
2. You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Which one will it be?
   His name was once Johnny Cougar....
3. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?
   Ozzie Guillen
4. What is your favorite cheese?
   Velveeta. (Yes, I gave that answer just to piss you off.)
5. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your immediate disposal. What kind will you make?
   Roast beef with mustard and pickles on homemade white.
6. You have the opportunity to sleep with the movie celebrity of your choice. We are talking no-strings-attached sex and it can only happen once. Who is the lucky celebrity of your choice?
   The first name that popped into my head was Denis Leary, but not for the reasons you might be thinking. *snicker*
   Hmmm. Visanthe Shiancoe...?
7. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who do you pick?
   Now I'm thinking about Bono - hee hee!
   Edward Kowalczyk.
8. Now that you’ve slept with two different people in a row, you seem to be having an excellent day because you just came across a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Holy shit, a hundred bucks! How are you gonna spend it?
   If I just slept with those two in the same day: industrial-strength personal grooming & rushed medical care. (I'm not casting aspersions, merely cautious.) In real life: I might finally buy the ring from Sundance.
9. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
   Miami
10. Upon arrival to the aforementioned location, you get off the plane and discover another hundred-dollar bill. Shit! Now that you are in the new location, what are you gonna do?
    Get a taxi, find a hotel, and take off my shoes. Maybe in that order.
11. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. It is…?
    Today: Molson Canadian. On the average day I might be more sensible and choose something mixable, e.g. Cruzan light rum, or Stoli.
12. Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anytime in the PAST. What time are you traveling to and what are you going to do when you get there?
    My last birthday. I'm not gonna do that last tequila shot (or the last two??), I'm going to refrain from telling the Delivery story (yarghhhhh), and I'm going to do something *worthy* of banging my head on the table, damn it!
13. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?
    No bitching.
14. You have been given the opportunity to create the half-hour TV show of your own design. What is it called and what’s the premise?
    No clue, but I know it wouldn't be "reality" or populated by anorexic lisping blondes.
15. What is your favorite curse word?
    Fuck
16. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?
    Have another handful of pills and try to get back to sleep.
17. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the item?
    iPod. Sounds lame but it's got a zillion photos.
18. The Angel of Death has descended upon you. Fortunately, the Angel of Death is pretty cool and in a good mood, and it offers you a half-hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. Whatcha gonna do in that half-hour?
    Make a LOT of phone calls.
19. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What’s it gonna be?
    The ability to see through bullshit.
20. You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?
    Is this "just re-experience" or "do over, to fix"? I suppose that either way it's the same: April 13, 2005, 2:30-3 AM or so.
21. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
    If it wouldn't change the person that I am now, I would never even meet someone I dated a few years ago.
22. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! Bitchin’! What country are you going to live in now?
    Oh, Canada sounds fine to me. I think they'd understand me pretty well up there, eh?
23. This question still counts, even for those of you who are under age. Check it out. You have been eternally banned from every single bar in the world except for ONE. Which one is it gonna be?
    TBA
24. Hopefully you didn’t mention this in the super-powers question…. If you did, then we’ll just expand on that. Check it out… Suddenly, you have gained the ability to FLOAT!!! Whose house are you going to float to first, and be like “Dude, check it out…I can FLOAT!”?
    Heidi's, because she probably wouldn't even be surprised, which would be awesome.
25. The constant absorption of magical moonbeams mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead famous-person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?
    Eamon De Valera
26. The Celestial Gates of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person, etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?
    That's an impossible question to answer. I think I'd be more likely to give my turn to someone else; I don't want this gift.
27. What’s your theme song?   Love Love, Kiss Kiss by Alkaline Trio
    

[from The Cat, who got it here]

the resting place

It's very dark today; through the rain,
the mountain isn't visible. The only sound
is rain, driving life underground.
And with the rain, cold comes.
There will be no moon tonight, no stars.

The wind rose at night;
all morning it lashed against the wheat--
at noon it ended. But the storm went on,
soaking the dry fields, then flooding them--

The earth has vanished.
There's nothing to see, only the rain
gleaming against the dark windows.
This is the resting place, where nothing moves--

Now we return to what we were,
animals living in darkness
without language or vision--

Nothing proves I'm alive.
There is only the rain, the rain is endless.
[Louise Glück, 'Solitude' in A Village Life]

lurched and broke

Hard is my pillow
Of down from the duck's breast
Harsh the linen cover;
I cannot rest.

Fall down, my tears,
Upon the fine hem,
Upon the lonely letters
Of my long name;
Drown the sigh of them.

We stood by the lake
And we neither kissed nor spoke;
We heard how the small waves
Lurched and broke,
And chuckled in the rock.

We spoke and turned away.
We never kissed at all.
Fall down, my tears.
I wish that you might fall
On the road by the lake,
Where my cob went lame,
And I stood with the groom
Till the carriage came.
[Edna St. Vincent Millay, 'The Princess Recalls Her One Adventure' from Huntsman, What Quarry? in Selected Poems]

magnified to deific, demonic stature

What if all this passion is out of proportion to its subject?
An average beauty, magnified to deific, demonic
stature by the fury of intellect,
a flat-faced girl with slanted eyes and a narrow
waist, and a country lilt to her voice,
that she should infect your day to the very marrow,
to hate the common light and its simple joys?
Where does this sickness come from, because it is
sickness, this conversion of the simplest action
to an ordeal, this hatred of simple delight
in others, of benches in the empty park?
Only her suffering will bring you satisfaction,
old man in the dimming world, only joy is the mark
and silence in the stricken streets where no dogs bark.
I watch them accumulating my errors
steadily repeated as the waves as the sea's
decline, and the shadows on the high terrace
facing Syracuse; cafés flare in the dark.
[Derek Walcott, 'IX' in White Egrets]

sacrificing

It was a Christian idea, sacrificing
oneself to attain the object of one's desire.
I was weak and he was like opium to me,
so present and forceful. I believed I saw myself
through him, as if in a bucket being drawn
up a well, cold and brown as tea.
My horse was wet all that summer.
I pushed him, he pushed me back--proud, lonely,
disappointed--until I rode him,
or he rode me, in tight embrace, and life went on.
I lay whole nights--listless, sighing, gleaming
like a tendril on a tree--withdrawn
into some desiccated realm of beauty.
The hand desired, but the heart refrained.
[Henri Cole, 'Blur: 1' from Pierce the Skin: Selected Poems]

uniqueness

Know your part, know and be yourself,
know your gifts and talents. Don't get stuck in comparisons.
The tiny flower harmonizes with the huge tree.
Beauty manifests in multiplicity: hence uniqueness.
[Ruth Lauer-Manenti]

explaining where I've been, and why

    Sometimes you realize you've mistreated a friend in some subtle way. Sometime it's more obvious, like when she writes you a letter that reads, in part:

Where have you been, by the way? I keep running to the mailbox looking for you & you're not there. This isn't meant to be guilt, I just sincerely miss your correspondence (and am now buying your love with gifts)

and includes it in a box of awesome, gift-wrapped, fun loot. She's awesome. And, yeah, I haven't written in way too long. Guess what I did after I opened that box? Not that I felt "bought."

      I successfully completed another mix CD this week, almost in time for the recipient's birthday. This time around, the music was almost the least of it; once that was settled, I needed to write an annotation, explaining why those songs were on the disc. At first glance, a few of them make no sense whatsoever. Once that was done, I could give her the CD. Now all that's left is to create the jacket and playlist. I know what I want for cover art, but I'm having a hard time finding it. This hobby really is a blessing and a curse for me, because I won't finish it until it's just right. 

     Along that line, yesterday I was in a mood, and listened to a mix that I'd made in February for the first time since I burned it. It was a trial; I spent that ~83 min. alternately cringing and livid. Mortified at my ability, willingness, and even grace, in laying myself bare. Furious...like a dog, howling at the moon: at nothing, and at everything, all at once. Not at anything specific, for sure. Not at you, or at me. You’re a mountain that I’d like to climb--not to conquer, but to share in the view. 

     Am thinking about piercing my lip, much like the one pictured on this book cover: The tattooed scales are a bit much, I admit. 

    Thanks to my reformed relationship with employment, I have a couple of "vacations" scheduled. Granted, there's nothing terribly exciting on the horizon, but it's still early in the season. For now, I'm taking a few random days off just for the sake of it, and a long weekend at the ancestral home toward the end of the month. If there's time--prehaps if D is available to hold my hand again--I will return with marks to show for it.     A couple of people have said this about me, too.      

    I really need to do my taxes this weekend. I've been saying that for about 2 months. My relationship with money is so odd. It's not that I don't like it, just that it seems to come and go without my noticing. I think I got paid yesterday, which should have just about doubled the balance in that particular account; that's a good thing. I think there's a few bills (3? 5?) under a couple of books of poetry near my left hand. Oh, and my census form. Guess I should deal with that, too. I'd rather go for a long drive.

a single word would be enough to summon me

If I end up an arid isle of desirelessness,
it will be 1,000% your fault. Why don't you
write? Why make me beg? Are you even
reading these letters? Weren't we happy,
each in our own peculiar way, traversing
that rumpled no-man's-land, the Gobi desert
of our bed? Night of Too Many Bodily Fluids,
can we laugh about that now? And that tussle
in the motel tub when I accidentally knocked
you unconscious? A minor concussion.
Surely you've forgiven me. It's been
several decades. I was loving you so much
this morning, while brushing my teeth
and doing my hair. Remember that
abandoned car we found while hiking
in the middle of nowhere, tufts of grass
sprouting from the radio, gymnastic
acts we performed in its rusted-out chassis?
I'm just trying to depress you (Hah!) How
am I doing? If you don't send me a letter soon,
I'll have to resort to forgery. Your white violets
have prospered and spread. Do you mind if I
go on a while longer? I have so many thoughts
zipping around my head and I'm trying to fit
them all into words that will win you back
and that's why my handwriting rushes
and floods, which is also true of my speech,
chatter that's been known to reach
unintelligible and perhaps irritating-
to-most-people speeds, though I always secretly
believed what I said and meant completely,
sweetly intelligible to you, even when the idea-
content was, well, a bit melted, or had even been run through,
as you liked to quip, one of my several mental
blenders. Remember when you said, after we'd
camped near Crater Lake for a week,
that I looked like the sort of tree one sees
in a dream? I made fun of you all day. Called
you loony. But now, with your tangerine tree,
the one you planted and fed fireplace ash
all its first winter, covered with hummingbirds,
I know exactly what you were trying
to say that precious day. Dearheart: a single
word would be enough to summon me. All else
burns off like fog. I lie vividly awake. Waiting.
[Amy Gerstler, 'Dearest Creature' in Dearest Creature]

you can always find me

I look for you in my curl of sleep
my breathing wave on the night shore
my star in the fog of morning
I think you can always find me

I call to you under my breath
I whisper to you through the hours
all your names my ear of shadow
I think you can always hear me

I wait for you my promised day
my time again my homecoming
my being where you wait for me
I think always of you waiting
[W.S. Merwin, 'At the Bend' in The Shadow of Sirius]