it was dawn and the storm slithered in my belly -patti smith
today i wrote a letter meant for every person in my life. i mailed it to new york. the most beautiful people on the bus. photo street. o so good, o my heart.
29 June 2009
23 June 2009
dear west branch,
ugh. too much coffee, soul-sucking. i am so stuck between wanting to be here & never wanting to come back again i am so stagnant. i can't even write a poem about it. last night though my dad took me back to the property line & there were 4 baby raccoons in the crotch of an elm. the mother in a hole above them, hiding. /a matter of swelling or apathy / or everyone too hot to move/. tufted titmouse had built her nest right there, mama raccoon had eggs for dinner. ms. titmouse so fucking angry, flitting around, relentlessly pulling fur from mama raccoon, had a beak so full of fur she was bearded & tufted. hilarious, also baby animals really are that fucking cute. the hill really was that big. & steep as hell. only a bear could climb it, unless one happened to be real drunk. everyone i graduated with has a baby or a wife. probably will get drunk at the one bar downtown tonight & play pool with boys from high school. then sit a while by the post office before i drive home, lay in my parents' yard & look at stars, cry myself to sleep. dunno if it's this place or me that's so predictable.
obviously much more but.
obviously much more but.
22 June 2009
19 June 2009
questions of travel
--elizabeth bishop
There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.
Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?
But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:
"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?
Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"
There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.
Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?
But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:
"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?
Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"
sand in my hair still
woke up with a dragonfly in my backpack stretching his new wings. molted skin too, all fell out. he flew away after i--
how to say best days how
to say i want it again
how to say best days how
to say i want it again
10 June 2009
SHOOT ME IN THE HEAD
sparrow of my girl's arm, her arm as
she leans & they are each a bride
each dark & facing a big american
breakfast
what? you ate america for breakfast?
oh! an american breakfast. today
at dinner, she asked me if i ever
went camping in the woods & ran around
naked because she knows her sister
and i have gone skinny-dipping but
i can't remember where or when
prettiest girl to a brick wall
never been so in love
with a breakfast, never been
never been never been so far
from the water, from taking off
my clothes, never been so far
from home & the softness of her
body is there. is there another
reason? is why i find this so hard
because of the asymmetry--the
you & me, the we / we walked the
railroad bridge, above water level
one afternoon somewhere between
the roof we couldn't make it to
and the edge of the rest
of the days all melt together,
running like kohl in the rain.
without something there is something
missing. some brick wall: can't move
past not yet--myopic, maybe.
i am unfamiliar with your
habits, which form around us
as crazy masks. & who would
you say could argue & bitterly
mistake? who could
mistake what we have? how
many words could undo? & the
power of my dream of her is
a path unlike silk or woods.
your face, god, your face.
three green apples on the kitchen
counter--this is what i have,
all of what i can contain from,
obtain, remain--i guess, really
all i have left: what things
have we given, gifted what
things we have gotten, accepted.
at the end of the month i bleed
everything i have found. i
would never let you fall as hard
as i have--does this mean
i want to protect you or
that i want to own you?
the heart i found, puncturing
the gall bladder of the tree, sharp
onerous & a love gift for sweet
honeymooners. endings come as violent
swaths, sunset.
my heart for yours.
my heart for yours.
the roots break & stretch.
a blanket is your dirt body.
sickness in mine you cared for me.
the sky was full, blue, bloated.
my heart lives in my mouth,
i keep the sun in my mouth,
the sun is starting to sink
into my stomach i feel like this:
i don't know what i
am waiting for. the sky
flashes, blinks shut,
opens, shatters & conjoins.
my stomach knots like a tree.
the morning after i woke
up hard as an apple.
yesterday was the day before.
i wore a coat of leaves, sky, grass.
empty is the shirt you wore &
weightless without your chest.
in your chest has been your heart
now it is a clubhouse for the boys.
my sickness is for the boys &
i refuse to suckle an anchor.
an anchor is the cloud of grey
enjoyment. we think & we agree
that contentment is like
having a golden ring shoved & shoved
inside your pink mouth. sunset.
as long as it is after dark,
i will let you see me.
you happen to be gone.
something used to be there.
an indentation of space
where something used to be
the breath of my lover
the lover is my breath
damn sky--sun cloud
how much of grief
is guilt--selfish, sefish myopia.
grief, guilt--like
any other emotion
but harder to swallow.
it's this slant of the sun
i can't stomach--
i feel weightless, empty
[collab poem with baby lauren]
29.may.o9
she leans & they are each a bride
each dark & facing a big american
breakfast
what? you ate america for breakfast?
oh! an american breakfast. today
at dinner, she asked me if i ever
went camping in the woods & ran around
naked because she knows her sister
and i have gone skinny-dipping but
i can't remember where or when
prettiest girl to a brick wall
never been so in love
with a breakfast, never been
never been never been so far
from the water, from taking off
my clothes, never been so far
from home & the softness of her
body is there. is there another
reason? is why i find this so hard
because of the asymmetry--the
you & me, the we / we walked the
railroad bridge, above water level
one afternoon somewhere between
the roof we couldn't make it to
and the edge of the rest
of the days all melt together,
running like kohl in the rain.
without something there is something
missing. some brick wall: can't move
past not yet--myopic, maybe.
i am unfamiliar with your
habits, which form around us
as crazy masks. & who would
you say could argue & bitterly
mistake? who could
mistake what we have? how
many words could undo? & the
power of my dream of her is
a path unlike silk or woods.
your face, god, your face.
three green apples on the kitchen
counter--this is what i have,
all of what i can contain from,
obtain, remain--i guess, really
all i have left: what things
have we given, gifted what
things we have gotten, accepted.
at the end of the month i bleed
everything i have found. i
would never let you fall as hard
as i have--does this mean
i want to protect you or
that i want to own you?
the heart i found, puncturing
the gall bladder of the tree, sharp
onerous & a love gift for sweet
honeymooners. endings come as violent
swaths, sunset.
my heart for yours.
my heart for yours.
the roots break & stretch.
a blanket is your dirt body.
sickness in mine you cared for me.
the sky was full, blue, bloated.
my heart lives in my mouth,
i keep the sun in my mouth,
the sun is starting to sink
into my stomach i feel like this:
i don't know what i
am waiting for. the sky
flashes, blinks shut,
opens, shatters & conjoins.
my stomach knots like a tree.
the morning after i woke
up hard as an apple.
yesterday was the day before.
i wore a coat of leaves, sky, grass.
empty is the shirt you wore &
weightless without your chest.
in your chest has been your heart
now it is a clubhouse for the boys.
my sickness is for the boys &
i refuse to suckle an anchor.
an anchor is the cloud of grey
enjoyment. we think & we agree
that contentment is like
having a golden ring shoved & shoved
inside your pink mouth. sunset.
as long as it is after dark,
i will let you see me.
you happen to be gone.
something used to be there.
an indentation of space
where something used to be
the breath of my lover
the lover is my breath
damn sky--sun cloud
how much of grief
is guilt--selfish, sefish myopia.
grief, guilt--like
any other emotion
but harder to swallow.
it's this slant of the sun
i can't stomach--
i feel weightless, empty
[collab poem with baby lauren]
29.may.o9
07 June 2009
dinner
cornbread: dad's maple syrup, abc red snapper, fresh corn from sparrow
cornbread topped with a layer of arugula and baby swiss chard
then a salsaish thing: black beans, more corn, chive flowers, strawberries, mango, avocado, basil, garlic scapes + new undeveloped bulbs, yellow tomato (last four flash fried in olive oil)
all topped with queso
really pretty meal. aesthetics of the kitchen. don't know if i'll make it again.
soaking white beans right now for lunch tomorrow: i'm thinking a salad with the beans, lavender, mint, green tomato, arugula (or spinach), chive flowers, avocado? or fiddlehead ferns. we'll see, i guess. whatever happens, as long as it's edible. maybe currants, definitely goat cheese. or maybe not. soft boiled egg? probably not.
i think i bought pine nuts at the co-op but they seem to be missing..maybe i have a ghost. kay says she's waking up with bruises and she thinks that they are from a ghost. but that's a different story.
cornbread topped with a layer of arugula and baby swiss chard
then a salsaish thing: black beans, more corn, chive flowers, strawberries, mango, avocado, basil, garlic scapes + new undeveloped bulbs, yellow tomato (last four flash fried in olive oil)
all topped with queso
really pretty meal. aesthetics of the kitchen. don't know if i'll make it again.
soaking white beans right now for lunch tomorrow: i'm thinking a salad with the beans, lavender, mint, green tomato, arugula (or spinach), chive flowers, avocado? or fiddlehead ferns. we'll see, i guess. whatever happens, as long as it's edible. maybe currants, definitely goat cheese. or maybe not. soft boiled egg? probably not.
i think i bought pine nuts at the co-op but they seem to be missing..maybe i have a ghost. kay says she's waking up with bruises and she thinks that they are from a ghost. but that's a different story.
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