This is a Shakespearean sonnet and also a pantoum. The sonnet contributes the meter and length, the pantoum the pattern of repeated lines in which the stanzas interweave with one another.
People who are used to keeping themselves aloof, in one way or another, over time can discover they've grown fond. And the fondness, even the comfort of growing accustomed to the comfort it brings, can be an uncertain thing that wisdom dictates one dance around. Like two people treading the spirals of a labyrinth, starting at opposite ends in opposite directions, their paths draw near together and then wind apart many times before they reach the center.
we two hands circle, meeting at the twelves,
spread from the rung round which the world revolves.
we lift the cup, pay up, indebt ourselves,
and even domesticity evolves.
spread from the rung round which the world revolves,
a wave of calm strokes down the ruffled spines.
and even domesticity evolves:
a slaughtered beast, poised succulent on tines.
a wave of calm strokes down the ruffled spines.
we sit up straight in hard-backed chairs and smile.
a slaughtered beast, poised succulent on tines,
rests warm within us, cradled there awhile.
we lift the cup, pay up; indebt ourselves.
we, two hands, circle, meeting at the twelves.
destroying ontology
"We must, on the contrary, stake out the positive possibilities of that tradition [of the question of Being], and this always means keeping it within its limits [...]"
~ Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 44
I, relentless, name only truth addictive.
Ricochet, burst open to spill within it,
then bow down to kiss what is most restrictive:
absolute limit.
I, undone, define me in opposition.
What uproots me? This, to be sure, has touched me.
All I have submits. At the core, ignition
sparks in what must be
I, inmost, ownmost, who cannot be taken,
broken, torn away from the self which shows me
to the world, and shows me a world to wake in.
Thus my God knows me.
~ Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 44
I, relentless, name only truth addictive.
Ricochet, burst open to spill within it,
then bow down to kiss what is most restrictive:
absolute limit.
I, undone, define me in opposition.
What uproots me? This, to be sure, has touched me.
All I have submits. At the core, ignition
sparks in what must be
I, inmost, ownmost, who cannot be taken,
broken, torn away from the self which shows me
to the world, and shows me a world to wake in.
Thus my God knows me.
response to Faith and Doubt
They're parentheses,
belief and disbelief, held
open like two lips.
Life is a breath that passes
through them, arrives. Falls silent.
They're parentheses,
belief and disbelief, held
open like two lips.
Life is a breath that passes
through them, arrives. Falls silent.
to all trains
Holy crap, this is the blues.
Within the first couple years I started writing poetry (and my songs started to not totally suck), I noticed that it's not possible to write about something until you're outside of it. You need the perspective of time and maturation to be able to create something that totally encapsulates what you've experienced. Which means, if you can write it, REALLY write it, then it's over. In the context of this here set of lyrics that is an incredibly good thing.
This exact sequence of events did not happen as such, because this process took place over the course of a little over two months. (Although the boots and hat, yes, are real, and look totally awesome on me, though not together.) Roundabout April and May sort of time period. It was after the shockwaves from what I called "hornet's nest time" (which is not possible to describe) had finally died down. During the time this song describes, the part of myself it took all that nasty to dig up out of where I'd locked it away was more or less firmly seated, and began growing to the point where I could functionally express it through my consciously accessible personality.
The preceding paragraph is weird enough, but I'll go one step further and say this. Intentionally investing a system of symbols with the emotional force of your entire personality is not a strategy I recommend for anyone, ever. The development, alteration and application of symbolic systems is an area of work in which I've invested a great big chunk of my life, and I still almost screwed it up completely. And even given how effective it all was, I'm embarrassed to think of how everything seemed to me at the time. Of course it's very useful to keep an eye out to see whether you've UNintentionally invested a few symbols with part of the force of your personality. Whether it's a few worrywart superstitions or a great big sprawling paranoid certainty, what's actually happened (if my own experience here is at all comparable) is that you've denied reality, denied existence, to a part of yourself. Which, as long as you live, will speak to you, will stand between you and the universe howling to be let back inside. And it feels terribly alien, inherently wrong, destructively desperate. Till you stop panicking and start listening.
the trash is talkin to me
what does it say
why you gotta love
what's gettin thrown away
crushed up cans of soda
brown orange peels
motorcycle tickets
cause somebody got wheels
got wheels, got wheels, got wheels
trudgin down the alley
late to punch in
a broken baby carriage
empty bottle of gin
I'm actin immature
and I'm addicted to news
I suck your every word
like it's a bottle of booze
of booze, of booze, of booze
when I let go
I get surprised
brand new black boots
in just my size
a rhinestone heart
a Stetson hat
"this is your song
listen to that"
the trash is talkin to me
speakin my fear
"you're absolutely worthless
you belong down here"
a bag of kitty litter
a toilet seat
"come cry here by the dumpster
wallow in your defeat
defeat, defeat, defeat"
keep on across the river
the Loop in the night
inside my skin I carry
everything that I fight
my heart is like a dry mouth
covered in tape
the truth I want to speak
it has no way to escape
escape, escape, escape
I peel it back
release the sound
I lift my eyes
up from the ground
above the gate
my love, my name
three little words read
TO ALL TRAINS
there's rails that run forever
I hope that you know
all God's children
have got someplace to go
whatever words you're usin
you listen, you learn
for everything you're losin
something good will return
return, return, return
love, weaponized
"Anything can be a weapon if you use it as one."
Don't know who first said that.
Thank God, though, even something that can be used as a weapon doesn't have to be.
The act of observation alters things;
Attention moves what can't be told or shown.
No wretched shame or agony can bring
More horror than the gaping deep unknown.
And so I love, for what we love, we know
More intimately than what we despise.
I will descend, and gaze up from below
What answers to no weapon but my eyes.
As stone wears smooth and spattered vomit dries,
As spasmed lungs draw down hot reek, wet chill,
I wrap my gaze, my lips, my hands, my thighs
Around what I cannot escape. I will
Remain, remember, love, accept, until
terror itself breaks, and I've had my fill.
Don't know who first said that.
Thank God, though, even something that can be used as a weapon doesn't have to be.
The act of observation alters things;
Attention moves what can't be told or shown.
No wretched shame or agony can bring
More horror than the gaping deep unknown.
And so I love, for what we love, we know
More intimately than what we despise.
I will descend, and gaze up from below
What answers to no weapon but my eyes.
As stone wears smooth and spattered vomit dries,
As spasmed lungs draw down hot reek, wet chill,
I wrap my gaze, my lips, my hands, my thighs
Around what I cannot escape. I will
Remain, remember, love, accept, until
terror itself breaks, and I've had my fill.
fraction
Divide and conquer: invert and multiply.
one grows, acquainted with the slow, dull ache
that holds, like woven fingers tightly clasped
around a word there is no breath to gasp
nor room between to loose the sound it makes.
there, twisted in, pressed by hot skin on skin,
the shape of things takes on the smallest groove.
with neither space to alter nor improve,
there is no foe to fight, no fight to win,
but only crooked fingers reaching in
and in and in to touch, until they pinch
that last raw nerve, which stretched but never broke.
then pain at last flares bright, and there begins
destruction, change, some fraction of an inch
through which dead years leak like a puff of smoke.
one grows, acquainted with the slow, dull ache
that holds, like woven fingers tightly clasped
around a word there is no breath to gasp
nor room between to loose the sound it makes.
there, twisted in, pressed by hot skin on skin,
the shape of things takes on the smallest groove.
with neither space to alter nor improve,
there is no foe to fight, no fight to win,
but only crooked fingers reaching in
and in and in to touch, until they pinch
that last raw nerve, which stretched but never broke.
then pain at last flares bright, and there begins
destruction, change, some fraction of an inch
through which dead years leak like a puff of smoke.
"...remember your hippopotamus oath!"
Here's the full text, the ancient and the modern side by side.
One of the little quips I have about myself is that I'm a hospital.
But I'm not the doctor. I just make room, I make a room and if somebody shows up needing to be healed, all I do is make a place where it can happen, then get out of the way while the real Doctor shows up and does the impossible. Even for me.
A "room" can be anything: any form, from a poetic stanza to the shape of a conversation to a moment pooled out of a season of time. Christ said, "in my Father's house there are many rooms," but heaven isn't a building made of steel and brick. It's the place where the war is over, and everybody won. My favorite definition of magic is still Gareth Knight's, "the creation of forms for spiritual forces to indwell." There's one spiritual force who trumps all others, one name through which all other names may be drawn and the poison purged out of them. I don't have to quarantine myself away from my own life anymore because there's not a fountain of plague at the center of my soul.
It doesn't make sense and I can't explain it, but it's still true. I'm free. And the best way to celebrate that is to seize every opportunity to pass it on.
"WITH PURITY, HOLINESS AND BENEFICENCE I will pass my life and practice my art. Except for the prudent correction of an imminent danger, I will neither treat any patient nor carry out any research on any human being without the valid informed consent of the subject or the appropriate legal protector thereof, understanding that research must have as its purpose the furtherance of the health of that individual. Into whatever patient setting I enter, I will go for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief or corruption and further from the seduction of any patient.
WHATEVER IN CONNECTION with my professional practice or not in connection with it I may see or hear in the lives of my patients which ought not be spoken abroad, I will not divulge, reckoning that all such should be kept secret.
WHILE I CONTINUE to keep this Oath unviolated may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art and science of medicine with the blessing of the Almighty and respected by my peers and society, but should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse by my lot."
One of the little quips I have about myself is that I'm a hospital.
But I'm not the doctor. I just make room, I make a room and if somebody shows up needing to be healed, all I do is make a place where it can happen, then get out of the way while the real Doctor shows up and does the impossible. Even for me.
A "room" can be anything: any form, from a poetic stanza to the shape of a conversation to a moment pooled out of a season of time. Christ said, "in my Father's house there are many rooms," but heaven isn't a building made of steel and brick. It's the place where the war is over, and everybody won. My favorite definition of magic is still Gareth Knight's, "the creation of forms for spiritual forces to indwell." There's one spiritual force who trumps all others, one name through which all other names may be drawn and the poison purged out of them. I don't have to quarantine myself away from my own life anymore because there's not a fountain of plague at the center of my soul.
It doesn't make sense and I can't explain it, but it's still true. I'm free. And the best way to celebrate that is to seize every opportunity to pass it on.
"WITH PURITY, HOLINESS AND BENEFICENCE I will pass my life and practice my art. Except for the prudent correction of an imminent danger, I will neither treat any patient nor carry out any research on any human being without the valid informed consent of the subject or the appropriate legal protector thereof, understanding that research must have as its purpose the furtherance of the health of that individual. Into whatever patient setting I enter, I will go for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief or corruption and further from the seduction of any patient.
WHATEVER IN CONNECTION with my professional practice or not in connection with it I may see or hear in the lives of my patients which ought not be spoken abroad, I will not divulge, reckoning that all such should be kept secret.
WHILE I CONTINUE to keep this Oath unviolated may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art and science of medicine with the blessing of the Almighty and respected by my peers and society, but should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse by my lot."
she learns to keep a secret
This is my first-ever Petrarchan sonnet. I highly recommend The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, edited by Phillis Levin. She's an amazing scholar and helped me understand the expressive power of the different ways a sonnet can be composed.
I'd always thought of the Shakespearean sonnet as "three points and a prayer", like a sermon. Its three quatrains contain three ideas, couched in a pattern of alternating rhymes, with the couplet at the end providing a summary:
abab
cdcd
efef
gg
The Petrarchan sonnet is actually an older version of the form. There are two stanzas in envelope rhyme followed by six lines in a rotating pattern:
abba
cddc
efg
efg
The shift in tempo between them also marks a change in perspective within the contents of the poem. This change is called the volta, which is Italian for "turn." Even in other patterns of composition it's possible to see traces of the volta, though of course it is the most pronounced in Petrarchan sonnets. It's possible that the poet / litigators who first invented it came up with the division of eight lines followed by six as a way to represent the Golden Ratio, a mathematical concept which in ancient Greek philosophy had much to do with the universal ideal of beauty.
What I had not grasped before was why I was not really comfortable writing any type of sonnet except the Shakespearean. It just felt better to me and I couldn't say why. Levin included a quote from Paul Fussel, who described the difference succinctly:
"If the shape of the Petrarchan sonnet, with its two slightly unbalanced sections devoted to pressure and release, seems to accord with the dynamics of much emotional experience, the shape of the Shakespearean, with its smaller units and its 'commentary couplet,' seems to accord with the modes of the intellectual, analytic and even satiric operations of the human sensibility."
So there you have it. Analytical thought is my comfort zone--even in the process of creating poems, which on the surface is a highly emotional act! Some gals get comfy with themselves and learn how to feel their own feelings, and they go dance in the rain or dye their hair purple or take up windsurfing. When I want to let my hair down and really cut loose, I write a Petrarchan sonnnet.
Oh! And this relates to one of those pithy proverby things that came up in recent discussions of life issues. Togetherness is sharing for its own sake, appreciating others in their uniqueness, but sharing-togetherness is not meant to take away human loneliness. Only God can truly see always into the center of your being. Seeking the regard of other humans as a means to protect yourself from loneliness is a futile enterprise in the long run.
The real opposite of loneliness is privacy.
white fingers tighten, firm against the glass
the sand slips past them, grain by precious grain
grip till the flesh is bloodless, but refrain
from weeping. you can't reach them; they will pass
for gravity attracts all mass to mass
you, dust-mote light stick figure with a brain
excite, but cannot hope to entertain
earth's eon dance of solid, liquid, gas
and plasma, flame too ardent to contain
even within the endless curve of sun
that spilled earth molten from its fingertips
you grasp--let slip--delight in--can't explain
what God has wrought, and you yourself have done--
smile slightly. lift one finger to your lips.
I'd always thought of the Shakespearean sonnet as "three points and a prayer", like a sermon. Its three quatrains contain three ideas, couched in a pattern of alternating rhymes, with the couplet at the end providing a summary:
abab
cdcd
efef
gg
The Petrarchan sonnet is actually an older version of the form. There are two stanzas in envelope rhyme followed by six lines in a rotating pattern:
abba
cddc
efg
efg
The shift in tempo between them also marks a change in perspective within the contents of the poem. This change is called the volta, which is Italian for "turn." Even in other patterns of composition it's possible to see traces of the volta, though of course it is the most pronounced in Petrarchan sonnets. It's possible that the poet / litigators who first invented it came up with the division of eight lines followed by six as a way to represent the Golden Ratio, a mathematical concept which in ancient Greek philosophy had much to do with the universal ideal of beauty.
What I had not grasped before was why I was not really comfortable writing any type of sonnet except the Shakespearean. It just felt better to me and I couldn't say why. Levin included a quote from Paul Fussel, who described the difference succinctly:
"If the shape of the Petrarchan sonnet, with its two slightly unbalanced sections devoted to pressure and release, seems to accord with the dynamics of much emotional experience, the shape of the Shakespearean, with its smaller units and its 'commentary couplet,' seems to accord with the modes of the intellectual, analytic and even satiric operations of the human sensibility."
So there you have it. Analytical thought is my comfort zone--even in the process of creating poems, which on the surface is a highly emotional act! Some gals get comfy with themselves and learn how to feel their own feelings, and they go dance in the rain or dye their hair purple or take up windsurfing. When I want to let my hair down and really cut loose, I write a Petrarchan sonnnet.
Oh! And this relates to one of those pithy proverby things that came up in recent discussions of life issues. Togetherness is sharing for its own sake, appreciating others in their uniqueness, but sharing-togetherness is not meant to take away human loneliness. Only God can truly see always into the center of your being. Seeking the regard of other humans as a means to protect yourself from loneliness is a futile enterprise in the long run.
The real opposite of loneliness is privacy.
white fingers tighten, firm against the glass
the sand slips past them, grain by precious grain
grip till the flesh is bloodless, but refrain
from weeping. you can't reach them; they will pass
for gravity attracts all mass to mass
you, dust-mote light stick figure with a brain
excite, but cannot hope to entertain
earth's eon dance of solid, liquid, gas
and plasma, flame too ardent to contain
even within the endless curve of sun
that spilled earth molten from its fingertips
you grasp--let slip--delight in--can't explain
what God has wrought, and you yourself have done--
smile slightly. lift one finger to your lips.
construction on a door
I went downstairs to put the laundry in;
There was a hammering behind a door.
When I came back to take it out again
I glimpsed a ceiling fan, sawdust-strewn floor;
A crack of inner light spilled down the hall.
The sundered door leaned close on one-by-twos,
A frame, to build the door into a wall,
Raw yellow-gold wood neatly pierced with screws.
From elevator to washing machine,
The doors I pass, the rooms where I don't live--
Inside most of them I have never seen.
But I glimpsed into this one. Please, forgive,
Sweet resident, whose name I do not know:
My eyes beheld a place I may not go.
There was a hammering behind a door.
When I came back to take it out again
I glimpsed a ceiling fan, sawdust-strewn floor;
A crack of inner light spilled down the hall.
The sundered door leaned close on one-by-twos,
A frame, to build the door into a wall,
Raw yellow-gold wood neatly pierced with screws.
From elevator to washing machine,
The doors I pass, the rooms where I don't live--
Inside most of them I have never seen.
But I glimpsed into this one. Please, forgive,
Sweet resident, whose name I do not know:
My eyes beheld a place I may not go.
the feeling process
I am sick of this process of learning to feel
wherein "how can I help?" becomes "what can I steal?"
where the ties which are meant to bind lightly, to yoke
wrap their tendrils round mind and emotion, and choke
when the feeling is easy, analysis springs
like a coiled lidless serpent with stainless-steel wings
your intention's comprised of the following mess:
hope for comfort, confusion, and will to possess
yes, I know I can't see the inside of your brain
but with ten seconds' lead time I'll gladly explain
in a low impact-story just how it must feel
to be inside that vehicle, gripping the wheel
as you reel from momentum that skids through the turn
and the weight of your engine shifts under you--learn
to steer into it, darling, don't panic, don't fight
nimble, dance right across the oncoming headlights
forget all I can tell you if you can learn this
hold yourself centered, steady; keep moving--they miss
but you ache afterwards for the scrape of a crash
for the scream of the frame, for the flame and the ash
for the lines of pure force traced unseen through the air
to converge on an incident--accident--there
and to me you look like a drunk driver, spun slow
down a wide icy curve on a road you don't know
I've been lost there before, I've been stuck in that ditch
as you dig yourself deeper my cold fingers itch
to climb in through those windows, your eyes and your ears
to start stomping the pedals and shifting the gears
but you're there and I'm here and it just wouldn't work
I could name you your fear and I'd feel like a jerk
I could name you your dream and thereby make it less
just by touching it, something that's mine to express
so I tell you a story and pray you behold
shining, cupped in its structure, what cannot be told
and I ache with you, wait with you, patient as stone
when you wince away from it, you leave me alone
with the knowledge of just how to get you unstuck
while you blame friends and neighbors, God, Satan, bad luck
and you look at me, guileless, with unthinking trust
that makes my machine smile with cold rage and disgust
that now, now I've begun to be able to feel
the soft heart of a child, the precision of steel
welded, woven together, all rivets and bile
ratcheting up the back of my throat, and the vile
absolute certainty that from my mouth, my hands
all the truth could pour forth, and you would understand
but since it would be of absolutely no use
I breate on you--bleed on you--then let you go loose
wherein "how can I help?" becomes "what can I steal?"
where the ties which are meant to bind lightly, to yoke
wrap their tendrils round mind and emotion, and choke
when the feeling is easy, analysis springs
like a coiled lidless serpent with stainless-steel wings
your intention's comprised of the following mess:
hope for comfort, confusion, and will to possess
yes, I know I can't see the inside of your brain
but with ten seconds' lead time I'll gladly explain
in a low impact-story just how it must feel
to be inside that vehicle, gripping the wheel
as you reel from momentum that skids through the turn
and the weight of your engine shifts under you--learn
to steer into it, darling, don't panic, don't fight
nimble, dance right across the oncoming headlights
forget all I can tell you if you can learn this
hold yourself centered, steady; keep moving--they miss
but you ache afterwards for the scrape of a crash
for the scream of the frame, for the flame and the ash
for the lines of pure force traced unseen through the air
to converge on an incident--accident--there
and to me you look like a drunk driver, spun slow
down a wide icy curve on a road you don't know
I've been lost there before, I've been stuck in that ditch
as you dig yourself deeper my cold fingers itch
to climb in through those windows, your eyes and your ears
to start stomping the pedals and shifting the gears
but you're there and I'm here and it just wouldn't work
I could name you your fear and I'd feel like a jerk
I could name you your dream and thereby make it less
just by touching it, something that's mine to express
so I tell you a story and pray you behold
shining, cupped in its structure, what cannot be told
and I ache with you, wait with you, patient as stone
when you wince away from it, you leave me alone
with the knowledge of just how to get you unstuck
while you blame friends and neighbors, God, Satan, bad luck
and you look at me, guileless, with unthinking trust
that makes my machine smile with cold rage and disgust
that now, now I've begun to be able to feel
the soft heart of a child, the precision of steel
welded, woven together, all rivets and bile
ratcheting up the back of my throat, and the vile
absolute certainty that from my mouth, my hands
all the truth could pour forth, and you would understand
but since it would be of absolutely no use
I breate on you--bleed on you--then let you go loose
the building, closing, opening of gates
the wheels that ring along rails with a chime
o, there are infinite transition states
and every one makes, manifests a time
I need a piece of paper and a pen
this metal raises lightning from the ground
and looses it, and calls it up again
to stab at night and wash the stars with sound
green land is pounded flat and wreathed in wire
yet it is life strung dancing in the coil
to iris, wondrous, empty of desire
and empty unspanned heaven on the soil
awakened--nameless, deathless, unalloyed--
to taste all things with pleasure, even void
the wheels that ring along rails with a chime
o, there are infinite transition states
and every one makes, manifests a time
I need a piece of paper and a pen
this metal raises lightning from the ground
and looses it, and calls it up again
to stab at night and wash the stars with sound
green land is pounded flat and wreathed in wire
yet it is life strung dancing in the coil
to iris, wondrous, empty of desire
and empty unspanned heaven on the soil
awakened--nameless, deathless, unalloyed--
to taste all things with pleasure, even void
the avalanche artist
for Myke
he's a closed-up man,
a line drawn in the sand man,
a maze of a man.
he knows the mountainside;
it's a coat he shrugs over his shoulders
the sweep of its vista from the canyon floor
each scrub pine and field mouse, goat perched
on a crag, the heft and shape
of every boulder, pebble, cliff
etched across his back
and he lifts a questing fingertip, to touch
just so
how so
and so
the avalanche that's cradled down the slope
shakes itself awake
he loves, he mourns, he cherishes
the thundering it makes
I think he hopes
I curl around my seismograph
and think he hopes
it shudders past the boles of trees
rolls crushing over burrows; dust
drenches out the sun, the switchback game trails
brushed aside like words in dirt
swept by a broad, flat hand
but when the flung shale settles into place
the traveled stones halt under their own weight
moss to the sky
there he stands, he stands, he stands, he does not break
and there he waits
to hear the still, small whisper
which will tell him why
he's a closed-up man,
a line drawn in the sand man,
a maze of a man.
he knows the mountainside;
it's a coat he shrugs over his shoulders
the sweep of its vista from the canyon floor
each scrub pine and field mouse, goat perched
on a crag, the heft and shape
of every boulder, pebble, cliff
etched across his back
and he lifts a questing fingertip, to touch
just so
how so
and so
the avalanche that's cradled down the slope
shakes itself awake
he loves, he mourns, he cherishes
the thundering it makes
I think he hopes
I curl around my seismograph
and think he hopes
it shudders past the boles of trees
rolls crushing over burrows; dust
drenches out the sun, the switchback game trails
brushed aside like words in dirt
swept by a broad, flat hand
but when the flung shale settles into place
the traveled stones halt under their own weight
moss to the sky
there he stands, he stands, he stands, he does not break
and there he waits
to hear the still, small whisper
which will tell him why
my temptation
Think a lot of people will be able to identify with this song. One of the things I've noticed about creative works is that the more personal it is--the more a given work "has blood in it"--the more likely it is to touch something universal, something all human beings experience.
I think it's similar to the reason people like superheroes; because everyone has something inside them that's very powerful. It's got a slightly different form and means of expression for each of us. But I think we're drawn to our favorite fictional heroes, at least in part, because we hope that we'll find a way to use those aspects of ourselves for good, rather than being consumed by them.
holding it perfectly still
made it seem easy to kill
sucking the static down raw
laid over all that I saw
till I turned it to sound
sound
sound
walking down every street
everyone's ready to eat
insides are empty and cold
slaves as soon as we are told
where it can be found
found
found
it's not a game but it's a test
I watch you pull open your chest
put something wet into my hands
it drips until I understand
just where you are bound
bound
bound
no too long ago
when my spirit was colder
you weren't looking at me
but over my shoulder
don't think you can tell
that a change has been made
and it works just as well
and it makes me afraid
I may not be a gun
but my tongue is a trigger
you smile in my sights
and you only get bigger
is there no way I
can give you this perspective
you don't have to die
cause that's not my objective
so please
stick around
this is my temptation
this communication
this is my temptation
this communication
this incineration
with which I am crowned
and I'm pouring it into the ground
I'm pouring it into the ground
pouring it into the ground
I think it's similar to the reason people like superheroes; because everyone has something inside them that's very powerful. It's got a slightly different form and means of expression for each of us. But I think we're drawn to our favorite fictional heroes, at least in part, because we hope that we'll find a way to use those aspects of ourselves for good, rather than being consumed by them.
holding it perfectly still
made it seem easy to kill
sucking the static down raw
laid over all that I saw
till I turned it to sound
sound
sound
walking down every street
everyone's ready to eat
insides are empty and cold
slaves as soon as we are told
where it can be found
found
found
it's not a game but it's a test
I watch you pull open your chest
put something wet into my hands
it drips until I understand
just where you are bound
bound
bound
no too long ago
when my spirit was colder
you weren't looking at me
but over my shoulder
don't think you can tell
that a change has been made
and it works just as well
and it makes me afraid
I may not be a gun
but my tongue is a trigger
you smile in my sights
and you only get bigger
is there no way I
can give you this perspective
you don't have to die
cause that's not my objective
so please
stick around
this is my temptation
this communication
this is my temptation
this communication
this incineration
with which I am crowned
and I'm pouring it into the ground
I'm pouring it into the ground
pouring it into the ground
doubt whispers (3/6/11)
doubt whispers like a listening audience
"this woman cannot possibly be real"
in shame miles deep, in towering arrogance
oh God, I know exactly how they feel
I'm loved so well, yet dare not let love rest
upon my fluttered lips--my teeth spread, bare
this frowning welter melting in my chest
bleeds rainbows, and chokes on the very air
click, shudder--one more flung perception strikes
the truth it sought, reverberates, taut-strung
we children weep, our fingers stuck in dikes
with names too vast to swallow on our tongues
spread empty arms, dive for the ground--we miss.
doubt whispers; something shrieks bright splendor. this.
"this woman cannot possibly be real"
in shame miles deep, in towering arrogance
oh God, I know exactly how they feel
I'm loved so well, yet dare not let love rest
upon my fluttered lips--my teeth spread, bare
this frowning welter melting in my chest
bleeds rainbows, and chokes on the very air
click, shudder--one more flung perception strikes
the truth it sought, reverberates, taut-strung
we children weep, our fingers stuck in dikes
with names too vast to swallow on our tongues
spread empty arms, dive for the ground--we miss.
doubt whispers; something shrieks bright splendor. this.
teleologic (3/4/11)
that
lived-in look, that
sweater flung over a chair back
slouch, the sigh
of an unwashed mug that rolls
along a countertop
how now can I
just stop
let the trash in the can
smell itself for a change, the dust
beneath the couch drift
into motes or rodents as it will
not hold
but let
each twitching finger still.
lived-in look, that
sweater flung over a chair back
slouch, the sigh
of an unwashed mug that rolls
along a countertop
how now can I
just stop
let the trash in the can
smell itself for a change, the dust
beneath the couch drift
into motes or rodents as it will
not hold
but let
each twitching finger still.
the whether machine
all my machines are made of living flesh
and tears, and blood, and breath drawn deep and slow
my duty is to harvest, heap and thresh
but my joy is to cherish what I sow
here in the garden metal screams as leaves
fold out of armor, dripping, bright with dew
slow coiled roots roar, one wet red engine grieves
for though its tendrils bend to reach for you
each wire I cross short-circuits all the rest
each branch I stumble over splinters, sways
each touch I meant so gently rakes your chest
this bone-white bloom, this telephone who prays
is of no use if I do not connect
with those I’ve given trust, esteem, respect
you can't spell COURAGE without RAGE
In 06, I was working for Elmer Morris and the calendar on my desk had been purchased from the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of America. The image for the month of May, pictured below, socked me right in the guts. Another painting referenced in the poem is "Peaceful Harbor" by Jean Michalski but I was unable to Googlemance it out just now. The artist who created the painting below is a Portugese lady named Daniela Cristina Caburro; you can go check out her gallery at her website.
She makes a living as a painter without the use of her arms. This lady is a ROCKSTAR. I'm so glad I found this poem again. It's not quite a sonnet: it doesn't follow the sonnet rules perfectly. But you know what? Things don't need to be perfect. Just beautiful.
Girl Gathering Flowers by Daniela Cristina Caburro
Works painted with the mouth, slow careful strokes
show beauty, rich in detail; emphasize
though limbs hang limp from spinal cords that broke,
more than mere puppets watch from our keen eyes.
Each petal's sharp, like flowers etched in metal.
Boats, stone-fast, stand in harbors; roofs slide off
into the sky. What's solid melts, unsettled.
What floats grows petrified, no longer soft.
One little girl stands in a field of blooms,
her legs obscured by solid greenery,
her hat askew, white as a skull entombed,
her gaze rapt at what only she can see.
I see a woman twisting flowers, beneath
which blur long-lost arms, painted through clenched teeth.
She makes a living as a painter without the use of her arms. This lady is a ROCKSTAR. I'm so glad I found this poem again. It's not quite a sonnet: it doesn't follow the sonnet rules perfectly. But you know what? Things don't need to be perfect. Just beautiful.
Girl Gathering Flowers by Daniela Cristina CaburroWorks painted with the mouth, slow careful strokes
show beauty, rich in detail; emphasize
though limbs hang limp from spinal cords that broke,
more than mere puppets watch from our keen eyes.
Each petal's sharp, like flowers etched in metal.
Boats, stone-fast, stand in harbors; roofs slide off
into the sky. What's solid melts, unsettled.
What floats grows petrified, no longer soft.
One little girl stands in a field of blooms,
her legs obscured by solid greenery,
her hat askew, white as a skull entombed,
her gaze rapt at what only she can see.
I see a woman twisting flowers, beneath
which blur long-lost arms, painted through clenched teeth.
a verrrry old dream log
Going through all my old boxes full of books and papers turns up lots of surprises. Ran across my old bachelor's thesis, on Philip K. Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", for example. This, though, is a thing all its own, written from myself to myself and put to action. It was from a brief period where I wasn't writing dates on stuff so I only know, from the other content of that yellow legal pad, that it came about in midsummer of '03. A good (though kinda freaky!) piece of writing at least, and about where my head was at, at the time. Thank God I'm somewhere even nicer now. The dream itself is followed up by a couple of short analysis paragraphs which are from the same pages.
A beach of broken pebbles and cracked clams leads up to the House of Broken Things. The door is ajar. No board in its floor is unsplintered, no windowpane whole; even the rocking chair on the front porch is missing a leg. Out from under the porch darts a cat. Feral and lightning fast, its yellow eyes seem wise though they see the mouse in me. Tufts of fur missing to scars, tattered ears--is its fur grey?--it pads before me to the door of the house whose windows stand half-open like idiot mouths. The cat's tail twitches as it slides out from under my hand. I don't think I touched it. Brass knob, tarnished, old, turns with both hands and a thunk--I thought the door was ajar?--hinges creak. One comes loose, and I think the door is going to come off in my hand.
It doesn't.
Inside I think there is only one hallway, and there is, but my vision of it shifts and falsifies: I am left with an impression of winding crazed wood angles, locked, open, half-open doorways. A glance in one doorway reveals the unchanging, a gap-toothed piano with metal threads curled up under its wing, dolls with one eye that glares smirking. Another shows an empty bed, mattress stuck with its own rusted springs, cracked leather belts and a tongueless shoe that looks violent, a shadowy closet door. A few steps forward a girl's face peeks out, thin fingers wrap the wood just below the keyhole, cheeks smeared with tear-streaked dust, eyes achingly familiar. She darts back in, covers her retreat with a slam, but by now I know better than to follow. A draft whispers over my toes; I look up to see yellow eyes in the distance. The cat blinks once, twice, and I run to follow. Walls try to whisper their ancient cackles and though I cannot close my ears I don't listen.
The last doorway is locked but not closed. As I stammer, combing fingers through my hair, the cat wanders off, crooked tail slung low. The password comes back to me. Tunnelvision, I say to the dusty wood. It swings open and I hear my heart beat: this, the monster of my dreams. Blank whiteness. Viscous like the goop in a lava lamp, moving, its bulk fills the doorway and tentacles congeal, reach for me. My mouth chock full of a scream that keeps my teeth bound together. Don't encourage it, I tell myself. Out of the whiteness eyes roll down, lidless, and lips writhe into a mouth. Now only the tongue holds its ghost, the purples and greens of a clown face--not colors but hues bent wrong. I remember the dream that freed me from this face; I remember Atreyu between the sphinxes. I step through. So simple to say.
Looking forward, forward, up ahead a narrow chimney climbs up a cliffside, the path freckled with pointed stones, the angle of ascent maybe sixty degrees. I must keep my eyes on the ground so as not to slip or step on a sharp stone and injure my feet. I climb for what feels like hours, panting; soon my only thoughts are of the next step, the next handhold, for which I am distinctly grateful. Grey stone eases its way into russet, another geological age, and overhead I hear the rough voice of a crow. A fiber in my heart loosens. It is safe now to look back, I say almost out loud, and grabbing a handhold, turn to look over my shoulder. Down and down beneath the rockfalls, between the pitted forearms of the stern-faced hillside, a tiny ramshackle thing with a half-shingled roof gapes into the wind. On the stoop a white figure, spangled in what might have been frills but at this distance looks like dirt has its face turned unerringly towards me, foolish hat notwithstanding. I fancy I can see its mouth open at the touch of my eyes, and yet I'm deeply, madly grateful its running is running in place. I turn to face forward. There, the path spikes up and seems to end in the blue sky, the crow wheeling near beneath wisps of cloud. Clambering the last few steps, I fetch up somehow on my feet.
The plateau is a valley in the center of a circle of stones, great mountains that stand in the distance and remember. Behind me I cannot find the path I came by amid the boulders and sparse underbrush, and I decide that this is a good thing. To my right and left and behind me the mountains are gathering up their skirts, evergreens here and there, and on one hilltop a ways away I think a mountain goat springs from one crag to another. Ahead, there is no path, but a wide expanse of stone worn smooth by rain and wind and the passing of many feet. I step forward onto it and see, perhaps a hundred yards off, a circle of monoliths laid on monoliths like the great circle in England. I walk forward unhurried, feeling the wind through my fingers and the sun gently pressing the crown of my head.
There seated by the nearest of the twice eleven gates is a dragon, coiled around and over himself, silver-blue and blood-colored with eyes bright as a distant star. He winks at me, this old wyrm of the earth and sky--old to my eyes anyway. His rumbling voice is like drumbeats, joyous and solemn.
About time, he says.
I got a little hung up, I reply, dashing fingers through my hair. If I was too long in arriving he forgives me, and I am glad.
---
They are fools who think surrender is defeat.
A wise person knows that any endeavor can proceed either around an obstacle or through it, and can survive retreat if it is kept in order and those involved keep their goals firmly in mind. Of course the most glorious surrender is that which marks the transformation of an adversary into an ally--but this is a rare privilege and difficult to describe. I will say that apparent surrender, that is, misdirection, is a valuable tool in clever hands and can be used to thwart even a cunning opponent. But apparent surrender is not true surrender and is no fit replacement for it. This you should bear in mind in love as well as conflict, in friendship as in enmity. For one who consistently substitutes false surrender for true is no fit companion.
---
I began looking for a way, and as I went, the path sprang up around me.
A beach of broken pebbles and cracked clams leads up to the House of Broken Things. The door is ajar. No board in its floor is unsplintered, no windowpane whole; even the rocking chair on the front porch is missing a leg. Out from under the porch darts a cat. Feral and lightning fast, its yellow eyes seem wise though they see the mouse in me. Tufts of fur missing to scars, tattered ears--is its fur grey?--it pads before me to the door of the house whose windows stand half-open like idiot mouths. The cat's tail twitches as it slides out from under my hand. I don't think I touched it. Brass knob, tarnished, old, turns with both hands and a thunk--I thought the door was ajar?--hinges creak. One comes loose, and I think the door is going to come off in my hand.
It doesn't.
Inside I think there is only one hallway, and there is, but my vision of it shifts and falsifies: I am left with an impression of winding crazed wood angles, locked, open, half-open doorways. A glance in one doorway reveals the unchanging, a gap-toothed piano with metal threads curled up under its wing, dolls with one eye that glares smirking. Another shows an empty bed, mattress stuck with its own rusted springs, cracked leather belts and a tongueless shoe that looks violent, a shadowy closet door. A few steps forward a girl's face peeks out, thin fingers wrap the wood just below the keyhole, cheeks smeared with tear-streaked dust, eyes achingly familiar. She darts back in, covers her retreat with a slam, but by now I know better than to follow. A draft whispers over my toes; I look up to see yellow eyes in the distance. The cat blinks once, twice, and I run to follow. Walls try to whisper their ancient cackles and though I cannot close my ears I don't listen.
The last doorway is locked but not closed. As I stammer, combing fingers through my hair, the cat wanders off, crooked tail slung low. The password comes back to me. Tunnelvision, I say to the dusty wood. It swings open and I hear my heart beat: this, the monster of my dreams. Blank whiteness. Viscous like the goop in a lava lamp, moving, its bulk fills the doorway and tentacles congeal, reach for me. My mouth chock full of a scream that keeps my teeth bound together. Don't encourage it, I tell myself. Out of the whiteness eyes roll down, lidless, and lips writhe into a mouth. Now only the tongue holds its ghost, the purples and greens of a clown face--not colors but hues bent wrong. I remember the dream that freed me from this face; I remember Atreyu between the sphinxes. I step through. So simple to say.
Looking forward, forward, up ahead a narrow chimney climbs up a cliffside, the path freckled with pointed stones, the angle of ascent maybe sixty degrees. I must keep my eyes on the ground so as not to slip or step on a sharp stone and injure my feet. I climb for what feels like hours, panting; soon my only thoughts are of the next step, the next handhold, for which I am distinctly grateful. Grey stone eases its way into russet, another geological age, and overhead I hear the rough voice of a crow. A fiber in my heart loosens. It is safe now to look back, I say almost out loud, and grabbing a handhold, turn to look over my shoulder. Down and down beneath the rockfalls, between the pitted forearms of the stern-faced hillside, a tiny ramshackle thing with a half-shingled roof gapes into the wind. On the stoop a white figure, spangled in what might have been frills but at this distance looks like dirt has its face turned unerringly towards me, foolish hat notwithstanding. I fancy I can see its mouth open at the touch of my eyes, and yet I'm deeply, madly grateful its running is running in place. I turn to face forward. There, the path spikes up and seems to end in the blue sky, the crow wheeling near beneath wisps of cloud. Clambering the last few steps, I fetch up somehow on my feet.
The plateau is a valley in the center of a circle of stones, great mountains that stand in the distance and remember. Behind me I cannot find the path I came by amid the boulders and sparse underbrush, and I decide that this is a good thing. To my right and left and behind me the mountains are gathering up their skirts, evergreens here and there, and on one hilltop a ways away I think a mountain goat springs from one crag to another. Ahead, there is no path, but a wide expanse of stone worn smooth by rain and wind and the passing of many feet. I step forward onto it and see, perhaps a hundred yards off, a circle of monoliths laid on monoliths like the great circle in England. I walk forward unhurried, feeling the wind through my fingers and the sun gently pressing the crown of my head.
There seated by the nearest of the twice eleven gates is a dragon, coiled around and over himself, silver-blue and blood-colored with eyes bright as a distant star. He winks at me, this old wyrm of the earth and sky--old to my eyes anyway. His rumbling voice is like drumbeats, joyous and solemn.
About time, he says.
I got a little hung up, I reply, dashing fingers through my hair. If I was too long in arriving he forgives me, and I am glad.
---
They are fools who think surrender is defeat.
A wise person knows that any endeavor can proceed either around an obstacle or through it, and can survive retreat if it is kept in order and those involved keep their goals firmly in mind. Of course the most glorious surrender is that which marks the transformation of an adversary into an ally--but this is a rare privilege and difficult to describe. I will say that apparent surrender, that is, misdirection, is a valuable tool in clever hands and can be used to thwart even a cunning opponent. But apparent surrender is not true surrender and is no fit replacement for it. This you should bear in mind in love as well as conflict, in friendship as in enmity. For one who consistently substitutes false surrender for true is no fit companion.
---
I began looking for a way, and as I went, the path sprang up around me.
wound so tight v2.0
The ending is muuuuch better than in v1.0! :D Must...arrange...recording session again soon! *wag*
panic rises up so suddenly within me
crease my brows and purse my lips and I look old
like an origami spider up a chimney
I will fall into the fire if I unfold
wound so tight
wound so tight
because everything else is unraveling
we throw away the things we own
the clothes, the books the telephone
devices we use every day
and statues we cannot display
but like a camel full of water
knowing I'm my Father's daughter
swells my back, makes me look muscular and strong
still I can't carry all this gear
I'm just a snarl of will and fear and hope
suspended from a filament of song
wound so tight
wound so tight
because everything else is unraveling
why do I clutch myself so tight?
it isn't any use
only my hands can reach inside
of me and cut me loose
all blessings wait for me if I
can find the will to choose
to let them in
only my God, my world, my loved ones
truly satisfy
the thirst in me that turning inward
would have drained me dry
I hold to all things but in fact
I do not have to try
only begin
wound so tight
wound so tight
still when everything else is unraveling
panic rises up so suddenly within me
crease my brows and purse my lips and I look old
like an origami spider up a chimney
I will fall into the fire if I unfold
wound so tight
wound so tight
because everything else is unraveling
we throw away the things we own
the clothes, the books the telephone
devices we use every day
and statues we cannot display
but like a camel full of water
knowing I'm my Father's daughter
swells my back, makes me look muscular and strong
still I can't carry all this gear
I'm just a snarl of will and fear and hope
suspended from a filament of song
wound so tight
wound so tight
because everything else is unraveling
why do I clutch myself so tight?
it isn't any use
only my hands can reach inside
of me and cut me loose
all blessings wait for me if I
can find the will to choose
to let them in
only my God, my world, my loved ones
truly satisfy
the thirst in me that turning inward
would have drained me dry
I hold to all things but in fact
I do not have to try
only begin
wound so tight
wound so tight
still when everything else is unraveling
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