"I LOVE WRITING" MAIDEN VOYAGE: The International of Bad Poetry and Good Feelings

that's impressively written.

That is nice of you to say.

yesterday I got really blue and sat down and wrote an angry long-ass poem that I think has temporarily cured me of the need to write poetry, like pulling a bad tooth — poem wasn't bad either, I'll post it here in a sec

where I’m at

A patchwork nest of colors
I have built myself down on the floor from
blankets beanbags pillows
papers clothing books guitars
for crawling into on those nights
the mattress grows into a mountain
that is difficult to summit.

My head, kept covered mostly
by one scrap of cloth or other,
can be seen at times to peek out
and regard the window sliver
that I keep the blinds suspended over—
not so much for looking out
as letting lightness enter
and the heavy clouds escape
(and also checking on the weather).
Still, the view is nice enough:
the foreground but a single
forking branch, set off against
the sprays of purple dogwood,
yellow something, birds and
grey uncolored sky;
the wind keeps every limb in motion,
more industrious than I.

But what the trees restore to me
the animals steal back again:
the anguish in the voice of
cats demanding to be fed
can make me miserable, frankly—
I don’t know why, but somehow
they seem qualified to judge me,
in a way that I withhold from others,
so-called friends or former lovers,
therapists and doctors,
even closest family members.
They sing to me of sadness
that we both know I can remedy,
and every second that I tarry
is another strike against me.

But don’t I do the same?
Begrudging people their indifference,
the slowness of their humors
and the deafness of their consciences?
Not that I want to forge a sword
of sadness, and condemn the world;
nor do you owe me anything
who, even for an instant,
pull apart these pages
to decipher what is written.
Life sometimes has been friendly to me;
still there is a tendency
for everything to crumble
in the presence of another.

I remember crouching,
with the light on, underneath a quilt,
and watching how its surface shimmered
like a many-colored aspic,
lime and salmon in suspension,
and my tearful gales of laughing.
(I had tidied up my room
and took a couple hits of acid
from a summer long before
I found forgotten in a folder.)
I went downstairs
to smoke a cigarette
and met my father,
who looked older,
frail and birdlike,
in the glow of his computer.

He spoke to me with words
I could not understand,
and read a story
of a football player
who had died the day before when he
was chasing down a pickup truck
and jumped into the bed, but then
was thrown and landed on his head.

I did not know
what I should say;
but somehow felt
I could relate.

That life must be a hellish thing
I realized early on, and dealt with
more or less alone—
as must, I figured, everyone.
So when I reached my hand out
I had hoped to find more sympathy,
had hoped to find more comfort,
and had hoped to make less enemies.
I hoped the truck would slow down,
and the driver spare a moment;
but it didn’t, so I leapt,
and perhaps I missed the target
and must now stop wasting words
and forever soak in silence.

You are extraordinarily productive!

I will try to make time to read your poem, properly.

But the specific function of libraries is not the only issue. There is also the sense that public places are being taken away; that in withdrawing provision for publicly owned spaces, the state is damaging the social fabric in which we live. I think that’s true.

I have similar feelings re: the current wave of cuts to public education, especially at the university level, which is one of the few things our country actually does well — it just seems absurd to me, in the face of an economic crisis (that is just as much a cultural crisis), to respond by hamstringing the institutions that serve young people who have very little to do with the current mess, but whose education may be a crucial means of avoiding the next one.

xp haha, I've sort of forced myself to be productive lately... basically relying on it to pull me out of a bleak and painful depression. but it hasn't, so fuck it, time for a little break. maybe find a job or something, who knows?

just a bit of fun this, fnarr fnarr:

lol

I have heard it
said before, true
faith comes in
the earhole only.
(In a messy bit
of theological baloney,
this is simultaneously
taken as explanatory
of man’s place before the pastor
and the subtler mechanics
of immaculate conception—
not to mention, the creation.)
Then again, Pascal said Kneel,
and you will understand;
but forgive me if I’m rather eagerer
to try my hand.

been really into The Dream Songs lately, but I eventually had to stop reading because the pain and sadness were overwhelming me... but not before bidding a fond farewell to the unwell man and his book:

last fall poem
(for John Berryman)

you do not sacrifice yourself
in vain, none of us do, a late
september rain shades
imperceptibly
into the autumn

and at bottom, hell fixed on
them frozen from
the first day of creation;

but what paradise there is
is only in the lying waiting

simple love songs

I saw her stood there
long and lonely
as a french horn note

that sounded in some
sentimental symphony,
selling out
the concert halls of life

before an audience
already growing restless
with this prettiness
relentlessly advancing on them

minute after minute;
with the terrible acoustics;
with the insecure conductor,
his flamboyant mannerisms,
and the thoughtless youthful couple
who had brought their screaming child…

in spite of which, she hardly smiled
when asked
“Why don’t we
do it in the aisle?”

I am still writing lots of poems. this one is from a few months ago and I am quite proud of it:

————

people who live in glass houses
are letting them go all to seed,
wisely allowing the ivy
to grow up and over and hopefully
cover them totally
(chimneys excepted)
pruning back only
those vines that entangle the downspouts,
that threaten the gunholes
and air intake vents.

people who live in glass houses
have stopped getting stoned,
but still they grow paranoid, often
the feeling of somebody watching,
of being sealed up in a coffin,
steals on them softly and awfully,
they pause in the kitchen,
stare into the distance,
and stir at their coffee.

people who live in glass houses
jar their own jams, preserves that remain
in a room in the basement—
and from an adjacent hillside,
on a stormy night sometimes,
one sees through the floor,
dramatically lit from behind under thunder,
sprawled out in rows
like an army of pottery soldiers,
the syrupy fruits of their labors.

and people who live in glass houses keep lamps lit
well after transacting their day’s worth of business;
for people who live in glass houses alone
know that sound is to water
as ghost is to window

(not that anyone cares but I've) been woodshedding poetry hard lately — scribbling down lots of ideas + not posting things on my blawg until I've gotten them to a point I'm happy with; find enclosed my most recent effort:

THE NEW LAW

the new law was friendly,
wearing the face and perfume
of an orchard of apples in bloom,
brushing his fingers
inside of your wrist

the new law had a nose, made a noise
like whatever the noise
of your favorite animal is,
its muzzle’s impression,
and sloppily kissed

under the new law, we prospered:
houses, like haikus,
appearing where nothing was,
holding back shadow
and drawing the curtains

playfully, certainly, onward
we picked up the trashcans
and emptied them (inwardly)
setting to work on the cities
we bore as a burden
—still something went missing,
a phone, or a friend, or a word,
a veil dropped between us and meaning—

of course, the taps and blenders
screens and speakers
couches ceilings walls
we still could see,
but saw obscurely,
through a fog and failing light

when language dies, it leaves a vacuum
other tongues rush in to fill;
so that no word is lost for long

(by ‘word’ I mean not meaning
but articulated feeling)

This sustains beautifully right up until it hits a bump in the final two lines. There is probably a way to articulate that last thought that is a bit less jarring within the context of what came before. Otherwise, outstanding poem!

thanks! funny you should mention the ending, which I was also conflicted about—lately, I've been reading Barbara Herrnstein-Smith's wonderful Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End, and trying to approach my own poetry with some of her insights in mind... I agree with you about the jarringness of this particular case, though.

My guess is that you just need to let the idea simmer a bit longer; try out several or a dozen new verbal approaches to it; daydream on it. The nubbin of an image will come along that buttons it up nice and tight for you. Patience will be rewarded.