The poem I posted here a few days ago about theremins has made its way in the world…
wait
it’s too easy to talk about feeling cold and alone
this early in the morning.
right now, for instance,
i am both cold and alone,
but since it’s 20 something outside
and this bedroom is unheated
and the alone part — well,
let’s put that aside for the moment;
since those things are true
it would be difficult for me not to be
cold
and alone.
there are times
when you just have to be
the way you are. there are times
when the way you are
is perfect. it’s not as if the night
could switch to day at your whim,
or the body you crave could be yours
for the asking.
it’s not as if lighting a fire
can solve everything. there are times
when all it does
is burn everything down.
still, scorched earth
can become
fertile ground
if you are willing to wait a bit.
so, it’s cold again. it’s night again.
i am alone again. the matches
still sit on the bedside table, and what happens next
will be perfect, no matter what that is.
spooky, huh? huh?
“Conversely, where the afterlife of the dead receives new life, the earth as a whole receives a new blessing.”
— Robert Pogue Harrison, “The Dominion of the Dead”
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
It was on my bedside table, I swear. A fascinating book on how the legacies of those who went before us shape (and honestly, control) our worldview, our actions, our lives. Author’s contention: “culture” is for the most part an attempt to live up to the expectations of the dead, and to create in the next generation a desire to do the same for us when we’re gone. That’s a huge oversimplification of a lot of it, but it gets the idea across.
In other meme news, I won’t be doing the year in review meme. I can tell already how this year is going to look to me when i look back on it.
theremins
my neighbor builds theremins in his basement.
he is convinced
that god planted the idea for the theremin
in its inventor’s head
to ensure that someday
we would all find it easier to believe in aliens.
he almost has me convinced as well.
tony, he says, i’m glad you’re here.
the world is a darker place
without good neighbors. that frost, he
got it all wrong. no fences, no boundaries,
forget all that long history of division.
i don’t believe in division either, i tell him.
we get along well, my neighbor and i.
he builds and plays and i listen. oh, and he flies too;
i see him flying over our houses sometimes
and i am surprised i can’t hear any music then,
he moves so gracefully. but i don’t think anybody hears any music.
in fact, i’m not sure anyone else sees him flying.
of course, i’m sure they don’t see me when i fly.
one day, i have a moment of clarity.
if there are aliens, i tell him,
we might never know them. they might
be among us now. and they might not know themselves
until a theremin started to whistle.
now you’re catching on, he says.
poem from a dallas hotel room
it’s my right
to hang on to everything about tonight
especially that dumbass hat you wore to dinner
after steak and weightless talk
we eventually got down to
the way we ought to recall each other
i did not expect that denim
would be so easy to tear
and the way you messed around with my back
made me grin like a fat frog
in a warm swamp — all wet and
croaking with the love
only a thin skin can believe in
and if you even try to pretend i’ll be forgetting this soon
cowgirl you’ve got another
ranch to buy
another farm to subdivide
another man to spoil
i spotted a bumper sticker on the way home
that said “save a horse
ride a cowboy”
for miles and miles I didn’t see
a horse or a cowboy anywhere
until i pulled off the road
and thought about the way your hair
whipped back when you flipped your head back
off of me
and i whistled the good the bad and the ugly theme
lit a cigarette
squinted into the night wind
yeehaw, dallas
i am staying at the incredibly understated and tasteful Gaylord Texan resort.
i am getting a headache from the exuberance.
thank you to all
who are making comments on my personal drama right now.
I really appreciate it. I’ll keep you posted…
(I’m doing this rather than individual responses, by the way…)
love ya.
the first thing i see
the idea that you
will be the last one for me
shakes me.
it is not necessarily
a bad shaking. more like the shiver
they say you feel
when someone walks over your grave.
that’s not a bad thing. it just
is. it’s part of a supernatural
underground life i lead — while
the daily things are happening
as they always do,
the existence
i never understood
is ending.
i wonder sometimes if you know
that you’ve led me to feel
my own mortality in a glance from you,
your dear face a memento mori
reminding me not to waste time.
there is loveliness in knowing
i am doomed. I know from looking at you
that love is as much a resignation
as it is a struggle.
i’m walking toward you now,
over the ground that promises to swallow us.
no matter; forever is a dark and fertile place.
thank you, providence
and Jessica D for a great time and a great feature set…
nice joint ya got there.
And remember…
if you’re near Providence tonight, come see the fantabulous Jessica Dalzell (psyches_task) and me featuring at the Spoken Word at the Brooklyn Tea and Coffee House, 215 Douglas Avenue, sometime between 7 and 9.
We both have colds so we’ll sound all rumbly and shit. Think Leonard Cohen and Marianne Faithfull.
First trip back to the old neighborhood in years (I used to live at 75 Douglas). Have no clue — is it still the same enchanted land of shooting galleries and hookers it used to be? (This was in the heady days before Crack and AIDS…ah, how innocent it all seems now…)
Anyway, git yer butt on down and repreZENT.
From the “imagine that” department
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174917,00.html
I wonder who they’re gonna get to forge their parents’ signatures on their report cards?
Dark Matter 