March 2012
31 posts
February 2012
38 posts
“Given the circumstances, who wouldn’t
talk to the birds—they can fly, we can’t.
I fancy starting out flirtatiously as with
this predawn phoebe: “Hello, darkling,
where’ve you been all my life?” Sure,
when we say the world we’re merely hedging
guesses but I’ll take a stab this morning,
I’ll buzz in: I recall one glorious fall hunt
when I stumbled for the scantest of moments
into a response to Blind Willie Johnson’s
earnest query “What is the soul of a man?”
before the pheasant of an answer flushed
properly into a windy horizon. When young
I drew a picture of an orange and purple
monster which my mother captioned with
what must have been my words—“This is
Chee-Chee, he’s a spider ranger, he steals
souls”—long before I was told they didn’t
exist (monsters, souls). But I’ve witnessed
the monster I can be drawn by my own
young son, cobalt blue with yellow eyes
labeled by his pre-school teacher “a scary
person who isn’t really a person,” so I think
I’ll keep my soul this morning, a consolation
prize, fledgling my mother once nourished
with a pot of stove-warmed water carried
to a tepid bath, hence my first thought
while looking out the early window:
the moon as a pot of stove-warmed water
your mother carried to your tepid bath, hence
my conclusion that perhaps good John Keats
was wrong, that the world isn’t the vale
of soul-making so much as it is the river
running through the vale in which souls
can drown. I knew I was flailing when
yesterday a sparrow landed next to me
in the grocery store parking lot and I
had nothing to say to it, whereas when
my son ate boot-slush off the doormat
I yelled at him, sent him without a bath
to bed though he shook from the gouts of ice
that slid melting down his gullet. Since when
had I become a wiggler unworthy of a bait-hook
squirming on the shanty floor, I wondered, my negative
capability increasing through the night until the boy
woke crying, the woodstove fire dead.” —Chris Dombrowski, Poem with Several Unforgivable Keatsian References, Poem Burning Up in the Fire I Lit to Warm My Son, or Do as I Say Not as I Do (via grammatolatry)
talk to the birds—they can fly, we can’t.
I fancy starting out flirtatiously as with
this predawn phoebe: “Hello, darkling,
where’ve you been all my life?” Sure,
when we say the world we’re merely hedging
guesses but I’ll take a stab this morning,
I’ll buzz in: I recall one glorious fall hunt
when I stumbled for the scantest of moments
into a response to Blind Willie Johnson’s
earnest query “What is the soul of a man?”
before the pheasant of an answer flushed
properly into a windy horizon. When young
I drew a picture of an orange and purple
monster which my mother captioned with
what must have been my words—“This is
Chee-Chee, he’s a spider ranger, he steals
souls”—long before I was told they didn’t
exist (monsters, souls). But I’ve witnessed
the monster I can be drawn by my own
young son, cobalt blue with yellow eyes
labeled by his pre-school teacher “a scary
person who isn’t really a person,” so I think
I’ll keep my soul this morning, a consolation
prize, fledgling my mother once nourished
with a pot of stove-warmed water carried
to a tepid bath, hence my first thought
while looking out the early window:
the moon as a pot of stove-warmed water
your mother carried to your tepid bath, hence
my conclusion that perhaps good John Keats
was wrong, that the world isn’t the vale
of soul-making so much as it is the river
running through the vale in which souls
can drown. I knew I was flailing when
yesterday a sparrow landed next to me
in the grocery store parking lot and I
had nothing to say to it, whereas when
my son ate boot-slush off the doormat
I yelled at him, sent him without a bath
to bed though he shook from the gouts of ice
that slid melting down his gullet. Since when
had I become a wiggler unworthy of a bait-hook
squirming on the shanty floor, I wondered, my negative
capability increasing through the night until the boy
woke crying, the woodstove fire dead.” —Chris Dombrowski, Poem with Several Unforgivable Keatsian References, Poem Burning Up in the Fire I Lit to Warm My Son, or Do as I Say Not as I Do (via grammatolatry)
“My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity in case I’m mistaken.
Don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you for my own.
May the dead forgive me that their memory’s but a flicker.
My apologies to time for the quantity of world overlooked per second.
My apologies to an old love for treating a new one as the first.
Forgive me, far-off wars, for carrying my flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the abyss.
My apologies to those in train stations for sleeping soundly at five in the morning.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing sometimes.
Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing in with a spoonful of water.
And you, O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage,
staring, motionless, always at the same spot,
absolve me even if you happen to be stuffed.
My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs.
My apologies to large questions for small answers.
Truth, do not pay me too much attention.
Solemnity, be magnanimous toward me.
Bear with me, O mystery of being, for pulling threads from your veil.
Soul, don’t blame me that I’ve got you so seldom.
My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere.
My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me,
since I am my own obstacle.
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and then labor to make them light.” —Wislawa Szymborska, Under a Certain Little Star (via yesyes)
My apologies to necessity in case I’m mistaken.
Don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you for my own.
May the dead forgive me that their memory’s but a flicker.
My apologies to time for the quantity of world overlooked per second.
My apologies to an old love for treating a new one as the first.
Forgive me, far-off wars, for carrying my flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the abyss.
My apologies to those in train stations for sleeping soundly at five in the morning.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing sometimes.
Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing in with a spoonful of water.
And you, O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage,
staring, motionless, always at the same spot,
absolve me even if you happen to be stuffed.
My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs.
My apologies to large questions for small answers.
Truth, do not pay me too much attention.
Solemnity, be magnanimous toward me.
Bear with me, O mystery of being, for pulling threads from your veil.
Soul, don’t blame me that I’ve got you so seldom.
My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere.
My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me,
since I am my own obstacle.
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and then labor to make them light.” —Wislawa Szymborska, Under a Certain Little Star (via yesyes)
