Sandwiched

We picked up a sandwich
at a station a thousand miles from home
--no matter where that may be.
The hills spread, yellow and thin,
underneath our anger.
And just where the plains ended
a new pain began,
of sun, white, and winding stone.

At the top I found you
scoping the world with an ache
I never saw for me.
I looked towards your glance,
the looming towers and dusty grass,
sandwiched between your life
and another you'd rather live,
between the sky
and always somewhere else.

I wasn't panting then,
running after you in every foreign tongue
we didn't speak.
I traced your gaze
like I could never the nape of your neck:
it ended in the shadow of a bell tower,
and began somewhere
far far from me.

Baltic Song

Even though I put on my rare Gaultier
I could still smell the inside of my mouth
coagulate.

I finally figured out why I write about myself;
because there is nobody.
I finally figured out why I stopped writing.

He looks at the cobblestone and says,
I’ve had enough of this,
enough of the brown brick
bouncing in the sheen of the sidewalk,
enough of the bite of winter on windy streets;
I was born where the sun has enough shame
to drop by.

But I have lost my home;
have you seen my shoes?
There on the Baltic it stayed,
but I left.
Now it isn’t anymore.
The streets look like yesterday
did when it was today,
except it is neither anymore.
Now they just look vacant
like eyes on a Friday night
when they’re too tired to sleep.

My mom used to be tall and fresh, he said,
a vision in short hair and a smile.
(But she was always Catholic.)
And then I lost my hair
and something changed in her brow.

My mother said, I’ll tell you a secret
all mothers know:
I still see you as a child
stubborn, with supple hair.
So how is it I can see the grey in yours,
even under the dye?

This smell lasts forever;
that’s why I bought it in the first place.
But it is weighing on me
like a youth that has grown
a buckle too small.
Maybe one day I’ll give it up,
maybe one day I’ll find another.
But for now I’ve got quite a bit
in the bottle left.

The Mountain

It’s my turn
to rise to the mountain
but the mountain keeps rising
ahead of me.


I keep looking at the valleys
spread thin below my feet,
villages scattered in the groins of the earth.

Mountains are barren, I say,
and looking up always makes me squint.

I don’t like breathing clouds,
and I grew up imploring in song
to be rescued from the fog.


I’ve been up other mountains before
and each I descended
with my pride trailing my feet.

I collect peaks for a living,
but the peaks keep moving on.

Down in the valley
I am sheltered from the wind,
I can pretend my hair is supple still.

But up there…

I fear the heights,
the thin air is so forbidding;
and no tiny bud can make it worth my while.


Down there I will live
where the rivers are near
and the sky is far

and I can hear
the bowels of the earth

churn.

Written Out

I thought I’d written myself out
thought I’d written myself out of words
written myself out of melancholy
myself out of friends.
And I had.

Now here is a poem about nothing.

A poem about my father cutting
his intestine out, and my sister
stapling her stomach and sucking
her thighs and hips off.

Here is a poem about my mother’s voice
getting older over the phone,
and gifts forgetting their address
and getting lost in the mail.

A poem about another couple of friends
who are no longer, as of last Sunday;
and another who stopped being
a few months before.

Here is a poem about days slipping
under the couch, and nights
not even good for sleeping;
a poem about not writing poems.

A poem about a few years
not worth writing about
or even remembering;
here’s a poem about not writing.

Here is even a poem
about not even writing to you,
because it would take words to do so,
and I am all out of them.

I have
written
myself
out.

Playing favorites

Katy and I decided to write down our lists of 3 favorite poems & 3 favorite poets as part of our correspondence on Poetship. I, however, couldn't narrow down my list of poems to three, so below are my favorite four; to read more about them check out the post on Poetship. (And of course, I had to add "runner-ups" to my list of poets...) And please let us know what you think; who/what would be on your lists?

In order not to live alone (Pour ne pas vivre seul)

In order not to live alone
One lives with a dog,
One lives with roses,
Or with a cross.
In order not to live alone
One makes cinema,
One loves a souvenir,
A shadow, anything...
In order not to live alone
One lives for the spring
And when the spring dies
For the following spring.
In order not to live alone
I love you and I await you
To have the illusion
That I’m not living alone...

In order not to live alone
Girls love girls
And we see boys
Marrying boys.
In order not to live alone
Others have children,
Children who are alone
Like all the children.
In order not to live alone
We make cathedrals
Where all those who are alone
Pray to a star.
In order not to live alone
I love you and I await you
To have the illusion
That I’m not living alone...
In order not to live alone
One makes friends
And they get together
When the evenings of trouble arrive.
One lives for his money
His dreams, his palaces
But we never make
A coffin for two...
In order not to live alone
Me, I live with you
I am alone with you
You are alone with me.
In order not to live alone
We live as those who want
To give the illusion
That they’re not living alone.

(S. Balasko - D. Faure - Medail) - 1972

With time (Avec le temps)

With time,
With time goes, everything goes its way...
One forgets the face, and one forgets the voice.
The heart, when it doesn’t beat anymore,
Is not worth going to seek any further;
Just let it be, it’s all well...

With time,
With time goes, everything goes its way...
The other whom one adored, whom one sought under the rain,
The other whom one recognized with the turn of a glance,
Amongst the lines, amongst the words, and under the guise
Of a made-up oath on its way to make its night...
With time, everything fades.

With time,
With time goes, everything goes its way...
Even the dearest of memories have their own frowns.
In the gallery I search amongst the rays of death
For the Saturday evening when tenderness went all by itself...

With time,
With time goes, everything goes its way...
The other in whom one believed--for a cold, for nothing--
The other to whom one gave breath and jewels,
For whom one had sold their heart for some meager change,
In front of whom one trailed as dogs do...
With time, all goes well.

With time,
With time goes, everything goes its way...
One forgets the passions, and one forgets the voices
That told you softly the words of poor folk,
“Don’t be too late, but above all, don’t catch a cold.”

With time,
With time goes, everything goes its way...
One feels bleached like a drained horse,
And one feels frozen in a bed of chance,
And one feels all alone, perhaps, but it’s alright;
One feels flogged by the lost years...
But really,
With time, one loves no more.

-Leo Férré

Never mess with Germans on visa issues

I invite you to check out my brother's zine/graphic novella titled Never mess with Germans on visa issues that he wrote/drew during his 24 hour detention at the airport in Germany about his experience.

Last Drop Reading

Here are a couple of pictures from Friday's reading, and a link to the event's review in Philly Future:
http://www.phillyfuture.org/node/2676

(with Jaz, left, and Autumn, seated)

And here's what was on the menu:

• Absence Materialized
• Antequerra
• Home
• Galileo
• Stardust
• Circles
• I'll be (Nothing)
• After Her
• Generations
• You Lie
• Unsinkable
• Comfortably Numb
• Nothing
• Ten Years
• In Two Weeks
• When You're Gone
• Perduto
• Puki Says

the Word Verification contest

My dear friend Katy has launched a very interesting, witty and challenging contest: to use the "words (or randomly generated combinations of letters) from the word verification feature on Blogger" listed on her blog in a poem. So, check it out, and good luck if you dare!

Strawberry

By the end of the night
they fused in my desire.

After I'd folded the laundry
and wilted the night into my sleep,
I pulled them out from under my pillow.
But their faces had melted
into one curly shock of pubic hair
and glasses,
my strawberry blond rhapsody.

After Her

(To Jon)
 
He sleeps by himself,
eating his brain into numbness
like an argument.

He pretends not to think,
not of that, not of her,
not of the age they promised,
they just put behind.

Not of the time,
the cruel time,
the cheap time.

He raises the volume a bit higher,
he stacks the books one more
over his lungs.

He acts as if he can’t see her
wide pentagonal face gleaming in the dark,
mocking the corners of his sleep.

He forgets her name, one more time,
he writes on the back of a receipt
that’ll go nowhere.

She won’t, in her weakness,
reel him again.
She won’t spread her mighty thighs
and tell him his future lies in between.

She will melt back into the sidewalk
where he first met her,
and he will crumble into the edges of the day
and feign starting again.

Tell Me

To Wojtek

You call:
______ "I am tired,
______ ______ am tired,
______ ______ ______ am tired."
I cradle the phone
______ ______ like it were our unborn.

What shall I tell you?

That the road will swerve
______ ______ ______ wide and green
______ ______ ______ ______ up ahead?
That the sky will open
______ ______ just above our heads?
That spring is coming--
______ ______ Well, you know it is;
you just can't see it.

So, here it is,
______ listen in.

Up ahead,
______ trees will carry money,
and flowers will smell
______ ______ of paid bills.
Up ahead,
______ I see you in a hammock
I see a breeze
______ taking you in.
Up ahead,
______ birds aflutter,
and croon
______ your mix discs.

Up,
______ where the beach is your backyard
And your walls are awash in
______ ______ stone and white and
______ ______ ______ ivy on a screen;
the lawn is whatever you paint it,
______ ______ and the country can change
______ ______ ______ with your whim.
Up,
______ where there are no passports,
And the world can care less
______ about the color of my tongue,
downpayment is no issue,
______ but the choice is always a treat.
Up,
______ where you change jobs
______ ______ ______ like shoes,
______ and harvest shoes
______ ______ ______ like figs,
Up,
______ where it snows
______ ______ ______ only on Christmas
______ and the summers
______ ______ ______ are long and thin,
Up,
______ where we are gorgeous
______ ______ ______ and happy and fulfilled,
Up there,
______ I shall tell you,
______ ______ ______ of course,
Up there
______ 's where we shall be.