I was looking at all my mutant chin hair and I must have scratched a spot and unleashed a hidden 1 1/2" strand of darkness. Nature is cruel. I held it up for inspection. Mom seemed surprised it was black. I was not. But I do have fabulous eybrows. And awesome hair and yet still. There's something insulting about hair growing that long on my face. All of the tweezing, brooding and pore inspecting btw episodes of xfiles and house. What does it lead to but noting plaque build up and grey hairs and yet I find it a meditation btw watching alien conspiracy theories and diagnostic medicine, the truth being out there and all the silly stories that life and imagination compels. Its better than wandering into the moonlight and beseeching God to bring me a husband.
It's been an odd four days. That mysterious illness brought on by an unholy and toxic mix of an el torito sample platter, tequila, wine and salami, reesepieces mnms. Finding myself on a beach for an hour with scallop shells and a barking seal i couldn't see, that was this morning. Tomorrow is the opera Tamerlano. I have no idea what it's about. I had that poetry meeting with glass breaking, shit exclaimed and pablo neruda and anne sexton- favorite phrases: 'i was stamped out like a plymouth fender' and from david ray 'as not too heavy a tug of those albatrosses i sadly placed on their tender necks', the visit to MOCA, the broken glass on the floor, the room of rothkos and thorne reaching up to Giacametti's tall composed women, like she'd identified the origin of man, then there was the thai food and the houses for sale and the friends moving and giving birth and going to school. But I've said all of that before.
So I'm going to go eat some nut-thins and think about straightening the books on the very top shelves.
It's been an odd four days. That mysterious illness brought on by an unholy and toxic mix of an el torito sample platter, tequila, wine and salami, reesepieces mnms. Finding myself on a beach for an hour with scallop shells and a barking seal i couldn't see, that was this morning. Tomorrow is the opera Tamerlano. I have no idea what it's about. I had that poetry meeting with glass breaking, shit exclaimed and pablo neruda and anne sexton- favorite phrases: 'i was stamped out like a plymouth fender' and from david ray 'as not too heavy a tug of those albatrosses i sadly placed on their tender necks', the visit to MOCA, the broken glass on the floor, the room of rothkos and thorne reaching up to Giacametti's tall composed women, like she'd identified the origin of man, then there was the thai food and the houses for sale and the friends moving and giving birth and going to school. But I've said all of that before.
So I'm going to go eat some nut-thins and think about straightening the books on the very top shelves.
ROWING, anne sexton
A story, a story!
(Let it go. Let it come.)
I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender
into this world.
First came the crib
with its glacial bars.
Then dolls
and the devotion to their plastic mouths.
Then there was school,
the little straight rows of chairs,
blotting my name over and over,
but undersea all the time,
a stranger whose elbows wouldn't work.
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched-
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat insdie me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.
As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.
A story, a story!
(Let it go. Let it come.)
I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender
into this world.
First came the crib
with its glacial bars.
Then dolls
and the devotion to their plastic mouths.
Then there was school,
the little straight rows of chairs,
blotting my name over and over,
but undersea all the time,
a stranger whose elbows wouldn't work.
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched-
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat insdie me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.
As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.
1 comment:
Pretty sweet poem. Wicked, cruel chin hair.
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