(for Doug Steward)
I guess you're in your airplane now, having chosen a ritual leather helmet and a bearskin rug for ceremonial reverb. You crash you in the steppes and your hooded tribespeople rush out in fur days later to retrieve you. Sometimes it is minutes and sometimes it is days. I don't want to rush you, but I blow gently from far away, a near stranger's pursed lips, and all your friends blowing red candles into flame in imaginary chapels everywhere. We float you and you heal you. It's all you. Your voice telling me things in my kitchen, conversational, before I remember. You've wandered out beyond us, your brother's rib a thread tied to your rib. We'll see you when you're back. No one is alone.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Weekend Top Ten
1. Twelve-hour "nap." (Is it morning or night?)
2. Japanese food.
3. Robert Thurman talk.
4. Staying in the gaze.
5. Kind words from friends about poems.
6. A friend who can respond to his name! and talk! A friend who can walk up stairs!
7. Brooklyn walk. Skeletons and stuff.
8. When my brother thinks something's really funny, his laugh sounds just like it did when he was five.
9. Getting reading done on the subway.
10. Shark week. Costumes optional.
2. Japanese food.
3. Robert Thurman talk.
4. Staying in the gaze.
5. Kind words from friends about poems.
6. A friend who can respond to his name! and talk! A friend who can walk up stairs!
7. Brooklyn walk. Skeletons and stuff.
8. When my brother thinks something's really funny, his laugh sounds just like it did when he was five.
9. Getting reading done on the subway.
10. Shark week. Costumes optional.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Babylon
Some days I wake up blessed but go to sleep
far from grace. Other days, the opposite.
The crazy guy in the courtyard doing his crazy
laugh. What’s that about? Babylon.
There’s so much I don’t know.
I don’t sit on my fire escape. I like a nice bench
now and again. A view of the water. Where
is my life. By the rivers of Babylon
the US military lay down camp Alpha
rolling over everything.
What have I learned or forgotten?
Doing what I can for the people.
If I knew the words for music,
I would make some.
far from grace. Other days, the opposite.
The crazy guy in the courtyard doing his crazy
laugh. What’s that about? Babylon.
There’s so much I don’t know.
I don’t sit on my fire escape. I like a nice bench
now and again. A view of the water. Where
is my life. By the rivers of Babylon
the US military lay down camp Alpha
rolling over everything.
What have I learned or forgotten?
Doing what I can for the people.
If I knew the words for music,
I would make some.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Nancy Spero
("The Bomb." Image from artcritical.com)
This is from her NY Times obituary:
Kiki Smith, one of the many younger artists influenced by Ms. Spero, once said in an interview: “When I first saw Nancy Spero’s work, I thought, ‘You are going to get killed making things like that; it’s too vulnerable. You’ll just be dismissed immediately.’ ”
---
Good journey, Nancy.
