summary refs log tree commit diff stats
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorCase Duckworth2015-01-28 22:22:15 -0700
committerCase Duckworth2015-01-28 22:22:15 -0700
commitcbd5199529209059be3bde0d6572a1ba192b84d3 (patch)
tree9be2bc424c6e471a13ca09678fce77075d1b63fe
parentRevert "Include Elegies; template; pandoc compile" (diff)
downloadautocento-cbd5199529209059be3bde0d6572a1ba192b84d3.tar.gz
autocento-cbd5199529209059be3bde0d6572a1ba192b84d3.zip
Add Elegies; template; pandoc compile script
-rw-r--r--09-and.txt28
-rw-r--r--11-apollo11.txt29
-rw-r--r--12-arspoetica.txt38
-rw-r--r--13-theoceanoverflowswithcamels.txt25
-rw-r--r--14-boar.txt24
-rw-r--r--15-deadman.txt22
-rw-r--r--16-angeltoabraham.txt25
-rw-r--r--17-feedingtheraven.txt34
-rw-r--r--20-onformalpoetry.txt22
-rw-r--r--22-i-am.txt23
-rw-r--r--23-howithappened.txt21
-rw-r--r--25-lovesong.txt27
-rw-r--r--26-roughgloves.txt19
-rw-r--r--27-ronaldmcdonald.txt35
-rw-r--r--29-moongone.txt16
-rw-r--r--3-howtoread.txt148
-rw-r--r--32-mountain.txt26
-rw-r--r--33-serengeti.txt19
-rw-r--r--34-shipwright.txt23
-rw-r--r--35-spittle.txt16
-rw-r--r--36-squirrel.txt21
-rw-r--r--38-swansong.txt20
-rw-r--r--39-telemarketer.txt73
-rw-r--r--41-weplayedthosegamestoo.txt26
-rw-r--r--42-todaniel.txt22
-rw-r--r--44-deathstrumpet.txt32
-rw-r--r--99-elegyforanalternateself.txt22
-rw-r--r--99-statements-frag.txt68
-rw-r--r--99-swansong-alt.txt27
-rw-r--r--_template.html40
-rw-r--r--compile.sh10
31 files changed, 981 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/09-and.txt b/09-and.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09e82ca --- /dev/null +++ b/09-and.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
1---
2title: 'And'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4epigraph: |
5"What is your favorite word?"
6"And. It is so hopeful."
7...
8
9And you were there in the start of it all \
10and you folded your hands like little doves \
11that would fly away like an afterthought \
12and you turned to me the window light on your face \
13and you asked me something that I did not recognize \
14like a great throng of people who are not you \
15and I asked are we in a church \
16and you answered with the look on your face \
17of someone grieving something gone for years \
18 but that they had been reminded of \
19by a catch in the light or in someone's voice \
20and I think maybe it could have been mine \
21and I looked away thickly my head was in jelly \
22and I didn't get an answer from you but I got one
23
24I looked at the man in front of us with glasses \
25he was speaking and holding a book \
26and I didn't understand him he was far away \
27and I could tell I was missing something important \
28and you nodded to yourself at something he said
diff --git a/11-apollo11.txt b/11-apollo11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07e9884 --- /dev/null +++ b/11-apollo11.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
1---
2title: 'On seeing the panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6So it's the fucking moon. Big deal. As if \
7you haven't seen it before, hanging in the sky \
8like a piece of rotten meat nailed to the wall,
9
10a maudlin love letter (the i's dotted with hearts) \
11tacked to the sky's door like ninety-eight theses. \
12Don't stare at it like it means anything.
13
14Don't give it the chance to collect meaning \
15from your hand like an old pigeon. Don't dare ascribe \
16it a will, or call it fickle, or think it has any say
17
18in your affairs. It's separated from your life \
19by three hundred eighty-four thousand miles of space, \
20the same distance you stepped away from time that night
21
22you said your love was broken, a crippled gyroscope \
23knocking in the dark. It was then that time fell apart, \
24had a nervous breakdown and started following you
25
26everywhere, moonfaced, always asking where you're going. \
27You keep trying to get away from it but it nuzzles closer \
28and sings you songs that sound like the cooing of a dove \
29that will only escape again into an empty sky at dawn.
diff --git a/12-arspoetica.txt b/12-arspoetica.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..382378e --- /dev/null +++ b/12-arspoetica.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
1---
2title: 'Ars poetica'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6What is poetry? Poetry is. Inasmuch as life is, so is poetry. Here is
7the problem: life is very big and complex. Human beings are neither. We
8are small, simple beings that don’t want to know all of the myriad
9interactions happening all around us, within us, as a part of us, all
10the hours of every day. We much prefer knowing only that which is just
11in front of our faces, staring us back with a look of utter contempt.
12This is why many people are depressed.
13
14Poetry is an attempt made by some to open up our field of view, to maybe
15check on something else that isn’t staring us in the face so
16contemptibly. Maybe something else is smiling at us, we think. So we
17write poetry to force ourselves to look away from the mirror of our
18existence to see something else.
19
20This is generally painful. To make it less painful, poetry compresses
21reality a lot to make it more consumable. It takes life, that seawater,
22and boils it down and boils it down until only the salt remains, the
23important parts that we can focus on and make some sense of the
24senselessness of life. Poetry is life bouillon, and to thoroughly enjoy
25a poem we must put that bouillon back into the seawater of life and make
26a delicious soup out of it. To make this soup, to decompress the poem
27into an emotion or life, requires a lot of brainpower. A good reader
28will have this brainpower. A good poem will not require it.
29
30What this means is: a poem should be self-extracting. It should be a
31rare vanilla in the bottle, waiting only for someone to open it and
32sniff it and suddenly there they are, in the orchid that vanilla came
33from, in the tropical land where it grew next to its brothers and sister
34vanilla plants. They feel the pain of having their children taken from
35them. A good poem leaves a feeling of loss and of intense beauty. The
36reader does nothing to achieve this—they are merely the receptacle of
37the feeling that the poem forces onto them. In a way, poetry is a crime.
38But it is the most beautiful crime on this crime-ridden earth.
diff --git a/13-theoceanoverflowswithcamels.txt b/13-theoceanoverflowswithcamels.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..659fe7d --- /dev/null +++ b/13-theoceanoverflowswithcamels.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
1---
2title: 'The ocean overflows with camels'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6We found your shirt deep in the dark water, \
7caught on the clothesline of sleeping pills. \
8Your head on the shore was streaming tears \
9like sleeves or the coronas of saints saved \
10from fire. The burning bush began crying \
11like a child who misses his mother. Traffic \
12slammed shut like an eye. God's mean left hook \
13knocked us out, and we began swimming. \
14Bruises bloomed like algae on a lake. \
15Your father beat your chest and screamed \
16for someone to open a window. The air \
17stopped breathing. Fish clogged its gills. \
18Birds sang too loudly, trying to drown out \
19your father's cries, but all their sweetness \
20was not enough. No polite noises will be made \
21anymore, he told us, clawing your breastbone. \
22He opened your heart to air again. Camels \
23flowed from you both like water from the rock. \
24God spoke up, but nobody listened to him. \
25We hung you up on the line to dry.
diff --git a/14-boar.txt b/14-boar.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5ac468 --- /dev/null +++ b/14-boar.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
1---
2title: 'The Boar'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6Now the ticking clocks scare me. \
7The empty rooms, clock towers, belfries; \
8I am terrified by them all.
9
10I really used to enjoy going to church, \
11singing in the choir, listening to the sermon. \
12Now the chairs squeal like dying pigs---
13
14It was the boar that did it. \
15Fifteen feet from me that night \
16in the grass, rooting for God \
17knows what, finding me instead.
18
19I ran, not knowing where or how, \
20not looking for his pursuit of me. \
21I ran to God's front door, found \
22it locked, found the house empty
23
24with a note saying, "Condemned."
diff --git a/15-deadman.txt b/15-deadman.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ced8ed0 --- /dev/null +++ b/15-deadman.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
1---
2title: 'Dead man'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6A dead man finds his way into our hearts \
7simply by opening the door and walking in. \
8He pours himself a drink, speaks aimlessly \
9about hunting or some bats he saw \
10on the way over, wheeling around each other. \
11Look how they spin, he says, it's like the \
12ripples atoms make as they hurl past each other \
13in the space between their bodies. \
14We mention the eels at the aquarium, how \
15their bodies knot while mating. The dead man \
16was a boyscout once, and tied a lot of knots. \
17His favorite was the one with the rabbit \
18and the hole, and the rabbit going in and out \
19and around the tree. The dead man liked it \
20because he liked to pretend that the rabbit \
21was running from a fox, and the rabbit \
22always ended up safe, back in his hole.
diff --git a/16-angeltoabraham.txt b/16-angeltoabraham.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cce80e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/16-angeltoabraham.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
1---
2title: 'The angel to Abraham'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6Abraham, Abraham, you are old and cannot hear: \
7what if you miss my small voice amongst the creaking \
8of your own grief, kill your son unknowing \
9of what he will be, and commit Israel to nothing?
10
11Abraham, you must know or hope that God \
12will not allow your son to die; you must know \
13that this is a test, but then why \
14are you so bent on Isaac's destruction? \
15Look at your eyes; there is more than fear \
16there. I see in your eyes desperation, \
17a manic passion to do right by your God \
18whom you are not able to see or know.
19
20Am I too late? I will try to stay \
21your old hands, the knife clenched \
22within them, intent on ending life.
23
24Will you hear my small voice amongst the creaking, \
25or will it be the chance bleating of a passing ram?
diff --git a/17-feedingtheraven.txt b/17-feedingtheraven.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9a2b8f --- /dev/null +++ b/17-feedingtheraven.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
1---
2title: 'Feeding the raven'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6You never can tell just when Charlie Sheen will enter your life. For me,
7it was last Thursday. I was reading some translation of a Japanese
8translation of "The Raven" in which the Poe and the raven become
9friends. At one point the raven gets very sick and Poe feeds him at his
10bedside and nurses him back to health. The story was very heartwarming
11and sad at the same time and my tears were welling up when suddenly I
12heard a knock on my door.
13
14I shuffled over, sniffling but managing to keep my cheeks dry to open
15it. Of course Charlie was beaming on the other side, with a bag of
16flowers and a grin like a dog's. He bounded in the room without saying
17hello and threw the flowers in the sink, opened the refrigerator and
18started poking around. I said "It's nice to see you too" and went to my
19room to get a camera, as well as a notebook for him to sign.
20
21When I came back he was on the floor, hunched and groaning. I looked on
22the table to see a month-old half-gallon of milk---now cottage
23cheese---half-empty and dripping. The remnants were on his mouth, and at
24once I saw my chance to become Poe in this translation of a translation
25of a translation. I knelt next to Charlie, cradled his head in my lap.
26He looked up at me with a stare full of terror. I returned it levelly,
27making cooing noises at him until he calmed down.
28
29When he was calm he excused himself to be sick on my toilet. He wouldn't
30let me follow but said he would sign whatever I liked when he got back.
31After half an hour passed and all I'd had for company was the ticking of
32the clock, I went to the bathroom door. I knocked carefully---once, then
33twice---to no beaming face, no flowers. I opened the door. There was shit
34on the floor and the window was open. There was a breeze blowing.
diff --git a/20-onformalpoetry.txt b/20-onformalpoetry.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..746105d --- /dev/null +++ b/20-onformalpoetry.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
1---
2title: 'On formal poetry'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6I think that I could write formal poems \
7exclusively, or at least inclusive \
8with all the other stuff I write \
9I guess. Of course, I've already written \
10a few, this one included, though "formal" \
11is maybe a stretch. Is blank verse a form? \
12What is form anyway? I picture old \
13women counting stitches on their knitting, \
14keeping iambs next to iambs in lines \
15as straight and sure as arrows. But my sock \
16is lumpy, poorly made: it's beginning \
17to unravel. Stresses don't line up. Syl- \
18lables forced to fit like McNugget molds. \
19That cliché on the arrow? I'm aware. \
20My prepositions too---God, where's it stop? \
21The answer: never. I will never stop \
22writing poems, or hating what I write.
diff --git a/22-i-am.txt b/22-i-am.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da36507 --- /dev/null +++ b/22-i-am.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
1---
2title: 'I am'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6I am a great pillar of white smoke. \
7I am Lot's nameless wife encased in salt. \
8I am the wound on Christ's back as he moans \
9with the pounding of a hammer on his wrist. \
10I am the nail that holds my house together. \
11It is a strong house, built on a good foundation. \
12In the winter, it is warm and crawling things \
13cannot get in. This house will never burn down. \
14It is the house that I built, with my body \
15and with my strength. I am the only one who lives \
16here. I am both father and mother to a race \
17of dust motes that worship me as a god. I have \
18monuments built daily in my honor in dark \
19corners around the house. I destroy all of them \
20before I go to bed, but in the morning \
21there are still more. I don't think I know \
22where all of them are. I don't think I can get \
23to all of them anymore. There are too many.
diff --git a/23-howithappened.txt b/23-howithappened.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dbadb1c --- /dev/null +++ b/23-howithappened.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
1---
2title: 'How it happened'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6I was away on vacation when I heard--- \
7someone sat at my desk while I was away. \
8They took my pen, while I was taking \
9surf lessons, and wrote the sun into the sky. \
10They pre-approved the earth and the waters, \
11and all of the living things, without even \
12having the decency to text me. It was not I \
13who was behind the phrase "creeping things." \
14When I got back, of course I was pissed, \
15but it was already written into the policy. \
16I'm just saying: don't blame me for Cain \
17killing Abel. That was a murder. I'm not a cop. \
18The Tower of Babel fell on its own. The ark \
19never saw a single drop of rain. I'm the drunk \
20sitting on the curb who just pissed his pants, \
21holding up a sign asking where I am.
diff --git a/25-lovesong.txt b/25-lovesong.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47738e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/25-lovesong.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
1---
2title: 'Love Song'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6Walking along in the dark is a good way to begin a song. Walking home in
7the dark after a long day chasing criminals is another. Running away
8from an imagined evil is no way to begin a story.
9
10I am telling you this because you wanted to know what it's like to tell
11something so beautiful everyone will cry. I am telling you because I
12want you to know what it is to keep everything inside of you. I am
13telling you.
14
15Can you see? Can you see into me and reach in your hand and pull me
16inside out, like an old shirt? Will you wear me until I unravel on your
17shoulders, will you cut me apart and use my skin to clean up the cola
18you spill on the floor when you're drunk?
19
20I want you to know that I want you to know. Do you want me? To know is
21to know. I, you want we. We want. That is why we're here. To want is to
22be is to want and I want you. Do you also? Check yes or no.
23
24There is a way to end every story, every song. Every criminal must be
25caught. Even those who cry dry their tears. I cannot tell you all I want
26because I want to tell you everything. There is no art because there is
27no mirror big enough. We wake up every day. Sometimes we sleep.
diff --git a/26-roughgloves.txt b/26-roughgloves.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3824799 --- /dev/null +++ b/26-roughgloves.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
1---
2title: 'Rough gloves'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6I lost my hands & knit replacement ones \
7from spiders' threads, stronger than steel but soft \
8as lambs' wool. Catching as they do on nails \
9& your collarbone, you don't seem to like \
10their rough warm presence on your cheek or thigh. \
11I've asked you if you minded, you've said no \
12(your face a table laid with burnt meat, bread \
13so stale it could break a hand). Remember \
14your senile mother's face above that table? \
15I'd say she got the meaning of that look. \
16You'd rather not be touched by these rough gloves, \
17the only way I have to knit a love \
18against whatever winters we may enter \
19like a silkworm in a spider's blackened maw.
diff --git a/27-ronaldmcdonald.txt b/27-ronaldmcdonald.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..03a0858 --- /dev/null +++ b/27-ronaldmcdonald.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
1---
2title: 'Ronald McDonald'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6When Ronald McDonald takes off his striped shirt, \
7his coveralls, his painted face: when he no longer looks \
8like anyone or anything special, sitting next to women
9
10in bars or standing in the aisle at the grocery, \
11is he no longer Ronald? Is he no longer happy to kick \
12a soccer ball around with the kids in the park,
13
14is he suddenly unable to enjoy the french fries \
15he gets for his fifty percent off? I'd like to think \
16that he takes Ronald off like a shirt, hangs him
17
18in a closet where he breathes darkly in the musk. \
19I'd like to believe that we are able to slough off selves \
20like old skin and still retain some base self.
21
22Of course we all know this is not what happens. \
23The Ronald leering at women drunkenly is the same who \
24the next day kicks at a ball the size of a head.
25
26He is the same that hugs his children at night, \
27who has sex with his wife on the weekends when they're \
28not so tired to make it work, who smiles holding
29
30a basket of fries in front of a field. He cannot \
31take off the facepaint or the yellow gloves. They are \
32stuck to him like so many feathers with the tar
33
34of his everyday associations. His plight is that \
35of everyone's---we are what we do who we are.
diff --git a/29-moongone.txt b/29-moongone.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f97fff --- /dev/null +++ b/29-moongone.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
1---
2title: 'The moon is gone and in its place a mirror'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6The moon is gone and in its place a mirror. Looking at the night sky now
7yields nothing but the viewer's own face as viewed from a million miles,
8surrounded by the landscape he is only vaguely aware of being surrounded
9by. He believes that he is alone, surrounded by desert and mountain, but
10behind him---he now sees it---someone is sneaking up on him. He spins around
11fast, but no one is there on Earth. He looks back up and they are yet
12closer in the night sky. Again he looks over his shoulder but there is
13nothing, not even a desert mouse. As he looks up again he realizes it's
14a cloud above him, which due to optics has looked like someone else. The
15cloud blocks out the moon which is now a mirror, and the viewer is
16completely alone.
diff --git a/3-howtoread.txt b/3-howtoread.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4345442 --- /dev/null +++ b/3-howtoread.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
1---
2title: 'How to read this'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6This book is an exploration of life, of all possible lives that could be
7lived. Each of the poems contained herein have been written by a
8different person, with his own history, culture, and emotions. True,
9they are all related, but no more than any of us is related through our
10genetics, our shared planet, or our yearnings.
11
12Fernando Pessoa wrote poems under four different identities---he called
13them *heteronyms*---that were known during his lifetime, though after his
14death over sixty have been found and catalogued. He called them
15heteronyms as opposed to pseudonyms because they were much more than
16names he wrote under. They were truly different writing selves,
17concerned with different ideas and writing with different styles:
18Alberto Caeiro wrote pastorals; Ricardo Reis wrote more formal odes;
19Álvaro de Campos wrote these long, Whitman-esque pieces (one to Whitman
20himself); and Pessoa's own name was used for poems that are kind of
21similar to all the others. It seems as though Pessoa found it
22inefficient to try and write everything he wanted only in his own self;
23rather he parceled out the different pieces and developed them into full
24identities, at the cost of his own: "I subsist as a kind of medium of
25myself, but I'm less real than the others, less substantial, less
26personal, and easily influenced by them all." de Campos said of him at
27one point, "Fernando Pessoa, strictly speaking, doesn't exist."
28
29It's not just Pessoa---I, strictly speaking, don't exist, both as the
30specific me that writes this now and as the concept of selfhood, the
31ego. Heraclitus famously said that we can't step into the same river
32twice, and the fact of the matter is that we can't occupy the same self
33twice. It's constantly changing and adapting to new stimuli from the
34environment, from other selves, from inside itself, and each time it
35forms anew into something that's never existed before. The person I am
36beginning a poem is a separate being than the one I am finishing a poem,
37and part of it is the poem I've written has brought forth some other
38dish onto the great table that is myself.
39
40In the same way, with each poem you read of this, you too could become a
41different person. Depending on which order you read them in, you could
42be any number of possible people. If you follow the threads I've laid
43out for you, there are so many possible selves; if you disregard those
44and go a different way there are quite a few more. However, at the end
45of the journey there is only one self that you will occupy, the others
46disappearing from this universe and going maybe somewhere else, maybe
47nowhere at all.
48
49There is a scene in *The Neverending Story* where Bastian is trying to
50find his way out of the desert. He opens a door and finds himself in the
51Temple of a Thousand Doors, which is never seen from the outside but
52only once someone enters it. It is a series of rooms with six sides each
53and three doors: one from the room before and two choices. In life, each
54of these rooms is a moment, but where Bastian can choose which of only
55two doors to enter each time, in life there can be any number of doors
56and we don't always choose which to go through---in fact, I would argue
57that most of the time we aren't allowed the luxury.
58
59What happens to those other doors, those other possibilities? Is there
60some other version of the self that for whatever complexities of
61circumstance and will chose a different door at an earlier moment? The
62answer to this, of course, is that we can never know for sure, though
63this doesn't keep us from trying through the process of regret. We go
64back and try that other door in our mind, extrapolating a possible
65present from our own past. This is ultimately unsatisfying, not only
66because whatever world is imagined is not the one currently lived, but
67because it becomes obvious that the alternate model of reality is not
68complete: we can only extrapolate from the original room, absolutely
69without knowledge of any subsequent possible choices. This causes a deep
70disappointment, a frustration with the inability to know all possible
71timelines (coupled with the insecurity that this may not be the best of
72all possible worlds) that we feel as regret.
73
74In this way, every moment we live is an elegy to every possible future
75that might have stemmed from it. Annie Dillard states this in a
76biological manner when she says in *Pilgrim at Tinker Creek*, "Every
77glistening egg is a memento mori." Nature is inefficient---it spends a
78hundred lifetimes to get one that barely works. The fossil record is
79littered with the failed experiments of evolution, many of which failed
80due only to blind chance: an asteroid, a shift in weather patterns, an
81inefficient copulation method. Each living person today has twenty dead
82standing behind him, and that only counts the people that actually
83lived. How many missed opportunities stand behind any of us?
84
85The real problem with all of this is that time is only additive. There's
86no way to dial it back and start over, with new choices or new
87environments. Even when given the chance to do something again, we do it
88*again*, with the reality given by our previous action. Thus we are
89constantly creating and being created by the world. The self is never
90the same from one moment to the next.
91
92A poem is like a snapshot of a self. If it's any good, it captures the
93emotional core of the self at the time of writing for communication with
94future selves, either within the same person or outside of it. Thus
95revision is possible, and the new poem created will be yet another
96snapshot of the future self as changed by the original poem. The page
97becomes a window into the past, a particular past as experienced by one
98self. The poem is a remembering of a self that no longer exists, in
99other words, an elegy.
100
101A snapshot doesn't capture the entire subject, however. It leaves out
102the background as it's obscured by foreground objects; it fails to
103include anything that isn't contained in its finite frame. In order to
104build a working definition of identity, we must include all possible
105selves over all possible timelines, combined into one person: identity
106is the combined effect of all possible selves over time. A poem leaves
107much of this out: it is the one person standing in front of twenty
108ghosts.
109
110A poem is the place where the selves of the reader and the speaker meet,
111in their respective times and places. In this way a poem is outside of
112time or place, because it changes its location each time it's read. Each
113time it's two different people meeting. The problem with a poem is that
114it's such a small window---if we met in real life the way we met in poems,
115we would see nothing of anyone else but a square the size of a postage
116stamp. It has been argued this is the way we see time and ourselves in
117it, as well: Vonnegut uses the metaphor of a subject strapped to a
118railroad car moving at a set pace, with a six-foot-long metal tube
119placed in front of the subject's eye; the landscape in the distance is
120time, and what we see is the only way in which we interact with it. It's
121the same with a poem and the self: we can only see and interact with a
122small kernel. This is why it's possible to write more than one poem.
123
124Due to this kernel nature of poetry, a good poem should focus itself to
125extract as much meaning as possible from that one kernel of identity to
126which it has access. It should be an atom of selfhood, irreducible and
127resistant to paraphrase, because it tries to somehow echo the large
128unsayable part of identity outside the frame of the self. It is the
129kernel that contains a universe, or that speaks around one that's
130hidden; if it's a successful poem then it makes the smallest circuit
131possible. This is why the commentary on poems is so voluminous: a poem
132is tightly packed meaning that commentators try to unpack to get at that
133universality inside it. A fortress of dialectic is constructed that
134ultimately obstructs the meaning behind the poem; it becomes the
135foreground in the photograph that disallows us to view the horizon
136beyond it.
137
138With this in mind, I collect these poems that were written over a period
139of four years into this book. Where I can, I insert cross-references
140(like the one above, in the margin) to other pieces in the text where I
141think the two resonate in some way. You can read this book in any way
142you'd like: you can go front-to-back, or back-to-front, or you can
143follow the arrows around, or you can work out a complex mathematical
144formula with Merseinne primes and logarithms and the 2000 Census
145information, or you can go completely randomly through like a magazine,
146or at least the way I flip through magazines. I think writing is a
147communication of the self, and I think this is the best way to
148communicate mine in all its multiversity.
diff --git a/32-mountain.txt b/32-mountain.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..64e15fe --- /dev/null +++ b/32-mountain.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
1---
2title: 'Mountain'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6The other side of this mountain \
7is not the mountain. This side \
8is honey-golden, sticky-sweet, \
9full of phone conversations with mother. \
10The other side is a bell, \
11ringing in the church-steeple \
12the day mother died.
13
14The other side of the mountain \
15is not a mountain. It is a dark \
16valley crossed by a river. \
17There is a ferry at the bottom.
18
19This mountain is not a mountain. \
20I walked to the top, but it turned \
21and was only a shelf halfway up. \
22I felt like an unused Bible \
23sitting on a dusty pew.
24
25A hawk soars over the mountain. \
26She is looking for home.
diff --git a/33-serengeti.txt b/33-serengeti.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f13011 --- /dev/null +++ b/33-serengeti.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
1---
2title: 'Serengeti'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6The self is a serengeti \
7a wide grassland with baobab trees \
8reaching their roots deep into earth \
9like a child into a clay pot \
10A wind blows there or seems to blow \
11if he holds it up to his ear the air shifts \
12like stones in a stream uncovering a crawfish \
13it finds another hiding place watching you \
14Its eyes are blacker than wind \
15on the serengeti they are the eyes of a predator \
16they are coming toward you or receding \
17a storm cloud builds on the horizon \
18Are you running toward the rain or away from it \
19Do you stand still and crouch hoping for silence
diff --git a/34-shipwright.txt b/34-shipwright.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..81f5c91 --- /dev/null +++ b/34-shipwright.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
1---
2title: 'Shipwright'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6He builds a ship as if it were the last thing \
7holding him together, as if, when he stops, \
8his body will fall onto the plate-glass water \
9and shatter into sand. To keep his morale up \
10he whistles and sings, but the wind whistles louder \
11and taunts him: Your ship will build itself \
12if you throw yourself into the sea; time \
13has a way of growing your beard for you. \
14Soon, you'll find yourself on a rocking chair \
15on some porch made from your ship's timbers. \
16The window behind you is made from a sail, thick \
17canvas, and no one inside will hear your calling \
18for milk or a chamberpot. Your children \
19will have all sailed to the New World and left you. \
20But he tries not to listen, continues to hammer \
21nail after nail into timber after timber, \
22but the wind finally blows him into the growling ocean \
23and the ship falls apart on its own.
diff --git a/35-spittle.txt b/35-spittle.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..58dccf2 --- /dev/null +++ b/35-spittle.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
1---
2title: 'Spittle'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6My body is attached to your body by a thin spittle of thought. \
7When you turn away from me, my thought is broken \
8and forms anew with something else. Ideas are drool. \
9Beauty has been slobbered over far too long. God \
10is a tidal wave of bodily fluid. Even the flea has some \
11vestigial wetness. We live in a world fleshy and dark, \
12and moist as a nostril. Is conciousness only a watery-eyed \
13romantic, crying softly into his shirt-sleeve? Is not reason \
14a square-jawed businessman with a briefcase full of memory? \
15I want to kiss the world to make it mine. I want to become \
16a Judas to reality, betray it with the wetness of emotion.
diff --git a/36-squirrel.txt b/36-squirrel.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..610b40d --- /dev/null +++ b/36-squirrel.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
1---
2title: 'Squirrel'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6He is so full in himself: \
7how far down the branch to run, \
8how long to jump, when to grab the air \
9and catch in it and turn, and land on branch \
10so gracefully it's like dying, alone \
11and warm in a bed next to a summer window \
12and the birds singing. And on that branch there \
13is the squirrel dancing among the branches \
14and you think What if he fell? but he won't \
15because he's a squirrel and that's what \
16they do, dance and never fall. It was erased \
17long ago from the squirrel, even \
18the possibility of falling was erased \
19from his being by the slow inexorable evolution \
20of squirrels, that is why all squirrels \
21are so full in themselves, full in who they are.
diff --git a/38-swansong.txt b/38-swansong.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c59ec0c --- /dev/null +++ b/38-swansong.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
1---
2title: 'Swan song'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6Swans fly overhead singing goodbye \
7to we walkers of the earth. You point \
8to them in formation, you tell me \
9you are not you. You are the air the swans \
10walk on as they journey like pilgrims \
11to a temple in the south. A curtain \
12there separates me from you, swans \
13from the air they fly through. I say \
14that you are no longer the temple, \
15that you have been through fire \
16and are now less than ash. You are \
17a mirror of me, the air without a swan. \
18Together, we are each other. You \
19and I have both nothing and everything \
20at once. We own the world and nothing in it.
diff --git a/39-telemarketer.txt b/39-telemarketer.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef9dd27 --- /dev/null +++ b/39-telemarketer.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
1---
2title: 'Telemarketer'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6It was one of those nameless gray buildings that could be seen from the
7street only if Larry craned his neck to almost vertical. He never had,
8of course, having heard when he first arrived in the city that only
9tourists unaccustomed to tall buildings did so. He'd never thought about
10it until he'd heard the social injunction against such a thing; it was
11now one of the things he thought about almost every day as he rode to
12and from work in gritty blue buses.
13
14Inside the building, the constant sound of recirculating dry air made
15Larry feel as though he were at some beach in hell, listening to the
16ocean, or more accurately at a gift shop in a landlocked state in hell
17listening to the ocean as represented by the sound a conch shell makes
18when he holds it up to his ear. The buzz of the fluorescent bulbs
19overhead sounded like the hot sun bearing down all day in this metaphor,
20a favorite of Larry's.
21
22His cubicle was made of that cheap, grayish-blue plywood that cubicles
23are made of; inside it, his computer sat on his desk as Larry liked to
24think an eagle perched on a mountainous crag much like the crag that was
25his desktop wallpaper. The walls were unadorned except for a few
26tacked-up papers in report covers explaining his script. When Larry made
27a call to a potential customer it always went the same way:
28
29"Hi, Mr/Mrs (customer's name). My name is Larry and I'm with (client's
30name), and was just wondering if I could have a minute of your time?"
31
32"Oh, no, sir; I don't want whatever it is you're selling." (customer
33terminates call).
34
35Larry had only ever read the first line of the script on the wall.
36Sometimes he had an urge to read more of it, to be ready when a customer
37expressed interest in whatever it was Larry was selling, but something
38in him---he liked to think it was an actor's intuition that told him it
39was best to improvise, though he worried it was the futility of it---kept
40him from reading further into the script. So when Jane said, "Sure, I
41have nothing better to do," he was thrown completely off guard.
42
43"Um, alright Mrs…Mrs. Loring, I was wondering---"
44
45"It's Ms, not Mrs. em ess. Miz. No ‘r,' Larry." She sounded patient, as
46if she were used to correcting people about the particulars of her
47title. But how often can that happen? Larry thought, and he was suddenly
48deeply confused.
49
50"Oh, sorry, ma'am, uh, Miz Loring, but I wanted to know whether you'd
51like to, ah, buy some…" Larry put his head in his hand and started
52twirling his hair in his finger, a nervous habit he'd had since
53childhood, and closed his eyes tightly. "Why don't you have anything
54better to do?"
55
56Immediately he knew it was the wrong question. Even before the silence
57on the other end moved past impatience and into stunned, Larry had a
58mini-drama written and staged within his mind: she would call customer
59service and complain loudly into the representative's ear. The rep would
60send a memo to the head of telemarketing requesting disciplinary action,
61and the head would delegate the action to Larry's immediate supervisor,
62David. David would saunter over to Larry's cubicle sometime within the
63next week, depending on when he got the memo and when he felt like
64crossing fifty feet of office space, and have one of what David liked to
65call "chats" but what Larry knew were lectures. After about half an hour
66of "chatting" David would give Larry a warning and ask him to come in
67for overtime to make up for the discretion, and walk back slowly to his
68office, making small talk with the cubicled workers on the way. The
69world suddenly felt too small for Larry, or he too big for it.
70
71Quietly, with the same patience but with a bigger pain, Jane said, "My
72husband just left me and I thought you could take my mind off of him for
73just a minute," and hung up.
diff --git a/41-weplayedthosegamestoo.txt b/41-weplayedthosegamestoo.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fef8154 --- /dev/null +++ b/41-weplayedthosegamestoo.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
1---
2title: 'We played those games too'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6I saw two Eskimo girls playing a game \
7blowing on each other's' vocal chords to make music \
8on the tundra. I thought about how \
9once we played the same game \
10and the sounds blowing over the chords of our throats \
11was the same as a wind over frozen prairie. \
12We are the Eskimo girls who played \
13the game that night to keep ourselves warm. \
14I run my hands over my daughter's \
15voicebox as she hums a song \
16about a seal and about killing the seal and about \
17skinning it and rendering the blubber \
18into clear oil to light lamps. \
19I remember you are my lamp. She remembers \
20you although you left before she arrived. \
21I can never tell her about you. \
22I will never be able to express that taste of your oil \
23as we pushed our throats together. \
24I will never be able to say how \
25we share this blemish like conjoined twins. \
26I will fail you always to remember you.
diff --git a/42-todaniel.txt b/42-todaniel.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb33e69 --- /dev/null +++ b/42-todaniel.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
1---
2title: 'To Daniel: an elaboration of a previous comment'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6There are more modern ideals of beauty \
7than yours, young padowan. Jessica has \
8some assets, that I'll give you easily, \
9but in my women I prefer pizzazz.
10
11I don't want to bring you down, or make you think \
12that your perfected woman isn't so. \
13It's just that, like Adam said, 2006 \
14has come and gone. What did she do
15
16in that year anyway? IMDB \
17has, surprisingly, none, though in '05 \
18she's in four titles. Sin City \
19I've never seen, although from many I've
20
21heard it's good. But it's still irrelevant--- \
22no matter how comely, she lacks talent.
diff --git a/44-deathstrumpet.txt b/44-deathstrumpet.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c549c78 --- /dev/null +++ b/44-deathstrumpet.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
1---
2title: 'Death's Trumpet'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4epigraph: 'So Death plays his little fucking trumpet. So what, says the boy.'
5epigraph-credit: 'Larry Levis'
6...
7
8He didn't have any polish so he spit-shined the whole thing, \
9top to bottom. It gleamed like maybe a tomato on the vine \
10begging to be picked and thrown on some caprese. Death loved caprese.
11
12He stood up and put the horn to his lips, imagining \
13it was a woman he loved. He blushed as he realized \
14it was a terrible metaphor. \
15He practiced for six hours a day---what else to do?
16
17Death looks at himself in the mirror as he plays. \
18The trumpet is suspended in midair. Damn vampire rules. \
19Death is always worried he might have missed a spot shaving \
20but he'll never know unless a stranger is polite enough. \
21Not that he ever goes out or meets anyone.
22
23He wakes up late these days. Stays in bed later. \
24He thinks he might be depressed. The caprese has gotten soggy \
25since he made it, maybe three days ago or maybe just two. \
26The sun streams through his kitchen blinds like smoke. \
27He decides to go to the arcade. When he gets there,
28
29there's only a little boy with dead eyes. So far so good. \
30He's playing a first-person shooter. Death walks past him \
31and watches out of the corner of his eye. The kid's good. \
32Death wants to congratulate him. His trumpet is in his hand.
diff --git a/99-elegyforanalternateself.txt b/99-elegyforanalternateself.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cb297d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/99-elegyforanalternateself.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
1---
2title: 'Elegy for an alternate self'
3project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
4...
5
6Say there are no words. Say that we are conjoined \
7from birth, or better still, say we are myself. \
8---But I still talk to myself, I build my world \
9through language, so if we say there are no words \
10this is not enough. Say we are instead some animal, \
11or better yet, a plant, or a flagellum motoring \
12aimlessly around. (Say that humans are the only things \
13that reason. Say that we're the only things that worry.)
14
15Say that I am separate. To say there's everything else \
16and then there's me is wrong. Each thing is separate: \
17there is no whole in the world. Say this is both good \
18and bad, or rather, say there is no good or bad but only \
19being, more and more of it always added, none taken out \
20though it can be forgotten. Say that forgetting \
21is a function of our remembering. (Say that humans only \
22worry about separation. Say that only humans feel it.)
diff --git a/99-statements-frag.txt b/99-statements-frag.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26e67b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/99-statements-frag.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
1---
2title: 'Statements'
3subtitle: 'a fragment'
4project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
5...
6
7I. Eli {#i.-eli .unnumbered}
8------
9
10"Can one truly describe an emotion?" Eli asked me over the
11walkie-talkie. He was in the bathroom, & had taken the walkie-talkie in
12with him absent-mindedly. I could hear sounds of his piss hitting the
13toilet water.
14
15"I can hear you peeing," I said. He didn't answer so I said in apology,
16"It's okay. Humans are sexually dimorphic." I was sitting on my blue
17baby blanket texting Jon, who was funny and amicable over the phone. He
18made a three-message joke about greedy lawyers and I would have been
19laughing if not for my embarrassment toward Eli. He finally came out of
20the bathroom and kept his eyes straight ahead, toward the wall calendar
21and not at me, as he passed through the family room into his bedroom,
22were he shut the door quietly. Presently I heard some muffled noise as
23he turned on his iPod. I guessed he didn't feel like talking so I stayed
24on my blanket watching the Price is Right and texting Jon.
25
26Drew Carrey was doing his wrap-up speech on TV when Eli finally came out
27of his room, red puffy streaks covering his face. His eyes and nose were
28red too, which was almost festive against the pale green and white of
29the wallpaper. I had been laughing at the goofy costumes on the Price is
30Right and the jokes Jon was texting me, but when Eli came out of the
31room I stopped and just looked at him as well as I could. He was staring
32at my right shoulder as he said, "Go home now."
33
34"What?"
35
36"I said go home now. I don't want you here anymore, because I just
37remembered I have someone coming over and I have to clean."
38
39"Look, Eli, I'm sorry---"
40
41"It doesn't have anything to do with you, I swear. Just go, okay? Go
42home now."
43
44I got up and tried to give him a hug but he withdrew from me sharply. So
45I walked around the coffee table as he sat down, not looking at me
46anymore, and stared at the blank TV. The blanket I had been sitting in
47was crumpled next to him like a dead bird. I opened my mouth but thought
48better of talking, and closed the door behind me slowly.
49
50II. Dimorphic {#ii.-dimorphic .unnumbered}
51-------------
52
53Oranges. Poison. A compromise
54between Mary & Judas. Blue
55baby blankets swaddling greedy lawyers.
56
57Can one truly describe an emotion?
58I cut my ankle with a razor blade.
59I can only go one at a time. Humanity
60has a seething mass of eels
61for a brain, mating in the water so forcefully
62that it could drown you under the moon.
63
64III. Declaration of Poetry {#iii.-declaration-of-poetry .unnumbered}
65--------------------------
66
67You have to go one line at a time, and you have to start on the first or
68second line.
diff --git a/99-swansong-alt.txt b/99-swansong-alt.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6cbab2 --- /dev/null +++ b/99-swansong-alt.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
1---
2title: 'Swansong'
3subtitle: 'alternate version'
4project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
5...
6
7This poem is dry like chapped lips. \
8It is hard as teeth---hear the tapping? \
9It is the swan song of beauty, as all \
10swan songs are. Reading it, you are \
11puzzled, perhaps a little repulsed. \
12Swans do not have teeth, nor do they sing. \
13A honking over the cliff is all \
14they can do, and that they do \
15badly. You don't know where I'm going. \
16You want to tell me, You are not you. \
17You are the air the swan walks on. \
18You are the fringe of the curtain \
19that separates me from you. I say \
20that you are no longer the temple, \
21that you have been through fire \
22and are now less than ash. You are \
23the subtraction of yourself from \
24the world, the air without a swan. \
25Together, we are each other. You \
26and I have both nothing and everything \
27at once, we own the world and nothing in it.
diff --git a/_template.html b/_template.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..187e5d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/_template.html
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
1<!DOCTYPE html>
2<!-- Template for compiled 'Autocento' documents -->
3<html$if(lang)$ lang="$lang$"$endif$>
4<head>
5 <meta charset="utf-8">
6 <meta name="generator" content="pandoc">
7 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes">
8 <meta name="author" content="Case Duckworth">
9 <!-- more meta tags here -->
10 <title>$pagetitle$</title>
11 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="_poems.css">
12 $for(css)$
13 <link rel="stylesheet" href="$css$">
14 $endfor$
15 <!-- link to javascript? -->
16 <!--[if lt IE 9]>
17 <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"> </script>
18 <![endif]-->
19 $for(header-includes)$
20 $header-includes$
21 $endfor$
22</head>
23<body>
24 $for(include-before)$
25 $include-before$
26 $endfor$
27 $if(title)$
28 <header>
29 <h1 class="title">$title</h1>
30 $if(subtitle)$
31 <h1 class="subtitle">$subtitle$</h1>
32 $endif$
33 </header>
34 $endif$
35 $body$
36 $for(include-after)$
37 $include-after$
38 $endfor$
39</body>
40</html>
diff --git a/compile.sh b/compile.sh new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3877be0 --- /dev/null +++ b/compile.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
1# for windows only right now
2
3for file in *.txt; do # TODO: change this to work with globs & args & stuff
4 pandoc -f markdown \ # all files are in pandoc's markdown
5 -t html5 \ # they're being outputted to html5
6 --template=_template.html \ # use this file as a template
7 --smart \ # smart quotes, etc.
8 $file \
9 -o "${file%.txt}.html"
10done