From 3ec50c15dbbc8725271d707a33064002ad64a33e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Case Duckworth Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2015 17:52:37 -0700 Subject: Add poems from the past year --- src/100-lines.txt | 108 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ src/call-me-aural-pleasure.txt | 50 +++++++++++++++ src/cold-wind.txt | 24 +++++++ src/creation-myth.txt | 44 +++++++++++++ src/ex-machina.txt | 48 ++++++++++++++ src/finding-the-lion.txt | 32 ++++++++++ src/found-typewriter-poem.txt | 40 ++++++++++++ src/i-wanted-to-tell-you-something.txt | 54 ++++++++++++++++ src/index.txt | 10 +++ src/january.txt | 54 ++++++++++++++++ src/largest-asteroid.txt | 36 +++++++++++ src/last-passenger.txt | 32 ++++++++++ src/listen.txt | 16 +++++ src/no-nothing.txt | 60 ++++++++++++++++++ src/nothing-is-ever-over.txt | 24 +++++++ src/plant.txt | 110 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ src/seasonal-affective-disorder.txt | 29 +++++++++ src/sense-of-it.txt | 30 +++++++++ src/something-simple.txt | 26 ++++++++ src/stayed-on-the-bus.txt | 21 +++++++ src/the-night-we-met.txt | 34 ++++++++++ src/the-sea_the-beach.txt | 35 +++++++++++ src/time-looks-up-to-the-sky.txt | 33 ++++++++++ src/when-im-sorry-i.txt | 29 +++++++++ 24 files changed, 979 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/100-lines.txt create mode 100644 src/call-me-aural-pleasure.txt create mode 100644 src/cold-wind.txt create mode 100644 src/creation-myth.txt create mode 100644 src/ex-machina.txt create mode 100644 src/finding-the-lion.txt create mode 100644 src/found-typewriter-poem.txt create mode 100644 src/i-wanted-to-tell-you-something.txt create mode 100644 src/index.txt create mode 100644 src/january.txt create mode 100644 src/largest-asteroid.txt create mode 100644 src/last-passenger.txt create mode 100644 src/listen.txt create mode 100644 src/no-nothing.txt create mode 100644 src/nothing-is-ever-over.txt create mode 100644 src/plant.txt create mode 100644 src/seasonal-affective-disorder.txt create mode 100644 src/sense-of-it.txt create mode 100644 src/something-simple.txt create mode 100644 src/stayed-on-the-bus.txt create mode 100644 src/the-night-we-met.txt create mode 100644 src/the-sea_the-beach.txt create mode 100644 src/time-looks-up-to-the-sky.txt create mode 100644 src/when-im-sorry-i.txt diff --git a/src/100-lines.txt b/src/100-lines.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7bd99b --- /dev/null +++ b/src/100-lines.txt @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@ +--- +title: 100 lines +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Whenever you call me friend \ +I fall down on my knees and cry \ +because I know it's the only thing \ +never to happen before in this \ +life is something you can't see \ +it's a pillow under a hook shot \ +I want to tell you something anything \ +but you are there and I am here \ +we are trapped inside ourselves \ +and the distance is too far \ +you are something that I would tell \ +would be nothing before too long \ +you are not the finisher of dreams \ +you are the beginning of nightmares \ +or waking but I'm not sure which \ +this letter is for you in the future \ +it will lead you on the path \ +of goodness or of rightness or of \ +wrong people and right meanings \ +or the meaning will be hidden \ +or wrestling the demon I will have become \ +restless under the starlight \ +it's too bright here to think \ +the negatives would be pitch black \ +darkness of a silver mine \ +there are no trees here \ +where have you been where are you now \ +I am no longer here or there \ +you are anywhere or are you \ +up in the clouds is a ghost \ +he is white and blue like a cloud \ +he paints with his teeth \ +he paints the rainbow before midnight \ +that you can see from your window \ +staring out under the sunlight \ +through the gauze curtains \ +over the high mountain far away \ +that is covered over with snow \ +past the rivers and forests \ +that lie awake under Orion \ +hunting the bull that runs forever \ +just out of his reach \ +pointing the way for the two of us \ +to join together in song or dance \ +or that other thing and sing \ +the Grinch down off Mount Crumpet \ +his heart breaking his chest \ +thumping with the beat \ +his little dog too running running \ +with the bull full of laughter and blood \ +he can't see it anymore because it's become him \ +we are trapped he says we are \ +trapped in ourselves it turns out \ +that all along it wasn't you or me \ +but he and her or her and him or \ +he and he or she and she or they \ +even they tell us that nothing has happened \ +even they know that it's a big joke \ +one more thing to know before the death \ +we are crying like alligators \ +before their loved ones' coffins \ +we are bellowing with grief like buffalo \ +on a berth of wild oxen \ +we are wailing our clothes are in rags \ +we want we want we want \ +but never can we get \ +what is it \ +we don't know what it is \ +but it's something it's anything \ +it's too many people or not enough \ +it's too few trees we need more \ +beavers to build riverdams we need \ +grapes too or plums from the ice box \ +or an ice box even would be nice \ +all I have is this cube isn't that right \ +or is a sphere a cube a donut a coffee \ +cup your hands in mine yes that's right \ +now bring the water to your face \ +clear and cool and \ +full of something \ +what is it wanting \ +or yearning \ +I can see in your eyes they're clear now \ +they are as clear as a running stream \ +or the sky that's clear right \ +or the water that is in the Bahamas \ +because I hear that's clear \ +you're as clear as the sound of a bell \ +you're as clear as the braying of horses \ +you're as clear as the glass in God's eye \ +and I \ +I'm as dull as an ox plowing \ +through fields in his yoke \ +I'm as dull as clouded amber \ +I'm dull as you find me \ +tonight after dinner \ +I'm reading the crossword \ +you're sitting beside me \ +you're watching TV. diff --git a/src/call-me-aural-pleasure.txt b/src/call-me-aural-pleasure.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4b4dbf --- /dev/null +++ b/src/call-me-aural-pleasure.txt @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +--- +title: Call me +subtitle: aural pleasure +genre: verse + +epigraph: + content: | + compiled thru Facebook statuses of the author + link: 'https://www.facebook.com/kittensruleforever38' + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Like _40_ as I challenge anyone to come too! \ +It's like you're the epitome of lame! \ +She's all _I am SOOOO CONFUSED_ \ +Aw yeah she got word from yarn. \ +---but technically it's a pretty sweet, huh? + +Dude we were going and delicate fragrance of arguments get based off of are not try \ +dropping glasses in such an emotional rollercoaster you \ +and yes, I'm cocky enough to do anything! \ +I am as good as Phineas and make another picture symphony \ +This is a modification of a young woman to try \ +groups disband after they get your Meacham stuff please let it \ +RJ Covino, own statuses that'll be a great + +MY OWN afterbirth than do that \ +I am 2 we can be KISSED ON THE page. \ +You know I'm not sure that \ +Ben & Jerry's FTW \ +4/10 would not be able to vote, because I gotta do it \ +This is going to be sad about what \ +Rush Limbaugh comes forward with sunglassesbut at least I wasn't wearing a messenger bag or skinny jeans! \ +The cooler THAN Facebook \ +Wine is the best. \ + +YES I was surprised at first, but the train one, definitely. \ + +Also Valhalla is a dumbass... \ +But we can get based off of course, Jon. \ +We watched this \ +CELEBRATE FRANKSGIVING TOO! \ +That didn't get started on that \ +FRANCIS OF VERULAM REASONED THUS WITH the courage to reply. \ +Anyone wanna watch out \ +I am cranky from Bro a good as a way to hijack my hand. \ +Afterbend was not to produce photographs. diff --git a/src/cold-wind.txt b/src/cold-wind.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1281b10 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/cold-wind.txt @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: Cold wind +genre: verse + +dedication: Justin + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Man of autumn, cold wind, \ +blow down the trees' leaves. \ +Fire on the ground. The sky \ +perfect water, frost-cold, \ +rippled only by flocks \ +of black birds flying, gone. \ +Their brightness can blind \ +an uncareful watcher, work him \ +in a froth of hands, not-wings \ +that ache with the loss of flight. \ +A tear is flung faithfully \ +to the ocean of air, slipping in \ +slowly, is as gone as the birds. diff --git a/src/creation-myth.txt b/src/creation-myth.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..faed75d --- /dev/null +++ b/src/creation-myth.txt @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +--- +title: Creation myth +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +So two hyperintelligent pandimensional beings \ +walk into a bar. One turns to the other and says, \ +"Did you remember to check the end state \ +of that simulation we were running?" The other \ +says, "No, I thought that you did?" To which \ +the first replies, "Oh shit, we missed it. \ +I suppose we must do all of this again. Barkeep, + +two beers please." The bartender nods in that way \ +that bartenders do, pours the two beers, \ +expertly, by the way, just so, and hands them \ +to the first hyperintelligent pandimensional being. \ +The second one pulls a few singles out of his \ +wallet, places them on the bar, and the pair \ +turn around and begin walking toward a table \ +in the middle of the mostly-empty bar. The bar- \ +tender picks up the money, fans it out, frowns, \ +and calls to his patrons' backs: "Hey, this \ +isn't enough!" The two turn around simultan- \ +eously, with parity, and stare at him. A beat. + +One of them, the one without the beer, breaks \ +the silence by exclaiming, "Oh dear god, I'm \ +sorry! I didn't know your prices went up since \ +last time. What do I owe you?" The bartender \ +says, "Oh, just another dollar-fifty." The being \ +reaches in his back pocket, slides out his \ +wallet, looks in smiling, and frowns when he sees \ +it's empty. He looks to the other and says, \ +"You got a buck-fifty I can borrow?" + +The second hyperintelligent pandimensional being \ +considers this. He sets the beers down \ +on the table, pulls out his own wallet, opens \ +it, and frowns. "I'm broke too," he says. diff --git a/src/ex-machina.txt b/src/ex-machina.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..131b4b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/ex-machina.txt @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +--- +title: Ex machina +genre: verse + +epigraph: + content: with lines from National Geographic + link: 'http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/sugar/cohen-text' + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Bottom of the drink: they had \ +to go. The Coke machine, the snack \ +machine, the deep fryer. Hoisted + +and dragged through the halls \ +and out to the curb, they sat with \ +other trash beneath gray, forlorn + +skies behind the elementary \ +school, wondering what their next \ +move would be. The Coke machine + +had always wanted to live \ +the life of a hobo, jumping trains, \ +eating from garbage, making fire + +in old oil drums. It had some \ +strange romantic notions of being homeless, \ +is what the deep fryer thought. + +Its opinion was to head to court, \ +sue the bastards at the school for early \ +termination of contract. It was + +the embodiment of justifiable anger. \ +It believed privately that it was an incarnation \ +of Nemesis, the goddess of divine + +retribution. What the snack machine \ +thought, it kept to itself, but it did say \ +that nothing ever ends. The others + +were confused, then angry, but finally \ +understood, or thought they did. The snack \ +machine's candy melted in the sun. diff --git a/src/finding-the-lion.txt b/src/finding-the-lion.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0a7535 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/finding-the-lion.txt @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: Finding the Lion +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Tonight, as I look up, the stars \ +hide themselves in shame. There is no moon. \ +The sky is black, like my desk, + +nothing like a raven. The streetlights \ +look on the scene disinterested. \ +They have their own small gossips of the dark. + +I came here to find the Lion, old \ +friend, but he will not show his flanks, his \ +paws, his shoulders, his mane. I + +can hear him laughing from his hiding-place \ +behind the moon, nonexistent, under \ +the cold dead earth. The mountain is in front + +of me now, a hole of stars daring me \ +to pierce it with my sight. The lion's still \ +laughing; the streetlamps talk about + +me amongst themselves, and go out. There \ +never was any lion, they tell me. \ +You only hear the wind on the mountain. diff --git a/src/found-typewriter-poem.txt b/src/found-typewriter-poem.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8771100 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/found-typewriter-poem.txt @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +title: Look +subtitle: a found typewriter poem +genre: verse + +epigraph: + content: | + Is he older? I asked her. + And I never got an answer, because at the moment she disappeared in a puff of smoke. + I like to think nothing ever happened to her save that she went over to the spirit realm. + I usually know better though. + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + + +Look, I say---look here--- \ +at this old place \ +where nothing changes. \ +Look at the people \ +who pass by. Look at \ +the trees. The flowers \ +full of wanting: look \ +how full they are with \ +color. Look how they mock \ +us, empty people who \ +must fill themselves \ +with changes---emptiness. + +"There is nothing to be \ +but happy. There is no \ +sadness to fall down \ +like cherry petals." + +The trees don't under \ +stand: they are too \ +tall to see the germ \ +of discontent in us. diff --git a/src/i-wanted-to-tell-you-something.txt b/src/i-wanted-to-tell-you-something.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad9a1c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/i-wanted-to-tell-you-something.txt @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +--- +title: I wanted to tell you something +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +I wanted to tell you something in order to \ +explain the way I feel about the Universe, \ +its workings, etc. But I couldn't yesterday \ +---I'm sorry---I wanted only to ball \ +myself up and cry all day. It was the sixteenth \ +day in a row this happened to me, and to be + +more than two weeks waiting to cry is, \ +especially when, the whole time, I wasn't able to, \ +absolutely horrible. It was no sweet sixteen, \ +I'll tell you that much. Unless at yours, the Universe \ +kept telling you to quit having such a ball \ +and that you should have died, like, yesterday. + +At first, it feels like you're winning--that yesterday \ +you really were meant to die, but since you still _are_, \ +you beat the system somehow. But the Universe bawls, \ +"No, I meant you should've crawled into \ +a hole and fucking _died_!" And then the Universe \ +punches you right in the gut, something like sixteen + +times, and all you can think is, "Some sixteenth \ +birthday! Maybe I will go die in a hole." Yesterday, \ +at times like this, is a luxury the cruel Universe \ +refuses to give you. This is when it's a pain just to _be_, \ +when that Marvell line about "rolling our stuff into one ball" \ +just seems glib, when you don't want one body, let alone two. + +Something else that may come as a surprise to \ +you: over the past more-than-a-fortnight, these sixteen \ +days, I've had nothing to eat but crackers and a cheese ball. \ +(That's not entirely true---yesterday \ +I had some candy, peppermints and Jujubes.) \ +Maybe this is why I'm so mad at the Universe--- + +because all it has ever wanted, this Universe \ +that gave me life, fed me from its breast til I was two, \ +and even before that, made a place in which I could be--- \ +all it's wanted was for me to take the sixteen \ +steps to sobriety, fold the Eight-Fold Path over yesterday \ +and step around it lightly, as I would an exercise ball, + +but the problem is, dear Universe, there's no way I could be \ +something as hard as all that, to wake up yesterday \ +morning, stretch over my sixteen selves, bound out like a ball. diff --git a/src/index.txt b/src/index.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc2def6 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/index.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +--- +title: Autocento of the breakfast table +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +[Ideas are drool.][] diff --git a/src/january.txt b/src/january.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c715a8a --- /dev/null +++ b/src/january.txt @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +--- +title: January +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +January. \ +It's cold, and I don't like it. \ +I prefer warm weather, \ +although I like sweaters. They are the one \ +warm spot in an otherwise shitty season. \ +But fall is better sweater weather. So be patient, + +Patient, \ +while waiting for the end of January. \ +A change of season \ +brings a change of mood along with it, \ +although I never thought I'd be one \ +to believe that SAD junk about effects of weather--- + +weather!--- \ +on a person. Who becomes a patient \ +just because of one \ +month of snow? I did say of January: \ +"It's cold, and I don't like it," \ +but I hardly think it's fair, knocking whole seasons, + +seasoning \ +your conversation with demands for better weather. \ +(While I find it \ +nearly impossible, it's my mission to be patient \ +while waiting for the end of January.) \ +Oh, but how the long nights do so tax one! + +One \ +warm spot in an otherwise shitty season--- \ +all I ask, January, \ +is one warm day. Do you care whether \ +I'm a person who becomes a patient \ +in some psych ward? This just about does it. + +I.T., \ +although I never thought I'd call one, \ +is fair and patient \ +when I call. They talk with me, season \ +my conversation of demands for better weather \ +with an argument for the white beauty of January. + +They know it's hard; they say each season \ +has its detractors. One day, they say, the weather \ +will be controlled - until then, patience in January. diff --git a/src/largest-asteroid.txt b/src/largest-asteroid.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6428620 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/largest-asteroid.txt @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +title: The largest asteroid in the asteroid belt +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +What secrets does it hold? \ +Can it tell us who kissed Sara \ +that night on the veranda, or \ +who Joey is really in love with? \ +We all know it isn't Sara, we \ +mean look at them Christmas eve \ +and he's staring whistfully \ +at the stars, or the largest \ +asteroid in the asteroid belt. \ +She's staring at him, sure, but \ +she sees the twinkle in his eye \ +is not aimed in her direction. \ +The reflection of that reflection \ +will beam into space, lightyears \ +of space, dimming slowly each \ +second, until it dies out like \ +all of Sara's hopes for something \ +resembling love in this life, real \ +love that takes hold of her by \ +the throat and refuses to let go, \ +love that makes men travel for her \ +and only for her, love that launches \ +space ships to that asteroid, the \ +largest in the asteroid belt, that \ +jewel of dead rock and ice, harboring \ +something that could've been life \ +and nothing that actually is. diff --git a/src/last-passenger.txt b/src/last-passenger.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71d1382 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/last-passenger.txt @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: Last passenger +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Memory works strangely, spooling its thread \ +over the nails of events barely related, \ +creating finally some picture, if we’re \ +lucky, of a life---but more likely, it knots \ +itself, catches on a nail or in our throats \ +that gasp, as it binds our necks, for air. + +An example: today marks one hundred years \ +since your namesake, the last living passenger \ +pigeon, died in Cincinnati. It also marks \ +one year since we last spoke. Although around \ +the world, zoos mourn her loss, I'm done \ +with you. I mourn no more your voice, the first \ +sound I heard outside my body that reached \ +into my throat and set me ringing. But that string--- + +memory that feels sometimes more like a tide \ +has yoked together, bound your voice to that bird, \ +the frozen, stuffed, forgotten pigeon---my heart \ +is too easy, but it must do---to blink, to flex \ +its unused toes, slowly thaw to the wetness \ +of beating wings, fly to me again, and alight, \ +singing full-throated, on my broken shoulder. diff --git a/src/listen.txt b/src/listen.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39f15e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/listen.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +--- +title: Listen +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +If you swallow hard enough \ +you'll feel the stone \ +the one we all have waiting + +Once I found the stone in \ +the sea it kissed me as \ +the sea pawed at my back diff --git a/src/no-nothing.txt b/src/no-nothing.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e81d70b --- /dev/null +++ b/src/no-nothing.txt @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +--- +title: No nothing +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +| While swimming in the river +| I saw underneath it a river +| of stars. Only there was no +| river: it was noon. You can +| say the sun is a river; you +| can argue the stars back it +| like shirts behind a closet +| door; you can say the earth +| holds us up with its weight +| or that it means well or it +| means anything. +| There is no +| closet, nor door; there are +| no shirts hanging anywhere. +| There is no false wall that +| leads deep into the earth's +| bowels, growing warmer with +| each step. Warmth as a con- +| cept has ceased to make any +| sense. In contraposition to +| cold, it might, but cold as +| well stepped out last night +| and hasn't returned. +| Last I +| heard, it went out swimming +| and might've drowned. Trees +| were the pallbearers at the +| funeral, the train was long +| and wailful, there was much +| wailing and gnashing of all +| teeth--though there were no +| teeth, no train, no funeral +| or prayer or trees at all-- +| nor a river underneath any- +| thing. There was nothing to +| be underneath anymore. +| Look +| around, and tell me you see +| something. Look around, and +| tell me something that I do +| not know. I know, more than +| anything, that the world is +| always ending. Behind that, +| there is nothing, save that +| there is no nothing either. +| +| Nothing somehow still turns +| and flows past us, past all +| time and beyond it, a river +| returning, to its forgotten +| origins deep within itself. diff --git a/src/nothing-is-ever-over.txt b/src/nothing-is-ever-over.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c0d179c --- /dev/null +++ b/src/nothing-is-ever-over.txt @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: Nothing is ever over +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Nothing is ever over; nothing \ +is ever even begun. The foundation \ +hasn't been laid; how can we hope \ +to put in the plumbing? The bed \ +is unmade, not even made; the wood \ +hasn't been cleft from the tree; \ +the seed hasn't been cast \ +out of water and growth and sun, \ +which itself hasn't started shining. \ +The cock has never stopped crowing \ +because he never started. Peter \ +betrays us again and again with \ +silence. Christ wakes up at night, \ +choking from a bad dream, wrists \ +aching from a dreamt, torturous pain. diff --git a/src/plant.txt b/src/plant.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06be535 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/plant.txt @@ -0,0 +1,110 @@ +--- +title: Litany for plants +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +I need a plant. I need a thing \ +to take care of. I need \ +a little green brownspotted \ +blackdirt growing \ +quietness. I need a sunlit \ +dawn knowing my name filtered \ +through a thin green window. \ +I need chlorophyll \ +working its magic on beams of \ +grassmade early morning dewdrop \ +sweetmaking green. I need \ +the dark earth sucking water \ +from a black crevice \ +its black magic churning \ +wormilled rockturned starblind \ +darkness and cold into \ +the opposite of dust. I need the heat \ +to blind me. I need the dumb making \ +to charge my coldened blood. I need \ +the dropturned leaves to turn again \ +their faces to the windblown sun. \ +I need millions of tiny years \ +summed up and burning out some unknown \ +new growth into the air. I need four \ +hundred feet of dark red gnarled wood \ +and needles glistening wetly on goldheaded \ +branches hoisting themselves \ +to the sky. I need ten strong men \ +to fail to bring you down. Old one \ +I need the peace that comes with knowing \ +something sacred holds still \ +in the world. I need your green tongues \ +of flame to lick at old wounds \ +stitching us together away from ourselves. \ +I need your brownbranching grasp \ +to keep me from drifting off \ +into unknowing terrible sleep. I need \ +to know the snake hanging \ +from your branches. I need to watch \ +the dropping of flesh massful \ +onto the ground from a height. I need \ +the gnawer at your root to strike \ +a vein to quicken old brown stone \ +to movement. I need jeweleyed venom \ +barking new greennesses into the bark. \ +I need a knocker of dark secrets hidden \ +in the dark bark hiding a smallstone \ +smoldering pearl in the knot. I need \ +that pearl held out in a hand like an offering. \ +I need the hand to be a plant's hand. + +I need a plant. I need a growing \ +growler groaning toward heat and air. \ +I need a green thin stem surprisingly strong \ +holding up the weight of a plain \ +of fallow greennesses of creases and caresses \ +of tiny worldmaking hardworking grandeur. \ +I need a singer of life crying \ +forward into old roads covered over \ +by dead trees. I need the rasping of root \ +in dirt. I need the unfurling of fiddleheads \ +to sing forth a new symphony. I need \ +fruits swelling large for the harvest. \ +I need yellow light shining through white bark. \ +I need juicecrush flowing waterlike \ +through valleys percolating up \ +through the ground. I need springs bubbling sap \ +into cabins of wood fought for by labor. \ +I need snow on the ground with shoots \ +dotting the melting patches. I need two \ +leaves on a thin stalk shivering \ +in moonlight. I need robinsong warbling \ +over the heads of small seeds sprouting \ +to enliven their growth. I need rings \ +of woody material widening to push \ +the ground out of their way. I need \ +new greennesses pushing out from \ +the brown dark bark gnarled. I \ +need the robin to build its songfilled \ +nest in a branchcrotch. I need \ +the fecundity of fungi on the branches. \ +I need quiet of the sunlight shooting \ +through thousands of branched leaves \ +quivering. I need whisper at dawn. \ +I need burrows underground foxholes. \ +I need duff layers eaten through \ +by worms. I need brooks murmuring \ +through crooks of roots. I need small \ +fish swimming in their schools at \ +midnight. I need oldnesses giving way \ +to youngnesses giving way to oldnesses. \ +I need dapplegray yellowshot ashbark. \ +I need the crunch of dead leaves underfoot. \ +I need snowquiet deadbranch mourning. \ +I need those purple mountains majesty. \ +I need a walk between trees in the dark. \ +I need that moment when stopping to rest \ +it suddenly seems that all the weary \ +forestroads in all their meandering come \ +to rest their heads at my astonished \ +feet, none of them needing more than me. diff --git a/src/seasonal-affective-disorder.txt b/src/seasonal-affective-disorder.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef14309 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/seasonal-affective-disorder.txt @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +title: Seasonal affective disorder +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +On your desk I set a tangerine: \ +a relic of a winter quickly passing. + +I'm reminded, fiercely, of a summer: \ +I watched the cemetery grass on my stomach. + +You hate the wind blowing through buildings: \ +the coldness of fire, blister of a mountain stream. + +When you broke down that night: your aunt / you \ +never have been / you shook that night / + +Seasonal affective disorder is real: you \ +mutter under your breath on the highway. + +The ant carries an orange peel past a headstone: \ +it carries her nearly as often. + +I set a tangerine on your desk: \ +an engagement ring, winter-returned. diff --git a/src/sense-of-it.txt b/src/sense-of-it.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1be59e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/sense-of-it.txt @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: Sense of it +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +I only write poems on the bus anymore. \ +I sit far in the back to be alone. \ +I mark black things on white things in a black thing. \ +I try to make sense of it. + +Every time I see a plastic bag in the wind I think: \ +This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. \ +Most of my life I relate to something on the TV: \ +This is how I try to make sense of it. + +The Talking Heads song ["Stop Making Sense"][stop] \ +is about a girlfriend caught cheating and willed oblivion. \ +The song's real title is "Girlfriend is Better" \ +but lying about it is a way I try to make sense of it. + +The day after I lost her I found you again. \ +Your face made a plastic bag of my heart. \ +Your eyes were the wind pushing the bus forward. \ +I couldn't make sense of it. + +[stop]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r7X3f2gFz4 diff --git a/src/something-simple.txt b/src/something-simple.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0065c34 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/something-simple.txt @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: Let's start with something simple +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +in mammals the ratio between bladder size \ +and urethra is such that it takes \ +all of them the same time to piss. Take \ +for example the fact that Fibonnacci \ +numbers show up everywhere. How can you \ +look at this at all of this all of \ +these facts and tell me to my face there \ +is no God? And yet there isn't \ +you murmer quietly into my ear over \ +and over like a low tide sounding \ +its lonely waves on an abandoned beach. \ +The ocean that birthed us holds us \ +still. We are tied, you and I, together \ +in her arms. The [moon, caring father,][moon] \ +looks down from a dispassionate sky. + +[moon]: moon-drowning.html diff --git a/src/stayed-on-the-bus.txt b/src/stayed-on-the-bus.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d9e867 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/stayed-on-the-bus.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: Stayed on the bus too long +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +It was a gamble \ +I lost---thought I could get closer \ +than the library, stayed \ +on past the admin building, \ +back down the hill to my beginning, \ +the driver's second-to-last stop. \ +I have to walk now, \ +through the wind and sun, past \ +traffic moving merrily along \ +taking their own gambles \ +staying on or getting off \ +too soon. diff --git a/src/the-night-we-met.txt b/src/the-night-we-met.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a9dc93 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/the-night-we-met.txt @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: The night we met, I was out of my mind +subtitle: or Lying in the dark +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +My head is full of fire, my tongue swollen, \ +pregnant with all the things I should've said \ +but didn't. Last night, we met each other \ +in the dark, remember? You told me time was + +pregnant with all things. I should've said \ +something, to draw you out from your place \ +in the dark. Remember, you told me time was \ +only an illusion, and memory was only + +something to draw. You, out from your place, \ +I out from mine, that night, I believed in you. \ +Only illusion and memory were one, lying \ +down on your couch, through the night you drew + +me out from mine. That night, I believed in you \ +when you told me you loved me. I lay \ +down on your couch. Through the night, you drew \ +a picture of our future together. + +When you told me you loved me, I lied \ +in the dark. Remember, you told me time was \ +a picture of our future together. \ +My head is full of fire, my tongue swollen. diff --git a/src/the-sea_the-beach.txt b/src/the-sea_the-beach.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a4e88c --- /dev/null +++ b/src/the-sea_the-beach.txt @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: The sea and the beach +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Waiting for a reading to start \ +when there's nobody coming anyway \ +is like waiting for the tide \ +to make some meaning of the beach. + +The sea doesn't know or care \ +what the beach even is, let alone \ +its cares or its troubles, its \ +little nagging under-the-skin annoyances \ +that make the beach the beach. + +Sandworms, for example, or those crabs \ +with big pincers on one side \ +but not the other. Those really get \ +the beach's gander up, but the sea \ +doesn't care. The sea + +only wants to caress the beach \ +with its soft arms, to tell the beach \ +how much it's loved by the sea, \ +that complex of water, salt, and \ +the moon's gravity, the mercury \ +rising up and down slowly, like a yawn. + +The sea only cares about itself. \ +The beach lays there and takes it. diff --git a/src/time-looks-up-to-the-sky.txt b/src/time-looks-up-to-the-sky.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c43786 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/time-looks-up-to-the-sky.txt @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: Time looks up to the sky +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +I wish I'd kissed you when I had the chance. \ +Your face hovering there, so near to mine, \ +your mouth pursed---what word was it you pronounced? + +When I think about you, something in my pants \ +tightens, and my thoughts run, and I realize \ +I should've kissed you when I had the chance. + +I want that moment never to be past \ +like Keats's lovers on the grecian urn: \ +his mouth pursed, her figure turned to pronounce + +her hips in ways that are not feminist. \ +But time strolls mildly on, not glancing at my \ +wish to kiss you when I had the chance, + +whispered like a beggar to a prince \ +outside his palace: time looks up to the sky, \ +purses his lips, and hears what I pronounce + +but pays it little mind. If he would just \ +turn back, bend down, and follow my design, \ +I would have kissed you when I had the chance, \ +as your mouth pursed and you pronounced goodbye. diff --git a/src/when-im-sorry-i.txt b/src/when-im-sorry-i.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af1d059 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/when-im-sorry-i.txt @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +title: When I'm sorry I wash dishes +genre: verse + +project: + title: Autocento of the breakfast table + css: autocento +... + +Your casserole dish takes the longest: \ +it has some baked-in crust from when you \ +cooked chicken last night. Washing it \ +allows me to think about this poem's title \ +and the first few lines. Now that I've \ +written them down, I've forgotten the rest. + +While sraping at something with my finger- \ +nail, I catch myself wondering again whether \ +you'll thank me for washing your dishes. \ +I realize that this would defeat the point \ +of my gesture, that this has destroyed \ +all good thoughts I've had about saying + +"I'm sorry." This, this is the reason why \ +I am always apologizing: because I never \ +mean it, because there is always, in some \ +attic, a thought roaming that says, insists: \ +"I've done nothing wrong, and I deserve \ +all I can take, and more than that." -- cgit 1.4.1-21-gabe81