From b1ea729d8c82a027285b4afa806c586d7216e7d3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Case Duckworth Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 12:57:31 -0700 Subject: Move WIP to text/ --- text/wip/angeltoabraham.txt | 13 +++++++++++++ text/wip/apollo11.txt | 16 ++++++++++++++++ text/wip/ars-words-meaning__.txt | 9 +++++++++ text/wip/big-dipper.txt | 16 ++++++++++++++++ text/wip/deathstrumpet.txt | 35 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ text/wip/i-am.txt | 26 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ text/wip/i-am2.txt | 11 +++++++++++ text/wip/moongone.txt | 6 ++++++ text/wip/mountain.txt | 32 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 9 files changed, 164 insertions(+) create mode 100644 text/wip/angeltoabraham.txt create mode 100644 text/wip/apollo11.txt create mode 100644 text/wip/ars-words-meaning__.txt create mode 100644 text/wip/big-dipper.txt create mode 100644 text/wip/deathstrumpet.txt create mode 100644 text/wip/i-am.txt create mode 100644 text/wip/i-am2.txt create mode 100644 text/wip/moongone.txt create mode 100644 text/wip/mountain.txt (limited to 'text/wip') diff --git a/text/wip/angeltoabraham.txt b/text/wip/angeltoabraham.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab1f17e --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/angeltoabraham.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +Abraham, Abraham, you are old and cannot hear +my small voice under the creaking of your grief. +Your eyes are dim and connot see the ram +as it creates itself from the bush, fashioning +its horns from brambles, its wool from leaves, +its hooves from the rock of the mountain. + +Your hand is shaky, but it is sure to its goal. +The knife is blunt but not blunt enough. + +I am here to stay your hand, to blunt +the knife, to bring the ram out from itself +so that it can realize its purpose diff --git a/text/wip/apollo11.txt b/text/wip/apollo11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c6ef3c --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/apollo11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +So it's the fucking moon. Big deal. As if +you haven't seen it before, tacked to the sky +like a piece of rotten meat, or a maudlin + +love letter (the _i_'s dotted neatly with hearts) +on the sky's door like the ninety-eight theses. + +Don't stare at it like it means anything. +Don't give it the chance to collect meaning +from your outstretched hand, like an old pigeon. + +Don't dare ascribe it a will, or call it fickle, +or think it has any say in your affairs. + +It's separated from you by three hundred and eighty +thousand miles of empty space, diff --git a/text/wip/ars-words-meaning__.txt b/text/wip/ars-words-meaning__.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27177d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/ars-words-meaning__.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +_How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, + but frightening that it does not quite._ +_A word is elegy to what it signifies._ + +The world is somewhat large and unwieldy. +This is something I think we can all agree on. +And although we may be unwieldy, knocking around semi-anonymously between our work and our families, between eating and sleeping, between the bigness that surrounds us on both sides like a tall hedge wall, we are by no means large. +This is something else we can agree on, if we're honest with ourselves. + diff --git a/text/wip/big-dipper.txt b/text/wip/big-dipper.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..095e665 --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/big-dipper.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +I didn't see it for days, or even months. +I lost track after a while how long it was. +Then one night, there it was, reclining +on the mountains as if they were a couch. +_I missed you_, I said, but it didn't hear +or it pretended not to, I don't know which. +I thought it was looking right at me, but +it could've been staring over my shoulder +at something glinting. I guess I have to try +harder, try something different. I'm going +to sing to it, bring it flowers every night, +something white to brighten up my hands. + +Years later, when I've won it back, when +it shows itself to me without asking, I'll + diff --git a/text/wip/deathstrumpet.txt b/text/wip/deathstrumpet.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab901ff --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/deathstrumpet.txt @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +| He didn't have any polish so he spit-shined the whole thing +| until it gleamed like a [tomato on the vine][] that was begging +| to be picked and thrown on some caprese. Death loved caprese. + +| He stood up to put the horn to his lips, trying to imagine +| it was a woman he loved. He blushed as he realized how bad +| [the metaphor was][]. He practiced anyway for six hours a day +| in front of the mirror---what else to do with all the time? + +| Death looked at [himself in the mirror][] as he played, the trumpet +| suspended in midair. _Damn vampire rules_, he thought. +| He was always worried he might have [missed a spot][] while shaving +| but he'd never know unless a stranger---he had no friends--- +| was kind enough. Not that he goes out anyway or meets people. + +| He started waking up late, staying in bed later. +| He started thinking he was depressed. He never did eat +| that caprese, and it started getting soggy, green spots +| spreading on the mozzarella like bedsores. The sun +| filtered through the [kitchen blinds like smoke][]. He had +| to get out of the house. He decided to go to the arcade. + +| When he got there, it was empty except for a boy +| [with dead eyes][]. So far so good, Death thought. +| He was playing a first-person shooter, something violent. +| Death walked past him and watched out of the corner +| of his eye. The kid was good. Death decided +| to congratulate him. He had his trumpet in his hand. + +[himself in the mirror]: moongone.html +[with dead eyes]: big-dipper.html +[tomato on the vine]: wallpaper.html +[the metaphor was]: leaf.html +[missed a spot]: january.html +[kitchen blinds like smoke]: what-we-are-made-of.html diff --git a/text/wip/i-am.txt b/text/wip/i-am.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4727a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/i-am.txt @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +I am a great pillar of white smoke. +I am Lot's nameless wife turned to salt. + +I am the wound on Christ's back as he moans +with the pounding of a hammer on his wrist. + +I am the nail that holds his house together, +the long nail in his right wrist that points + +toward heaven. I am that nail and I am +the builder of the house, a strong house + +with a sound foundation. I am not the only +one who lives here. I am the god of + +a race of dust mites who build monuments +in my honor every day in the small dark + +corners of my house. I destroy each one +before I sleep each night. Every morning + +there are still more. I am unaware where +all of them are. There are too many. + +I am a god without a name in an empty house. +I am an open wound festering in the white sun. diff --git a/text/wip/i-am2.txt b/text/wip/i-am2.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a8ae81 --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/i-am2.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +I am a great pillar of white smoke. +I am Lot's nameless wife encased in salt. + +I am the wound on Christ's wrist groaning +under the repeated weight of a hammer. + +I am the nail in the wound that points +toward heaven. I am the nail that holds + +his kingdom together around my cold +thin body. diff --git a/text/wip/moongone.txt b/text/wip/moongone.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9168ff0 --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/moongone.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +The moon is gone and in its place a mirror. +Looking at the night sky, the viewer sees only his own face as viewed from far away, surrounded by a vague landscape of mountains, the plain he's standing on, a river. +He sees he is alone in the wilderness. +He wonders in being alone. + +But behind him, the viewer sees a pursuer. diff --git a/text/wip/mountain.txt b/text/wip/mountain.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b3df14 --- /dev/null +++ b/text/wip/mountain.txt @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: The mountain +genre: verse + +id: mountain +toc: "The mountain" + +project: + title: Elegies for alternate selves + class: elegies + order: 19 + prev: + - title: The moon is gone and in its place a mirror + link: moongone + next: + - title: Serengeti + link: serengeti +... + +The other side of the mountain is +not the same mountain. This side +is stickysweet full of phone calls +where not much was said but promises + +to call some other time or visit. +The other side of the mountain is +a bell, ringing in the church to mark +the day we couldn't visit anymore. + +The other side of the mountain is +not a mountain. At the bottom a river +courses past a ferry in the dark. -- cgit 1.4.1-21-gabe81