MEMORANDUM
Re: The thing that must be remembered
Date: September 11, 2001
Poetry wants to be written
it’s there in the web of things
the veins in the leaf
the metal frame
it will out, like a story
which wants to be told
set loose
Poetry works to be written
it hums within the day
energy waiting to be transformed
kinetic to potential
rhyme lifted into steel
stored stone by stone
that waits and sings
Those stones sing and wait
even if the wait ends in a fall
transformed again
doors and windows, bodies and stones
unbuilding themselves
steel unframed and flying
Then poetry aches to be written
tumbling stone and shard
uncounted things, uncountable pages
corresponding to the course of life
sing and sigh and sift to the ground
Things that must be remembered
things that must be done
because lives must be remembered
and deaths
Poetry wants to be written
Even in the black ink of loss
even that dark song
is there beneath the integral web
of things
(March 2002)
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Blog Reader Appreciation Day
April 16, 2008
The Madonna Option: Write a post thanking your readers for putting up with your foibles, mistakes, and eccentricities (a list) and being loyal to you (your blog) no matter what.
Foibles, mistakes and eccentricities:
A. Always
B. Begging
C. Clarinet
D. Daring
E. Effort
F. Forgiveness
G. Gratitude
H. Wearing hats too much
I. Ingenuity
J. Jesus-talk
K. Kindness
L. Love
M. Miles without a map
N. Nuisance
O. Openness
P. Politics
Q. Quizzicalness
R. Remembering
S. Safety
T. Texas
U. University
V. Veils
W. Wax
X. Xenophoria
Y. Yes
Z. Zig zagging
Yet readers might enjoy reading it. Thanks to the reader!
The Madonna Option: Write a post thanking your readers for putting up with your foibles, mistakes, and eccentricities (a list) and being loyal to you (your blog) no matter what.
Foibles, mistakes and eccentricities:
A. Always
B. Begging
C. Clarinet
D. Daring
E. Effort
F. Forgiveness
G. Gratitude
H. Wearing hats too much
I. Ingenuity
J. Jesus-talk
K. Kindness
L. Love
M. Miles without a map
N. Nuisance
O. Openness
P. Politics
Q. Quizzicalness
R. Remembering
S. Safety
T. Texas
U. University
V. Veils
W. Wax
X. Xenophoria
Y. Yes
Z. Zig zagging
Yet readers might enjoy reading it. Thanks to the reader!
Thursday, April 10, 2008
En(gag)ed
Didn't less. Borrowed mute. Frank discoverer. Lead trumpet. Fingers tux. Car stole. Friends rounded. Simile pervaded. Song decanted. Seller broker. Boston number. Teal parrotlet. Frog queued. Rain ignited. Gray developer. Sand track. Imperial whiner. Father surface. Life feminine. Hooker streaming. Misogyny effects. Black castle. Swiss uncle. Storm shelter.
The housekeeper, Cheyenne, lost her son to a trainwreck, his lie. The housekeeper, Cheyenne, fishing for a rich man at Love Happens lost her son to a trainwreck, his lie. The mother, Cheyenne, fishing for a rich man at True.com lost her son to a trainwreck, a lie. The fishwife, Cheyenne, fishing for a rich man at a dating website lost her son to a trainwreck, a lie.
Tell the pastor the trouble is. 4/18. The trouble is the missing son. The man going missing is powerful -- he is powerful -- as powerful as sun -- sun strokes a tree just once in the early morning; he strokes the nieces' lives all day. "Just stroking me." Like Woody Allen, only kinder, marries his niece: which one? Sun strokes the same branch he sees her seeing. He marries Sheldon's grandniece. He marries Edward's niece. He marries Jack's daughter. The lesser niece steals cooking from the elder niece. Steals patronage. He sees his place in things. He is a Catholic grandheir. More powerful than sunlight on a young branch in lower Manhattan.
He would have her evicted, he tells Cheyenne, after inviting her here to be wed. He tells Cheyenne no niece of mine. Cheyenne says our sons died in wrecks. Let's marry. Cherry Blossoms frill the trees. He reaches for his glasses. Spitzer, he says. Bruno. Ha, ha, ha, Cheyenne says. Then -- moment, she hushes him, a sound from her family. Bring them with you, he says.
Cheyenne collides with Saint Ann, the bellwether, on the receiver. You're out, I'm in, Cheyenne warns her. Saint Ann tells herself, here comes a little chickadee to eat a husband. The chickadee eats the husband. The husband eats the Saint. The Saint vies to be let out of the husband's sunblock. The Saint holds nothing against birds. The Saint cherishes truffles au phon. The Saint's sister takes $20 to her dossier. This is her bouvier. The Saint's sister is mortal, Careen. The Saint says there's a car wreck in the story, just not that one; Careen counts the electronic cash. By me, she says distinctly when he calls, her sister the Saint in his belly, a health complaint. The chickadee au grave.
The housekeeper, Cheyenne, lost her son to a trainwreck, his lie. The housekeeper, Cheyenne, fishing for a rich man at Love Happens lost her son to a trainwreck, his lie. The mother, Cheyenne, fishing for a rich man at True.com lost her son to a trainwreck, a lie. The fishwife, Cheyenne, fishing for a rich man at a dating website lost her son to a trainwreck, a lie.
Tell the pastor the trouble is. 4/18. The trouble is the missing son. The man going missing is powerful -- he is powerful -- as powerful as sun -- sun strokes a tree just once in the early morning; he strokes the nieces' lives all day. "Just stroking me." Like Woody Allen, only kinder, marries his niece: which one? Sun strokes the same branch he sees her seeing. He marries Sheldon's grandniece. He marries Edward's niece. He marries Jack's daughter. The lesser niece steals cooking from the elder niece. Steals patronage. He sees his place in things. He is a Catholic grandheir. More powerful than sunlight on a young branch in lower Manhattan.
He would have her evicted, he tells Cheyenne, after inviting her here to be wed. He tells Cheyenne no niece of mine. Cheyenne says our sons died in wrecks. Let's marry. Cherry Blossoms frill the trees. He reaches for his glasses. Spitzer, he says. Bruno. Ha, ha, ha, Cheyenne says. Then -- moment, she hushes him, a sound from her family. Bring them with you, he says.
Cheyenne collides with Saint Ann, the bellwether, on the receiver. You're out, I'm in, Cheyenne warns her. Saint Ann tells herself, here comes a little chickadee to eat a husband. The chickadee eats the husband. The husband eats the Saint. The Saint vies to be let out of the husband's sunblock. The Saint holds nothing against birds. The Saint cherishes truffles au phon. The Saint's sister takes $20 to her dossier. This is her bouvier. The Saint's sister is mortal, Careen. The Saint says there's a car wreck in the story, just not that one; Careen counts the electronic cash. By me, she says distinctly when he calls, her sister the Saint in his belly, a health complaint. The chickadee au grave.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Take it or leave it
Everything is not a disease. Even if you hyphenate it, and suggest that everything is or leads to dis-ease, it isn't accurate. I have decided that I look for others who can (in their adult maturities) "take it or leave it." A man who can take a drink or not take a drink, at will, or who can attend or not attend an AA meeting, who may feel a duty to it, but who can distance himself from the cultish aspects of "the program," and not need it, either. Who has self-determination with or without it, with or without that drink or those six drinks, who pays in hangover, not in housing and divorce, a moderate perhaps. Alcohol is not a disease. It is a beverage and solvent. Prune juice is not a disease. It is a beverage and solvent. Wanting your old boyfriend to come back to you is not a disease; it is a decision. Wanting to go to your church is a goal, a position, a decision. Voting for Obama is not a disease; it is a viewpoint, a set of wishes. Walking in the rain is not a disease. Sustaining damage might be a disease. This is as innocent as contracting cancer, which is a disease. The disease caused by sustaining damage is trauma; the body reacts. The mind is part of the body. The body is part of the mind. The self is part of the mind. The heart is part of the body. The heart-body-mind live inside the decisions. The decisions are adjustable. I am tired of hearing that everything is a disease. It is a repudiation of religion that produces that error. To be self-representing, one might repudiate religion without abandoning science. Love is a decision.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
The time has come (to talk politics)
Dear E. and all.
I'm sorry I didn't write back to E.'s real letter as I've been busy, and spent Valentine's day at an aunt's wake in Boston. Then one thing and another came up. Thank you for writing fully on it.
Obama does have charisma, but that usually only makes me suspicious of a man. Seriously. As Bertold Brecht said, Woe to the country that needs Geniuses and Prophets!
Hillary does not have charisma, needless to say. And the truth is, I've never believed she was electable, so I don't know how I've ended up in the position I'm in. But in the past year(s) of her running, I've had to wonder why does she elicit so much enmity? Is it because she doesn't have charisma? (How could she have charisma? I remember when Vogue did the cover on her; the interviewer was looking for a newspaper in her office and asked Hillary's assistant what papers she read. The assistant explained that Ms. Clinton did not read newspapers. She read position papers from our government and others. I've never forgotten it, and I find it wholly believable.) Maybe it's because of those position papers, or maybe she doesn't have a persona that is interested in charm. What does it mean to be uninterested in charm, anyway? She married charm and knows about its dark undercurrents. (I've been reading a lot of poetics theory lately and it is well established that the death of the author is a good thing, like the death of an entrepreneurial authority full of quaint romantic values like "genius" and "charisma.") (Has Hillary been postmodern all this time and we never knew?)
Yesterday morning I woke up remembering my friend Andre's words about 9/11. It was the next month, and we were having breakfast at a cafe around the corner from my house, which was around the corner from the towers, and we were talking about the towers, of course. We didn't talk about anything else for months, it seems! He was raised in Soviet Russia, and is an architect and a professor, just our age, and he said, "We won't know what these towers meant -- maybe ever. Our children will know, but we won't, not really."
I thought that was so wise! And I still like it I certainly had a quite fixed idea of what the attack meant from the very beginning, but I was willing then and I'm still willing -- even happy to believe I'm wrong, and (what's more) that I can't be right, I'm too close to be right. But lots of people walked around like I did, dazed, taking the whole thing personally, whether they were on Wall Street or in Vermont, California, Peru.
So yesterday I thought (hoped) that must be how it is with Hillary. I've been rendered stupid on the subject by some proximity -- a proximity which isn't real at all! I just can't understand why she was so thoroughly rejected (and demeaned) by all the world's mouthpieces. Ten years from now I'll look back on her campaign and say, What the hell was that all about? Of course, I think I know -- I think she's complicated, I think she's a Clinton, I think she's taken politics too seriously. (Whatever the hell that means.) (Well, it means that she hasn't been able to play at politics, like you sense Bill did, and like you sense GWB did -- until the towers, the war going on and on -- and like Obama has come to look.) But I'll never believe that this damn thing isn't riddled with misogyny.
I've been thinking about when Diana died. Diana, princess of Wales! I can't recall if it was just after mother died or just before, but I was flabbergasted by the outpouring of insane identification from every magazine-reading chick in the country. Black, white, green, yellow, everybody was devastated about her. As if Diana represented some part of them, the princess inside who had been hounded through the French tunnels with a handsome billionaire boyfriend, and died. Oh the tears. Oh the drama. Psychologists had to write article after article about why Diana was so important, about why we connected so deeply to her.
And now we have an American woman who helped organize migrant workers forty years ago, registered Hispanics in the Rio Grande valley to vote, who worked for Civil Rights and for the ACLU and graduated at the top of her class then went to Yale Law -- the law school which has always had the reputation for churning out the best professors and philosophers of law, not the best practitioners -- a woman cheated on and humiliated by her husband whom she rightly saw, back in 1969, would be the president of the US -- but nobody identifies with this woman. Nobody cries when she works her ass off to make a health care plan that will work, to run for three years -- maybe she's been running for all 7 years she's been in the senate. Maureen Dowd, a self-hating misogynist if there ever was one, writes columns that repeatedly refer to her ankle size. If anyone was ever hounded by the press, it's Hillary Clinton, She made one crack about not staying home to bake cookies and she's been crucified ever since. Her hair has been a topic of much conversation since the 80's. (I've had about 45 colors since then.) I'm sure that some nights lately she wishes Rush Limbaugh and Dowd would go ahead and drive her into a nice thick wall and put an end to it all.
A day before the New York elections, a group of feminists including Katha Pollitt came out for Obama. I have been speechless ever since, and unable to write you back. Seriously. Every day I want to write the letter -- I had the stuff below in the drafts file in my computer -- and every day I could not. My husband of course voted for Obama, like almost everyone else I know in town. And still I'm walking around like I have personally been attacked, certain that the whole damned thing smells like misogyny, like our system's powerful hatred for a strong woman, our system preferring women who think they're just like Diana. Keep them thinking that way, racking up the credit cards, driving their SUV's. Our world loving the women eager to faint before Obama's Camelot talk.
A president like the Beatles, great. I just hope he's John or George -- Or Martin, maybe he's Martin.
I enclose the bit from Robin Morgan that I originally wanted you to read, and something a Republican friend sent about Obama in N.O.
I feel better having gotten some of this out. God bless America, babe,
love, Alexis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexis Quinlan"
To: "E."; "Kate Parrish"
; "Victoria Jones"
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 9:19 PM
Subject: the time has come
to talk politics.
I've been sort of upset about Hillary and unsure about Obama. I can't help feeling that if Obama were the descendent of slaves there's no way he'd be in this position -- we can only stand him because he won't ever throw slavery/lynching at white America. I also can't help but think that 90% of Hillary's problem is misogyny. Peter voted for Obama, as did many of our friends. I voted for Hill, of course. I'd have done it with a little more pride if I'd read this article by Robin Morgan ahead of time.
Check it out as it is full of amazing comparisons and insight.
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/020108.html
love, A
I'm sorry I didn't write back to E.'s real letter as I've been busy, and spent Valentine's day at an aunt's wake in Boston. Then one thing and another came up. Thank you for writing fully on it.
Obama does have charisma, but that usually only makes me suspicious of a man. Seriously. As Bertold Brecht said, Woe to the country that needs Geniuses and Prophets!
Hillary does not have charisma, needless to say. And the truth is, I've never believed she was electable, so I don't know how I've ended up in the position I'm in. But in the past year(s) of her running, I've had to wonder why does she elicit so much enmity? Is it because she doesn't have charisma? (How could she have charisma? I remember when Vogue did the cover on her; the interviewer was looking for a newspaper in her office and asked Hillary's assistant what papers she read. The assistant explained that Ms. Clinton did not read newspapers. She read position papers from our government and others. I've never forgotten it, and I find it wholly believable.) Maybe it's because of those position papers, or maybe she doesn't have a persona that is interested in charm. What does it mean to be uninterested in charm, anyway? She married charm and knows about its dark undercurrents. (I've been reading a lot of poetics theory lately and it is well established that the death of the author is a good thing, like the death of an entrepreneurial authority full of quaint romantic values like "genius" and "charisma.") (Has Hillary been postmodern all this time and we never knew?)
Yesterday morning I woke up remembering my friend Andre's words about 9/11. It was the next month, and we were having breakfast at a cafe around the corner from my house, which was around the corner from the towers, and we were talking about the towers, of course. We didn't talk about anything else for months, it seems! He was raised in Soviet Russia, and is an architect and a professor, just our age, and he said, "We won't know what these towers meant -- maybe ever. Our children will know, but we won't, not really."
I thought that was so wise! And I still like it I certainly had a quite fixed idea of what the attack meant from the very beginning, but I was willing then and I'm still willing -- even happy to believe I'm wrong, and (what's more) that I can't be right, I'm too close to be right. But lots of people walked around like I did, dazed, taking the whole thing personally, whether they were on Wall Street or in Vermont, California, Peru.
So yesterday I thought (hoped) that must be how it is with Hillary. I've been rendered stupid on the subject by some proximity -- a proximity which isn't real at all! I just can't understand why she was so thoroughly rejected (and demeaned) by all the world's mouthpieces. Ten years from now I'll look back on her campaign and say, What the hell was that all about? Of course, I think I know -- I think she's complicated, I think she's a Clinton, I think she's taken politics too seriously. (Whatever the hell that means.) (Well, it means that she hasn't been able to play at politics, like you sense Bill did, and like you sense GWB did -- until the towers, the war going on and on -- and like Obama has come to look.) But I'll never believe that this damn thing isn't riddled with misogyny.
I've been thinking about when Diana died. Diana, princess of Wales! I can't recall if it was just after mother died or just before, but I was flabbergasted by the outpouring of insane identification from every magazine-reading chick in the country. Black, white, green, yellow, everybody was devastated about her. As if Diana represented some part of them, the princess inside who had been hounded through the French tunnels with a handsome billionaire boyfriend, and died. Oh the tears. Oh the drama. Psychologists had to write article after article about why Diana was so important, about why we connected so deeply to her.
And now we have an American woman who helped organize migrant workers forty years ago, registered Hispanics in the Rio Grande valley to vote, who worked for Civil Rights and for the ACLU and graduated at the top of her class then went to Yale Law -- the law school which has always had the reputation for churning out the best professors and philosophers of law, not the best practitioners -- a woman cheated on and humiliated by her husband whom she rightly saw, back in 1969, would be the president of the US -- but nobody identifies with this woman. Nobody cries when she works her ass off to make a health care plan that will work, to run for three years -- maybe she's been running for all 7 years she's been in the senate. Maureen Dowd, a self-hating misogynist if there ever was one, writes columns that repeatedly refer to her ankle size. If anyone was ever hounded by the press, it's Hillary Clinton, She made one crack about not staying home to bake cookies and she's been crucified ever since. Her hair has been a topic of much conversation since the 80's. (I've had about 45 colors since then.) I'm sure that some nights lately she wishes Rush Limbaugh and Dowd would go ahead and drive her into a nice thick wall and put an end to it all.
A day before the New York elections, a group of feminists including Katha Pollitt came out for Obama. I have been speechless ever since, and unable to write you back. Seriously. Every day I want to write the letter -- I had the stuff below in the drafts file in my computer -- and every day I could not. My husband of course voted for Obama, like almost everyone else I know in town. And still I'm walking around like I have personally been attacked, certain that the whole damned thing smells like misogyny, like our system's powerful hatred for a strong woman, our system preferring women who think they're just like Diana. Keep them thinking that way, racking up the credit cards, driving their SUV's. Our world loving the women eager to faint before Obama's Camelot talk.
A president like the Beatles, great. I just hope he's John or George -- Or Martin, maybe he's Martin.
I enclose the bit from Robin Morgan that I originally wanted you to read, and something a Republican friend sent about Obama in N.O.
I feel better having gotten some of this out. God bless America, babe,
love, Alexis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexis Quinlan"
To: "E."; "Kate Parrish"
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 9:19 PM
Subject: the time has come
to talk politics.
I've been sort of upset about Hillary and unsure about Obama. I can't help feeling that if Obama were the descendent of slaves there's no way he'd be in this position -- we can only stand him because he won't ever throw slavery/lynching at white America. I also can't help but think that 90% of Hillary's problem is misogyny. Peter voted for Obama, as did many of our friends. I voted for Hill, of course. I'd have done it with a little more pride if I'd read this article by Robin Morgan ahead of time.
Check it out as it is full of amazing comparisons and insight.
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/020108.html
love, A
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