"Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly,
Man got to sit and wonder why, why, why?
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
inception
The first thing I noticed was that my jaws were clenched. "No words for now" - a ubiquitous voice from everywhere around me. I closed my eyes.
And beneath the words I couldn't speak, beneath it all, I closed them again. Entered a dream withith a dream. Hallways leading to hallways.
Breath became easy. The fire burning between my ribs was cooled.
I wasn't there long - maybe longer than I know. There were no clocks in these hallways. No sense of direction either. My internal compass was wrecked.
I never found anything. Never did anything. Never saw anyone.
When I came back, my jaws were still shut. I had nothing to say, anyway. Retrograde amnesia - unable to connect to my old thoughts and bother my poor worn-out tongue with them.
Something was different. Something was born in that wasteland.
So alive and speechless.
And beneath the words I couldn't speak, beneath it all, I closed them again. Entered a dream withith a dream. Hallways leading to hallways.
Breath became easy. The fire burning between my ribs was cooled.
I wasn't there long - maybe longer than I know. There were no clocks in these hallways. No sense of direction either. My internal compass was wrecked.
I never found anything. Never did anything. Never saw anyone.
When I came back, my jaws were still shut. I had nothing to say, anyway. Retrograde amnesia - unable to connect to my old thoughts and bother my poor worn-out tongue with them.
Something was different. Something was born in that wasteland.
So alive and speechless.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
by Billy Collins
Night House
"Every day the body works in the fields of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass -
the grass of civics, the grass of money -
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.
But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.
And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.
And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,
resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body - that house of voices -
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,
to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor."
- Billy Collins, from Picnic, Lightning
"Every day the body works in the fields of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass -
the grass of civics, the grass of money -
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.
But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.
And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.
And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,
resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body - that house of voices -
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,
to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor."
- Billy Collins, from Picnic, Lightning
by Billy Collins
Not Touching
"The valentine of desire is pasted over my heart
and still we are not touching, like things
in a poorly done still life
where the knife appers to be floating over the plate
which is itself hovering above the table somehow,
the entire arrangement of apple, pear, and wineglass
having forgotten the law of gravity,
refusing to be still,
as if the painter had caught them all
in a rare moment of slow flight
just before they drifted out of the room
through a window of perfectly realistic sunlight."
- Billy Collins, from Questions About Angels
"The valentine of desire is pasted over my heart
and still we are not touching, like things
in a poorly done still life
where the knife appers to be floating over the plate
which is itself hovering above the table somehow,
the entire arrangement of apple, pear, and wineglass
having forgotten the law of gravity,
refusing to be still,
as if the painter had caught them all
in a rare moment of slow flight
just before they drifted out of the room
through a window of perfectly realistic sunlight."
- Billy Collins, from Questions About Angels
Friday, June 1, 2012
most haunting and beautiful four minutes of your day
I haven't had much time or energy to write lately, so I've been putting up quotes and things I run across that move me. Here's another, a song and video by Bon Iver (my newest life-changing musical discovery). Do your best to not be haunted and moved by this - although, I realize I'm in a particular place in life that sets me up for that kind of experience at almost every turn, and not everyone is. All the same, enjoy.
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