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[supersaiga]

[supersaiga]

I am dead already - PD Lyons

I am dead already

~ So

there is nothing really to worry about

~ Although sometimes i still forget

think of myself as living

things to do

places to go

achievement’s to achieve

people to please and all

eventually i come around

focus by saying

”you don’t have to”

usually that’s enough to bring me back to what is

~ Other times,

especially if i have forgotten for maybe days,

years, occasionally decades

it takes stuff a little stronger, not much though, you know

just say out loud to my so-called self;

“you are already dead“

helps me relax

brigs me round to that expansive place of what is

a pleasant space of truth

[supersaiga]

Very Large Moth

                                                                                                                           Your first thought when the light snaps on and the black wings

             clatter about the kitchen       is a bat

the clear part of  your mind considers rabies       the other part

             does not consider       knows only to startle

and cower away from the slap of  its wings       though it is soon

             clearly not a bat but a moth       and harmless

still you are shy of it       it clings to the hood of the stove

             not black but brown       its orange eyes sparkle

like televisions       its leg  joints are large enough to count

             how could you kill it       where would you hide the body

a creature so solid must have room for a soul

            and if  this is so       why not in a creature

half  its size       or half its size again       and so on

             down to the ants       clearly it must be saved

caught in a shopping bag and rushed to the front door

             afraid to crush it       feeling the plastic rattle

loosened into the night air       it batters the porch light

             throwing fitful shadows around the landing

That was a really big moth       is all you can say to the doorman

             who has watched your whole performance with a smile

the half-compassion and half-horror we feel for the creatures

             we want not to hurt       and prefer not to touch                                                                                                        By Craig Arnold                                    After D.H.L. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56460/very-large-moth

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The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain

There it was, word for word, The poem that took the place of a mountain. He breathed its oxygen, Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table. It reminded him how he had needed A place to go to in his own direction, How he had recomposed the pines, Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds, For the outlook that would be right, Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion: The exact rock where his inexactnesses Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged, Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea, Recognize his unique and solitary home. - Wallace Stevens https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57500/the-poem-that-took-the-place-of-a-mountain

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Martime

Did you ever feel this. Astonished by the blood drawn from your arms when you took a step forward and the air scraped you. Maybe you think peace. Think it as a floral carpet, a persistent scent that is supposed to be a memory you treasure. Only it was put there by someone else. When the sun hits it feels like something. Someone cooks soup. You love a person you envy. And the emotions wash into a teacup and you drink them and your teeth are storm-stained. If there were a wave, blue-black, flooding lives out, spinning each person and the next and their needs together as if they were fabrics in a laundry machine, could I ever trust it? If I touch and you forget you have borders against nature. We’re floating somewhere in a primordial pool. And I’ve got you, and I’ve got you. - Sharon Wang https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/150297/maritime                                                    

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Tumblr says this is in violation of community guidelines, ridiculous antiquated community guidelines that represent a sliding back into the dark ages and that I blame Trump for.

Don’t know what this is, found it online, any information appreciated. :) 

[supersaiga]

Intimate Detail

                                                                                                                               Late summer, late afternoon, my work interrupted by bees who claim my tea, even my pen looks flower-good to them. I warn a delivery man that my bees, who all summer have been tame as cows, now grow frantic, aggressive, difficult to shoo from the house. I blame the second blooms come out in hot colors, defiant vibrancy— unexpected from cottage cosmos, nicotianna, and bean vine. But those bees know, I’m told by the interested delivery man, they have only so many days to go. He sighs at sweetness untasted. Still warm in the day, we inspect the bees. This kind stranger knows them in intimate detail. He can name the ones I think of as shopping ladies. Their fur coats ruffed up, yellow packages tucked beneath their wings, so weighted with their finds they ascend in slow circles, sometimes drop, while other bees whirl madly, dance the blossoms, ravish broadly so the whole bed bends and bounces alive. He asks if I have kids, I say not yet. He has five, all boys. He calls the honeybees his girls although he tells me they’re ungendered workers who never produce offspring. Some hour drops, the bees shut off. In the long, cool slant of sun, spent flowers fold into cups. He asks me if I’ve ever seen a Solitary Bee where it sleeps. I say I’ve not. The nearest bud’s a long-throated peach hollyhock. He cradles it in his palm, holds it up so I spy the intimacy of the sleeping bee. Little life safe in a petal, little girl, your few furious buzzings as you stir stay with me all winter, remind me of my work undone.     By Heid E. Erdrich            It was poem of the day here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53933/intimate-detail                                        

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Interesting quotes of Go Tell it on the Mountain

Interesting does not mean that I take it litterally or that I agree with it or its literal interpretation. I am athiest.

It was the face of a girl who knew that no evil could undo her, and who could laugh, surely, as his mother did not laugh now. Between the two faces there stretched a darkness and a mystery that John feared, and that sometimes caused him to hate her. And he knew again that she was not saying everything she meant; in a kind of secret language she was telling him today something that he must remember and understand tomorrow. Perhaps her sin was so extreme that it could not be forgiven; perhaps her pride was so great that she did not need forgiveness. Nothing ever changed it; nothing ever would. For a moment her pride stood up; the resolution that had brought her to this place tonight faltered, and she felt that if Gabriel was the Lord’s anointed, she would rather die and endure Hell for all eternity than bow before His altar.     Her mother had taught her that the way to pray was to forget everything and everyone but Jesus; to pour out of the heart, like water from a bucket, all evil thoughts, all thoughts of self, all malice for one’s enemies; to come boldly, and yet more humbly than a little child, before the Giver of all good things< She lay beside him like a burden laid down at evening which must be picked up once more in the morning. His mind was like the sea itself: troubled, and too deep for the bravest man’s descent, throwing up now and again, for the naked eye to wonder at, treasure and debris long forgotten on the bottom—bones and jewels, fantastic shells, jelly that had once been flesh, pearls that had once been eyes. And he was at the mercy of this sea, hanging there with darkness all around him. Not for a moment had she judged her father; it would have made no difference to her love for him had she been told, and even seen it proved, that he was first cousin to the Devil. The proof would not have existed for her, and if it had she would not have regretted being his daughter, or have asked for anything better than to suffer at his side in Hell. His life had certainly cost him enough in pain to make the world’s judgment a thing of no account. They had not known him as she had known him; they did not care as she had cared. She sensed that what her aunt spoke of as love was something else—a bribe, a threat, an indecent will to power. She knew that the kind of imprisonment that love might impose was also, mysteriously, a freedom for the soul and spirit, was water in the dry place, and had nothing to do with the prisons, churches, laws, rewards, and punishments, that so positively cluttered the landscape of her aunt’s mind. Reality, so to speak, burst in for the first time on her great dreaming, and she found occasion to wonder, ruefully, what had made her imagine that, once with Richard, she would have been able to withstand him. There was not, after all, a great difference between the world of the North and that of the South which she had fled; there was only this difference: the North promised more Little-bit—d’you love me?” And she wondered how he could doubt it. She thought how infirm she must be not to have been able to make him know it; and she raised her eyes to his, and she said the only thing she could say: "I wish to God I may die if I don't love you. There ain't no sky above us if I don't love you”. Folks,” said Florence, “can change their ways much as they want to. But I don’t care how many times you change your ways, what’s in you is in you, and it’s got to come out. Florence stared at her with a pity so intense that it resembled anger. Set thine house in order,” said his father, “for thou shalt die and not live.”

[supersaiga]

No privacy

I opted out of what I could but it turns out Tumblr has been sharing all my info with Google and Amazon and they are one of a few “foundational” spies that I can’t opt out of. This thing that hoping sharing my information out between different sites would mean no one company would get a full picture of who I was was a silly fantasy that even at the time felt a little far-fetched. But yeah.  gdpr or however you spell it IS GREAT.

[supersaiga]

Give Me Away

We recently discussed grief in class. For once, a useful psychology class. Grief is described as “a clinical syndrome characterizing the acute physiological and psychological reaction of human beings towards significant loss.” A preeminent model of understanding grief is the well-known Kübler-Ross stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While a useful framework in many respects, the process implies some type of closure and detachment from someone we have lost.

But mustn’t there be a loved one whom we’ve lost that we still think about from time to time? A family member, a close friend, or a former love? Like at my home, there are shrines to my ancestors that signify the connection that is so important to Vietnamese culture. I pray to them, and feel like they are listening to me when I need them. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Another way of understanding grief is described by Klass, Silverman, and Nickman in Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief (1996). The continuing bonds theory focuses on the observation that the bereaved frequently maintain a link with the person they have lost, a relationship that is both durable and changeable with time. So often, people whom we have lost hold a position in our lives that cannot be filled. And maybe over time this may change, but it doesn’t mean that they disappear.

I might love you today, and still love you once we have parted ways. In 10 and 20 years, I may still love you. But it is likely not in the same way that I did when we were together, and that’s OK. Most relationships evolve rather than sever completely – strengthening, weakening, and becoming more nuanced. A continuing bond does not necessarily mean we are stuck unhealthily in a stage of grief. It might actually be a more realistic mechanism of dealing with loss, a means by which we may gain the strength to love again.

The speaker asked us to read a couple poems yesterday in class about loss (more specifically death) and this one really pulled at my heartstrings. I’m not sure why, it just felt beautiful.

When I die, give what’s left of me away to children and old men that wait to die. And if you need to cry, Cry for your brother Walking the street beside you. And when you need me, Put your arms around anyone And give them what you need to give to me…

Look for me In the people I’ve known Or loved. And if you cannot give me away, At least let me live on your eyes And not on your mind.

You can love me most By letting hands touch hands, By letting bodies touch bodies…

Love doesn’t die, People do. So, when all that’s left of me is love, Give me away.

Epitaph | Merrit Malloy 

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One Day

   Today I have been happy. All the day         I held the memory of you, and wove      Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,         And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,      And sent you following the white waves of sea,         And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,      Stray buds from that old dust of misery,         Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.

So lightly I played with those dark memories,      Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,         Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,      For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,         And love has been betrayed, and murder done,      And great kings turned to a little bitter mould - Rupert Brooke

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Scaffolding

Masons, when they start upon a building, Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points, Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall Confident that we have built our wall.

- Seamus Heaney

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The Sickness Unto Death

God went out of me as if the sea dried up like sandpaper, as if the sun became a latrine. God went out of my fingers. They became stone. My body became a side of mutton and despair roamed the slaughterhouse.

Someone brought me oranges in my despair but I could not eat a one for God was in that orange. I could not touch what did not belong to me. The priest came, he said God was even in Hitler. I did not believe him for if God were in Hitler then God would be in me. I did not hear the bird sounds. They had left. I did not see the speechless clouds, I saw only the little white dish of my faith breaking in the crater. I kept saying: I’ve got to have something to hold on to. People gave me Bibles, crucifixes, a yellow daisy, but I could not touch them, I who was a house full of bowel movement, I who was a defaced altar, I who wanted to crawl toward God could not move nor eat bread.

So I ate myself, bite by bite, and the tears washed me, wave after cowardly wave, swallowing canker after canker and Jesus stood over me looking down and He laughed to find me gone, and put His mouth to mine and gave me His air.

My kindred, my brother, I said and gave the yellow daisy to the crazy woman in the next bed.

– Anne Sexton

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Alone

I never thought Michiko would come back after she died. But if she did, I knew it would be as a lady in a long white dress. It is strange that she has returned as somebody’s dalmation. I meet the man walking her on a leash almost every week. He says good morning and I stoop down to calm her. He said once that she was never like that with other people. Sometimes she is tethered on their lawn when I go by. If nobody is around, I sit on the grass. When she finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap and we watch each other’s eyes as I whisper in her soft ears. She cares nothing about the mystery. She likes it best when I touch her head and tell her small things about my days and our friends. That makes her happy the way it always did.

- Jack Gilbert, “Alone” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2012 by Jack Gilbert.

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Personally Engraved

There are many opportunities here for unrequited friendship,

the offer letter said. All you need is a chain saw and die grinder.

In this spirit I force my eyes across your message,

revisiting that due diligence tone you do so well.

I’m searching for some whispered twist or shout,

but all emotion’s leveled, the way a child will draw

a snowman and a mansion the same size.

What is a dedicated icemaker

dedicated to? Do you really think

those shades you wear above your head

will keep the sun out of  your mind?

Rainbows stick to any abject object.

That’s why I’m wearing that same old funky dress.

When you kissed my forehead it felt like the priest’s

thumbscrew touch rubbing in the dust-

thou-art Ash Wednesday smudge.

I’ve learned the dance instructor’s expository gestures.

Now I’m learning tangos to be danced alone.

While comrades buff officious cases

barfed from their brains —

eight parts moon venom one part nose waste —

I ask can mine be personally engraved

I’m living in a please state, smarming

how I’ve long admired your hardscape of artists

morphed to small appliances. That being said,

I’m having issues. Do you really think

that scarf  will keep your snowman warm?

By Alice Fulton From “Poetry” via https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56464/personally-engraved (I totally stole this from the page source, write me an angry letter if that’s not ok, I just wanted al my favourite poems in one place)

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Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands and stare at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth enters our hearts, that small familiar pain; then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth in the distant Latin chanting of a train. Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales console the lodger looking out across a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls a child's name as though they named their loss. Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer - Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy

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The Gambler

So dear to me is the formless dream of which I have spoken, so dear to me are the impressions which it has left behind it, that I fear to touch the vision with anything new, lest it should dissolve in smoke.

On thinking you must win at gambling: Or perhaps it is because it is so NECESSARY for you to win. It is like a drowning man catching at a straw. You yourself will agree that, unless he were drowning he would not mistake a straw for the trunk of a tree.

Anyone would love this book. I don’t know where he got this reputation for being inaccessible. It’s funny, exciting, and the psychology of the characters is realistic, fascinating and timeless.