#Richard Jackson

[lillyli-74]

And who here is not buried in another person’s heart?

~Richard Jackson

[undinesea]

I remember my soul breaks open like a seed beneath the ground just to think of you.

Richard Jackson, from “The Sentimental Poem I Almost Didn’t Write,” Heartwall

[firstfullmoon]

twin peaks “there is a sadness in this world” / richard jackson “sometimes I don’t know how to live in the world. why is there always this scent of sorrow?” / hayden carruth “I had always been aware that the universe is sad; everything in it, animate or inanimate, the wild creatures, the stones, the stars, was enveloped in the great sadness, pervaded by it” / padraig o tuama “not all sadness comes from you, but sometimes you are just wearing the world’s sadness for a while and trying to figure out what to do with that” / ada limón “there is a solitude in this world I cannot pierce” / rainer maria rilke “don’t be afraid to suffer—take your heaviness and give it back to the earth’s own weight; the mountains are heavy, the oceans are heavy”

[beguines]

In those days I could fold the sky up and store it in a closet. With every heave of my chest the universe seemed to expand. In those days the rope of the moon floating on the surface of the water was a kind of hope. I hardly noticed the bird’s song limping from its broken nest, hardly noticed the last star struggling against the dawn until the sun betrayed it. Why do we notice so little? Does the river suffer when you plunge your hand into it? Does the wind suffer when it snags itself on a branch? Maybe that’s why we close our eyes to kiss. I think each night was just the bandage I used to cover the deep cuts of His words. Don’t turn away. Don’t imagine you know the story. Our lives are just dreams someone sold to the highest bidder. I thought my own words could trample the stars. I thought my name would nest in the future and take flight. But there was only that dusk of blackbirds. It’s all just Fate settling like dust in the attics of our deeds.

Richard Jackson, from "The Apology of Judas", Resonance

[luckystarinsky]

An emptiness so vast I can’t tell

if I am in it or it in me.

— Richard Jackson

.

Detached from everything, including detachment.

— Maurice Blanchot

[poemaseletras]

As marés dentro do seu coração ainda me puxam para você.

Richard Jackson, from “After All This”

[nicecollection]

Richard Jackson - Shooting Gallery, 2021, Mixed media 426.7 x 548.6 x 121.9 cm (168 x 216 x 48 in) Dimensions variable

[dk-thrive]

Each evening comes from a new place. Maybe this is the other life we were meant to live. It leans against you as the wind.

— Richard Jackson, from “Fear,” Resonance: Poems (The Ashland Poetry Press, 2010) (via The Vale of Soul Making)

[ortut]

Richard Jackson - Untitled, 1994 (Mixed media, acrylic and pencil on transparent foil)

[ardent-reflections]

And who here is not buried in another person's heart?

Richard Jackson

[tristealven]

Sometimes we have to hold hands with our own nightmares.

Richard Jackson, from “Night Sky,” in Resonance: Poems (The Ashland Poetry Press, 2010)

[lillyli-74]

Can you imagine a silence so desperate to be heard?

~Richard Jackson

[undinesea]

We want / to grasp the heart, to hear what is beyond our hearing, but have / only these words that disappear like mist from the tip / of a wave, or the phosphorous trail a swimmer leaves in the sea.

Richard Jackson from “Silences” in Rattle

[botheringlevi]

ᴀɴᴛɪɢᴏɴᴇ ᴛᴏᴅᴀʏ

ʀɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ ᴊᴀᴄᴋsᴏɴ

It turns out the whole sky is a wall.

It turns out we all drink from history’s footprints.

One day the stones seemed to open like flowers

and I walked over the orphaned ground for my brother.

Even now

I can count every barb in the wire.

The stars were covered with sand.

The sandstorm had almost covered the body.

I dug around him, covered him myself.

Today, each memory is a cemetery that must be tended.

You have to stand clear of the briars of anger.

You have to wash revenge from your eyes.

Sophocles kept seeing me as a bird

whose nest is robbed, screeching hysterically.

In another place a flock of birds tear themselves apart

to warn the king of what will happen to his state.

I don’t know who I am. I hardly said a word.

I think Sophocles knew what I might mean,

and was afraid.

Everything I did was under one swoop of the owl’s wing.

Who is anything in that time? And he never listened.

Even the sentry’s words dropped their meanings

and fumbled like schoolboys forgetting their lessons.

What I dug up was a new word for justice,

a whole new dictionary for love.

But why did my own love desert me?

He came too late.

He was

another foolish gesture from another age. What I tried

to cover with dust was the past, was anger, was revenge.

Now you can see it all in mass graves everywhere.

You can see it in the torture chambers,

the broken mosques and churches, the sniper scopes.

You can see it in the women raped by the thousand.

Who is any one of us in all that?

Who was I?

I’ve become someone’s idea of me.

You can no longer read the wax seal of the sun.

The trees no longer mention anything about the wind.

I don’t see who could play me later on.

It turns out I am buried myself.

It turns out we are all buried alive

in the chamber of someone else’s heart.

–𝟸𝟶𝟶𝟹

[beguines]

Maybe we have to betray ourselves in order just to be ourselves. In the end, Truth taps at the windows of our souls. What quivers on the lake are only the footprints of Fate. Even our astronomers hear the funeral sounds of dying galaxies before they ever see them. Gusts of time are filling my lungs. They all said I was just a small part of the plan, that they hold no grudges, no plans for revenge. Then why is there such a haze over my heart? I'm the crow the hawks chase from their nests. I used to think Love would protect us from the shadows we cast. I used to think that Hope was not what jingled in our pockets. I used to think all this loneliness would be unbearable. Now each word is a betrayal, is the frayed rope-end of desire. Everything I say is like some cargo hidden in the hold of a sunken ship. in the end we all learn there's no sea, no sky, no word big enough to hold all our pain. Only this kiss. Only Love's dragline already hooking the very thing it fears.

Richard Jackson, from "The Apology of Judas", Resonance

[mythoughttherapy]

“Sometimes I don't know how to live in the world. Why is there always this scent of sorrow?”

—Richard Jackson