New shoes

My feet are freaking out. They are warm. They have enough room. I bought real shoes today. I am not sure if I have ever had real shoes before but oh my god - trust the Germans, by way of Italy. My ankles are currently smug. Why do we bother with all of this shit...I ask you? I want to buy twelve outfits and wear them. Mix and match. Clean, perfect, meticulous garments. I want to be done with all of this foolishness.

startled into life like fire

in grievous deity my cat
walks around
he walks around and around
with
electric tail and
push-button
eyes

he is
alive and
plush and
final as a plum tree

neither of us understands
cathedrals or
the man outside
watering his
lawn

if I were all the man
that he is
cat -
if there were men
like this
the world could
begin

he leaps up on the couch
and walks through
porticoes of my
admiration.

~ Charles Bukowski from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

This poem: The title – “startled” – awakened, ignited. Wonderful.
Anyone who owns a cat will relate to the description here, especially the “grievous deity.” I could not love “final as a plum tree” any more than I do. Of course, all things are final in and of themselves but this seems to express that in some essential way that I cannot begin to express. Then he shares with his cat the lack of understanding about not only cathedrals but the guy next door – essential mysteries and distances. But then…oh the killer stanza for me.. “if I were all the man/ that he is/ cat -/ if there were men/ like this/ the world could/ begin” This says something very real and when I first read it, very new to me. If we could be as genuine in ourselves as animals, well - imagine. I cannot unsee this now for, at its best, writing of any kind explains or illuminates for me something about this experience of being alive – this did that for me.
I also love that his admiration has porticoes – I had not thought to imagine the architecture of my esteem.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

e.e. cummings

This is one of my favorite poems in life. Not only for the strong impressionistic imagery, the jamming of the punctuation but for the triumph of softness over hardness. Look: frail, gesture, slightest, petal, heart, flower, snow, rain, small – these things are the undoing of unclose, closed, close, and shut – they get in. He has never been here before, it is beyond anything he has ever known and it is good. I love the specificity of the line “as when the heart of this flower imagines/ the snow carefully everywhere descending” – the specific flower of Spring imagining not only Winter but a careful everywhere of snow (how can it be careful? Yet it is somehow, that silent falling). The combinations of words that he uses such as: “intense fragility” really capture something for me - a precious, breathless, don’t move, don’t touch, momentary, heartbreaking snowflake perfection – all of these things. I could go on and on.

I think of this poem every time I am in a car and it starts to rain. Those first few drops on the windscreen, when they hit and break, I always say “cat-paws,” because that is what they look like to me - the small hands of the rain.

Poetry, oh sweet

Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.

Emily Dickinson

This poem is so gorgeous to me. It speaks of love and sex and death. The use of “ample” in the first line – this word is not used enough any more but makes me think of bosoms and bottoms and plenty and comfort. Then the repeat of “make this bed” followed this time with “awe” in the second line elevates it, denotes that something special is happening, something worthy of respect. Emily (like e.e. cummings) is wonderful at putting words together to play off of each other – which I have read referred to as “thought rhyme.” The next two lines are playful, yet also scary and serious – the combination of “judgment” and “break” combines judgment day with dawn but one that is “excellent and fair.” So within this context the bed could now possibly be a grave.

This grave analogy continues in the second stanza yet again it resides next to the cozy imagery of a well-made bed – straight mattress, round pillow. If it is a grave it is a comfortable one. The repetition of the “Be its” of the first two lines also give the sense of prayer, of invocation. I love the “yellow noise” of sunrise – I think this is one of the best descriptions of dawn in the history of writing, and that it is achieved with only two words is what I love most about poetry. The reference to “ground” at the end of that sentence again seems to refer to hallowed ground and the grave. There is something in this poem though that is intensely private and personal – the ample bed wanting no interruptions is so vibrant with sex and life that it seems impossible the poem could also be about death. I am always amazed at how much Emily could pack into eight lines and 34 words.

I encountered this poem for the first time reading William Styron’s “Sophie’s choice” at the age of 13 (my parent’s let me roam the bookshelves of our home at will). In the book Sophie learns of Emily Dickinson in her English language class and it is her search for more of the poetry that introduces her to Nathan, who will become her lover and with whom she will ultimately commit suicide. The poem re-appears throughout the book – not only as the source of the introduction of two of the main characters who will have noisy sex and even noisier fights throughout the novel, but it also serves as a benediction over their suicide (also in bed). The metaphor of bed as grave is intrinsic to this story and I am fascinated by the way that something as spare as this poem could be rich enough to inspire the motifs of an entire novel. The emotional temperature that she so delicately placed into those few words and lines, Styron was able to unpack into a novel of sweeping breadth and tragedy. Even the last devastating lines of the book are taken from this poem, lines in which the narrator Stingo, after having spent the night wandering New York after the suicide of Nathan and Sophie, witnesses daybreak and observes, “This was not judgment day - only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.”

Before you go, remember to come home.

This is about as perfect as it gets here. A long heat hazed evening and the sweet green smell of Spring. I walk along the railroad tracks wearing the perfect amount of clothes. The air is smooth and golden, the grass is high and there are birds and weeds pretending to be flowers. Hot skin, dirty feet, pollen fingers and vitamins.