Reminder

I'm leaving this right here.

"Facing up to what haunts you & finding a form & structure for it can never be a commercial enterprise."

Formula for that Beautiful Poem

There must always be some form of sadness,
a realization, yearning for some place to live
in. There is always the self: the inevitable I

or you whom it constantly blames.
Why is it that the most equally trusted poem
needs explanation? Why is there a motion

to pepper the simplest fact or
to guise sentimentality as an equal
denial of truth to affirm, yes,

affirm a necessity in silence.
How is beauty irrelevant when
all we ever write about wants

to be beautiful? How is meaning important
when the poem forgets its sleep
while you wake up repeating

the same day
all over again –


-- Dominique Santos

Fragment (consider revising)

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Counterpane

Ma chambre a la forme d'une cage
                                -- Apollinaire


One might as well pick up the pieces.
What else are they for? And interrupt someone's organ recital--
we are interruptions, aren't we? I mean in the highest sense
of a target, welcoming all the dust and noise
as though we were the city's apron.

Going out has another factor about it--
the mineral salts that have leached through our wall
staining it untoward colors, yet we wait
for them, the peace goes on in our mouth.

Sometimes suicide seems like a neat solution--
"elegant," as mathematicians say,
and it's too late to be counted out.
But the black tide mounting in us is probably the best

method. It makes you want to exercise
and simultaneously gasp, give up resting
and spend a little time with a book, or encourage the vine to grow.
We'll need all the feelers we can get come December,

so go on putting them out. Operators are waiting to take your call,
overloaded trunk lines bawling regret,
yet the one answer, when it comes, isn't particularly cogent,
though it means well, inviting us to rest on sparse laurels

and drilling a little fancy into the brain next door.
"How's about it, Chief? Gotten in any smooth ones yet?"
That wisteria sky has to become a sea of comfort
on which we're cut adrift with lots of friendly goats and ghosts.

Life is a warehouse sale for the initiated,
i.e., those who know where to go and find it,
then make it back to the abandoned comb
we've thought about so intensely across the spruced-up years.


-- John Ashbery

Moonless Night

A lady weeps at a dark window.
Must we say what it is? Can we simply say
a personal matter? It's early summer;
next door the Lights are practising klezmer music.
A good night: the clarinet is in tune.

As for the lady-- she's going to wait forever;
there's no point in watching longer.
After a while, the streetlight goes out.

But is waiting forever
always the answer? Nothing
is always the answer; the answer
depends on the story.

Such a mistake to want
clarity above all things. What's
a single night, especially
one like this, now so close to ending?
On the other side, there could be anything,
all the joy in the world, the stars fading,
the streetlight becoming a bus stop.


-- Louise Glück

Houses

We are creatures of habit
and habitat.

I mean, point out four corners to border
my life and I shall have a house

held up by four posters keeping
all the inhabiting I shall do inside.

Meaning, I am a bear.
Meaning, I am wild

with hunger and each morning
my mouth foams over still

flapping fish fins breaking between
my jaws. Meaning, you are

in another country, drinking coffee
or tea, and heading out because you are hungry

for something more than doughnuts. Sometimes
the traffic on your way to work lets you

remember. Meaning, tell me the four corners
of my grave and when I die, I shall try

not to stretch my wild arms
too wide.

2007

-- Kash Martinez Avena

Capturing time as if it were a firefly

Keeping

I will not wait for ours to turn sour, for it will not 

Long after wine fails its magic in our systems 

And laughter leaves many mouths without a sound 

Like the bright amber of evenings giving into dark 

Conversion, further turning hollow gatherings 

Into ruin. They all will go, with us in the thick of it 

Gone, but not quite. We will go through hours

Meeting and leaving numerous strangers. 

We’ve named those who’ve grown fond

Of hearing useless secrets. I will delight, instead, 

In the pockets of silence in-between: 

Reaching your hand and locking them 

Into mine, a furtive turn to feel 

Your stare; gazing eyes taking me 

Back to that place, that night 

Where I know. Where you know 

Our lives truly happen. 

January 2010