7.27.2009
7.16.2009
5.12.2009
Edgewater Road
Its as if the drive lasts forever
at sunset, not quite warm enough to roll down the windows,
the radio set to traffic report, reporting traffic.
The driver, a cypher, the other passengers in first class,
and me,
me in the back.
Or maybe me in the trunk, in a bag, a suitcase, a photo album, tucked away in a book,
or in a sidecar, in parallel.
We could be passing, driving crazy -
we could take the high road,
up atop the Palisades, an escarpment that once seemed eternal
the Earth itself.
Now, half brought-down by real estate dealers,
brought down themselves by bankers.
Now just sores on the old stone, these pits and blasted lots are haunted by dreams of condos and co-ops,
by past lives with little herds of rabbits, yellow and white honeysuckle,
streaming unchecked down brown shoulders in braids, like aromatic hair.
Now they are old shoulders, the freckles are liver-spots.
Now the hair is coming loose at the roots, the rocks are falling.
I can't fall asleep, but I can't wake up.
We could be going somewhere, we could,
but maybe I am half-dreaming myself, only half-alive,
wishing for the lost past, or the inevitable future, the only thing that can't be interpreted, simply because it's the only thing that's certain to be.
Once upon a time, somebody loved me.
Its as if the drive lasts forever
at sunset, not quite warm enough to roll down the windows,
the radio set to traffic report, reporting traffic.
The driver, a cypher, the other passengers in first class,
and me,
me in the back.
Or maybe me in the trunk, in a bag, a suitcase, a photo album, tucked away in a book,
or in a sidecar, in parallel.
We could be passing, driving crazy -
we could take the high road,
up atop the Palisades, an escarpment that once seemed eternal
the Earth itself.
Now, half brought-down by real estate dealers,
brought down themselves by bankers.
Now just sores on the old stone, these pits and blasted lots are haunted by dreams of condos and co-ops,
by past lives with little herds of rabbits, yellow and white honeysuckle,
streaming unchecked down brown shoulders in braids, like aromatic hair.
Now they are old shoulders, the freckles are liver-spots.
Now the hair is coming loose at the roots, the rocks are falling.
I can't fall asleep, but I can't wake up.
We could be going somewhere, we could,
but maybe I am half-dreaming myself, only half-alive,
wishing for the lost past, or the inevitable future, the only thing that can't be interpreted, simply because it's the only thing that's certain to be.
Once upon a time, somebody loved me.
5.04.2009
davening
i mourn at the sushi bar.
these days, i prefer the reality game-shows from japan to the movies and the contests of physical strength, of obvious endurance, of clear failure or success. no subtitles.
the woman in the center of the shot is casting about for someone to hug - she seems to want to pogo up and down, with her shattering smiles, for someone to celebrate with her, while the confetti faints down.
the audience shrieks, and the band plays with practiced relish.
a row of judges look on, each one a delicate, anime-faced doll.
i know that i am meant to envy them, to want to emulate their painless optimality, and i do.
their beauty is their reason to be there, and nothing more is required of them.
when i ask the waitress:
"what did she win?" the girl, she explains to me that she's just learned she will be married to the show's handsome bachelor of the week, that he is her prize.
in the audience, the camera finds a man who must be her father.
he looks like he wants to flee, perhaps to the restroom, but also he looks like someone for whom something painful has already been passed.
the groom extends a hand to his bride, who is trying to prevent herself from hiding her smile behind her hands, or behind a long scarf that winds and winds around her neck, as if she senses that when she sees this moment later, it will be a poison to her, a humiliation:
her shaming joy in this moment, with this man.
and still, what an expression as he takes her hand.
her face conveys a radioactive, superluminal, primal hope.
a moment's belief in this momentary dream. the confetti and the smiling judge-dolls, the handsome man who will pretend to be hers for a moment or two, or maybe not ever at all. it's a dream set in a nightmare, and it is hers to relive, to repeat over and over, captured by the audience, the viewers at home, maybe even her own television, set to auto-record.
i am sick for her plain joy, a memento mori to love, for all to see.
anyway, i eat alone, and i don't speak Japanese.
maybe the waitresses only want to fuck with me.
maybe there's something else to it that would stop me wanting to cover my face with my hands
right here at the sushi bar,
to rock forward and forward, like a drowner moving in time with with the waves,
walking out to sea.
isn't there always something?
if not, i think maybe there should be.
goodbye, martin macdonald. rest in peace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekv1WhI6RdQ
i mourn at the sushi bar.
these days, i prefer the reality game-shows from japan to the movies and the contests of physical strength, of obvious endurance, of clear failure or success. no subtitles.
the woman in the center of the shot is casting about for someone to hug - she seems to want to pogo up and down, with her shattering smiles, for someone to celebrate with her, while the confetti faints down.
the audience shrieks, and the band plays with practiced relish.
a row of judges look on, each one a delicate, anime-faced doll.
i know that i am meant to envy them, to want to emulate their painless optimality, and i do.
their beauty is their reason to be there, and nothing more is required of them.
when i ask the waitress:
"what did she win?" the girl, she explains to me that she's just learned she will be married to the show's handsome bachelor of the week, that he is her prize.
in the audience, the camera finds a man who must be her father.
he looks like he wants to flee, perhaps to the restroom, but also he looks like someone for whom something painful has already been passed.
the groom extends a hand to his bride, who is trying to prevent herself from hiding her smile behind her hands, or behind a long scarf that winds and winds around her neck, as if she senses that when she sees this moment later, it will be a poison to her, a humiliation:
her shaming joy in this moment, with this man.
and still, what an expression as he takes her hand.
her face conveys a radioactive, superluminal, primal hope.
a moment's belief in this momentary dream. the confetti and the smiling judge-dolls, the handsome man who will pretend to be hers for a moment or two, or maybe not ever at all. it's a dream set in a nightmare, and it is hers to relive, to repeat over and over, captured by the audience, the viewers at home, maybe even her own television, set to auto-record.
i am sick for her plain joy, a memento mori to love, for all to see.
anyway, i eat alone, and i don't speak Japanese.
maybe the waitresses only want to fuck with me.
maybe there's something else to it that would stop me wanting to cover my face with my hands
right here at the sushi bar,
to rock forward and forward, like a drowner moving in time with with the waves,
walking out to sea.
isn't there always something?
if not, i think maybe there should be.
goodbye, martin macdonald. rest in peace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekv1WhI6RdQ
2.23.2009
2.21.2009
it's early june in englewood and the evening is turning dark blue,
it's a graduation or a class reunion, something like that -
there's a tent with lights out on the fields.
all around us, people are walking towards each other with open arms,
bags are dropped into the grass.
the wind comes rippling down the hill,
smelling of duck pond, smelling of daffodils rotting under pine trees.
the school buildings are revealed,
as if my memory of them was burning away in the sight of them,
here before me.
the age of seventeen seems imminent.
the land is still the same, still a steepish slope, marked by the bowls of the playing fields,
the woods, the library and its circular drive,
where, in the center, the magnolia trees have grown up into a little grove,
now in bloom.
over the air comes the sound of little kids running and shouting,
glasses shivering against one another.
i can hear my mother.
behind me, the sun is going down in the valley, pale pink shading overhead to night.
if this were a movie, the camera would turn around us slowly now,
grab this moment out of thin air and preserve it for the library of eternal times.
this is a dream, a memory, maybe a relic.
the world has gotten colder since then.
i wish i could show you the evening,
so real that you could feel the air on your skin,
so you could remember this with me.
