Soledad was your mother's name

In dream-labyrinth nights, I turn
a corner, one street becomes another street
in another country, yet on that street
doorway flows into hallway: no need to learn
my way; I know the way.

(Marilyn Hacker)

x

Kings of Convenience
letters letters letters to and from
Peter the poet.

Vineland is slowly sucking the
life out of me. The leaves have basically    all fallen
but some are still on the trees. Everyday I go for a
bike then I go for a walk later when its dark I like
to walk in the cold with the smell of woodburning
firepalces is wonderful.
     School is fine    im just going at it day by day.
Can't wait till you come and visit. Actually I was
thinking about that recently it gets dark around here
by 6pm and the house is already hard to spot and in
the darkness is gonna kill you so I would sugest that
you leavce NY at a time when you arrive before 6pm
since its hard to see the house from the street+ it
will be dark. We can talk about it later.

I don't know what I can save you from.

Ever and ever and ever.
...
I am not calling nor not-calling; I have been sleeping under a tree, silent. I am not shrugging you off. I miss you. The pen is sputtering again. The sentences have begun to start with words other than "I" and "the" - letters like Holly Golightly's, full of rain and missed and goddamn.
...

Seven.

The Ocean
Dar Williams

When I went to your town on the wide open shore,
Oh I must confess, I was drawn, I was drawn to the ocean,
I thought it spoke to me, it said, "Look at us,
We're not churches, not schools, not skating ponds, swimming pools,
And we have lost people, haven't we though?"
Oh, that's what the ocean can know of a body,
And that's when I came back to town, this town is a song about you.
You don't know how lucky you are, you don't know how much I adore you,
You are the welcoming back from the ocean.

I went back to the ocean today,
With my books and my papers I went to the rocks by the ocean,
But the weather changed quickly, oh the ocean said,
"What are you trying to find? I don't care, I'm not kind,
I've bludgeoned your sailors, I've spat out their keepsakes,
Oh it's ashes to ashes, but always the ocean."
But the ocean can't come to this town, this town is a song about you.
You don't know how lucky you are, you don't know how much I adore you,
You are the welcoming back from the ocean.

And the ones that can know you so well are the ones that can swallow you whole.
I have a good and I have an evil, I thought the ocean, the ocean thought nothing,
You are the welcoming back from the ocean.

I didn't go back today,
I wanted to show you that I was more land than water,
I went to pick flowers. I brought them to you,
Look at me, look at them, with their salt up the stem,
But you frowned when I smiled and I tried to arrange them,
You said, "Let me tell you the song of this town,"
You said, "Everything closes at five. After that, well, you just got the bars,
You don't know how precious you are, walking around with your little shoes dangling,
I am the one who lives with the ocean,

It's where we came from, you know, and sometimes I just want to go back,
After a day, we drink 'til we're drowning, walk to the ocean, wade in with our workboots,
Wade in our workboots, try to finish the job.
You don't know how precious you are, I am the one who lives with the ocean.
You don't know how I am the one. You don't know how I am the one."

destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical

Must. keep. food. down.

For you in north Jersey (where there is no Jewish population to speak of, except perhaps for everyone but the Mafia and a few upper-middle to upper-class Episcopalian types) whose email keeps bouncing back to me:
This means no travel. I don't want to make anyone sick and right now I am. Sick. What ails the mind ails the body and working with the ever-infected elementary school doesn't help. I'm sorry. You should, yanno, come up here sometime. When's the last time a wintry Cape saw you?

.


Wait, wait: does this mean an armed intruder can be safely handled without shooting him? Just a freak incident with no bearing on culture.

It's too early to write or too late in the evening. Should have gone to bed.

Louder.
Louder.
Louder.

.

Do you know, I remember when I first told you? I was standing in the bathroom doorway next to the laundry room on the second floor. Don't say things like that. I won't anymore. Nice to know you'd thought about it since.

.

[run]



                [/run]

Six.

To Carthage I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves bubbled up all around me. I loved not as yet, yet I loved to love; and, with a hidden want, I abhorred myself that I wanted not. I searched about for something to love, in love with loving, and hating security, food, Thyself, my God, though that dearth caused me no hunger; but I remained without all desire for incorruptible food, not because I was already filled thereby, but the more empty I was the more I loathed it. For this reason my soul was far from well, and, full of ulcers, it miserably cast itself forth, craving to be excited by contact with objects of sense. Yet, had these no soul, they would not surely inspire love. To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I succeeded in enjoying the person I loved. I befouled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I dimmed its luster with the hell of lustfulness; and yet, though elegant and urbane. I fell precipitately, then, into the love in which I longed to be ensnared. My God, my mercy, with how much bitterness didst Thou, out of Thy infinite goodness, besprinkle for me the sweetness! For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was joyfully bound with troublesome ties, that I might be scourged with the burning iron rods of jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and strife.

-- St. A.

heliacal: of or relating to or near the sun

cicatrice: a mark on a stem of a plant left when a leaf becomes detatched

quaquaversal: pointing in every direction

haecceity: the quality of a thing that makes it unique or describable as a particular individual, 'thisness'

hands cold so cold hands not like
icicle toes like blueroses more
gunmetal bright and sharp at the corners
of mouth, her red muscle
but how it would feel to be quoted
out of context, I couldn't know

streets quiet as last night and
the night before and
the night before
the night
sleeping or driving, headlights
headed always out of town, so I watch
my head about it, my feet on leaves
over pavement one-two one-two one-two breathe
harsh shallow over lines double I cross
over black-lined avenues of asphalt and tar
from cigarette instead of what I meant to say
from cigarette instead of what I shouldn't eat
from amphetamine instead of coffee instead of smoke
from burning leaves, warm rot under
hands so cold

.

Act V.

In which Kirsten does the second-to-last scene in Dellilo's Cosmopolis.

I learn my name
I write with a number two pencil
I work up to my potential
I earn my name
I come when called
I jump when you circle the cherry
I sing like a good canary
I come when called
I come, that's all

Send it up on fire
Death before dawn
Send it up on fire
Death before dawn

I clean the house
I put all your books in an order
I make up a colorful border
I clean my mouth
'Cause froth comes out

Send it up on fire
Death before dawn
Send it up on fire
Death before dawn

-- Liz Phair, Canary

The Level Eye

Far above the malleable half-rib floater,
a sudden unexpected pain

skitters where the skin curve of the fifth rib
builds a parking lot

and the left breast rises toward moonish
areolar light.

A magnetic jolt? The deadly current
that electrifies the eel? And from my mouth

a cramped unnatural squeal or cry, as if I
were the only woman left

with two small breasts, a steady heart with two
varieties of song: beat

and beaten, hark and harkens, whole and holy.
Listen. The cricket cannot halt

his call. It owns him. Any regret
you hear is mine. He wraps himself around

the knot of that single note and shines
and when the shining stops, he's gone.


-- Lisa Sewell

I shall never smoke another cigarette. Not until next week. Ouch. This late-night running is getting to be a likeable habit.

Got bless the Pixies and caffeine. I'm going for a fucking run and damn the rain. If only I could focus on the writing for five minutes at a time... keep this up and I'll be that guy up on meth for days, working on my Mustang at four in the morning.

Running in place to run away, kids; Rach the hamster. Better than up late under screenglow with headphones and the scalpel. Water moves because it cannot stop. I wait for winter.

Five. Sturm und Drang.

J'aurais voulu être un chanteur
Pour pouvoir crier qui je suis
J'aurais voulu être un auteur
Pour pouvoir inventer ma vie
J'aurais voulu être un acteur
Pour tous les jours changer de peau
Et pour pouvoir me trouver beau
Sur un grand écran en couleur
J'aurais voulu être un artiste
Pour avoir le monde à refaire
Pour pouvoir être un anarchiste
Et vivre comme ... un millionnaire
J'aurais voulu être un artiste
Pour pouvoir dire pourquoi j'existe.

Under peaceful conditions a warlike man sets upon himself.

-- Fred

Four.

*

Don't surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.

-- Hafiz
2:14 a.m.

It's just an illusion
     (I'm listening to sad songs)

They will raise up the former devastations And they will repair the ruined cities

After ten on a Sunday night the road is empty but for wind and earlier rain shaken from the trees. The sky overcast and light, streetlights unnecessary, nothing but fallen leaves and footfall. Cigarettes untouched in pocket for a four-mile run; God closed her eyes and let me, finally, breathe. Spirare.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners. To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, giving a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So that they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins, They will raise up the former devestations, And they will repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations.

Instead of your shame you will have a double portion, and instead of humiliation, they will shout for joy.

Isaiah 61:1-4, 7a

Revenge is Mine, saith the Lord. It is out of my hands. The dying fire sends sparks up through PJ Harvey's Catherine. The wall grows, the unending list. Seventy-two. I can't read them after midnight. I want to get them in audio and splice them together, a room with pictures and stories and set after set of headphones through which to walk silently, picking through pieces.