He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas.

Somewhere in my genes it is Walpurgis Night.


Me gustas cuando callas
by Pablo Neruda

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.

Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía.
Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolía.

Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante.
Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.

Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio
claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.

Edit: Recreating the 1913 Armory Show.

x

From one of the many who gradeth this week

Some words that my students made up, and [my] suggested definitions for each one:

proliteriate: The members of the working class who like to read.

paroletariot: What happens when the members of the working class start reading Ferdinand de Saussure.

omnibotence: The ability to drink absolutely anything.

aborgation: The process of deciding which of two incompatible personalities to assimilate into your cube.

empashises: Promotes to military rank in Morocco.

shahahada: A very amusing pillar of Islam.

concenses: Holds two thurifers at the same time.

oxtodoxy: A religious sect that possesses the correct beast of burden.

twelf: A unit of a dozen skinny, pointy-eared archers.

palpatable: Tasty, and fun to squeeze.

Ismilies: Shi'ite Muslims made up of a colon and a parenthesis.

illiterature: What I've just spent the past five days reading.

Sappho

Fragment #20

Look at him, just like a god,
that man sitting across from you,
whoever he is,____________________
______________listening to your
______________close, sweet voice,
your irresistible laughter________
_______________________And O yes,
it sets my heart racing-
_______________________one glance at you
and I can't get any words out,
_________________my voice cracks,
a thin flame runs under my skin,
my eyes go blind,_____________________
_________________my ears ring,__
a cold sweat pours down my body,
I tremble all over,___________________
__________________turn paler than grass.
Look at me___________________________
__________________just a shade from the dead
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
But I must bear it since poor______


Fragment # 36

Sweet mother, I can no longer work the loom.
Slender Aphrodite has made me fall in love with a boy.

Bookmarked for dissection:

Which one's the baby?

Exploiting teenaged girls is a national pastime - but when pregnant, they don't exist at all; babies are an absolute good; adoptive parents are pathetic reality show contestants; What About The Children? The humanity. To class. At ten I come for Barbara Walters with a scalpel.

Herbert Selby, Jr. is dead at 75

Selby on compulsive writing from a year ago February

Exit Wounds - "official" et c.

*

"Unfortunately, I suspect there never will be a requiem for the Dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn its passing. Perhaps time will prove me wrong. As Mr. Hemingway said: 'Isn't it pretty to think so?'"

Selby from the Preface to the New Edition of Requiem for a Dream, 2000

*

Im telling you I feel like Cyrano, and he stood up and waved his right arm around as if holding a sword, Bring me giants, not mere mortals, bring me giants and I/ll chop them up in little pieces and -- The doorbell rang and Marion got up and went to the door, chuckling, I hope its not a very big one. She opened the door and Tyrone dragassed in. Harry stood in the middle of the living room waving his imaginary sword, This is a giant? On guard! and he started fencing with Tyrone who just stood there trying to raise his eyes, My father was the best swordsman in Tel Aviv, and he continued to go through his fencing number lunging forward, parrying, thrusting, bending at the knee and suddenly, while bent low, he thrust forth his trusty rapier and struck his enemy a mortal blow, touche! Harry bowed, his fighting arm at his waist, and ushered Tyrone into the kitchen. Marion laughed. Hey man, what the fucks wrong with you. Wrong with me? Nothings wrong with me. I never felt better in my life. Its a great day. A momentous day. A day that will go down in the annals of history as the day Harry Goldfarb turned the world around, upside down, on its ass, the day I fell hopelessly and completely in love and give to my betroved a white plume, and he bowed deeply again and Marion curtsied and accepted the plume and hek knelt at her feet and kissed her extended hand, Arise, Sir Harold, royal knight of the garter, defender of the realm, my beloved prince -- Shit, alls I did was askim whats wrong with him and I gets television on the hoof --

from Requiem

25.04.04
0200 hours

Thinking a run 1:30 in the morning empty street, Enfield dark and quiet, no cars and certainly no people. Thinking of Lynda ("wear a whistle!") and of advices given, decisions made, of What Can Happen When Women Go Out Alone especially At Night. What were you doing out?

April. Thinking these weeks of five years ago, of the story I've been telling since, of Eastertime of dark night spring. Once rehearsed line by line it is written in the bones, the pained but resigned face, the nod and bow of head, the sigh. Breathe. The last time connotes both ways. For so long it was the last time in a string of befores waiting for next time, waiting for the thought: last-time-this-happened. Now it is the last time, a finale, the showstopper, though neither of us knew it then. I can look and say, There - that was the Last Time. There will be no others. I wipe my hands on my jeans and step onto the sidewalk.

And yet, standing under the shower wondering whether the weather means long sleeves for this resumption of the late-night run. And yet, every time I lace my shoes and check for the whistle I wear. And yet, every time I leave the door unlocked and step onto the walk, there is a next time and it will be tonight. There is the guest, uninvited but expected: it will happen again. Tonight, this morning, there will be footsteps behind me. I hear them each time. There are shadows and shapes in streetlamp circles. I love running at night. The streets are silent, the dark cool and gentle, nothing but breath and footfall and the odd bird up too early. And yet. For the most part I feel safe; other than J's sensible concern over potholes and twisted ankles, I should have nothing to fear. That's what scares me most: that I should have nothing to fear, but must anyway. That I have no defense should Something Happen. I fear most the inevitable injury that awaits after Something Happens. Why was I out at such an ungodly hour? Did I let anyone know where I would go? Why would I go out alone? Why was I out at all? Don't I know that some crimes are not crimes between midnight and five in the morning? This, I fear at two a.m. This gives me pause. I stay in.

x

1954

Then dirt scared me, because of the dirt
he had put on her face. And her training bra
scared me—the newspapers, morning and evening,
kept saying it, training bra,
as if the cups of it had been calling
the breasts up—he buried her in it,
perhaps he had never bothered to take it
off. They found her underpants
in a garbage can. And I feared the word
eczema, like my acne and like
the X in the paper which marked her body,
as if he had killed her for not being flawless.
I feared his name, Burton Abbott,
the first name that was a last name,
as if he were not someone specific.
It was nothing one could learn from his face.
His face was dull and ordinary,
it took away what I’d thought I could count on
about evil. He looked thin and lonely,
it was horrifying, he looked almost humble.
I felt awe that dirt was so impersonal,
and pity for the training bra,
pity and terror of eczema.
And I could not sit on my mother’s electric
blanket anymore, I began to have a
fear of electricity—
the good people, the parents, were going to
fry him to death. This was what
his parents had been telling us:
Burton Abbott, Burton Abbott,
death to the person, death to the home planet.
The worst thing was to think of her,
of what it had been to be her, alive,
to be walked, alive, into that cabin,
to look into those eyes, and see the human

-- Sharon Olds