Also, if you haven’t heard The Tallest Man on Earth, allow me to help you crawl out from beneath that rock. See? Isn’t it nice out here?
Air and Light and Time and Space
Plan things, think things, and then just guess.
If you have never listened to Justin Townes Earle, do yourself a favor and change that this very moment.
dear love,
you dream in the language of dodging bullets and artillery fire.
new, sexy diagnoses have been added to the lexicon on your behalf
(“charlie don’t surf,” has also been added to the lexicon on your behalf).
in this home that is not our home, we have mutually exiled each
other. i walk down your street in the rain, and i do not call you. i
walk in the opposite direction of where i know to find you. that we
do not speak is louder than bombs.
there are times that missing you is a matter of procedure. now is
not one of those times. there are times when missing you hurts. so
it comes to this, vying for geography. there is a prayer stuck in my
throat. douse me in gasoline, my love, and strike a match. let’s see
this prayer ignite to high heaven.
Barbara Jane Reyes
Love everything about this poem. The words she used, the Apocalypse Now reference that launches the rest of the thoughts. In particular, the last stanza gets me good. I imagine it’s that way with most though.
Last post of the night. Promise.
Every song on this album is a different style and it is really nice to see the versatility that this band is capable of.
Also, if you are a Manchester Orchestra fan, the “Red” part of the album was recorded with them as the band so, it is basically 4 extra songs by them. That sure is swell and dandy.
All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies
Kurt Vonnegut - Cat’s Cradle
Opened up this book to find that highlighted — not by me. It’s like my past was screaming advice to me before I knew who the future was. Life is interesting.
As the poet said, mom, ‘of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, “It might have been”’
In love, his grammar grew
rich with intensifiers, and adverbs fell
madly from the sky like pheasants
for the peasantry, and he, as sated
as they were, lolled under shade trees
until roused by moonlight
and the beautiful fraternal twins
and and but. Oh that was when
he knew he couldn’t resist
a conjunction of any kind.
One said accumulate, the other
was a doubter who loved the wind
and the mind that cleans up after it.
For love
he wanted to break all the rules,
light a candle behind a sentence
named Sheila, always running on
and wishing to be stopped
by the hard button of a period.
Sometimes, in desperation, he’d look
toward a mannequin or a window dresser
with a penchant for parsing.
But mostly he wanted you, Sheila,
and the adjectives that could precede
and change you: bluesy, fly-by-night,
queen of all that is and might be.
Stephen Dunn
I found this poem in Poetry, a monthly collection of poems that has been continuously published since 1912. It stunned me with its emotion and sudden transformation into a romance (?) poem. Stephen Dunn takes the love of grammar and syntax and molds them into a prison for love. Yes. Just yes. Brilliantly formed, beautifully written.
You can find the original source of this poem here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/243186
This is such a splendid website and I suggest you read it.
I do not exist, we faithfully insist,
While watching sink the heavy ship of everything we knew!
