John William Waterhouse: Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus - 1905

i have an assignment to write an anti-love poem...easy...or is it? by way of example, we were given these shiny gems and I cannot help but share, although I don't feel particularly mad at the world for installing a holiday like this one. i feel they represent the torn angst/confused displaced passion of the everyday just as plainly as they do "anti-love": 

Why Can't I Leave You?

by Ai

You stand behind the old black mare,
dressed as always in that red shirt,
stained from sweat, the crying of the armpits,
that will not stop for anything,
stroking her rump, while the barley goes unplanted.
I pick up my suitcase and set it down,
as I try to leave you again.
I smooth the hair back from your forehead.
I think with your laziness and the drought too,
you’ll be needing my help more than ever.
You take my hands, I nod
and go to the house to unpack,
having found another reason to stay.

I undress, then put on my white lace slip
for you to take off, because you like that
and when you come in, you pull down the straps
and I unbutton your shirt.
I know we can’t give each other any more
or any less than what we have.
There is a safety in that, so much
that I can never get past the packing,
the begging you to please, if I can’t make you happy,
come close between my thighs
and let me laugh for you from my second mouth.

Danse Russe
by William Carlos Williams
If when my wife is sleeping and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping and the sun is a flame-white disc in silken mists above shining trees,- if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself: "I am lonely, lonely, I was born to be lonely, I am best so!" If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades,- Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household? A Dog After Love  by Yehuda Amichai After you left me I had a bloodhound sniff at my chest and my belly. Let it fill its nostrils and set out to find you. I hope it will find you and rip your lover's balls to shreds and bite off his cock-- or at least bring me one of your stockings between its teeth.  Lovesong by Ted Hughes He loved her and she loved him His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to He had no other appetite She bit him she gnawed him she sucked She wanted him complete inside her Safe and sure forever and ever Their little cries fluttered into the curtains Her eyes wanted nothing to get away Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows He gripped her hard so that life Should not drag her from that moment He wanted all future to cease He wanted to topple with his arms round her Off that moments brink and into nothing Or everlasting or whatever there was Her embrace was an immense press To print him into her bones His smiles were the garrets of a fair palace Where the real world would never come Her smiles were spider bites So he would lie still till she felt hungry His words were occupying armies Her laughs were an assassin's attempts His looks were bullets daggers of revenge Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets His whispers were whips and jackboots Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks And their deep cries crawled over the floors Like an animal dragging a great trap His promises were the surgeon's gag Her promises took the top off his skull She would get a brooch made of it His vows pulled out all her sinews He showed her how to make a love-knot Her vows put his eyes in formalin At the back of her secret drawer Their screams stuck in the wall Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs In their dreams their brains took each other hostage In the morning they wore each other's face *respectfully copied and pasted from: poetry365.tumblr.com; www.poets.org; www.poemhunter.com; www.nerve.com

listening...

014: The Velvet Underground
Loaded 
[Cotillion/Atlantic; 1971]

Though Lou Reed might be more widely remembered for some of the most provocative and contentious experimental rock of the 20th century, his influence stretches equally far within the rock 'n' roll mainstream. A spot-on portent of Reed's vibrant solo career, Loaded witnesses The Velvet Underground emerging from the druggy maw of their late-60s work to pen some of the best vanilla rock anthems of the era, with the typically reticent Doug Yule assuming a more conspicuous role. The album is staggering not for its consistency, diversity, or technical proficiency-- something the band came to stylize-- but for the ardor and joie de vivre with which it explores the capacious boundaries of its form.

Sadly, Loaded often comes recommended with one glaring stipulation: "It's a good starting point, if you're looking to get into them." But the album is too good to be relegated to sub-intellectual standing; from the dripping tongue-in-cheek melancholy of "Who Loves the Sun", to the sultry narrative swagger of "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll", to the maudlin-but-oh-so-irresistible "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'",Loaded proves the Velvets top-shelf geniuses with a vocabulary fit for the hoi polloi. It's here that they finally chose to break the din of their histrionic, often difficult 60s triumvirate, striking the hot iron of rock in a transitory period-- and what a way to do it. --Sam Ubl

via: pitchfork.com

accidental perfect playlist

to bid summer adieu:


You are driving... and your shuffling music box gives you a gift that both transcends and nails you to the current flavor of the mood around you, produced by you, following you... School starts this week and there is a lot in the air to digest. So, thank you Universe, for offering a perfect fit. It reminds me of when it became suddenly appropriate to mismatch your attire. Mostly rock and roll mixed with some jazzy feeling tunes and miscellanies.


  1)    sad fuzz Ty Segall
  2)    leave me be The Zombies
  3)    little white lies Deer Tick
  4)    aw shucks, hush your mouth Jimmy Reed
  5)    tres avisos Calexico
  6)   lose your soul Dead Man's Bones
  7)    summertime clothes Animal Collective
  8)    i am trying to break your heart Wilco
  9)    i'm gonna move right in The Velvet Underground
10)    i feel free Cream
11)   yeppers Mattson2
12)    to be Young (is to be sad, is to be high) Ryan Adams
13)    a hard rain's a-gonna fall Bob Dylan
14)   magnolia mountain Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
15)   in your car Ty Segall
16)   inamates of heartache Ariel Pink
17)  ease your feet in the sea Belle & Sebastian 


                                to be continued.....