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

faber 80th anniversary poetry series

attention to detail

[this was a post I did for emmy back at the beginning of the month.... I'm happily recycling it. la-di-da!]


some weekend reading:

La Petite Zine - I came across this little gem, an online journal of what you call "flash fiction." I haven't done a lot of browsing in past issues, but I really enjoyed this piece by David Shumate:

                                                                   The Races of Man

We learned in elementary school that there were five races of man. 

White. Black. Red. Yellow. And, as I recall, brown. We drew pictures 

of them with their variously colored faces next to buildings we thought 

might be their homes. I gave them lawn mowers and automobiles and 

umbrellas. Though my teacher told me some only had huts where they 

burned the dried feces of goats and cows to stay warm. There were also 

those who carried their belongings around on camels and pitched tents in 

the sand which seemed like an exciting life to me. We learned how some 

of these people said Hello so if we came upon a caravan crossing the 

street, we could be polite. We were introduced to their gods. Some were 

angry all the time. Others had four arms and three heads and blue skin. 

The kind of deity I wanted watching over me. With each lesson our world 

became more complex. We were tested on Fridays. Once our teacher held 

up a can of chop suey and asked what color of people would be likely to 

eat it. I wrote down white people. Because my mother served it for dinner 

on Tuesdays. I later learned that the correct answer was actually Yellow.

so far I've found this recent issue of La Petite Zine to be filled with some off-kilter poetry, a mess of non-sequitors, and a laundry list of... lists. If anything, it makes for quick adventurous weekend reading. Enjoy! 

Howl

Last Friday, Alex Caldiero read Allen Ginsberg's Howl as celebration to the

 55th anniversary of the first reading in 1955. It was haunting. Read about it. 

It was incredible to see Caldiero actually lift the entire auditorium (and possibly the overflow) to stand and Howl together at the end this 'neo-bop opera in five acts.' I've read Howl at least a dozen times, but experiencing it hasn't ever reached a level this visceral/animal. But rather than write about it, I'd really suggest to read it on your own. 

This was taken from Ginsberg's ca. loft in '97. Retarded. (in a good way)

NERUDA

I got this in the mail today..... 

I'm spoiled. 

HB

THE CINNAMON PEELER  by Michael Ondaatje

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women

the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.

And you searched your arms

for the missing perfume.

and knew

what good is it

to be the lime burner's daughter

left with no trace

as if not spoken to in an act of love

as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.

Angels in America

In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
        --Stanley Kunitz
        "The Testing-Tree"