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greenstormCrap. I slept some, now I'm awake. Awake awake awake.
So, two poems:
Please Take Back the Sparrows
Please take back the sparrows. They are bothersome and cute. They are brown and daily all year long. They make a plaything of the wind and the spruce. They come too close. They look right at me with their tiny black eyes. They dart through spaces. They pick up the pieces and the pace. From rooftop to eavetrough to wire to branch -- they spring spring spring spring spring spring spring. They are not sorry. They are not singing. Many they are one they are never not somewhere. They are not not singing. They are not slack. They fear the bluejay and the airedale. They drink from the pond! They scatter thinking. They are not asking or telling they are scattering thinking they are shivering. They are awake or they are shivering. Please, take back the sparrows. They bathe in dust.
-Suzanne Buffam
Rough Guide
Your image destroys itself, remakes itself, and is never weary.
Octavio Paz, The Prisoner.
Impossible to look directly into
another’s eyes. Impossible to look
into your own. You read the dense book
of being like a document you flick through.
Eyes, even an inch apart, are blurs,
clouds, like the concept of yesterday
which has an entity you sometimes stray
into beyond the limits of his and hers,
The unknown: the roughest of the rough guides,
and all it says is: you’re here, you’d better make
the best of it. You entered by mistake
and so you’ll leave. It’s what the route map hides
and languages obscure, the magnetic pull
of all you ever see of the beautiful.
-----
But I have seen the beautiful. I know
its contours and the rough guide it provides
is blissfully specific: the hand that rides
the ridge of the collarbone or moves along the brow,
the perfect form of momentary light
in this line or another. It’s what Blake
saw at the top of the stair, the terrible earthquake
at the root of the flesh we think of as delight.
It’s what you see when you shut your eyes and see,
the angel with the whip or a flaming sword
that burns your eyes down to the spinal cord,
the shit, blood, semen smell of mortality
you get used to because it follows you
everywhere and is both beautiful and true.
-George Szirtes
So, two poems:
Please Take Back the Sparrows
Please take back the sparrows. They are bothersome and cute. They are brown and daily all year long. They make a plaything of the wind and the spruce. They come too close. They look right at me with their tiny black eyes. They dart through spaces. They pick up the pieces and the pace. From rooftop to eavetrough to wire to branch -- they spring spring spring spring spring spring spring. They are not sorry. They are not singing. Many they are one they are never not somewhere. They are not not singing. They are not slack. They fear the bluejay and the airedale. They drink from the pond! They scatter thinking. They are not asking or telling they are scattering thinking they are shivering. They are awake or they are shivering. Please, take back the sparrows. They bathe in dust.
-Suzanne Buffam
Rough Guide
Your image destroys itself, remakes itself, and is never weary.
Octavio Paz, The Prisoner.
Impossible to look directly into
another’s eyes. Impossible to look
into your own. You read the dense book
of being like a document you flick through.
Eyes, even an inch apart, are blurs,
clouds, like the concept of yesterday
which has an entity you sometimes stray
into beyond the limits of his and hers,
The unknown: the roughest of the rough guides,
and all it says is: you’re here, you’d better make
the best of it. You entered by mistake
and so you’ll leave. It’s what the route map hides
and languages obscure, the magnetic pull
of all you ever see of the beautiful.
-----
But I have seen the beautiful. I know
its contours and the rough guide it provides
is blissfully specific: the hand that rides
the ridge of the collarbone or moves along the brow,
the perfect form of momentary light
in this line or another. It’s what Blake
saw at the top of the stair, the terrible earthquake
at the root of the flesh we think of as delight.
It’s what you see when you shut your eyes and see,
the angel with the whip or a flaming sword
that burns your eyes down to the spinal cord,
the shit, blood, semen smell of mortality
you get used to because it follows you
everywhere and is both beautiful and true.
-George Szirtes
