Thursday, September 30, 2010
Études
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Rather nice.
troispetitspois@yahoo.com |
Thank you for sending us your work.
Unfortunately this particular manuscript was not the right fit for Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, but we were very impressed by your writing. We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else.
We look forward to reading more.
Sincerely,
The Editors of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art
2010-06-07 16:28:50 (GMT -3:00)
Thursday, May 13, 2010
In My Parents' Kitchen: A Free Write
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Eros and Anteros
whirligig
spindle
staircase
threshold.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Rilke, Kaminsky, Millay
Even if One suddenly clasped me to his heart
I would die of the force of his being. For Beauty is only
the infant of scarcely endurable Terror, and we
are amazed when it casually spares us.
Every Angel is terrible.
And so I check myself, choke back my summoning
black cry. Who'll help us then? Not Angels,
not Mankind; and the nosing beasts soon scent
how insecurely we're housed in this signposted World.
And yet a tree might grow for us upon some hill
for us to see and see again each day. Perhaps
we have yesterday's streets. Perhaps we keep
the pampered loyalty of some old habit
which loved its life with us - and stayed, never left us."
...........
How strange...no longer to live upon Earth!"
--Rainer Maria Rilke, from "Die erste Elegie," THE DUINO ELEGIES
"The back of her knee: a blessed territory, I keep /
my wishes there.
...
But Natalia, beside me, turns the pages,
what happened and did not happen
must speak and sing by turns.
...
On the night I met her, the Rabbi sang and sighed,
god's lips on his brow, Torah in his arms.
- I unfastened her stockings, worried
that I have stopped worrying.
She slept in my bed--I slept on a chair,
she slept on a chair--I slept in the kitchen,
she left her slippers in y shower, in my Torah,
her slippers in each sentence I spoke.
...
Someone else is on this page, writing. I attempt /
to move my fingers faster than she.
...
And each night, looking up, we saw ourselves:
a man and a woman, whispering Lord,
one word the soul destroys to make clear."
--Ilya Kaminsky, from "Natalia," DANCING IN ODESSA
"To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beautyis not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
...
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers."
--Edna St. Vincent Millay, from "Spring," SECOND APRIL
Friday, April 9, 2010
"Older." This one is a baby, mere hours old.
Older
“silentia muta noctis – deep speechlessness of night”
—Anne Carson, “Nox”
Photo by Nicolette Van Doorn
I sometimes think I am older
than anyone. Older than
my mother, even now
disguising her grey
over the kitchen sink.
Older than Millay, who
around this time years ago
interrogated returning Spring.
I have no words
for the dunes. Theirs is a history
of collected animals long gone,
crushed to sand by
marching years.
Deepest cloud shadows pass.
If there is
anything older than clouds,
let it speak.
I hear thunder. Then
I remember
something older
than mothers.
Older than sand, salt. Than
calm above clouds or ground water
below: the spirit of what is loved.
Thread so fine. Less
than spider’s silk, knotted
at each worldly thing, tying it
secretly to Earth. Each time
I pass
beach grass
foot path
lost ring
face-up mirror
abandoned couch
I feel a tug.
In the deep speechlessness of night
it was once thought
the brain rested. We now know
it travels. Speaks in our place
In imaginary fields
At imaginary podiums.
It says Remember
while our mouths remain still.
It tugs at the thread,
the day’s face-up mirrors.
I wake with the strangest feeling.
as though, having been somewhere,
I harvested someone else’s life,
was harvested myself.
Was older, even, than
the scythe doing the work.