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Monday, May 02, 2005

{revision revision revision}

is this for her? or for me? does it work? I'm so plagued. is it totally inappropriate to give this to a 3-month-old?

gratitude (a blessing)
for Foercia Molloy

to be both-legged, spry. pleased
to know plaid from damask. laughing
a little at the ad for sugarwater and cognac,
the train tunnel smelling entirely of sweat
and fish. give us this day. thirsty for metal,
the face which is the face you've earned.
both-armed, releasing. to kiss until the kissing’s a cavern
you can paint your name in, light a small fire and sleep.
to spring rhythm in nightclubs and defer all advances.
to whistle at streetlights until they flicker
with recognition:: it is all body: it is all body.
to give yourself Christmas on consecutive Saturday mornings
to be certain enough about one thing to be hated / you have
no stones. your glass house is a temple built entirely
of acrylic where you worship the medium-sized gods
governing the quotidian, just enough toothpaste, a new
camouflage t-shirt, dust. to be dumb lucky enough to have
enough. to be molecularly sound but know nothing
of neutrinos though they skim through your bones and the Empire State
with near-equal alacrity. to know only vaguely that dark matter not only
surrounds us but proves all currently accepted principles of physics
wrong. to trust gravity regardless to rope you to the planet
like a couch to the roof of a Chevy or a toddler flat asleep
on the shoulder of a woman leaving the train late
on a Tuesday / to be sighted, even if bifocal. to be touched
awake, to be hectored into believing touch is more
than mythology pretending to skin, to grieve. to leave
and return new-palmed, to heal. to paint mustaches
on the monsters in the closets in your dreams, to swear
that rustling in the next room is only the building
settling around you like skirts and not today’s newsprint
front page / to be alone. often.
watching your breath blossom like fog over the pier
as the sun drowns to rise again like a saviour
in a fable / to be a redhead
if you want to. to have work,
be it the breeding of penguins
or sewing the last bow on every kite-tail
in the factory / to know the number of seconds
between lightning and thunder drop approximates its distance
and hold to that / wounded and rebounded as we all live, to beat
vivid, to know hum of asphalt, refuge and you steady
headed towards it.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

ummm, i think its way too wordy and way too complicated. as a poem it has some great parts to it -
as far as a poem welcoming a
three month into this world -
i'd say this poem is more for you then the baby - then again the parents of the baby might just love this poem - as for me, i would get too dazzled by all the concepts and neon scientific glitz of this poem. my mind would get lost in some of the sentences in the middle. but you know what - right now i'm in a certain kind of mood and i'll reread the poem again tomorrow, it always amazes me how i percieve things as poems
and such depending on my mood - by the way - i think you are very talented -

5:27 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

one more thing -
watching your breath blossom -
that sentence within the poem is
simply beautiful -

5:33 PM

 

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