The Rider / Naomi Shihab Nye
A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.
A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Poetry
Occupation
by Rachel Sherwood
The man who told me about war
said, it’s the only thing
that keeps us busy.
I thought of your fingers
on my back
counting the vertebrae
one by one.
The only thing?
by Rachel Sherwood
The man who told me about war
said, it’s the only thing
that keeps us busy.
I thought of your fingers
on my back
counting the vertebrae
one by one.
The only thing?
Sunday, August 1, 2010
nothin' new is sweeter than with you
The summer has been crazy, and I haven't written enough. I went from school to Minneapolis (briefly) to Spain (Camino, Barcelona, Madrid) to Kenya (Garissa, Nairobi) to Minneapolis. And soon i'll be moving back to Boston again. Nothing but crazy, but mostly, my mom got a new puppy and I want to put up a picture. this is Charlie, he's amazing.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
heartbroken
And I am exhausted with the stress of it, with the feeling of alienation, with the decisions left to be made. I don't know what to do, I am heartbroken ahead of time, I cry at odd moments, alone, at home. I cannot force myself to accept the morality of it, even if it may be a necessary evil, even if there is no one to take him, to keep him, even if his life would be worse if I abandon him. It is still heartbreaking for me, and I am trying, I am trying to keep my pieces together, to find him a new home, to find the support I need, to be excited that I am leaving the country, moving to Boston, to be excited that my future is so up in the air. But still, part of me thinks of the commitment made, the seven years, and I am exhausted with the stress of it.
But I feel a constant need to think about it, to talk about it, as if when I make myself feel just horrible enough it will make up for the fact that I can't keep him. As if when I know, honestly, that I've tried as hard as I can, it will make it easier to put him down.
I am broken with the exhaustion, with the not knowing, with the amount that this adds up to a failure on my part, that there is nothing more that I can do, but that I'm still not doing enough.
But I feel a constant need to think about it, to talk about it, as if when I make myself feel just horrible enough it will make up for the fact that I can't keep him. As if when I know, honestly, that I've tried as hard as I can, it will make it easier to put him down.
I am broken with the exhaustion, with the not knowing, with the amount that this adds up to a failure on my part, that there is nothing more that I can do, but that I'm still not doing enough.
Monday, March 15, 2010
poetry
Atmosphere and Door | Anne Heide
Allow me to suffer. Allow me to build my house of burned brick and
then. Allow me a pasture of Here.
Allow me the Grace once called question. Because if it is ever the
answer I’d want, I’d never.
Allow me Good News.
Allow me to suffer. Allow me to build my house of burned brick and
then. Allow me a pasture of Here.
Allow me the Grace once called question. Because if it is ever the
answer I’d want, I’d never.
Allow me Good News.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Hipsters? Post-post-post modern? Oh, adbusters...
https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/88/the_coming_barbarism.html
Thursday, January 28, 2010
If the stars were mine, I'd give them all to you
I realize that somehow, this is turning into an odd collection of poetry and not so much recollections of any kind. I am home again, after spending a month in Minneapolis for the break. After spending time with people I miss like heart stopping. And I know that I don't ever want to live there again. It is a hard knowledge to come to, in some ways also heart stopping. Because how do I manage friendships if I will never live in the same city. How do I maintain friendships if I will never see them with regularity again. These are not arguments that I need to be having with myself. I am content with my friends in Worcester, I like them a lot. I am content with my friends in minneapolis, and I will maintain what I can.
But really, the reason I'm posting anything at all:
Aristotle by Billy Collins
This is the beginning.
Almost anything can happen.
This is where you find
the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land,
the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page.
Think of an egg, the letter A,
a woman ironing on a bare stage
as the heavy curtain rises.
This is the very beginning.
The first-person narrator introduces himself,
tells us about his lineage.
The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.
Here the climbers are studying a map
or pulling on their long woolen socks.
This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn.
The profile of an animal is being smeared
on the wall of a cave,
and you have not yet learned to crawl.
This is the opening, the gambit,
a pawn moving forward an inch.
This is your first night with her,
your first night without her.
This is the first part
where the wheels begin to turn,
where the elevator begins its ascent,
before the doors lurch apart.
This is the middle.
Things have had time to get complicated,
messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore.
Cities have sprouted up along the rivers
teeming with people at cross-purposes—
a million schemes, a million wild looks.
Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack
here and pitches his ragged tent.
This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,
where the action suddenly reverses
or swerves off in an outrageous direction.
Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph
to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.
Someone hides a letter under a pillow.
Here the aria rises to a pitch,
a song of betrayal, salted with revenge.
And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge
halfway up the mountain.
This is the bridge, the painful modulation.
This is the thick of things.
So much is crowded into the middle—
the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,
Russian uniforms, noisy parties,
lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall—
too much to name, too much to think about.
And this is the end,
the car running out of road,
the river losing its name in an ocean,
the long nose of the photographed horse
touching the white electronic line.
This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,
the empty wheelchair,
and pigeons floating down in the evening.
Here the stage is littered with bodies,
the narrator leads the characters to their cells,
and the climbers are in their graves.
It is me hitting the period
and you closing the book.
It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen
and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.
This is the final bit
thinning away to nothing.
This is the end, according to Aristotle,
what we have all been waiting for,
what everything comes down to,
the destination we cannot help imagining,
a streak of light in the sky,
a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.
But really, the reason I'm posting anything at all:
Aristotle by Billy Collins
This is the beginning.
Almost anything can happen.
This is where you find
the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land,
the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page.
Think of an egg, the letter A,
a woman ironing on a bare stage
as the heavy curtain rises.
This is the very beginning.
The first-person narrator introduces himself,
tells us about his lineage.
The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.
Here the climbers are studying a map
or pulling on their long woolen socks.
This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn.
The profile of an animal is being smeared
on the wall of a cave,
and you have not yet learned to crawl.
This is the opening, the gambit,
a pawn moving forward an inch.
This is your first night with her,
your first night without her.
This is the first part
where the wheels begin to turn,
where the elevator begins its ascent,
before the doors lurch apart.
This is the middle.
Things have had time to get complicated,
messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore.
Cities have sprouted up along the rivers
teeming with people at cross-purposes—
a million schemes, a million wild looks.
Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack
here and pitches his ragged tent.
This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,
where the action suddenly reverses
or swerves off in an outrageous direction.
Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph
to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.
Someone hides a letter under a pillow.
Here the aria rises to a pitch,
a song of betrayal, salted with revenge.
And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge
halfway up the mountain.
This is the bridge, the painful modulation.
This is the thick of things.
So much is crowded into the middle—
the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,
Russian uniforms, noisy parties,
lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall—
too much to name, too much to think about.
And this is the end,
the car running out of road,
the river losing its name in an ocean,
the long nose of the photographed horse
touching the white electronic line.
This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,
the empty wheelchair,
and pigeons floating down in the evening.
Here the stage is littered with bodies,
the narrator leads the characters to their cells,
and the climbers are in their graves.
It is me hitting the period
and you closing the book.
It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen
and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.
This is the final bit
thinning away to nothing.
This is the end, according to Aristotle,
what we have all been waiting for,
what everything comes down to,
the destination we cannot help imagining,
a streak of light in the sky,
a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.
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