This is lovely...

Check it out.

Lunch Poem for F.S. by Jonathan Galassi

(Note from Donn: I freakin' LOVE this poem!)

The dirty sunlight in the clerestory
windows of our faux-Parisian lair
lends a streaky, half-forgiving glow
to yet another summit with no purpose:
duck and iron Pinot Noir and double
decaf espresso, sheer necessities
for urban inmates who still keep the faith
with a wan cerise velvet banquette
and eye-level mirror lit with faces
a John-the-Baptist puritan might judge
corrupt with too much liquid happiness.
But it is happiness
to lounge in semi-silence while the day
downshifts and natter on about the shit
that passes for Shinola but we know
is only sauce for the gander.
It’s not that we’re against the war,
we’re against them: the boobs, the pimps,
the Know-It-Alls, the True Believers—everyone
who isn’t here awash in downtown gold
inhaling the exhaust of Burgundy . . .
Loafing, gloating, having it our way
Friday afternoon at Montrachet.

Dear Susan Boyle

So I know this clip is making the rounds in a major way. And I couldn't be more thrilled.

Susan, you are simply incredible. Thank you for your talent -- and for reminding us where REAL beauty comes from.

And thank you for doing what you're doing, from all of us who wish we had the chance.

You are bliss. You are inspiration.

xoxoxo

-d.s.

Ithaka by C.P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon--don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon--you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind--
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

Vermont Love

(John and me in Vermont)

And the lovin' continues!

The universe is clearly trying to tell me something. If Iowa is my true home, then I've long considered Vermont to be my adopted home. Even though I live in the cesspool known as Boston, I long to move to Vermont.

And today, gay marriage was made legal. John and I could move there and not be second-class citizens.

Hooray, Vermont!

Iowa Love

I have never been more proud of my home state as I am at this moment.

And I hope this sends a message to all those who think Iowa is some hick backwater full of rednecks. It isn't. I put up with more homophobia in San Francisco than I did in rural Iowa, and that's no lie.

To quote the Iowa motto: "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." Today's ruling proves this motto is more than just lip service.

It is Truth.

Way to go, Iowa!

Because fart jokes never get old...

For an amazing collection of videos featuring animals reacting to farts, visit Urlesque.

Natasha Richardson, 1963-2009

Natasha in her Tony-winning performance as Sally Bowles in Cabaret.

I first fell in love with Natasha--and Liam Neeson--after seeing this photo of the two of them in Anna Christie in 1993.

Rest in peace, Natasha.

How Can I Keep From Singing?

My life goes on in endless song
Above earths lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear its music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

While though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though the darkness round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble in their fear
And hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging,
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?

A hymn by Robert Wadsworth Lowry, reworked and with an extra verse by Pete Seeger.

Click here to hear Enya's version.

Sweet Bonnie Bramlett

Like many of my generation, my first exposure to Bonnie Bramlett was when she was a featured player on Roseanne for a couple of seasons in the early nineties. To my knowledge, she only sang twice on the show, but both times were amazing. I used to pray they'd let her sing in every episode.

Little did I know what a legend she was. Bramlett was one-half of the duo Delaney and Bonnie in the late sixties and early seventies before embarking on a solo career (Sweet Bonnie Bramlett being her first solo album, in 1973). Prior to meeting and marrying Delaney (who sadly passed away in December of last year), Bonnie was the first and only white member of the Ikettes, the back-up singers for Ike and Tina Turner. In the last forty-odd years, she's put out several albums and done some acting here and there.

And that voice! My God! I can't even describe it. It's like her soul is in her voicebox. 

Click here to hear Bonnie bring down the house, singing the hell out of "You Really Got a Hold on Me", from Roseanne.

And here's a more recent number: Bonnie doing "Superstar" live onstage. Many artists have covered this song (notably The Carpenters and Bette Midler), but they ain't got nothin' on Bonnie. The pristine emotion she lets loose with this number is devastating. The heartbreak -- and the talent -- in this performance will knock you out of your chair.

Learn more about the amazing Bonnie Bramlett on her website.

Letter by Jean Valentine

The hornet holds on to the curtain, winter
sleep. Rubs her legs. Climbs the curtain.
Behind her the cedars sleep lightly,

like guests. But I am the guest.
The ghost cars climb the ghost highway. Even my hand
over the page adds to the ‘room tone’: the little

constant wind. The effort of becoming. These words
are my life. The effort
of loving the un-become. To make the suffering

visible. The un-become love: What we
lost, a leaf, what we cherish, a leaf.
One leaf of grass. I'm sending you this seed-pod,

this red ribbon, my tongue,
these two red ribbons, my mouth,

my other mouth,
—but the other world—blindly I guzzle
the swimming milk of its seed field flower—

from Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003; © 2004 by Jean Valentine.

Sean Penn

"…For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect, and anticipate their great shame, and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes, if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone...I’m very, very proud to live in a country that is willing to elect an elegant man president, and a country who, for all its toughness, creates courageous artists." 

-Sean Penn, in his Oscar acceptance speech

Amen, Sean!

Looking into Oscar's crystal balls....

It’s my favorite time of year: OSCAR TIME! And I have predictions!

Wanna hear ‘em? Here it goes:


BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Who Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire.

Who Should Win: Though I don’t think any of these films are worthy of a Best Picture Oscar, I think the finest on this list is surely Slumdog. The film is ridiculously unrealistic, but therein lies its charm: it is, after all, a modern day fairy tale. The two best films of last year, Rachel Getting Married and Revolutionary Road, were, sadly, not nominated.

Dark Horse: Milk. I found the script wildly uneven, but Gus Van Sant’s direction was inspired and the performances were nothing short of miraculous. I could see this winning for two reasons: A) the snubbing of another Big Gay Movie, 2005’s brilliant Brokeback Mountain (did Crash REALLY deserve a Best Picture Oscar?), may have given some Academy members a guilty conscience; and B) in the aftermath of Prop 8, Hollywood wants to show its support for 'da gays.


BEST DIRECTOR NOMINEES
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Who Will Win: Boyle.

Who Should Win: Boyle. Again, because Slumdog is the best of this lot.

Dark Horse: Van Sant. For explanation, see my above reasoning as to why Milk is a dark horse for the Best Picture award.

BEST ACTOR NOMINEES
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Who Will Win: Too close to call. Penn and Rourke are neck and neck.

Who Should Win: Mickey Rourke. Never in my life would I have thought Mickey Rourke deserved an Oscar over Sean Penn, but, alas, this year is an exception. Both were brilliant in their respective films, and I’d be happy with either of them nabbing the statuette. And Penn’s performance was studied, brave, and fiery. But when it comes to plunging the depths of human emotion, Rourke has all these guys beat. He takes his larger-than-life character – former pro wrestler Randy “The Ram” – and subtly, honestly makes him someone with whom we can all relate. It’s one of the best performances I’ve seen in recent years.

Dark Horse: There isn’t one. This is between Penn and Rourke to the bloody end.


BEST ACTRESS NOMINEES
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

Who Will Win: Winslet. She deserved a nomination for Revolutionary Road, but winning for The Reader is a pretty good consolation prize. Plus, she’s one of our greatest younger actresses and has been nominated five times previously. She deserves the award more for her body of work and less for this singled-out performance.

Who Should Win: Anne Hathaway. Her performance in the astounding Rachel Getting Married was pitch-perfect. As a just-out-of-rehab black sheep in her upper middle class suburban family, Hathaway is a raw nerve of energy, an open wound exposed to the air for the first time in ages. I adore all these performances, and Streep and Winslet have always been favorites of mine, but no one here can touch what Hathaway did in Rachel.

Dark Horse: Meryl Streep. Never, ever count Meryl out of the running for any award. When it comes to actresses, there has never been a greater one than Streep.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR NOMINEES
Josh Brolin, Milk
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Who Will Win: Ledger.

Who Should Win: Ledger. If for no other reason than to give him the award he deserved to win for Brokeback.

Dark Horse: Brolin. With his roles as Dan White in Milk and what’s-his-name in W., this year showed the acting chops of this talented thespian.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS NOMINEES
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Who Will Win: Cruz. With Winslet’s supporting turn in The Reader inexplicably up for the leading category award, Cruz stands the best chance of winning. She’s also won a slew of critics’ prizes for this performance. And again, two of the year’s most incredible supporting performances were from Rachel Getting Married: Rosemarie DeWitt and the great Debra Winger, but they were both criminally overlooked.

Who Should Win: Viola Davis. Even had DeWitt and Winger been nominated, there still wouldn’t be a contest in my mind. Davis deserves this award, hands down. In an all-too-short, explosive scene, she walks away with the entire film—not easy to do when you’re playing opposite Meryl Streep. Davis’s work in Doubt is one of the greatest supporting performances I’ve ever seen. Vulnerable, fearless, emotionally naked, and ferocious, this is a legendary performance.

Dark Horse: Amy Adams. Though I don’t think she merits an Oscar for her work in Doubt, Adams is an amazingly talented, intensely likeable actress. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Academy noticed that by giving her the statuette.

Random Thought #721894

Sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office today, I leafed through an issue of Rolling Stone from last summer. For some reason, my doctor's office--part of a Harvard hospital--cannot provide current reading material. Only seven-month-old donations from the homeless shelter.

Anyhoo.

Then-presidential nominee Barack Obama was on the cover, and the issue was filled with election drama, Obama versus McCain.

And I took a great big sigh of relief. For once, America got it right. Even in the midst of our current turmoil, I am so, so glad we elected the right man for the job.

And I love this photo of him.

Marianne Moore

"Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads."

-Marianne Moore

Love Song by David P. Young

I guess your beauty doesn’t
bother you, you wear it easy
and walk across the driveway
so casual and right it makes
my heart weigh twenty pounds
as I back out and wave
thinking She’s my summer
peaches, corn, long moondawn dusks
watermelons chilling in a tub
of ice and water: mirrored there
the great midsummer sky
rolling with clouds and treetops
and down by the lake
the wild canaries
swinging on the horse mint
all morning long.

Poem: from The Planet on the Desk: Selected and New Poems, Wesleyan University Press, © 1991 by David Young

Painting: View from the Window, on the Olcha, 1915, by Marc Chagall

My Little Orange Man

Fergus Saylor-Beck

Koala saved from Australian wildfires

Click here for the story of this adorable fella.

My Grandmother’s Love Letters by Hart Crane

There are no stars tonight
But those of memory.
Yet how much room for memory there is
In the loose girdle of soft rain.

There is even room enough
For the letters of my mother’s mother,
Elizabeth,
That have been pressed so long
Into a corner of the roof
That they are brown and soft,
And liable to melt as snow.

Over the greatness of such space
Steps must be gentle.
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.

And I ask myself:

“Are your fingers long enough to play
Old keys that are but echoes:
Is the silence strong enough
To carry back the music to its source
And back to you again
As though to her?”

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand
Through much of what she would not understand;
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

Hart Crane, 1899-1932

Georgia O'Keeffe

“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life -- and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” 

-Georgia O'Keeffe

In Memoriam

Wolfie

"To call him a dog hardly seems to do him justice, though inasmuch as he had four legs, a tail, and barked, I admit he was, to all outward appearances. But to those who knew him well, he was a perfect gentleman."     -Hermione Gingold

Writ on the Eve of My 32nd Birthday by Gregory Corso

a slow thoughtful spontaneous poem

I am 32 years old
and finally I look my age, if not more.

Is it a good face what’s no more a boy’s face?
It seems fatter. And my hair,
it’s stopped being curly. Is my nose big?
The lips are the same.
And the eyes, ah the eyes get better all the time.
32 and no wife, no baby; no baby hurts,
but there’s lots of time.
I don’t act silly any more.
And because of it I have to hear from so-called friends:
“You’ve changed. You used to be so crazy so great.”
They are not comfortable with me when I’m serious.
Let them go to the Radio City Music Hall.
32; saw all of Europe, met millions of people;
was great for some, terrible for others.
I remember my 31st year when I cried:
“To think I may have to go another 31 years!”
I don’t feel that way this birthday.
I feel I want to be wise with white hair in a tall library
in a deep chair by a fireplace.
Another year in which I stole nothing.
8 years now and haven’t stole a thing!
I stopped stealing!
But I still lie at times,
and still am shameless yet ashamed when it comes
to asking for money.
32 years old and four hard real funny sad bad wonderful
books of poetry
—the world owes me a million dollars.
I think I had a pretty weird 32 years.
And it weren’t up to me, none of it.
No choice of two roads; if there were,
I don’t doubt I’d have chosen both.
I like to think chance had it I play the bell.
The clue, perhaps, is in my unabashed declaration:
“I’m good example there’s such a thing as called soul.”
I love poetry because it makes me love
and presents me life.
And of all the fires that die in me,
there’s one burns like the sun;
it might not make day my personal life,
my association with people,
or my behavior toward society,
but it does tell me my soul has a shadow.


© 1962 by New Directions Publishing Corporation

Turtle, Swan by Mark Doty

(Note: This is one of my favorite poems ever. Mark Doty is a personal hero of mine, and the beauty, the naked honesty, the luminous force of this poem is a perfect example why. Enjoy.)

Because the road to our house
is a back road, meadowlands punctuated
by gravel quarry and lumberyard,
there are unexpected travelers
some nights on our way home from work.
Once, on the lawn of the Tool

and Die Company, a swan;
the word doesn't convey the shock
of the thing, white architecture
rippling like a pond's rain-pocked skin,
beak lifting to hiss at my approach.
Magisterial, set down in elegant authority,

he let us know exactly how close we might come.
After a week of long rains
that filled the marsh until it poured
across the road to make in low woods
a new heaven for toads,
a snapping turtle lumbered down the center

of the asphalt like an ambulatory helmet.
His long tail dragged, blunt head jutting out
of the lapidary prehistoric sleep of shell.
We'd have lifted him from the road
but thought he might bend his long neck back
to snap. I tried herding him; he rushed,

though we didn't think those blocky legs
could hurry -- then ambled back
to the center of the road, a target
for kids who'd delight in the crush
of something slow with the look
of primeval invulnerability. He turned

the blunt spear point of his jaws,
puffing his undermouth like a bullfrog,
and snapped at your shoe,
vising a beakful of -- thank God --
leather. You had to shake him loose. We left him
to his own devices, talked on the way home

of what must lead him to new marsh
or old home ground. The next day you saw,
one town over, remains of shell
in front of the little liquor store. I argued
it was too far from where we'd seen him,
too small to be his...though who could tell

what the day's heat might have taken
from his body. For days he became a stain,
a blotch that could have been merely
oil. I did not want to believe that
was what we saw alive in the firm center
of his authority and right

to walk the center of the road,
head up like a missionary moving certainly
into the country of his hopes.
In the movies in this small town
I stopped for popcorn while you went ahead
to claim seats. When I entered the cool dark

I saw straight couples everywhere,
no single silhouette who might be you.
I walked those two aisles too small
to lose anyone and thought of a book
I read in seventh grade, "Stranger Than Science,"
in which a man simply walked away,

at a picnic, and was,
in the act of striding forward
to examine a flower, gone.
By the time the previews ended
I was nearly in tears -- then realized
the head of one-half the couple in the first row

was only your leather jacket propped in the seat
that would be mine. I don't think I remember
anything of the first half of the movie.
I don't know what happened to the swan. I read
every week of some man's lover showing
the first symptoms, the night sweat

or casual flu, and then the wasting begins
and the disappearance a day at a time.
I don't know what happened to the swan;
I don't know if the stain on the street
was our turtle or some other. I don't know
where these things we meet and know briefly,

as well as we can or they will let us,
go. I only know that I do not want you
-- you with your white and muscular wings
that rise and ripple beneath or above me,
your magnificent neck, eyes the deep mottled autumnal colors
of polished tortoise -- I do not want you ever to die.

© Mark Doty

China's gay penguins get hitched!

Click here to read the story.

The penguins are also adoptive parents, and zookeepers say they are the best parents in the zoo. Here is an older photo of the happy couple. They are the two behind the fence, in conversation with their next door neighbor.

John Updike, 1932-2009

"Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them."

-John Updike

Click here for Updike's obituary in The New York Times.

Soren Kierkegaard

"Once you label me, you negate me."

-Soren Kierkegaard

Slow Dance by Matthew Dickman

More than putting another man on the moon,
more than a New Year’s resolution of yogurt and yoga,
we need the opportunity to dance
with really exquisite strangers. A slow dance
between the couch and dining room table, at the end
of the party, while the person we love has gone
to bring the car around
because it’s begun to rain and would break their heart
if any part of us got wet. A slow dance
to bring the evening home. Two people
rocking back and forth like a buoy. Nothing extravagant.
A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey.
It’s a little like cheating. Your head resting
on his shoulder, your breath moving up his neck.
Your hands along her spine. Her hips
unfolding like a cotton napkin
and you begin to think about
how all the stars in the sky are dead. The my body
is talking to your body slow dance. The Unchained Melody,
Stairway to Heaven, power-chord slow dance. All my life
I’ve made mistakes. Small
and cruel. I made my plans.
I never arrived. I ate my food. I drank my wine.
The slow dance doesn’t care. It’s all kindness like children
before they turn four. Like being held in the arms
of my brother. The slow dance of siblings.
Two men in the middle of the room. When I dance with him,
one of my great loves, he is absolutely human,
and when he turns to dip me
or I step on his foot because we are both leading,
I know that one of us will die first and the other will suffer.
The slow dance of what’s to come
and the slow dance of insomnia
pouring across the floor like bath water.
When the woman I’m sleeping with
stands naked in the bathroom,
brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spit
into the sink. There is no one to save us
because there is no need to be saved.
I’ve hurt you. I’ve loved you. I’ve mowed
the front yard. When the stranger wearing a sheer white dress
covered in a million beads
slinks toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life,
I take her hand in mine. I spin her out
and bring her in. This is the almond grove
in the dark slow dance.
It is what we should be doing right now. Scraping
for joy. The haiku and honey. The orange and orangutan slow dance.


© Matthew Dickman

Our President

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

...For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

-Barack Obama, from his inaugural address

New England Winter by Erica Jong

Testing the soul's mettle,
the frost heaves
holes in the roads
to the heart,
the glass forest
raises up its branches
to praise all things
that catch the light
then melt.
The forest floor is white,
but here & there a boulder rises
with its glacial arrogance
& brooks that bubble
under the sheets of ice
remind us that the tundra of the soul
will soften
just a little
towards the spring.

© Erica Mann Jong

Image: Garden Under Snow, 1879 by Paul Gauguin

Andrew Wyeth, 1917-2009

Christina Olson - 1947

Click here for Wyeth's obituary in The New York Times.

"Hudson River, January 15, 2009, 3:30 p.m." by Donn Saylor

And from gelid iron skies, the pearly
insistence of the Airbus 320 glided
(there’s no other word for it), creamily,
into the boreal Hudson:
archangel banished on an augustly controlled
descent.
Just after takeoff, the pilot – Svengali in
the clouds, no doubt, all but seducing the
coy strati, plump, today, with new snow –
reported a “double bird strike”; then,
moments later, to the souls onboard who were,
this January afternoon, masquerading as
people: “Brace for
impact.”
The impact, as it turned out, was a soft
settling onto a watery tarmac: shallow,
icy, but a great pair of steely arms for a
wayward plane to find its peace after such
bedlam.
And it is the thought of such bedlam – so
adamant, so absolute – that brings me a gutful
of forked-tongued terror whenever I fly. There
has always seemed, to me, something
not right
about a mighty, mighty manmade flying machine
that can be disquieted so easily by “choppy air”,
that can be victim to any number of altitudinous
Armageddons,
that can be felled by a flock of turned-around
sparrows. My fourth grade history teacher once
recounted the story of a race between the then-new
steam engine and the seemingly archaic horse. The horse,
as we all know, won the race.
And sometimes, birds
can be horses too.

© 2008 by Donn Saylor

Oscar Wilde

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."   

-Oscar Wilde

Two Poems by Claudia Emerson

Aftermath

I think by now it is time for the second cutting.
I imagine the field, the one above the last

house we rented, has lain in convalescence
long enough. The hawk has taken back the air

above new grass, and the doe again can hide
her young. I can tell you now I crossed

that field, weeks before the first pass of the blade,
through grass and briars, fog — the night itself

to my thighs, my skirt pulled up that high.
I came to what had been our house and stood outside.

I saw her in it. She reminded me of me —
with her hair black and long as mine had been —

as she moved in and then away from the sharp
frame the window made of the darkness.

I confess that last house was the coldest
I kept. In it, I became formless as fog, crossing

the walls, formless as your breath as it rose
from your mouth to disappear in the air above you.

You see, aftermath is easier, opening
again the wound along its numb scar; it is the sentence

spoken the second time — truer, perhaps,
with the blunt edge of a practiced tongue.



The Spanish Lover

There were warnings: he had, at forty, never
married; he was too close to his mother,
calling her by her given name, Manuela,
ah, Manuela — like a lover; even her face

had bled, even the walls, giving birth to him;
she still had saved all of his baby teeth
except the one he had yet to lose, a small
eyetooth embedded, stubborn in the gum.

I would eat an artichoke down to its heart,
then feed the heart to him. It was enough
that he was not you — and utterly foreign,
related to no one. So it was not love.

So it ended badly, but to some relief.
I was again alone in my bed, but not
invisible as I had been to you —
and I had learned that when I drank sherry

I was drinking a chalk-white landscape, a distant
poor soil; that such vines have to suffer; and that
champagne can be kept effervescent by putting
a knife in the open mouth of the bottle.



© 2005 by Claudia Emerson

The Afternoon Sun by C.P. Cavafy

This room, how well I know it.
Now they’re renting it, and the one next to it,
as offices. The whole house has become
an office building for agents, businessmen, companies.

This room, how familiar it is.

The couch was here, near the door,
a Turkish carpet in front of it.
Close by, the shelf with two yellow vases.
On the right—no, opposite—a wardrobe with a mirror.
In the middle the table where he wrote,
and the three big wicker chairs.
Beside the window the bed
where we made love so many times.

They must still be around somewhere, those old things.

Beside the window the bed;
the afternoon sun used to touch half of it.

. . . One afternoon at four o’clock we separated
for a week only. . . And then—
that week became forever.


Translated By Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

Herman Hesse

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."  

-Herman Hesse

Rare Anne Sexton Clips

The drama, the madness, and the genius of Anne Sexton...

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

Translated by Donald S. Walsh

Milan Kundera

"All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual."  -Milan Kundera

An Amazing Recipe

My mother-in-law made this dish for John and I at Christmas, and we both fell madly in love with it. I prepared it the other night, and not only is it one of the best meals ever, but it's insanely simple. If you're a curry fan, give this one a shot; you won't be disappointed. Also, don't skip the fennel seeds -- they are the secret to the Awesome.

Curried Carrots & Lentils

1/2 cup dried red lentils 

1 1/2 cups water 

3 carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces 

1/2 cup chopped onion 

1/4 cup golden raisins 

2 tablespoons olive oil 

1 teaspoon salt 

3/4 teaspoon curry powder 

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds 

black pepper, to taste 

1. Combine the lentils and 1/2 cup of the water in a 2-quart microwave-safe casserole. Cover, and cook at full power for 5 minutes. (If the water foams and spills over, which mine did, replace it with 1 or 2 tablespoons more water.)

2. Stir in the carrots and another 1/2 cup of the water. Cover, and cook 5 minutes.

3. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup water and all the other ingredients. Cover, and cook 5 minutes.

4. Serve immediately.

*Note that cooking times will vary with the power of your microwave. Mine took considerably longer than the recipe states; on the last cook (step 3), I had to microwave it for 15 minutes total, checking it every 5 minutes and giving it a little stir. So just keep an eye on it. Trust me, it's worth the vigilance.

Source: New Basics Cookbook

Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke

We cannot know his legendary head

with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso

is still suffused with brilliance from inside,

like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise

that curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could

a smile run through the placid hips and thighs

to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced

beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders

and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,

burst like a star: for here there is no place

that does not see you. You must change your life.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program...

So I know I said I was going to take some time off from blogging, but I've changed my mind. I'm going to continue with a slightly altered approach and just focus on the little items that stick in my mind. Pretty pictures. Good poetry. Amazing quotes. Maybe a commentary or two.

In short, all the things that comprise this monkey mind.