Gliding Over All - Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass - Breaking Bad

Walt Whitman (1819–1892).  Leaves of Grass.  1900.

271. Gliding Over All

GLIDING o’er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul—not life alone,
Death, many deaths I’ll sing.       __________________________________     A fond, sad farewell to "Breaking Bad".    __________________________________ 

The Necessity for Irony by Eavan Boland

Painting by Toulouse Lautrec.

 

The Necessity for Irony
By Eavan Boland

On Sundays,
when the rain held off,
after lunch or later,
I would go with my twelve year old
daughter into town,
and put down the time
at junk sales, antique fairs.

There I would
lean over tables,
absorbed by
lace, wooden frames,
glass. My daughter stood
at the other end of the room,
her flame-colored hair
obvious whenever—
which was not often—

I turned around.
I turned around.
She was gone.
Grown. No longer ready
to come with me, whenever
a dry Sunday
held out its promises
of small histories. Endings.

When I was young
I studied styles: their use
and origin. Which age
was known for which
ornament: and was always drawn
to a lyric speech, a civil tone.
But never thought
I would have the need,
as I do now, for a darker one:

Spirit of irony,
my caustic author
of the past, of memory,—

and of its pain, which returns
hurts, stings—reproach me now,
remind me
that I was in those rooms,
with my child,
with my back turned to her,
searching—oh irony!—
for beautiful things.

"The Necessity for Irony" by Eavan Boland, from The Lost Land.

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I highly recommend Ms. Boland's anthology, "New Collected Poems" which is where I read this perfect poem just last week.  Her poetry is spectacular.  Ironically, I heard it read on the "Writer's Almanac" segment on NPR this morning, too, so I assumed it wanted to be here.  Synchronicity for a rainy morning. 

 

I awoke after dreaming that I had died and my body was being cremated (as I so wish) and letters, words, sentences, stories were wafting up into the sky (instead of smoke) from my body.  It was a spectacular dream, with no fear or sadness.  Every book, poem, word that I had read was floating into the sky and my spirit with them.  :-)  I love that dream supremely.  It made me very happy.  xo

 

 

 

 

"Let life be as beautiful as summer flowers
And death as beautiful as autumn leaves."
~Rabindranath Tagore

 

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I love you all,

~Marion

 

Books I'm reading this week:

 

"Offshore" by Penelope Fitzgerald

"The Shining" by Stephen King (a re-read before starting the sequel, "Doctor Sleep").

"New Collected Poems" by  Eavan Boland

"The Weight of Small Things" by Sherri Wood Emmons

 

Delicious Autumn - Welcome!

 

Woke up to our first cool, stoned, humidless morning.  It's magically, deliciously delightful.  The heat of summer 2013 put me in a coma-like, zombie-state.  Time to awake now and begin again.  xo

 



 

At Burt Lake
By Tom Andrews

To disappear into the right words
and to be their meanings. . .

October dusk.
Pink scraps of clouds, a plum-colored sky.
The sycamore tree spills a few leaves.
The cold focuses like a lens. . .

 Now night falls, its hair
caught in the lake's eye.

 Such clarity of things. Already
I've said too much. . .

                                  Lord,

language must happen to you
the way this black pane of water,
chipped and blistered with stars,
happens to me.

From:  "The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle" by Tom Andrews, page 13.  (Winner of  'The Iowa Poetry Prize')

*************************************

Mistaking Opiates for the Clear Light
By Suzanne Paola

There's always been this confusion with white things---
hospitals, cold, moonlight.
They seemed to embody the will
paralyzed into peaceful acceptance.
Blank paper consecrate
to the end of words:  I love that,
secretly, more than this.
Quaaludes in my palm, rowers, eucharistic form.
Clear bag of heroin.
Stuff, we called it.  Too foundational to define.

*

In a clear bowl, a pear & a pomegranate wizen
into color.  Almost
alive, skins rucking
in on themselves.  Cheeks
sunk, russet
& carmine, seeming
almost to care about this...
Each a countenance
too private for a face, collapsing
in the hard gravity of color.

I was their opposite, pale girl, not living
or dying.  They were
what I feared.

*

I trust in the bardo wisdom:  how the gods,
with their soft white light, draw us in, convince us
their stuporous world is all there is.

I've seen them, slumping
forward, burning themselves with cigarettes.

How grand they were for a while:  their leathers, their etched
            bodies, a stalled
writhing eagle on each arm.
And their nectars, their secret foods, that gave
an easy kind of sensate order.

Though a god's world finally
suffers itself away from him, braille of the tracks
of a thousand needles, transgressions of red
under the skin---

From:  "Bardo" by Suzanne Paola, pages 6, 7 (Winner of "The Brittingham Prize in Poetry")

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bardo (from Wikipedia):  "Used loosely, the term "bardo" refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions.

For the prepared and appropriately trained individuals the bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality, while for others it can become a place of danger as the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth."

Might As Well Face It...

 

Addicted to Love

Songwriter: Robert A. Palmer

 

Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your mind is not your own
Your heart sweats, your body shakes
Another kiss is what it takes
You can't sleep, you can't eat
There's no doubt, you're in deep
Your throat is tight, you can't breathe
Another kiss is all you need

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

You see the signs, but you can't read
You're runnin' at a different speed
Your heart beats in double time
Another kiss and you'll be mine, a one track mind
You can't be saved
Oblivion is all you crave
If there's some left for you
You don't mind if you do

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love

[break]

Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your will is not your own
You're heart sweats, your teeth grind
Another kiss and you'll be mine
Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

Might as well face it, you're addicted to love

The Color Master by Aimee Bender - A Glowing Review

 

Read this book.  Read this book.  Read this book.

 

 

Every once in a while I'm fortunate enough to get a book (to my bookaholic, bookslut delight, this one was an Advance Reader's Copy) that blows my mind...not often...not even semi-often, because I'm a jaded reader.  I've been reading since the age of 5...for over 50 years.  My brain is overflowing with words, plots, poems, stories, books, and madness to boot.   And don't ever think that books can't be poetry.  These stories are pure poetic prose.  I read some dark detective novels that are pure poetry (James Lee Burke comes to mind and Robert Crais).

 

But this book of short stories by Aimee Bender is magical and yes, original.  As I said in my Amazon review (the first one under the book):  If you're looking for a book full of stories that will make you see the world around you differently, then this is the book for you. These stories astonished me with their ingenious originality. 

 

I'm going to quote a page from my favorite story, "Tiger Mending":

 

"Watch, Sloane whispered.

 

I stood behind.  The two women from the front walked into view and settled on the ground near some clumps of ferns.  They waited.  They were very still-minded, like my sister, that stillness of mind.  That ability I will never have, to sit still.  That ability to have the hands forget they are hands.  They closed their eyes, and the moaning I'd heard before got louder, and then, in the distance, I mean waaaay off, the moaning grew even louder, almost unbearable to hear, and limping from the side lumbered two enormous tigers.  Wailing as if they were dying.  As they got closer, you could see that their backs were split open, sort of peeled, as if someone had torn them in two.  The fur was matted, and the stripes hung loose, like packing tape ripped off their bodies.  The women did not seem to move, but two glittering needles worked their way out of their knuckles, climbing up out of their hands, and one of the tigers stepped closer.  I thought I'd lose it; he was easily four times the first woman's size, and she was small, a tiger's snack, but he limped over, in his giantness, and fell into her lap.  Let his heavy striped head sink to the ground.  She smoothed the stripe back over, and the moment she pierced his fur with the needle, those big cat eyes dripped over with tears.

 

It was very powerful.  It brought me to tears, too.  Those expert hands, as steady as if he were a pair of pants, while the tiger's enormous head hung to the ground.  My sister didn't move, but I cried and cried, seeing the giant broken animal resting in the lap of the small precise woman.  It is so often surprising, who rescues you at your lowest moment..."

 

from:  "The Color Master" by Aimee Bender, pages 34, 35

 

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I'm going to leave you there in hopes you'll buy her book (or get it from your local library) and read the rest of this brilliant story and all the other fabulous stories in this book.  My next favorite is the title story, "The Color Master".  It made me see differently.  Literally SEE with new eyes.  It glows with a rainbow of colors...There are 15 stories in all and each, in its own way, is a startling revelation.

 

We're having an entire rare, stormy, rainy week here in the swamps...perfect reading weather.  School starts here this week, so I also think of this as back-to-school weather...I'm headed off to read more of "Open Field - 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets", an amazing book overflowing with great poetry by my friends from the great frozen North.  I highly recommend it.

 

 

 



 

My favorite poet on earth is from Canada.  ;-)

 

xo,

Marion

 

 

"From every book invisible threads reach out to other books; and as the mind comes to use and control those threads the whole panorama of the world's life, past and present, becomes constantly more varied and interesting, while at the same time the mind's own powers of reflection and judgment are exercised and strengthened."  ~Helen E. Haines

 

---------------------

Some Jack Gilbert

I've been knee deep in the poetry of Jack Gilbert this week.  I went through my poetry books (no small task as I have over 300 books of poetry) and found two of Mr. Gilbert's.  I haven't been able to put them down since stumbling upon them...metaphorically and literally.  Below are two of my favorite poems out of hundreds of favorites. 

(August has sashayed into Louisiana hot, humid and steamy.  She always was a sultry, sizzling bitch and continues to live up to her bad reputation.  But the dragonflies and hummingbirds are plenteous and the tomatoes still giving freely of their fruit.  I pluck them from the plant and eat them like apples, juice dripping down my chin. My shirts are stained. I can think of no finer luxury in this life.)  xo

=====================================

Older Women
By Jack Gilbert

Each farmer on the island conceals
his hive far up on the mountain,
knowing it will otherwise be plundered.
When they die, or can no longer make
the hard climb, the lost combs year
after year grow heavier with honey.
And the sweetness has more and more
acutely the taste of that wilderness.

from:  "Jack Gilbert:  Collected Poems", page 173

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The Danger of Wisdom
By Jack Gilbert

We learn to live without passion.
To be reasonable. We go hungry
amid the giant granaries
this world is. We store up plenty
for when we are old and mild.
It is our strength that deprives us.
Like Keats listening to the doctor
who said the best thing for
tuberculosis was to eat only one
slice of bread and a fragment
of fish each day. Keats starved
himself to death because he yearned
so desperately to feast on Fanny Brawne.
Emerson and his wife decided to make
love sparingly in order to accumulate
his passion. We are taught to be
moderate. To live intelligently.

from:  "Jack Gilbert:  Collected Poems", page 330

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Waking This Morning by Muriel Rukeyser

Waking This Morning
By Muriel Rukeyser

Waking this morning,
a violent woman in the violent day
Laughing.
Past the line of memory
along the long body of your life
in which move childhood, youth, your lifetime of touch,
eyes, lips, chest, belly, sex, legs, to the waves of the sheet.
I look past the little plant
on the city windowsill
to the tall towers bookshaped, crushed together in greed,
the river flashing flowing corroded,
the intricate harbor and the sea, the wars, the moon, the
planets, all who people space
in the sun visible invisible.
African violets in the light
breathing, in a breathing universe.      I want strong peace,
and delight,
the wild good.
I want to make my touch poems:
to find my morning, to find you entire
alive moving among the anti-touch people.

I say across the waves of the air to you:
today once more
I will try to be non-violent
one more day
this morning, waking the world away
in the violent day.

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Thank you, dearest Erin, for mentioning this poem to me.  I hunted it down because I don't think I've ever read it before and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I owe you one.  :-)

It's a much-needed rainy Saturday here in the humid swamps of luscious Louisiana.  (The dragonflies are dancing between raindrops, swirling and dive-bombing like glittering, winged jewels---one of the top perks of living near a swamp is their prolific presence.)  It's been pretty dry this summer, but not today.  There are few things more luxurious than waking to dark skies & rain on a day you don't have to get out of bed, but can lie there listening to the rain pattering on the roof and the sound of distant thunder.   

I have to get back to my reading.  Later!

xo,
Marion

"How many a (wo)man has dated a new era in his/her life from the reading of a book."  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

======================

"A house without books is like a room without windows."  ~Heinrich Mann

=====================

A Few Words For the Visitor in the Parlor by Olena Kalytiak Davis

An old, lace-winged friend of mine...

A Few Words For The Visitor In The Parlor
by Olena Kalytiak Davis

Every time you wish the sky was something happening to your heart, you lose twice.

Mother kept sending me back to the kiosk. Where they wrapped the paper in fish. Pivovarov and the other artists, they were worried. The blood was Ukrainian and it was all over the place. Go and wash your face. No, no one said anything about auto-workers. I am simply saying to you what my mother said. I am simply saying what Pivovarov painted: Go and wash your face. People are coming soon. It is not good for them to see you looking like this.

I slept the afternoon, but you know what Breton says: I was not in the mood for visitors. Picture yourself inside that word. And yes, my house is a word, but my words, aren’t they words also? Today, the sky just wouldn’t happen. Today, I was blind sided. Neither pain, nor its powdered absence. Like most days, I became the kitchen sill. I’m simply saying what I always say: what is lace-winged cannot be strong.

My wedding dress hangs at the end of things. It’s the kind of thing you think while sitting on someone else’s couch. There is something elegant implied by length. Or: So this is a living room, what was I thinking. Grass stains where the peach-colored silk drank in the ground. But when I get home the urge to clean immediately leaves me. Alone, I can only think of visiting those plain and exotic places. Oh, my cloud covered heart.

She was a branch covered in hoarfrost. I must forgive myself. Something clings to the whore’s hem. Dear visitor: you divide your age in two then square it by a dying mother. I am always gathering her up in my arms. Believe me, you never forget someone that thin. You start remembering the way that summer lay differently on top of that year. The hood burns you. I tried driving as gently as I could, but you know, the road had last winter inside it, the winter before. That drive was painful, just look at her face. You remember because someone starts talking about time. Someone says time, time is like water. Someone says: There was once a living room made entirely of death.

Today, the sky was white. And the ground was white, too. Yet, I could tell them apart. They were that easy to distinguish.

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*Bold sentences are two of my favorites ever... - Marion, brawling w/pain & losing

 

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 From her amazingly perfect book:  "And Her Soul Out of Nothing" by Olena Kalytiak Davis

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The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider

Rose after rain.

The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
how the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
how the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
or toes. How soles of feet know
where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
of ordinary things, how clothes
wait respectfully in closets
and soap dries quietly in the dish,
and towels drink the wet
from the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

from 'Another River: New and Selected Poems'

_______________________________________

The secret of life:  there are no ordinary things.  xo

_______________________________________

"Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be."  ~Grandma Moses

Dinner Plate Hibiscus

The first bloom. . . there is hope!!  I planted four colors: white, dark pink, light pink and red.  No matter how many flowers I plant, it always amazes me when they actually come up and grow.  :-)

 

 

Another miracle flower, my first Hibiscus.  It's magnificent in the morning sunlight.

 

 

Like magic...one day it's not there, and the next, this glorious flower.

 

 

Sun-dappled and juicy, it fills me with wonder.

 

 

 

As long as there is life, there is wonder:  flowers, birds, dragonflies, cicadas, cats, trees, clouds, sky, stars, moon, words, books, poetry, family, friends, love. . .

 

xo,

Marion

 

 

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."  ~Anais Nin