The pills I took were a bad idea

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. T. S. Eliot The wishbone   Today I had the thought, Do not, do not, on pain of freaking death, look backward, Look backward over your shoulder at anything that you Have done or that has transpired, Because you will have one of two reactions: You will hate what you have done, who you were, all the mistakes You have made, all the chances not taken, Or else you will so love the times that were sweet blossomings, Heady gardens of the mind, That you will ache for those times and die inside, Knowing they will never return.   Today I had that knowledge, but did I absorb it? I never knew when things were crowning anyway, When moments were sublime, For they slid out from under me even as I experienced them. Far from trusting that these moments would come again, Which they would not, I tried to seize them, to keep them close, but they only changed form In some incredible miracle from solid to liquid A collapsing snow castle.   My life has been a road steadily pulled out from under me By some unseen hands And I’ve had to run to keep up with it To keep from falling on my ass Or hitting the back of my head. Run, run, fucking run.   My life has been some sort of awful conundrum, An impenetrable puzzle that the newspaper Forgot to publish the answer to, With too many gifts of the wrong sort, things I could Never share because I was never given the chance: No, not never, for I tasted of the thing I wanted most, Or thought I wanted most, Like a tongue on powdered sugar.   Births slingshot into nine-year birthday parties, And I see the infant I watched slide into the doctor’s hands Blowing out her nine candles, Looking about fourteen years old, Her hair up, her eyes knowing, Her smile splitting my heart. She looks nothing Like me or my side of the family, And the Spanish blood that lurks several Generations back is clear in her almond-eyed, Almost Castilian beauty. It can’t get any better, God won’t let it, In fact God is the reason for all this: I want to say, take me NOW so I don’t have to see any more, So that I will not be dragged to the awful breaking point, The point of disaster that I know is coming If I don’t get out of here soon.   This puppet dance amuses me, Though the first time I saw it in that odd old movie It tore me to pieces. I forgot to mention in the labels That the music is by Bartok Who knew a thing or two about horror. I could say something now about puppets and strings, But I know it would be awful.       I am in a labyrinth, somewhere in the middle so that It is possible to move in any direction And be equally lost. I hit Dead end after dead end, the board Tilted nastily so that the little silver ball Keeps on dropping through the holes.    I don’t want to read any more biographies, Don’t want to read about How lavishly gifted people Threw everything away with both hands Continually Because I don’t know what these things are Supposed to do for us anyway, Inspire us, Inspire revulsion or pity Or embarrassment or discouragement or what?   I am told to try and try. But it turns out That this is what they tell people anyway, it’s kind of Standard, A form letter of advice, And I am the only one who pays attention to it. It has become clear to me Just today,  just this minute That my efforts are an embarrassment to everyone Because they didn’t really mean I SHOULD try – It is the best way to get rid of me quickly With no sticky feelings involved Or perhaps it makes them feel better, Which is what apology is really all about, It has nothing to do with the wounded party, Who smugly assumes the person is truly contrite.   I have a certain  fascination for divination and Signs, Splintery snaps of the wishbone Dried on top of the fridge for months Yielding only the dessicated remains of a turkey or duck Knowing none of this ever comes true, That there is in fact no special protection, No amulet that holds off disaster, And the realization is strong, and inspires all sorts of Awful visions: Dancing along the edge of the Skytrain platform Feeling a little woozy As if the couple of pills I just took Might after all have been a bad idea.

Something indecent

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent: a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us, so we blink our eyes as if a tiger had sprung out and stood in the light, lashing his tail.

Ars Poetica Czeslaw Milosz

Something indecent. The writer (particularly the poet) sneaks over the border into territory unknown, territory best left undisturbed. The writer (particularly the poet) has a way of seeing through the veils. Veils which are there for a reason, to protect us from reality, from the monstrous reality which lurks inside all of us. Watch your daily news. Be honest about your purest rage. No, don't, because even though we feed off it in other people, it's not socially acceptable and we can't stand to look.

Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother…the true self is aggressive, rude, dirty, disorderly, sexual; the false self which mothers and society instruct us to assume, is neat, clean, tidy, polite, content to cut a chaste rosebud with a pair of silver-plated scissors.

Jeanette Winterson

Is this true? Have you looked in the mirror lately? No, I don't mean Facebook. I mean a real mirror, in someone else's eyes, someone who doesn't mind paring you down to the seedy core of your soul.

Art has quite a pair of hips and is barely contained by that dress. Art slinks. Art bites rather than kisses, draws blood. Why?

Theft, armed robbery, not pleasing your mother! Which is worse? Which is more heinous? Are we aggressive, rude, dirty, disorder. . . wait. No, that only applies to "them", the ones who have all the "nervous breakdowns", the ones who don't even earn a decent living wage but spend all their time screwing around with words.

Then why do so many people aspire to something so useless? Everyone's a novelist, and everyone can sing. Anyone can "epublish" and call themselves an author. But why?

Most of what they turn out is dishwater and requires no risk. They want the revelation without the "nervous breakdown", which is just a polite term for why doesn't she just pull herself together dammit.

Nobody wants human vulnerability shoved in their faces. Nobody wants these predatory females who not only want, but insist on sex. They're dangerous because they want want want want want so much.

There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire.

C. G. Jung

It's rude and not decent to climb into these caves, to curl up inside yourself, to listen. It's narcissistic to pour your lifesblood out onto the page in the full knowledge that because you will never make a living at it, it's a complete waste of time, not to mention mad.


Why's it so good, then, to have that "creative fire"? Why does everyone want to be Hemingway when Hemingway blew his brains out? Even Hemingway wasn't Hemingway, which was perhaps why he blew his brains out.

Art wears a triple-D cup and smokes too much and demands happiness and demands orgasm and demands Truth. It's much too much too much too much, much too much of everything and more, and more, and more.

"You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."

And thus Virginia Woolf loaded stones in her pockets and waded in, convinced everyone would be better off without her. Was she right? Why does every source continually mention her multiple "nervous breakdowns"? What is a "nervous breakdown"? It's nothing, it does not exist! It's a delicate lace-doily term for somebody who just can't cut it. Who is so pale and weak that they can't poke their head outside the door, who lives on tea and those brown digestive cookies. A nervous breakdown is an indulgence, a choice, something weak people embrace when they just want a little time off. Nothing to do with raging, wrenching, gut-hollowing, soul-haemorrhaging manic depressive illness which is infinitely worse than all the cancers of the human body put together.

It was not her choice to enter the cauldron, it just happened, she had that awful stamp of greatness on her which in her case meant unbearable pain and death. She knew how indecent and disorderly her soul was. No doubt this "drove" her mad. Would it have "driven" her to heart disease or cancer? Of course not. Madness is somewhere between self-indulgence and demonic possession. This is why we tiptoe around it so delicately.

Aggressive, rude, dirty, disorderly, sexual.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Poem of the Day

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan't crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Νάνα Μούσχουρη - ΚΑΘΕ ΤΡΕΛΟ ΠΑΙΔΙ

This has a history, too, a very long one. I loved this song for years, at least since the late '70s, but had no idea what the words meant. On the British Concert Album, Nana Mouskouri announced the title as "Wilderness", so I assumed it was about a long, lonely walk through a barren landscape, or perhaps through a dark forest full of frightening sounds. Turns out it has nothing to do with any of that! 

Since I am having trouble seeing the subtitles, I assume you will too, so I will transcribe:

That daybreak
I said good morning to him, oh, oh.
That daybreak
I said good morning to him, oh, oh.

Every madcap young man
is holding in his hand
a kiss given by Virgin Mary
and a knife

and his mother doesn't sing
and his mother doesn't sing.

When someone's slaughtering two doves
the night is burning in his two hands
and the girl doesn't speak

and the girl doesn't speak.


It's a strange, spare, paradoxical and somewhat frightening poem about the duality of humankind, the beauty and the violence of youth, and the ways in which people are silenced by fear - or does it mean something else? What's a madcap young man, anyway? Now that I finally have the English lyrics, it's more mysterious than ever. (I did find the composer's name - Manos Hadjidakis - vaguely familiar, though I don't know if he also wrote these incredible words.) 


http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm                                                  

After searching fruitlessly (saxophone poem)

AFTER SEARCHING FRUITLESSLY FOR A POEM BY BILLY COLLINS CALLED THE INVENTION OF THE SAXOPHONE, THE AUTHOR TAKES IT UPON HERSELF TO WRITE ONE OF HER OWN

i don’t know who invented this

reflexive question mark of an instrument

but i think it was a good thing

for it’s great to look at,

with fat keys like frog eyes
and a big bell like royal jelly
you could keep flowers in there if you wanted to,
extra socks
or even a clock

Snakes kink too

and this sound is snakey
purply mauve as the deepest bruise
and raunchy
as a man in love

smoked as some cat of the night

disappearing over a fence
it makes leaps
(but only because it has to)

There is no

morning saxophone

this is a sound that

pulls the shades down

a hangover

howl

fading to twilight

or the blackmost

belly button
of the night

Few can wrap their lips around

this gooseneck
without some harm coming to them
for this is an instrument
with a long history of
hollowing out
all but the most hardy

Bird flew into a pane

of glass and was
smashed

we don’t know why it does this to people

(maybe it was mad at him
for taking it all to such extremes)

but how could you blow this thing

halfway

i ask you

how could you rear back

in some great pained whiplash of the spine
without a sense of
terrible commitment

i never much cared for

saxophones myself

until i heard one blown correctly at last

jazz is a genre i will never understand
but perhaps that’s good
for like the priesthood, one must enter into it

without question

reservation
or doubt