this is what keeps me up at night

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth V.v. 24-33

i am obsessed with william faulkner. actually, the word "obsess" doesn't even begin to cover it - i want to steal his brain and inject his genius into my veins so that i too can be maddeningly brilliant. it takes real patience and determination to make it through the sound and the fury, but the result is more rewarding than any other novel i have read (except, perhaps, absalom, absalom! and one hundred years of solitude). mulling over the novel, it strikes me just how appropriate/incredible/there are no words for the sheer brilliance the allusion to macbeth V.v. 24-33 is to the content of the novel. i turn the lines over again and again in my mind and can't help but wonder if faulkner means it in a cheeky way as well since he is prone to infuse everything he does with multiple levels of meaning: is he the idiot telling the tale? the obvious reference is to benjy, since his section clearly reflects this idea, but faulkner's own words on writing the sound and the fury leads me to believe that there is more to this than initially presents itself. exhibit a, from an interview with faulkner:

"since none of my work has met my own standards, i must judge it on the basis of that one which caused me the most grief and anguish, as the mother loves the child who became the thief or murderer more than the one who became the priest."

faulkner has also called the novel his "most splendid failure" because he was never really satisfied with the way it turned out.

okay, so maybe it's not the brainstorm of the century to figure out that faulkner is probably referring to himself in a tongue-in-cheek way with the allusion to macbeth, but it's enough of a revelation to have kept my mind occupied for the past week. more than that, i'm also inspired by the way each section reflects a bit of the allusion, such as quentin's section and his "walking shadow" or jason's section, in which he makes himself out to be the "poor player." i often wonder if authors set out to be geniuses or if it just sort of falls together for them. with faulkner, i believe that there was a real, concerted effort to forge the sound and the fury into the masterpiece that it is. perhaps nothing is coincidental about the craftsmanship of this book, but the bittersweet beauty of it lies in faulkner's own dissatisfaction with it which, oddly, gives me a tinge of hope that maybe we are all capable of creating something this "splendid" if only we are willing to fail in our own minds.

quiet girl

Quiet Girl

Langston Hughes

I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.

diving into the wreck

i have read a good deal of criticism of this poem, much of which insists that it is about discovering feminism and transforming the experience from the personal to the political - you know, changing the course of patriarchy's power to actually generate change. all of this is fine and dandy, but sometimes a poem can be interpreted on multiple levels, all of which are valid. for me "diving into the wreck" is more about social isolation and is a postmodern description of the experience of interacting with people. i look at it as going beyond the surface to discover the things that really matter about a person and engaging people enough to create a meaningful connection. but as levar burton always says on reading rainbow, "you don't have to take my word for it!"

Adrienne Rich

Diving Into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,

and loaded the camera,

and checked the edge of the knife-blade,

I put on

the body-armor of black rubber

the absurd flippers

the grave and awkward mask.

I am having to do this

not like Cousteau with his

assiduous team

aboard the sun-flooded schooner

but here alone.



There is a ladder.

The ladder is always there

hanging innocently

close to the side of the schooner.

We know what it is for,

we who have used it.

Otherwise

it is a piece of maritime floss

some sundry equipment.



I go down.

Rung after rung and still

the oxygen immerses me

the blue light

the clear atoms

of our human air.

I go down.

My flippers cripple me,

I crawl like an insect down the ladder

and there is no one

to tell me when the ocean

will begin.



First the air is blue and then

it is bluer and then green and then

black I am blacking out and yet

my mask is powerful

it pumps my blood with power

the sea is another story

the sea is not a question of power

I have to learn alone

to turn my body without force

in the deep element.



And now: it is easy to forget

what I came for

among so many who have always

lived here

swaying their crenellated fans

between the reefs

and besides

you breathe differently down here.



I came to explore the wreck.

The words are purposes.

The words are maps.

I came to see the damage that was done

and the treasures that prevail.

I stroke the beam of my lamp

slowly along the flank

of something more permanent

than fish or weed



the thing I came for:

the wreck and not the story of the wreck

the thing itself and not the myth

the drowned face always staring

toward the sun

the evidence of damage

worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty

the ribs of the disaster

curving their assertion

among the tentative haunters.



This is the place.

And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair

streams black, the merman in his armored body.

We circle silently

about the wreck

we dive into the hold.

I am she: I am he



whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes

whose breasts still bear the stress

whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies

obscurely inside barrels

half-wedged and left to rot

we are the half-destroyed instruments

that once held to a course

the water-eaten log

the fouled compass



We are, I am, you are

by cowardice or courage

the one who find our way

back to this scene

carrying a knife, a camera

a book of myths

in which

our names do not appear.

making love to concrete

"I have come to believe over and over again, that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.... My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.... and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken."
Audre Lorde (The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, Sister Outsider).



Making Love to Concrete

Audre Lorde

An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
sleek leather boots on the pavement
rat-a-tat-tat best intentions
going down for the third time
stuck in the particular

You cannot make love to concrete
if you care about being
non-essential wrong or worn thin
if you fear ever becoming
diamonds or lard
you cannot make love to concrete
if you cannot pretend
concrete needs your loving

To make love to concrete
you need an indelible feather
white dresses before you are ten
a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones
and air raid drills in your nightmares
no stars till you go to the country
and one summer when you are twelve
Con Edison pulls the plugon the street-corner moons Walpurgisnachtand
there are sudden new lights in the sky
stone chips that forget you need
to become a light rope a hammer
a repeatable bridge
garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs
and a hint of you
caught up between my fingers
the lesson of a wooden beam
propped up on barrels
across a mined terrain

between forgiving too easily
and never giving at all.

1996 winner of the nobel prize in sassiness

i was first introduced to szymborska in the world literature class which is also responsible for my love affair with rainer maria rilke, gabriel garcia marquez, albert camus, czeslaw milosz, and numerous other authors. thanks, dr. crippen. szymborska's poetry is incredible because it is simple, earnest, very, very human and accessible. living in krakow since 1931, she endured the nazi occupation and therefore saw human nature at its best and its worst. her poetry intrigues me because it is consistently optimistic and hopeful, yet smacks of existentialism. what a lovely combination!

Wislawa Szymborska

A Few Words on the Soul

We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.

Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.

Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.

It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.

We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.

Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.

It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.

We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.

On Death,Without Exaggeration

It can't take a joke, find a star, make a bridge. It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming, building ships, or baking cakes. In our planning for tomorrow, it has the final word, which is always beside the point. It can't even get the things done that are part of its trade: dig a grave, make a coffin, clean up after itself. Preoccupied with killing, it does the job awkwardly, without system or skill. As though each of us were its first kill. Oh, it has its triumphs, but look at its countless defeats, missed blows, and repeat attempts! Sometimes it isn't strong enough to swat a fly from the air. Many are the caterpillars that have outcrawled it. All those bulbs, pods, tentacles, fins, tracheae, nuptial plumage, and winter fur show that it has fallen behind with its halfhearted work. Ill will won't help and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat is so far not enough. Hearts beat inside eggs. Babies' skeletons grow. Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves and sometimes even tall trees fall away. Whoever claims that it's omnipotent is himself living proof that it's not. There's no life that couldn't be immortal if only for a moment. Death always arrives by that very moment too late. In vain it tugs at the knob of the invisible door. As far as you've come can't be undone.

---

waiting for the spark from heaven to fall

with lambchops that rival the wooliness of an actual lamb, matthew arnold wrote some of the most arrogant, yet insightful criticism of the victorian era. arrogant in that he had the chops to criticize shakespeare; insightful in that is considered the first modernist critic and therefore influenced pimps like t.s eliot. any way you chop it, arnold was ahead of his time. despite my love/hate relationship with his literary criticism, i have to admit that the guy could write some pretty amazing poetry. behold "dover beach," the kind of poem for people who wear suits to the beach and prefer to contemplate death instead of boogie boarding or building sandcastles for crabs to inhabit. you know these people - you may even be one of them. and on that note, this one's for you. please to enjoy...

"Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery." (Matthew Arnold)

DOVER BEACH

By Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

that's right, i love henry rollins

henry rollins looks like he could eat your babies and tear a compact car in half with his bare hands, but underneath that rough exterior lies...well, a rough interior. rollins is great because he isn't afraid to show the world his dark side. his vulnerability is so endearing because it's raw, honest, and because it comes from a man who appears to lift weights with his neck. who would dare mock him? but the fact is, even if rollins weren't a tangible manifestation of unadulterated testosterone, he would probably still write this stuff because that's how he rolls. at least, that's what i like to think. this poem in particular is moving because it reveals his feminist side. and if a man like this can speak openly about relationships and his search for a "real woman," then there's hope for the future.

solipsism is one of my favorite words/concepts. it is the idea that anything outside of the mind is not justified; that one's mind is all that exists, and that people shape their perspective, their actions, and their behavior on the worlds created by their minds. many of us live in our "safely solipsized" worlds without ever even knowing it or acknowledging it (those quotes are nabokov's genius words, not mine). i know i sure do. i became obsessed with the concept of solipsism while reading nabokov's lolita, and once i had wrapped my mind around it, i realized that i couldn't avoid it. solipsism is all that is modern and post-modern. think prufrock. think hemingway. hell, just think! it is who we are. solipsism is human nature, the human condition, the blunt, existentialist reality that we struggle against whether or not we realize it. when we do realize it, we can drive ourselves crazy trying to differentiate between reality and solipsism only to come to the conclusion that solipsism is reality - our own unique and indescribable reality that alienates us from one another, making a deeper connection seem impossible. this is that special kind of crazy that makes people stand on street corners armed with a microphone and a speaker, screaming "the end is near!" or "carrots, $1!!!" or perhaps even "she-la-la-la she-la-la-la messiah!!!"(props to edgar for that one)... whatever spreads your cheese. with this in mind, please to enjoy...

Solipsist

Henry Rollins

For a while today, I hated you. I hated you for being so beautiful and real. I hated you for waking up at night to find your arms around me. I hated your honesty and the way you make people relax when you are around them. I hated you for loving me unconditionally. You have called me on years of cheap emotion and cruelty that came from my fears. When you look at me and smile I no longer feel scared or feel the need to run out of the room gasping for air. You don't make me feel like life is a waste of time and that all you get is cold sweating, dark moments in small rooms all over the world, spending time with other desperate characters who are tearing the path across the night skies of desolation.

Could you believe that I didn't know what to do with your slow, warm affection? Could you believe I was scared by your endless giving giving giving? It took me a while to be able to feel welcomed by your strength that never shows off, never brags, but just nourishes and makes time stop. The feeling of hatred passed in the time it takes for an eye to twitch, and I realized that I have to take care of myself because I belong to someone. Someone is thinking of me right now. I never doubt it. I know you will always be there. Yeah, I'm in my room somewhere. It's freezing outside and I am exhausted. Too many things to do. Too many people to answer to all the time. From here I think of you. My body is wracked in pain and I am burning with fever.

A lot of men want a woman to mother them. They get with a woman and all they do is regress to the point where you might think he might not be capable to take care of himself at all. I don't want another mother. I want a woman. I want to rise to the occasion. I want to learn and bask in your glow. I want to protect you and do whatever I can to give you strength. There is no twist to this. I am not about to blow my brains out. You have not cut me up like others have. It's just this. I want to love you with everything in me. I need your help because I don't know anything about it. I am suspicious and ready to leave and hit the cold road for the frozen dawn. I am just going to trust you with everything in me. I see now that it's the only reason to be here. After kissing you, I cannot remember what it was like to kiss any other woman. At this point I am not sure if I ever have.