Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Sweet Like a Crow

Pink Beach, 2012

I am reading Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family.  This is my second time.  He's an author I like to revisit. 

I don't know if I can even begin to describe this book to you.  And this is one of the many things I like about it.

An excerpt from pages 76 and 77:

SWEET LIKE A CROW

for Hetti Corea, 8 years old

The Sinhalese are beyond a doubt one of the least musical
people in the world.  It would be quite impossible to have
less sense of pitch, line, or rhythm"

PAUL BOWLES

Your voice sounds like a scorpian being pushed
through a glass tube
like someone has just trod on a peacock
like wind howling in a coconut
like a rusty bible, like someone pulling barbed wire
across a stone courtyard, like a pig drowning,
a vattacka being fried
a bone shaking hands
a frog singing at Carnegie Hall.
Like a crow swimming in milk,
like a nose being hit by a mango
like the crowd at the Royal-Thomian match,
a womb full of twins, a pariah dog
with a magpie in its mouth
like the midnight jet from Casablanca
like Air Pakistan curry,
a typewriter on fire, like a spirit in the gas
which cooks your dinner,
like a hundred pappadans being crunched, like someone
uselessly trying to light 3 Roses matches in a dark room,
the clicking sound of a reef when you put your head into the sea,
a dolphin reciting epic poetry to a sleepy audience,
the sound of a fan when someone throws brinjals at it,
like pineapples being sliced in the Pettah market
like betel juice hitting a butterfly in mid-air
like a whole village running naked onto the street
and tearing their sarongs, like an angry family
pushing a jeep out of the mud, like dirt of a needle,
like 8 sharks being carried on the back of a bicycle
like 3 old ladies locked in a lavatory
like the sound I heard when having an afternoon sleep
and someone walked through my room in ankle bracelets.

Friday, September 21, 2012

My Kind of Friday

Lost in Thought, 2012

I was just carded while buying a 6-pack of IPA in a mini-mart.  (grin...)

Enjoy your weekend.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

A Life

Noticing, 2012

What makes a life? Experiences. All of them. Miniscule and grand. Good and bad. We are their sum. Walking up the hill with heavy bags full of groceries. Feeling thankful you are able. The McIntosh tasting like lemons after the Gravensteins. Looking up from a book at dusk and noticing everything in the room is glowing pale pink. Responding to this headache. Not letting it win. Writing. Editing. Reading. Making. Anger in response to what wasn't, or what was. Denial. Acceptance. The three nasty little poems you wrote the morning the world felt less than welcoming. Quick rough little drafts. Deciding to show only one, and then taking it down, and putting it back up again, and taking it down once more. Fearing what it might say about you. Listening. Deciding to bring the one back to life, and allow the other two to join it.
Memories. The box stitch in blue. 

Three Quick and Nasty Little Poems

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Three Quick and Nasty Little Poems


BULL'S-EYE

I'm not ready yet,
And the moment
I am,
I won't want it.

The pleasure hides
In the anxiety.  While I
Imagine
Their teeth
Sinking into me.

It's doubtful
I'll be spared.  Very.
Not with this bull's-eye on my forehead,
The mark I painted.


BURN

Books by covers,
Poems by length, and
People by height.

None of it was fair,
So I kept it secret.

I deleted my adjectives, but
Not without fear.

Nothing is really over now.
Only words on paper burn.


SURVIVAL

Two of three vases
Held stems without heads.

Dirty dry water lines
Admitted neglect.

The third displayed three full blooms.
No one asked questions.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Home

Summer's End, 2012

The buildings are so close together, and there are too many cars, but I like the sidewalks and foghorns.