so how about it, it’s just the thing just the thing just the kind of thing you’re looking for, laughed the man in the hat. it wouldn’t cost a thing no not a thing no barely a thing, mint condition all you wanted, he added slyly, because let’s face it’s like things were set up this way, just for you now isn’t that special. look, isn’t this getting old, I said, you’re an allegory, a kind of fable, you and your stupid hat both and I’m not interested. now, he said, looking hurt, now there’s no need to say things like that, to get personal, to hit below the belt, because you know I’m telling the truth when I say you won’t get this superbly good a deal again cross my heart and hope to -. no, I said, no, I don’t know that, of course I don’t, but I’ve made up my mind, superbly good deal or not. and I think I’ll take my chances with the other guy, I never heard him try to sell anything

Browning.

Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her―
Next time, herself!―not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew :
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune―
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,―who cares?
But ’tis twilight, you see,―with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

- Love in a Life, Robert Browning.

This. is Robert Browning. He is a Crazy Man. I will also endeavour to show that he is the awesome. I didn’t think, before reading him, that it was possible to be obtuse and personal all at the same time.

This is a man who understands that the point of poetry is talking to people, even if it is yourself.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written. Really written. This is, of course,
temporary. Of course I would say that it’s temporary. But I think
it is.

Things are happening, changing, sliding in and out of
focus, but really the truth is
the truth is the truth and
I can’t change that.

I don’t really intend to.

And perhaps it’s abit of a cop-out that right now the only thing i can tell you is NOthing, but that’s just the way I roll, baby, that’s just the way it goes. There are times and there are times, and hey, there’s poetry in the blank spaces too, so who says this is necessarily a bad thing?

But I’m not worried. I haven’t been for a long time.

I can’t tell you how good that is.

waiting

Crept up on me today, the waiting
time that makes the spaces between hours
golden. Poured myself a cup of tea.
The day’s first rays they’re slowly sinking in.

Slept up on you today, the soft small
space between your stomach and your breasts,
your skin, the quiet look your eyes have
between sleep and muzzily awake.

Kept up with now today, in fits and
starts, the shape of time an eggshell cracked
into the smallest parts; heat slow now.
God only knows the time.

I read a story today, about
a man. Who crossed the desert slowly
the warm sand baking in his tracks, a
promise, bound up small, within his hand.

It’s evening soon, the slow set of sun
the light between the trees, the fading musk
the sound of sirens wailing by the park
and I want you. like the lamplight fades to dusk.

-

o cavalry,

where are you now?

it’s been awhile since the end of the end

and now the woods whisper quiet with the winding wind

The River Merchant’s Wife

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fo-Sa.

- Ezra Pound, The River Merchant’s Wife, from Li Po

mraao

I think I’m in love with Virginia Woolf. She’s so intelligent.

But such a catty lady. On George Eliot: ‘…she believed in the romance of the past, or nostalgia, which seems to have been the only romance she allowed herself to indulge in.’ Also ‘ponderous’ and ‘large’ are not necessarily words of high praise, either describing her fiction or her person.

Oh snaaaap.

the fundamentals are these two: reason and emotion

by these two methods we circle the truth

ring-like

bed of shark-like

ever phosphorous ever widening

swooping in for the last

future/tense/perfect / free

asians, do more, for less

Cloth padded over the things that make sense.

Drapery padded over the things that make sense.

Fur padded over the things that make sense.

You asked for pretty, didn’t you?

-

Watercolours, china glass
Silver medal, first-in-class
These are the kind of names we give to
wood-fired mediocrity.
A kind of slow electricity
running up and down the tramways of a spine.

O but by this of course we mean achievement
O but it is a kind of easement
To shake grasping gasping glitter
from out the trappings of a mind.

But reasons?! Of course: we’re so completely logical
“O but life is short and I am late (I do so hate the pedagogical)
and I have a man I need to see at eight.
So I need to know I made the Best Use of My Time.
So I need to know … the time.”

So give it up for morphine,
for the quinine in the sky.
For the half-steps we call knowledge
but are perhaps a kind of lie.

taking stock

It’s been a very long time since jc. I am very, very grateful for everything God has done for me, and the places he has put me, and for the people I have met.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11

I’m looking forward to uni, and omigod I am ECSTATIC about literature. I wish I could tell you how much. That I would be happy doing it almost anywhere if the people were nice enough.

And maybe this post has a ringing air of finality to it, but who cares? I’m in a portentous mood today, and maybe I’m lurching to the end of an era. A friend of mine once said that I was VERY HARD TO KNOW because I am, (perhaps) so borderline calm and uninvested all the time, which is part true, but I have some very deep wells in which I fling my money. I don’t talk about them often, but they are there and believe me they are deep.

I am writing a 7-part poem to wrap up my 17 – 20s. Because I am a rip-off artist and I liked The Wasteland and I liked Crush. Maybe I’ll show it to you sometime.

lit kids

I’m glad we understand each other.