Rec
Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder—
If you hate me so much
don’t bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything—
as we both know, if you worship one god, you only need One enemy— I’m not the enemy. Only a ruse to ignore what you see happening right here in this bed, a little paradigm of failure. One of your precious flowers dies here almost every day and you can’t rest until you attack the cause, meaning whatever is left, whatever happens to be sturdier than your personal passion—
It was not meant to last forever in the real world. But why admit that, when you can go on doing what you always do, mourning and laying blame, always the two together. I don’t need your praise to survive. I was here first, before you were here, before you ever planted a garden. And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon are left, and the sea, and the wide field.
I will constitute the field.
as we both know, if you worship one god, you only need One enemy— I’m not the enemy. Only a ruse to ignore what you see happening right here in this bed, a little paradigm of failure. One of your precious flowers dies here almost every day and you can’t rest until you attack the cause, meaning whatever is left, whatever happens to be sturdier than your personal passion—
It was not meant to last forever in the real world. But why admit that, when you can go on doing what you always do, mourning and laying blame, always the two together. I don’t need your praise to survive. I was here first, before you were here, before you ever planted a garden. And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon are left, and the sea, and the wide field.
I will constitute the field.
Mar 13, 2025
Comments (1)
a friend introduced me to her with this poem and it literally changed my brain chemistry
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Rec
I buried- in silence -in the back yard -a thing in the night -deer trodding behind the tree line airplane light rolling down the cheek of the dome- it had to be done alone no matter how many times you asked what was growing here I couldn’t speak its name- and you couldn’t hold the reigns of a certainty that is not yours to keep -here is my mind, the living, the executor, the backdoor frightened child staring off wandering for the holder -here is the order of the sphinx, the cataloged diagnosis of the ordinary wheel -here is the lackadaisical assistances that you ordered: “bury the hatchet that dug the hole. take the sword of your desires and throw it at the heap. there is a lump forming that must be seared. the stitches to be unraveled are trying to leach into the skin from which they are formed. you must open the earth or be dissolved yourself”
Feb 25, 2025
Rec
🍑1
There was a time
only certainty gave me
any joy. Imagine —
certainty, a dead thing.
2
And then the world,
the experiment.
The obscene mouth
famished with love —
it is like love:
the abrupt, hard
certainty of the end —
3
In the center of the mind,
the hard pit,
the conclusion. As though
the fruit itself
never existed, only
the end, the point
midway between
anticipation and nostalgia —
4
So much fear.
So much terror of the physical world.
The mind frantic
guarding the body from
the passing, the temporary,
the body straining against it —
5
A peach on the kitchen table.
A replica. It is the earth,
the same
disappearing sweetness
surrounding the stone end,
and like the earth
available —
6
An opportunity
for happiness: earth
we cannot possess
only experience — And now
sensation: the mind
silenced by fruit —
7
They are not
reconciled. The body
here, the mind
separate, not
merely a warden:
it has separate joys.
It is the night sky,
the fiercest stars are its immaculate distinctions–
8
Can it survive? Is there
light that survives the end
in which the mind’s enterprise
continues to live: though
darting about the room,
above the bowl of fruit–
9
Fifty years. the night sky
filled with shooting stars.
Light, music
from far away — I must be
nearly gone. I must be
stone, since the earth
surrounds me —
10
There was
a peach in a wicker basket.
There was a bowl of fruit.
Fifty years. Such a long walk
from the door to the table.
__
From The Seven Ages (Ecco/Harper Collins, 2001)
Jun 11, 2025
Rec
🥄
Before it came inside
I had watched it from my kitchen window,
watched it swell like a new balloon,
watched it slump and then divide,
like something I know I know -
a broken pear or two halves of the moon,
or round white plates floating nowhere
or fat hands waving in the summer air
until they fold together like a fist or a knee.
After that it came to my door. Now it lives here.
And of course: it is a soft sound, soft as a seal's ear
that was caught between a shape and a shape and then returned to me.
You know how parents call
from sweet beaches anywhere, come in come in,
and how you sank under water to put out
the sound, or how one of them touched in the hall
at night: the rustle and the skin
you couldn't know, but heard, the stout
slap of tides and the dog snoring. It's here
now, caught back from time in my adult year -
the image we did forget: the cranking shells on our feet
or the swing of the spoon in soup. It is real
as splinters stuck in your ear. The noise we steal
is half a bell. And outside cars whisk by on the suburban street
and are there and are true.
What else is this, this intricate shape of air?
calling me, calling you.
May 7, 2024
Top Recs from @florinegrassenhopper
Rec
⏰No screen Sundays. If I want to listen to music its CDs or radio. If I want to watch a movie, no I don’t. If I want to see a friend, I will make plans with them on Friday or Saturday to meet up. As a result, I read more, write more, and sit with questions like “did Citizen Kane‘s 50 year winning streak in the Sight and Sound critics choice survey end in 2012 or 2022? When did Stephen Merritt come out? Whats the etymology of Whitsun?“
This is something that I have practiced off and on for many years but I’ve been doing it every week since December and I love the way that it just allows me one day of true freedom and rest.
This is something that I have practiced off and on for many years but I’ve been doing it every week since December and I love the way that it just allows me one day of true freedom and rest.
Jan 22, 2025
Mar 3, 2025
Rec
My calendar this year has 52 of these week at a glance pages but I don’t think that way. So, I've been inspired by Ross Gay’s Book of Delighs to start recording the little moments and sensations that bring me joy throughout the day. An analog pi.fyi, if you will.
heres some of what I have so far:
- Waking up to the sound of my upstairs neighbor‘s footstep. It sounded nostalgic. Felt like company.
- Strawberry jam
- feeling tender for strangers: their lips, nail colors, their small wrists. Thinking of all the lives we hold gently.
- A young girl bought an LP at the bookstore just before I left. She stroked its cover with love
- Green tiles —the mint shade always makes me think of Jancie
- Charlie’s little bop and punch dancing to some German language punk - lunch with Katherine, curry Brussels sprouts
- small talk at the photo studio. The photographer's brother was named after their dad, stole his identity, bought jet skis.
heres some of what I have so far:
- Waking up to the sound of my upstairs neighbor‘s footstep. It sounded nostalgic. Felt like company.
- Strawberry jam
- feeling tender for strangers: their lips, nail colors, their small wrists. Thinking of all the lives we hold gently.
- A young girl bought an LP at the bookstore just before I left. She stroked its cover with love
- Green tiles —the mint shade always makes me think of Jancie
- Charlie’s little bop and punch dancing to some German language punk - lunch with Katherine, curry Brussels sprouts
- small talk at the photo studio. The photographer's brother was named after their dad, stole his identity, bought jet skis.
Jan 13, 2025