Monday, November 21, 2005

poem for Sabrina 11/20: I wanted to bring you Neruda

I wanted to bring you Neruda

Something warm, yielding: page by page of vanilla paper a
Soft Something nourishing to your bed
Side. I considered John Donne and dismissed him
Out of turn, too wordy I thought, too pained.

Plath was out of the question.

I wanted to bring you Neruda.
Pages of light and lushness, plants to grow around tickling your toes
In the hospital bed. A forest of loving flowers lifting their faces to
Yours. I pushed aside Lacan and Freud for him…pulled
Volumes from the sunlit shelves bringing up wisps of dust.

He wasn’t by the bed side either
Where I had thought he might sit forlorn with the petals of a rose between
Ivory teeth of pages.

A volume of French Renaissance poets seemed dismayed.

I wanted to bring you Neruda.
But I couldn’t find him in the towers of paper lined up like messy soldiers by
The unkempt sofa.

I brought instead the words of a friend between green stiff covers
Because only a few can speak like Neruda of loves and of lovers
Of friends and leaves and light. I would have brought you Whitman
Had I come at night, but since a cold wind blew down the doors
Numbered in gold on Auburn streets, since the high blue sky of early winter
In purpose had no peer

I brought you Shakespeare.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

life, love and morning

so once upon a time i started something about what had happened in the past year...making the snowflakes fall or something like that. Last night I was sitting in my office, revising for my Urdu test on monday when I decided to re do the calender on the chalkboard since it was fast reaching the very end...we put it up in September with 2 and a bit months of information on there, and now it's November so. So i started wiping away the weeks of exhibition openings, the chocolate tastings, the little marker for my birthday, drew little cartoons on thanksgiving and christmas and began to feel quite odd. Christmas is coming soon! WTF???

Last Christmas i was embittered and tired, still with Will, by a thread. I remember sending a package on New Year's Eve of cds and hotchocolate and other paraphenalia. This was a package that he never received...all the cd cases lovingly sketchd with psychadelic patterns and a card with many kisses. It arrived back to me about half its original size from being around the world and wrapped with rubber bands and tape in June, i think, or august. It was a strange little visitor from the past. And now i wonder what would have happened if he had received it. would it have bought us a few weeks more?

What have I done this year. So many things. When I put the calender up i suddenly felt as if i had done nothing and was met by this gaping vaccum. but actually it's not true. So much has happened. It has to be said that this has not been a year of stellar academic acheivment but it has been a trip, to be sure. Poetry readings and activism, falling into depression, fancying people, falling in love, painting, fucking, writing.

and a partridge in a pear tree.

anyway. Now is the time to work on the CV and life and essays and hope to god it all comes together...but first....i think i will take a little nap.