Under the Eastern White Pines,
lies the reflection of the neon lines
on the rain-soaked road that
defines the border between the
dark of the forest and whatever
festers on the sticky pine boards
that line this Eastern Lodge of the
Roadhouse and during twilight,
you can see shine the veil that
covers the hole that drains the
water from these grey marshes.
Category Archives: lit
from Someone Must Be Called Twilight (for Carlos Ramírez)
by Jaime Saenz
Many times searching without being able to find you, the twilight would
surprise me in the hour of your eyes
Many times I forgot you, wanted to forget myself and remember, and
remembered I had to forget you,
thinking of you for the very reason I didn’t want to remember you
—the twilight would surround me at such times, I remember it perfectly.
I confused you with the twilight confusing myself with you;
you confused me with the twilight confusing yourself with me,
and you and I confused ourselves with the twilight which confused you in me and
me in you,
confusing with you what was confused in me to confuse with me what was
confused in you.
And many times in the same person there was a confusion of twilight, you and
me,
and many more each confused with three other distinct persons,
adding up to nine altogether, which is to say, zero.
And there was no such person called twilight,
or, to tell the truth, no person not called twilight,
except those called you and I, who nevertheless could not keep from calling each
other twilight.
Kabir thing:
There is nothing but water in the holy pools.
I know, I have been swimming in them.
All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can’t say a word.
I know, I have been crying out to them.
The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words.
I looked through their covers one day sideways.
What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived
through.
If you have not lived through something, it is not
true.
The Garden of Love
by William Blake
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
Silence Near An Ancient Stone
by Rosario Castellanos
I’m a woman sitting here with all my words intact
like a basket of green fruit.
The fragments
of a thousand ancient and defeated gods
seek and bind each other in my blood, straining
to rebuild their statue.
From their shattered mouths
a song struggles to rise to mine,
an aroma of burnt resin, some gesture
of a mysterious carved stone.
But I am oblivion, betrayal,
the shell that did not hold an echo
from even the smallest wave in the sea.
I do not watch the submerged temples;
I watch only the trees moving their vast shadows
over the ruins, biting the passing wind
with acid teeth.
And the signs close beneath my eyes like
a flower under the awkward fingers of the blind.
Yet I know: behind
my body another body crouches,
and around me many breaths
cross furtively
like nocturnal animals in the jungle.
I know that in some place,
like cactus in the desert,
a clustered heart of thorns, awaits a name
as the cactus does the rain.
But I know only a few words
in the language or the stone
beneath which they buried my ancestor alive.
The Poem I Just Wrote
by Joy Harjo
The poem I just wrote is not real.
And neither is the black horse
who is grazing on my belly.
And neither are the ghosts
of old lovers who smile at me
from the jukebox.
MOIST MIND
Is technoetic multiconsciousness
is where dry pixels and wet molecules converge
is digitally dry, biologically wet, and spiritually numinous
combines Virtual Reality with Vegetal Reality
comprises bits, atoms, neurons, and genes
Is interactive and psychoactive
embraces digital identity and biological being
erodes the boundary between hardware and wetware
is tele-biotic, neuro-constructive, nano-robotic
is where engineering embraces ontology
Is bio-telematic and psi-bernetic
is at the edge of the Net
– Roy Ascott
Kiss: Fly: Air: Belt Text from Monologue by Kelly Chen
It is all the time everywhere. The fitness gram pacer test is a multistage aerobic capacity test. The following morning I was waiting for a call. I think I am just a little exhausted right now. I think I am a little overwhelmed by you right now. Realize, real eyes, real lies. Concrete jungle, wet dream, tomato. What people think is hard on violin versus what is really hard in real life. We talk like nothing had happened. It is how I remember it. The house with the best halloween
decorations now has a blue lives matter flag. You asked me about my family.
You asked me about my friends. You asked me how I am.
The sun comes to the world where the place is Sheepshead. The sun comes to me where the place is Sheepshead and melts everything in plain sight. I don’t know where the buildings are. I don’t know how that song goes. I am not sure if I remember liking this at all.
How can you doubt me when I have the lines in the center of my hands? What do you do when memory takes on no shape?
There are no details to confuse – like who and why, or when and where. I opened a video on the house computer and the image was obscured by a finger. Just girly things. Does my voice sound better when you can’t recognize it? Memory foam and memory card games and muscle
memory. I am trying my best to be better than that.
I still hold my toes when I am cold and I am doing less and less. There’s a photo of you that’s old and torn where I gave someone the wrong directions. You asked if I was trying to be impossible. You asked if I liked clean air and a life without buildings. You asked if I would remember if it came to pick me up again. You asked about being a speculative being.
How could you forget my birthday? How did you forget my birthday? I look forward to seeing you and letting you walk around my mind. I look forward to seeing you And? Letting you litter in my mind.
Look at the cars coming. Good morning. Look at the trees and clouds. Good morning. Look at the birds leaving. Good morning. Look at my empty body. Look at the things I am avoiding. Look at the snow. You remembered every snow and told me about them. Look at the snow. Good morning. I heard you like it here but probably not as much as I do. I am seeing the rectangle. I am a rectangle, then televangelism, then a mansion, then a parade.
The dust was dancing and the sky was still. When it happened, I was singing and you were sleeping.
They found me brilliant and wanted nothing to do with me. I try not to complicate it. I was picked up from my house all summer by people. Then I got hit by a car in somerville. I walked all over the place, everything was concrete and the ceilings were high. Everything was covered in aerosol sunscreen. I had a dream that my hair grew long enough that I could tie it back. My mom texted me a picture of her lunch from community college that said “pizza day”. I wonder if she misses mountains. I grew a lot of weed, then made my bed. I rode my bike and didn’t do much else.
Clouds and chemtrails are inseparable. A little patch of light comes through and knocks everything I know over. I like emails, and their parameters. I like caterpillars and their limits. I like that things don’t have to effectively be like anything else. We had a school desk on our porch in brooklyn. My dad ate cold cuts there and I rode my bike up and down the street. I had just learned about block parties and we were playing a game where we guessed the song that was playing. I did not know Rihanna. I said anything, and won a balloon dog. I wonder what my
physical counterpart is.