71 ~
morning food for thought…
“the cause of my profound sense of incompatibility with others is, I believe, that most people think with their feelings, whereas I feel with my thoughts.
for the ordinary man, to feel is to live, and to think is to know how to live. for me, to think is to live, and to feel is merely food for thought.
it’s curious that what little capacity i have for enthusiasm is around by those most unlike me in temperament. i admire no one in literature more than the classical writers, who are the ones i least resemble. forced to choose between reading only Chateaubriand or Vieira, i would choose Vieira without a moment’s hesitation.
the more a man differs from me, the more real he seems, for he depends that much less on my subjectivity. and that’s why the object of my close and constant study is the same common humanity that i loathe and stay away from. i love it because i hate it. i like to look at it because i hate to feel it. the landscape, admirable as a picture, rarely makes a comfortable bed.”
Fernando Pessoa ~ The Book of Disquiet
It Is Tuesday
By Matthew Zapruder, guest-edited by Emily Fragos
From room to room
after you left
I wandered a while
in the hours
as instructed
I have cooked
the mushroom soup
picked up a paperback
I have read
but forgotten
had some coffee
it is quiet
I don’t know why
all afternoon
I think of you
in the traffic
the rain
peacefully falling
like some plastic beads
from the ‘70’s
when they took all the doors
off the closets
and our parents smoked
all night downstairs
and laughed too loud
we couldn’t hear
what they were
and what they knew
if you hate me
it must be
for ancient reasons
Poem for a Daughter
By Lynn Melnick, guest-edited by Emily Fragos
Here’s a dustbowl drenched in eucalyptus,
in the middle of nowhere
where I’ve been some dozen times.
Here’s a fire hydrant, brilliant, swallowed
by the shrunken brush. I hug it like it loves me,
lick it like it’s mine. I’m itching
and aching and bored. I need you to be born.
Make new what was never new, make it rain.
I’m killing bees with my bare hands.
I’ve ridden all the stable horses.
When I use a canteen
I love the word canteen.
I have lived on earth for thirty-one years now.
At twelve my legs gave on the bend.
At twenty I held a posy so close I hated it,
panicked, gave it away to ghosts.
Today you are inside me, promising,
swelling us, what kind of miracle
sitting down would be.
On the next hill there’s a movie set,
or a pep rally, it’s hard to tell in the shimmering heat.
It’s all tumbledown menacing, maybe a clothesline.
Windbreak branches ornament with intent,
litter the ground with their gum.
We aren’t native to this land.
It’s time to plant what is. It’s time to go home.
