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flexagonI had Plainwater by Anne Carson on my wishlist for years. Then I bought it and had it on my shelf for months, then read it. I liked it a lot less than I was expecting to, but it had some wonderful bits, and these I am giving to you below. These are all out of order and come from different poems/essays. The last is the best, so I'll put the rest behind a cut...
Youth is a dream where I go every night
and wake with just this little jumping bunch of arteries
in my hand.
Pure lines of fever think themselves.
The youth at night would have himself driven around the scream. It lay in the middle of the city gazing back at him with its heat and rose-pools of flesh. Terrific lava shone on his soul. He would ride and stare.
I was a young, strong, stingy person of no particular gender -- all traits advantageous to the pilgrim. So I set off, into the late spring wind blasting with its green states.
What is it men want? They talk of pleasure. They go wild, then limp, then fall asleep. Is there something I'm not getting?
A hardworking blue Saturday wind pushing white cloud rags into their places on the sky.
One drop of water entirely awake.
No storm yet. The air has the pressure and color of fresh-cut granite. Black lake surface is moving, keeps moving, slightly, all over. As if some deep underwater clocks were being wound slowly into position for a moment of revelry.
I watch the sentence come clawing into me like a lost tribe.
you know what fireworks are like. Tawdry, staggering, irresistible, like human love.
Blue sky hammers us toward Utah. We bleach along roads plucked dry as the notes of a xylophone.
In his hands were language and speech, decoupled, and when he started to talk, they dropped and ran all over the floor like a bag of bell clappers.
Well, we are objects in a wind that is stopped, is my view. There are regular towns and irregular towns, there are wounded towns and sober towns and fiercely remembered towns, there are useless but passionate towns that battle on, there are towns where the snow slides from the roofs of the houses with such force that victims are killed, but there are no empty towns (just empty scholars) and there is no regret. Now move along.
Youth is a dream where I go every night
and wake with just this little jumping bunch of arteries
in my hand.
Pure lines of fever think themselves.
The youth at night would have himself driven around the scream. It lay in the middle of the city gazing back at him with its heat and rose-pools of flesh. Terrific lava shone on his soul. He would ride and stare.
I was a young, strong, stingy person of no particular gender -- all traits advantageous to the pilgrim. So I set off, into the late spring wind blasting with its green states.
What is it men want? They talk of pleasure. They go wild, then limp, then fall asleep. Is there something I'm not getting?
A hardworking blue Saturday wind pushing white cloud rags into their places on the sky.
One drop of water entirely awake.
No storm yet. The air has the pressure and color of fresh-cut granite. Black lake surface is moving, keeps moving, slightly, all over. As if some deep underwater clocks were being wound slowly into position for a moment of revelry.
I watch the sentence come clawing into me like a lost tribe.
you know what fireworks are like. Tawdry, staggering, irresistible, like human love.
Blue sky hammers us toward Utah. We bleach along roads plucked dry as the notes of a xylophone.
In his hands were language and speech, decoupled, and when he started to talk, they dropped and ran all over the floor like a bag of bell clappers.
Well, we are objects in a wind that is stopped, is my view. There are regular towns and irregular towns, there are wounded towns and sober towns and fiercely remembered towns, there are useless but passionate towns that battle on, there are towns where the snow slides from the roofs of the houses with such force that victims are killed, but there are no empty towns (just empty scholars) and there is no regret. Now move along.
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 04:36 am (UTC)I could consider changing my journal title to "One drop of water entirely awake". But that seems inappropriate just as I am finally trading in my long-saved good deeds for a sin. :-)