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vanishing @ 2009-01-28T22:00:00

2009-01-29T03:01:04Z

vanishing @ 2009-01-18T16:49:00

2009-01-18T21:50:47Z

Variations on the Word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

[Margaret Atwood]

vanishing @ 2008-12-05T00:44:00

2008-12-05T05:44:49Z

My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent
and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets.
He has several likenesses, like stars and years, like numerals.

-- frank o’hara

vanishing @ 2008-09-13T14:49:00

2008-09-13T18:49:42Z

vanishing @ 2008-08-11T21:27:00

2008-08-12T01:29:11Z

vanishing @ 2008-03-22T18:26:00

2008-03-22T22:27:35Z

vanishing @ 2008-02-22T13:08:00

2008-02-22T18:09:56Z

vanishing @ 2008-02-21T00:35:00

2008-02-21T05:37:08Z

vanishing @ 2008-02-08T22:51:00

2008-02-09T04:14:15Z

mon semblable | stephen dunn

I like things my way
every chance I get.
A limit doesn't exist

when it comes to that.
But please, don't confuse
what I say with honesty.

Isn't honesty the open yawn
the unimaginable love
more than truth?

Anonymous among strangers
I look for those
with hidden wings,

and for scars
that those who once had wings
can't hide.

Though I know it's unfair,
I reveal myself
one mask at a time.

Does this appeal to you,
such slow disclosures,
a lifetime perhaps

of almost knowing one another?
I would hope you, too,
would hold something back,

and that you'd always want
whatever unequal share
you had style enough to get.

Altruism is for those
who can't endure their desires.
There's a world

as ambiguous as a moan,
a pleasure moan
our earnest neighbors

might think a crime.
It's where we could live.
I'll say I love you,

which will lead, of course,
to disappointment,
but those words unsaid

poison every next moment.
I will try to disappoint you
better than anyone ever has.

vanishing @ 2007-04-09T21:52:00

2007-04-10T01:56:58Z

click

Still Life: An Argument | Edward Hirsch

Listen, it only takes a moment
to move, to knot ourselves
together like the ends of a rope
longing to be knotted together,

but let's avoid it, let's wait.
Ropes, even the sturdiest ropes,
pull, they strain, struggle, eventually
they break. But think of it;

in a still life a knife
pauses above a platter of
meat, it only takes a second, and
poof it becomes the idea of a knife,

the drawing of a knife suspended
in the air like a guillotine
about to weightlessly drop on the
neck of a murderer and send him

shrieking into oblivion forever,
but it never happens, the knife
keeps falling and falling, but never
falls. That knife could be us.

The milk on the table is always
about to spill, the meat could be
encased in wax paper to be
protected from flies, but it's

not, it's unnecessary, the flies
threaten to descend on the
exposed meat, but they can't, they're
no longer flies, but a painting of flies,

the blood pooled on the platter
of meat never evaporates, it can't;
look, it's still there; and if I
never touch you, well then, we never die.

Listen, even lovers have still lives,
have whole months when they hang
together like moths on an unlit
light bulb, waiting for the bulb to light,

but if it never does then the moths
survive, meat should be allowed
to sit on the table forever
without being devoured by flies

and if that's not possible, well
then we still have this picture,
the still life not of how it will be,
but of how it was, for the knife and the meat

and the flies, and for us the night we
hesitated together. From now on, love,
we will always be about to destroy
each other, always about to touch.

vanishing @ 2007-03-24T10:29:00

2007-03-24T14:29:22Z

a valentine.

2007-02-14T19:40:07Z

vanishing @ 2007-02-10T11:06:00

2007-02-10T16:07:34Z

vanishing @ 2007-02-04T12:55:00

2007-02-04T17:56:34Z

Galway Kinnell | Wait

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

vanishing @ 2007-02-03T09:38:00

2007-02-03T14:39:44Z

Matthew Hollis | in you more than you

2006-08-15T16:50:10Z

the lines of a lifetime gather like water.
In places these streams are a torrent,
a raging flood, a sweeping away;
in places a careful shallow, a rockpool
still as a mirror. What I see in you is me:
an image of myself complete, as one,
more real than I could ever be.
What I see in you I cannot live to,
too much the perfect picture of myself.
So I will leave, and leave to you
the fragments of the me I seem,
this hem of guesses and glue. I'm not
the me I thought I was, and tell you so.
Pass round the pieces and let them go.

billy collins | forgetfulness

2006-07-25T08:36:05Z

vanishing @ 2006-07-19T17:39:00

2006-07-19T21:40:23Z

Tom Robbins | Still Life with Woodpecker

Who knows how to make love stay?

1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if loves stays, it can have half. It will stay.

2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a moustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.

vanishing @ 2006-05-21T12:46:00

2006-05-21T16:48:01Z

Hold onto your voice. Hold onto your breath. Don't make a noise, don't leave your room until I come back from the dead for you. I will come back from the dead for you. This could be a city. This could be a graveyard. This could be the basket of a big balloon. Leave the lights on. Leave a trail of letters like those little knots of bread we used to dream about. We used to dream about them. We used to do a lot of things. Put your hand to the knob, put your mouth to the hand, pick up the bread and devour it. I'm in the hallway again, I'm in the hallway. The radio's playing my favorite song. Leave the lights on. Keep talking. I'll keep walking toward the sound of your voice.

[Richard Siken]

vanishing @ 2006-04-09T21:27:00

2006-04-10T01:28:05Z

Drink wine, this is life eternal.
This, all that life can give to you.
It is the season for wine, roses, and drunken friends.
Be happy for this moment,
This moment is your life.

vanishing @ 2006-03-12T10:01:00

2006-03-12T15:02:23Z

I waited for the phone to ring
and when at last it didn't,
I knew it was you.

Eleanor Bron

vanishing @ 2006-03-11T11:14:00

2006-03-11T16:17:00Z

vanishing @ 2006-02-25T20:44:00

2006-02-26T01:45:39Z

vanishing @ 2006-02-16T10:31:00

2006-02-16T15:31:15Z

vanishing @ 2006-02-04T16:12:00

2006-02-04T21:16:01Z

ever since my house burned down,
i see the moon more clearly.