Sunday, June 7, 2015

Complacencies of the Peignoir*


Enter the Mermaid Room



Instead of around the neck, drape scarves over doorway stains.



I lay in bed this morning, casual. When she screamed a thin, long nearly ecstatic sound, I knew it was a seizure. You know what we do. Later, I told a friend, and she asked whether I was scared. No, I said, I am hard and resigned.








While listening to another person (not Lou) sing take a walk on the wild side, sit at a light in Silver Lake and look forward. A flock of birds flies over, maybe 50 of them, their wings casting shadows. They circle and swoop. A convention that settles on a wire. Birds on a wire. Why? Is their path ordained or are they, pardon the pun, just winging it?





Too Many Birds






The Everyday Enchantment of Music

A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound,
which was polished until it became music. Then the music was
polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when
tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was
polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty
home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the
music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at
the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was
thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the
memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what
happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would
also begin.


Mark Strand












*One of my favorite phrases, from the poem Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens

16 comments:

  1. A lot here. That song is beautiful. His voice is rough-polished.
    Let us find comfort and acceptance where we can. And beauty.
    (You probably would not be surprised to see scarves hanging all over my house. Never around my neck.)

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    1. Yes. I'm a little obsessed with his voice and that song -- the way he does the heartbeat verse kills me.

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  2. Oh dear god Sundays. Thank you for the poem.
    love,
    Rebecca

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  3. Love this MarK Strand poem. How to move beyond and be in the moment too.

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    1. Exactly. I like the form of it, too. Do you ever write prose poems, Suzanne?

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  4. You've introduced me to so many amazing words (many yours) and songs and art and thoughts over the years. Thank you today for Too Many Birds and Bill Callahan. -- Beth (in Florida, at Category Five, as cat5evie, but still me).

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    1. Beth! I have missed you! Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment -- I can't wait to get caught up.

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  5. My sister has big seizures regularly. I still get scared, after 34 years. It seems to be different for my mother as well. I even feel it for a week when someone else has a seizure if I'm around.

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    1. Thank you for your comment Mwa. I am sorry to hear of your sisters' epilepsy, and can utterly sympathize with both you and your mother. Take care --

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  6. I've always loved Mr Callahan. I had to study that poem in college and I hated it because I was a new Christian at the time and it scared me because I recognized some truth in it that I didn't want to admit to myself. I still don't fully understand it but I appreciate it now. Anyway, as always I love your blog.

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    1. Thanks Lindsay Rose. I'm not sure I can truly understand how being a Christian and truth as expressed in poetry can conflict, but I'll take you at your word! I myself move further and further away from the traditional Christianityin which I grew up and have never felt more spiritual and in touch with the ineffable.

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    2. I feel the same way. Sorry, that made no sense, let me try again, I was referring to Sunday Morning poem about the fall of Christendom and as a young, gung ho Christian I hated it but now as my faith has "evolved" I finally appreciate the poem and what he was trying to say.

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  7. I am sorry to hear about Sophie's seizure. It is heartbreaking to me. Your writing and the way you put things together is beautiful and haunting today. Sending love.

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    1. Thank you, Sweet Jo. Your words and support mean the world to me.

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  8. Love the poems, both yours and Mark Strand's. As for Wallace Stevens, you know I struggle with him -- but I do like that phrase.

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