No, dear Windy, I don't mind at all! My favorite poems? I have so many! I'll give them to you slowly, one at a time.
And you gotta show me yours. I'll show you my underwears and my favorite poems if you show my your underwears and favorite poems. (I'm kidding about the underwears. For now.
)
Today's poem is "The Kiss" by Anne Sexton, who is one of my very favorite 20th century poets. Here is one of my favorite of her works which I could have read recently to a certain person:
"The Kiss
My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby, you fool!
Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see -- Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!
Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.
My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire."
I've recently been toying with some of these lines, inverting them, exploring the possibilities of what happens when "the composer" steps out of the "fire," abandons the "boat," and it turns out the fucking "Kleenex" were once again right about the "crybaby," the "fool."
Sexton's retellings of folk and fairy tales in her collection entitled "Transformations" are not to be missed. They're hip, smart, provocative...endlessly enjoyable. However, it is her "confessional" work that I find most affecting. Here's one that speaks (or rather, has spoken) directly to my experience of late, poor me:
"Lessons in Hunger
'Do you like me?'
I asked the blue blazer.
No answer.
Silence bounced out of his books.
Silence fell off his tongue
and sat between us
and clogged my throat.
It slaughtered my trust.
It tore cigarettes out of my mouth.
We exchanged blind words,
and I did not cry,
and I did not beg,
blackness lunged in my heart,
and something that had been good,
a sort of kindly oxygen,
turned into a gas oven.
Do you like me?
How absurd!
What's a question like that?
What's a silence like that?
And what am I hanging around for,
riddled with what his silence said?"
And you gotta show me yours. I'll show you my underwears and my favorite poems if you show my your underwears and favorite poems. (I'm kidding about the underwears. For now.
)
Today's poem is "The Kiss" by Anne Sexton, who is one of my very favorite 20th century poets. Here is one of my favorite of her works which I could have read recently to a certain person:
"The Kiss
My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby, you fool!
Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see -- Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!
Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.
My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire."
I've recently been toying with some of these lines, inverting them, exploring the possibilities of what happens when "the composer" steps out of the "fire," abandons the "boat," and it turns out the fucking "Kleenex" were once again right about the "crybaby," the "fool."
Sexton's retellings of folk and fairy tales in her collection entitled "Transformations" are not to be missed. They're hip, smart, provocative...endlessly enjoyable. However, it is her "confessional" work that I find most affecting. Here's one that speaks (or rather, has spoken) directly to my experience of late, poor me:
"Lessons in Hunger
'Do you like me?'
I asked the blue blazer.
No answer.
Silence bounced out of his books.
Silence fell off his tongue
and sat between us
and clogged my throat.
It slaughtered my trust.
It tore cigarettes out of my mouth.
We exchanged blind words,
and I did not cry,
and I did not beg,
blackness lunged in my heart,
and something that had been good,
a sort of kindly oxygen,
turned into a gas oven.
Do you like me?
How absurd!
What's a question like that?
What's a silence like that?
And what am I hanging around for,
riddled with what his silence said?"
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
ttyl
your pal alwasy
Todd
My darling that is one of Poe's peoms...he is the shit