grammar, bitch

"Grammar in learning is like tyranny in government - confound the bitch I'll never be her slave."
— John Clare

haunted with love

"All true love will, one day, behold its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. This is possible in the realms of lofty death. ‘Ah! my friends,’ thought I, ‘how I will tend you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with my love." - George MacDonald, Phantastes

the poet / the measure

"The poet... imagines himself the measure of life and pays for this with his life." - Boris Pasternak

poem

Who knows
how to write a poem?
To create a living creature
on the page, to watch it writhe
and breathe, to capture eyes. To want desire,

love, perhaps both. But
my typing? Not a chance.

Console me, O Muse. Touch my hands
until I forget the fumbling
to find the true words.
You say,

"Sweetheart,
on the page the words are black for everyone,
like sin. Or soot."

dear mr. roethke

I thought about writing a good "public
poem," one for the eyes of all who read such shit
from my pen, but failed. Again. The words
were personal and scared me. I hid them—
forgive me. How about light verse?
The question never occurred to me before,
always making the longest fucking lines,
always imitating the poet I love best.
Are my own lines fair, Mr. Roethke? Fair
enough? Public consumption is not at high
demand these days. Not for my style—your style—
my poor imitations. Jesus, if only the weight
of your heavy lines didn't hang on me so
strongly. If my love of lineage wasn't
limitless. Dear God. Sacrilegious and pious,
my two best loves, in tandem, and now
the clean scent of my Papa's cologne. (I asked
for Old Spice, just to be like him.) I try
and make a good line, or two good lines,
a string of words pleasing to the ear—hell,
Papa, just one good phrase between
commas would suit me just fine, if only
for you to nod your approval, embrace me.

(rev. 4/30)

good things

"Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or another book; give it, give it all, give it now. the impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better."
— Annie Dillard (The Writing Life)

Good advice for writing a book. Good words to live a life by. I hope.

rusty words

"And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long."
— Sylvia Plath