Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 33

CarrollBlog 7.2

Ode to the Present

by Pablo Neruda

This present moment,

smooth

as a wooden slab,

this

immaculate hour,

this day

pure

as a new cup

from the past--

no spider web

exists--

with our fingers,

we caress

the present;

we cut it

according to our magnitude

we guide

the unfolding of its blossoms.

It is living,

alive--

it contains

nothing

from the unrepairable past,

from the lost past,

it is our

infant,

growing at

this very moment, adorned with

sand, eating from

our hands.

Grab it.

Don't let it slip away.

Don't lose it in dreams

or words.

Clutch it.

Tie it,

and order it

to obey you.

Make it a road,

a bell,

a machine,

a kiss, a book,

a caress.

Take a saw to its delicious

wooden

perfume.

And make a chair;

braid its

back;

test it.

Or then, build

a staircase!

Yes, a

staircase.

Climb

into

the present,

step

by step,

press your feet

onto the resinous wood

of this moment,

going up,

going up,

not very high,

just so

you repair

the leaky roof.

Don't go all the way to heaven.

Reach

for apples,

not the clouds.

Let them

fluff through the sky,

skimming passage,

into the past.

You

are

your present,

your own apple.

Pick it from

your tree.

Raise it

in your hand.

It's gleaming,

rich with stars.

Claim it.

Take a luxurious bite

out of the present,

and whistle along the road

of your destiny.

CarrollBlog 7.1

Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children's letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, "Dear Jim: I loved your card." Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, "Jim loved your card so much he ate it." That to me was one of the highest compliments I've ever received. He didn't care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

Maurice Sendak

CarrollBlog 6.28

I couldn't get to sleep. The book lay nearby. A thin object on the divan. So strange. Between two cardboard covers were noises, doors, howls, horses, people. All side by side, pressed tightly against one another. Boiled down to little black marks. Hair, eyes, voices, nails, legs, knocks on doors, walls, blood, beards, the sound of horseshoes, shouts. All docile, blindly obedient to the little black marks. The letters run in mad haste, now here, now there. The a's, f's, y's, k's all run. They gather together to create a horse or a hailstorm. They run again. Now they create a dagger, a night, a murder. Then streets, slamming doors, silence. Running and running. Never stopping.

Ismail Kadare

CarrollBlog 6.18

"You look at me, you look at me closely, each time closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer each time and our eyes grow, they grow closer, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confusion, their mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting with their lips, resting their tongues lightly on their teeth, playing in their caverns where the heavy air comes and goes with the scent of an old perfume and silence. Then my hands want to hide in your hair, slowly stroke the depth of your hair while we kiss with mouths full of flowers or fish, of living movements, of dark fragrance. And if we bite each other, the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a short and terrible surge of breath, that instant death is beauty. And there is a single saliva and a single flavour of ripe fruit, and I can feel you shiver against me like a moon on the water."

Julio Cortazar

CarrollBlog 6.12

Love happened at last,

And we entered God's paradise,

Sliding

Under the skin of the water

Like fish.

.

We saw the precious pearls of the sea

And were amazed.

.

Love happened at last

Without intimidation…with symmetry of wish.

So I gave…and you gave

And we were fair.

.

It happened with marvelous ease

Like writing with jasmine water,

.

Like a spring flowing

from the ground.

Pablo Neruda

CarrollBlog 6.10

The Best Time of the Day

Cool summer nights.

Windows open.

Lamps burning.

Fruit in the bowl.

And your head on my shoulder.

These the happiest moments in the day.

Next to the early morning hours,

of course. And the time

just before lunch.

And the afternoon, and

early evening hours.

But I do love

these summer nights.

Even more, I think,

than those other times.

The work finished for the day.

And no one who can reach us now.

Or ever.

Raymond Carver

CarrollBlog 6.7

He knew it was finished that night she didn't return until 4 in the morning, drunk. What disturbed him most though was the truly humbling realization afterwards that despite the months together and the intense intimacy, he really didn't know her. That there were parts of this woman like those places marked on ancient maps of the sea that said things like MONSTERS LIVE HERE – STAY AWAY!

CarrollBlog 6.5

SWEETNESS

by Stephen Dunn

Just when it has seemed I couldn't bear

one more friend

waking with a tumor, one more maniac

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness

has come

and changed nothing in the world

except the way I stumbled through it,

for a while lost

in the ignorance of loving

someone or something, the world shrunk

to mouth-size,

hand-size, and never seeming small.

I acknowledge there is no sweetness

that doesn't leave a stain,

no sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet

Tonight a friend called to say his lover

was killed in a car

he was driving. His voice was low

and guttural, he repeated what he needed

to repeat, and I repeated

the one or two words we have for such grief

until we were speaking only in tones.

Often a sweetness comes

as if on loan, stays just long enough

to make sense of what it means to be alive,

then returns to its dark

source. As for me, I don't care

where it's been, or what bitter road

it's traveled

to come so far, to taste so good.

CarrollBlog 6.4

I couldn't get to sleep. The book lay nearby. A thin object on the divan. So strange. Between two cardboard covers were noises, doors, howls, horses, people. All side by side, pressed tightly against one another. Boiled down to little black marks. Hair, eyes, voices, nails, legs, knocks on doors, walls, blood, beards, the sound of horseshoes, shouts. All docile, blindly obedient to the little black marks. The letters run in mad haste, now here, now there. The a's, f's, y's, k's all run. They gather together to create a horse or a hailstorm. They run again. Now they create a dagger, a night, a murder. Then streets, slamming doors, silence. Running and running. Never stopping.

Ismail Kadare, Chronicle in Stone

CarrollBlog 6.2

BEFORE EVERYTHING IS OVER

by George Wallace

before everything is over i would like to make love to you

the same number of times as a gentleman knocking on a

door that will never open for him.

the same number of times a mirror fails to reflect the spirit

of a ruined man. the same number of times a young woman

discovers in the middle of a noisy party

that she is alone. i would like to make love to you like a man

leaning his face from the window of a passenger train to catch

one more look at the one woman he ever

truly adored, but now he must leave behind. like a circus

performer looking up at a ceiling of trapeze rings, crazy

lights and precarious high wires,

knowing he will never climb that high. like a washed up prize

fighter reaching for the canvas because it is his only friend.

like a bum reaching for a twenty dollar bill

that is blowing across a busy boulevard. o i would like to

make love to you before the passersby pass by before

the falling sun falls out of this world

and into the next, before the brown bear of winter falls

into his magnificent winter slumber. i would like to make

love to you with my forehead

pressed to your naked waist. with my platelets pulsing in

your veins. with my brain on fire and snow falling on your

hissing flames o i would like to make

love to you a hundred times with the shuddering knowledge

of you, with your frozen smile and untraceable fingertips.

you with your indecipherable dreams.

because i am doomed to live with you even when i am

without you — you with your incomplete shoulders. you

with your rainbow colored lips.

you with your empty hands. your perfumed silence, your

perfect elegance. you, with the sunlight that leaks out of

your darkness and into my world.