Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 42

CarrollBlog 12.21

"There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas."

Fyodor Dostoevsky

CarrollBlog 12.19

BAD GIRL

She's the one sleeping all day, in a room

at the back of your brain. She wakes up

at the sound of a cork twisted free

of a bottle, a stabbed olive

plopped into gin. She's prettier than you

and right now you bore the shit out of her,

sitting there sipping when she wants

to stand on the rim of the glass, naked,

dive straight to the bottom and lie there

looking up, amazed at how the world

wavers and then comes clear. You're not

going to let her. You've locked her in

with her perfume and cheap novels,

her deep need for trouble. She's the one

calling to you through the keyhole,

then sneaking away to squirm out

a window and tear her silk dress.

You can't guess where she's going,

or who you'll wake up with

when you finally wake up,

your head throbbing like a heart.

She's the one you're scared of,

the one who dares you to go ahead

and completely disappear. It's not

you the boys are noticing, not you

turning toward them and throwing off light.

You're crouched in a corner, coming undone.

She's in love with you now. She's the one.

~Kim Addonizio

CarrollBlog 12.15

It's all about sex,

we both know that.

But what I wonder is

why

after every molecule of desire

in my body has been satisfied

after

the sudden moistening, the deep

fierce aching and rising heat,

after

the throbbing glory of release and the cries

of need and pleasure have dissolved

into the air,

Something like my soul slips from me

and goes to you,

without choice or question,

and wraps itself around you

all night, like the breath

of the moon

And why

I carry the thought of you

as constant as any sun

in my heart.

~Gina Zeitlin

CarrollBlog 12.14

FACT

careful poetry

and careful

people

last

only long

enough

to

die

safely.

~Charles Bukowski

CarrollBlog 12.13

Yellow Bowl

If light pours like water

into the kitchen where I sway

with my tired children,

if the rug beneath us

is woven with tough flowers,

and the yellow bowl on the table

rests with the sweet heft

of fruit, the sun-warmed plums,

if my body curves over the babies,

and if I am singing,

then loneliness has lost its shape,

and this quiet is only quiet.

- Rachel Contreni Flynn

CarrollBlog 12.11

PHOTOGRAPH

by Andrea Gibson

I wish I was a photograph

tucked into the corners of your wallet

I wish I was a photograph

you carried like a future in your back pocket

I wish I was that face you show to strangers

when they ask you where you come from

I wish I was that someone that you come from

every time you get there

and when you get there

I wish I was that someone who got phone calls

and postcards saying

wish you were here

I wish you were here

autumn is the hardest season

the leaves are all falling

and they're falling like they're falling in love with the ground

and the trees are naked and lonely

I keep trying to tell them

new leaves will come around in the spring

but you can't tell trees those things

they're like me they just stand there

and don't listen

I wish you were here

I've been missing you like crazy

I've been hazy eyed

staring at the bottom of my glass again

thinking of that time when it was so full

it was like we were tapping the moon for moonshine

or sticking straws into the center of the sun

and sipping like Icarus would forever kiss

the bullets from our guns

I never meant to fire you know

I know you never meant to fire lover

I know we never meant to hurt each other

now the sky clicks from black to blue

and dusk looks like a bruise

I've been wrapping one night stands

around my body like wedding bands

but none of them fit in the morning

they just slip off my fingers and slip out the door

and all that lingers is the scent of you

I once swore if I threw that scent into a wishing well

all the wishes in the world would come true

do you remember

do you remember the night I told you

I've never seen anything more perfect than

than snow falling in the glow of a street light

electricity bowing to nature

mind bowing to heartbeat

this is gonna hurt bowing to I love you

I still love you like moons love the planets they circle around

like children love recess bells

I still hear the sound of you

and think of playgrounds

where outcasts who stutter

beneath braces and bruises and acne

are finally learning that their rich handsome bullies

are never gonna grow up to be happy

I think of happy when I think of you

so wherever you are I hope you're happy

I really do

I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight

I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking

I hope your lungs are open and breathing your life

I hope there's a kite in your hand

that's flying all the way up to Orion

and you still got a thousand yards of string to let out

I hope you're smiling

like god is pulling at the corners of your mouth

cause I might be naked and lonely

shaking branches for bones

but I'm still time zones away

from who I was the day before we met

you were the first mile

where my heart broke a sweat

and I wish you were here

I wish you'd never left

but mostly I wish you well

I wish you my very very best

CarrollBlog 12.10

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.



David Whyte

CarrollBlog 12.8

"Don't be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.".

Stephen Colbert

CarrollBlog 12.4

"There is a fundamental reason why we look at the sky with wonder and longing—for the same reason that we stand, hour after hour, gazing at the distant swell of the open ocean. There is something like an ancient wisdom, encoded and tucked away in our DNA, that knows its point of origin as surely as a salmonid knows its creek. Intellectually, we may not want to return there, but the genes know, and long for their origins—their home in the salty depths. But if the seas are our immediate source, the penultimate source is certainly the heavens… The spectacular truth is—and this is something that your DNA has known all along—the very atoms of your body—the iron, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and on and on—were initially forged in long-dead stars. This is why, when you stand outside under a moonless, country sky, you feel some ineffable tugging at your innards. We are star stuff. Keep looking up."

Jerry Waxman,

CarrollBlog 11.27

If there is something to desire,

there will be something to regret.

If there is something to regret,

there will be something to recall.

If there is something to recall,

there was nothing to regret.

If there was nothing to regret,

there was nothing to desire.

Vera Pavlova