Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 44

CarrollBlog 10.26

SOMETHING I'VE NOT DONE

by WS Merwin

Something I've not done

is following me

I haven't done it again and again

so it has many footsteps

like a drumstick that's grown old and never been used

In late afternoon I hear it come closer

at times it climbs out of a sea

onto my shoulders

and I shrug it off

losing one more chance

Every morning

it's drunk up part of my breath for the day

and knows which way

I'm going

and already it's not done there

But once more I say I'll lay hands on it

tomorrow

and add its footsteps to my heart

and its story to my regrets

and its silence to my compass

CarrollBlog 10.22

Please Bring Strange Things

by Ursula K. LeGuin

Please bring strange things.

Please come bringing new things.

Let very old things come into your hands.

Let what you do not know come into your eyes.

Let desert sand harden your feet.

Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.

Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps

and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.

Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing

and your outbreath be the shining of ice.

May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.

May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.

May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.

May your soul be at home where there are no houses.

Walk carefully, well loved one,

walk mindfully, well loved one,

walk fearlessly, well loved one.

Return with us, return to us,

be always coming home.

CarrollBlog 10.15

"You see this goblet?' asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. 'For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, "Of course." When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.'"

Mark Epstein

CarrollBlog 10.13

"One Argument for the Existence of God"

by Katrina Vandenberg

I don't remember what we were fighting about,

only that we were in public—in Hugo's

on a Friday night—and it was winter, as much as it can be

in Arkansas. In case you haven't been,

the red door to the cafe is below street level, and

inside, the pipes are red and exposed,

and the lights burn red as well. That night

it was so crowded it was hard to hear, so

we felt free to keep going while we waited

for a table—spiteful, vicious, every punch

below the belt; the kind of fight where after a while

you have no idea what you are saying,

much less believe, only that you are trying

to stay afloat on your little raft of words

and not let the other party wipe you out.

Over the cackle of glasses and forks

we kept having to say, What? Could you

repeat that? Even seated at a round table

too small to hold both our plates and the drinks

we desperately wanted by then, it did not stop.

We sat in the red-checkered, red-lit din and

let that argument swell and thin like an inflating balloon,

our coats knocked off our chairs by people

on their way out, and when we asked

the waitress what we owed, she said,

Nothing; a stranger had paid our bill for us

and told her not to tell us until he had gone.

All the way home in the new snow—

silent now, abashed—we wondered

who he was, what he had heard,

whether he loved or pitied us.

CarrollBlog 10.12

STORY

by Sabine Miller

Tell me the one about the sick girl — not terminally ill, just years in bed with this mysterious fever — who hires a man to murder her — you know, so the family is spared the blight of a suicide — and the man comes in the night, a strong man, and nothing is spoken —he takes the pillow to her face — tell me how he is haunted the rest of his life — did he or didn't he do the right thing — tell me how he is forgiven, and marries, and has 2 daughters, and is happy — no, tell me she doesn't die, but is cured and gives her life to God, and becomes a hand-holder for men on death row — tell me the one where the man falls in love with the girl and can't do it, or the girl falls in love with a dog and calls the man to tell him not to come, or how each sees their pain mirrored in the other's eyes — tell me how everyone is already forgiven every story they ever told themselves about living or not living — tell me, oh tell me the one where love wins, again and again and again.

CarrollBlog 10.11

Miles Away

Carol Ann Duffy

I want you and you are not here. I pause

in this garden, breathing the colour thought is

before language into still air. Even your name

is a pale ghost and, though I exhale it again

and again, it will not stay with me. Tonight

I make you up, imagine you, your movements clearer

than the words I have you say you said before.

Whereever you are now, inside my head you fix me

with a look, standing here whilst cool late light

dissolves into the earth. I have got your mouth wrong,

but still it smiles. I hold you closer, miles away,

inventing love, until the calls of nightjars

interrupt and turn what was to come, was certain,

into memory. The stars are filming us for no one.

CarrollBlog 10.10.10

DON'T EXPECT APPLAUSE

by Ellen Bass

And yet, wouldn't it be welcome

at the end of each ordinary day?

The audience could be small,

the theater modest. Folding chairs

in a church basement would do.

Just a short earnest burst of applause

that you got up that morning

and, one way or the other,

made it through the day.

You soaped up in the steaming

shower, drank your Starbucks

in the car, and let the guy with the

Windex wipe your windshield

during the long red light at Broad Street.

Or maybe you were that guy,

not daring to light up

while you stood there because

everyone's so down on smoke these days.

Or you kissed your wife

as she hurried out the door, even though

you were pretty sure she was

meeting her lover at the Flamingo Motel,

even though you wanted to grab her

by a hank of her sleek hair.

Maybe your son's in jail.

Your daughter's stopped eating.

And your husband's still dead

this morning, just like he was

yesterday and the day before that.

And yet you put on your shoes

and takee a walk, and when a neighbor

says Good morning, you say

Good morning back.

Would a round of applause be amiss?

Even if you weren't good.

If you yelled at your kid,

poisoned the ants, drank too much

and said that really stupid thing

you promised yourself you wouldn't say.

Even if you don't deserve it..

CarrollBlog 10.8

LOST DOG

by Ellen Bass

It's just getting dark, fog drifting in,

damp grasses fragrant with anise and mint,

and though I call his name

until my voice cracks,

there's no faint tinkling

of tag against collar, no sleek

black silhouette with tall ears rushing

towards me through the wild radish.

As it turns out, he's trotted home,

tracing the route of his trusty urine.

Now he sprawls on the deep red rug, not dead,

not stolen by a car on West Cliff Road

Every time I look at him, the wide head

resting on outstretched paws,

joy does another lap around the racetrack

of my heart. Even in sleep

when I turned over to ease my bad hip,

I'm suffused with contentment.

If i could lose him like this every day

I'd be the happiest woman alive.

CarrollBlog 10.2

Men With the Heads of Eagles

by Margaret Atwood

Men with the heads of eagles

no longer interest me

or pig-men, or those who can fly

with the aid of wax and feathers

or those who take off their clothes

to reveal other clothes

or those with skins of blue leather

or those golden and flat as a coat of arms

or those with claws, the stuffed ones

with glass eyes; or those

hierarchic as greaves and steam-engines.

All these I could create, manufacture,

or find easily: they swoop and thunder

around this island, common as flies,

sparks flashing, bumping into each other,

on hot days you can watch them

as they melt, come apart,

fall into the ocean

like sick gulls, dethronements, plane crashes.

I search instead for the others,

the ones left over,

the ones who have escaped from these

mythologies with barely their lives;

they have real faces and hands, they think

of themselves as

wrong somehow, they would rather be trees.

CarrollBlog 9.28

THE RAILROAD STATION

by Wislawa Szymborska

My nonarrival in the city of N.

took place on the dot.

You'd been alerted

in my unmailed letter.

You were able not to be there

at the agreed-upon time.

The train pulled up at Platform 3.

A lot of people got out.

My absence joined the throng

as it made its way toward the exit.

Several women rushed

to take my place

in all that rush.

Somebody ran up to one of them.

I didn't know him,

but she recognized him

immediately.

While they kissed

with not our lips,

a suitcase disappeared,

not mine.

The railroad station in the city of N.

passed its exam

in objective existence

with flying colors.

The whole remained in place.

Particulars scurried

along the designated tracks.

Even a rendezvous

took place as planned.

Beyond the reach

of our presence.

In the paradise lost

of probability.

Somewhere else.

Somewhere else.

How these little words ring.