Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 47

CarrollBlog 8.18

FOR DESIRE

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;

and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal

surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,

or cherries, the rich spurt in the back

of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.

Give me the lover who yanks open the door

of his house and presses me to the wall

in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched

and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload

and begin their delicious diaspora

through the...

CarrollBlog 8.17

"Two weeks ago Kaspar and Vanessa had been watching television in bed, something both of them liked to do especially after having sex. It was one of those afternoon talk shows, the subject for that day reincarnation and the Afterlife. After listening to three "experts" blab on a subject they knew nothing about, Kaspar grumbled that people don't remember their past lives because it would be either too depressing, painful or confusing. "We don't even get over bad high school memories! How...

CarrollBlog 8.15

Another Long Night in the Office of Dreams

There's a woman I'm in love with, but I forget

what she looks like, so I take out my paintbrushes

and create my image of her.

Your eyes are blue like the morning of going.

Your ears are tender twists of logic. Your thighs

are impossible avenues my car swerves out of control on.

I want to cut the silence with your shoulderblades,

blow moon-shaped kisses to orbit your skull

as you sleep on the highest ledge of my insomnia,

but I'm a broken promise...

CarrollBlog 8.14

A Bowl Of Warm Air

by Moniza Alvi

"Someone is falling towards you

as an apple falls from a branch,

moving slowly, imperceptibly, as if

into a new political epoch,

or excitedly like a dog towards a bone.

he is holding in both hands

everything he knows he has-

a bowl of warm air.

He has sighted you from afar

as if you were a dramatic crooked tree

on the horizon and he has seen you close up

like the underside of a mushroom.

but he cannot open you like a newspaper

or put you down...

CarrollBlog 8.13

To kiss the forehead – is to erase worry.

I kiss the forehead.

To kiss the eyes – is to cure insomnia.

I kiss the eyes.

To kiss the lips – is to quench thirst.

I kiss the lips.

To kiss the forehead – is to erase memory.

I kiss the forehead.

Marina Tsvetaeva, 1917

CarrollBlog 8.11

The United States is locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusion. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. This celebrity culture giddily licenses a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal. Day after day, one lurid saga after another enthralls the country…despite bank collapses...

CarrollBlog 8.7

"Your head's like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune's all we are."

Grant Morrison.

CarrollBlog 8.6

I call her Ria, but I could call her salt or lightning just as well.

The two of us do many senseless things, We call

them beautiful, and drop them.

She is carved out of x-rays. She radiates through

walls and my words. She is very far away.

If I am alone, she sits here in front of my eyes.

I think I must pain her, because she sighs and sheds

her sadness on my body.

How strange that no one has noticed the flowers

above her head! I have seen and heard them; they fling

colored bells in all...

CarrollBlog 8.5

FIREFLIES

And these are my vices:

impatience, bad temper, wine,

the more than occasional cigarette,

an almost unquenchable thirst to be kissed,

a hunger that isn't hunger

but something like fear, a staunching of dread

and a taste for bitter gossip

of those who've wronged me—for bitterness—

and flirting with strangers and saying sweetheart

to children whose names I don't even know

and driving too fast and not being Buddhist

enough to let insects live in my house

or those cute...

CarrollBlog 8.4

A Man Alone

by Stephen Orlen

I hated breaking up and I hated

Being left, finding myself in an apartment

With an extra set of silverware and a ghost,

Impatient to be gone. Then to summon up

Who I was before the bed was full with woman.

To shift the street-mind from getting to

To slowing down and window shop. In the bar down the street,

To let my eyes simplify again, and make no judgments,

And breathe in the smoke that drifts

Through one body then another,

And find myself close enough

To...