Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 48

CarrollBlog 8.1

THAT WOULD NOT BE GOOD

by Anna Swir

When I am alone

I am afraid to turn

too quickly.

What is behind my back

may not, after all, be ready

to take a shape suitable

for human eyes.

And that would not be good.

CarrollBlog 7.31

People Who Eat in Coffee Shops

by Edward Field

People who eat in coffee shops

are not worried about nutrition.

They order the toasted cheese sandwiches blithely,

followed by chocolate egg creams and plaster of paris

wedges of lemon meringue pie.

They don't have parental, dental, or medical figures hovering

full of warnings, or whip out dental floss immediately.

They can live in furnished rooms and whenever they want

go out and eat glazed donuts along with innumerable coffees,

dousing their ...

CarrollBlog 7.30

Myself and My Person

by Anna Swir

There are moments

when I feel more clearly than ever

that I am in the company

of my own person.

This comforts and reassures me,

this heartens me,

just as my tridimensional body

is heartened by my own authentic shadow.

There are moments

when I really feel more clearly than ever

that I am in the company

of my own person.

I stop

at a street corner to turn left

and I wonder what would happen

if my own person walked to the right.

Until now...

CarrollBlog 7.29

FORMS of LOVE

I love you but I'm married.

I love you but I wish you had more hair.

I love you more.

I love you more like a friend.

I love your friends more than you.

I love how when we go into a mall and classical muzak is playing,

you can always name the composer.

I love you, but one or both of us is/are fictional.

I love you but "I" am an unstable signifier.

I love you saying, "I understand the semiotics of that" when I said, "I

had a little personal business to take care of."

I love you a...

CarrollBlog 7.28

‎"I know that the real things in life, the things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love - all love - love of this dirt road, the

sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a café."

Jeanette Winterson

CarrollBlog 7.24

Bird-Understander

by Craig Arnold

Of the many reasons I love you here is one

the way you write to me from the gate at the airport

so I can tell you everything will be alright

so you can tell me there is a bird

trapped in the terminal all the people

ignoring it because they do not know

what to do with it except to leave it alone

until it scares itself to death

it makes you terribly terribly sad

You wish you could take the bird outside

and set it free or (failing that)

call a...

CarrollBlog 7.22

"Some women let you kiss them, while some kissed you back but *just*. Others kissed with enthusiasm but you felt it was the same kind of enthusiasm they felt for a good meal, a Bette Davis film, or a lovely present they'd just received. She was different; she was hungry. Hungry to kiss you, hungry to hear what you said and hungry to tell you what was on her mind. This abiding hunger defined her. It was the greatest compliment he had ever received from a woman and he never tired of it."

CarrollBlog 7.21

There is a profound difference between genuinely loving someone and loving certain specific qualities about them. Confusing the one kind of love for the other has probably caused more failed relationships than can be counted.

CarrollBlog 7.20

On more than one occasion I have been ready to abandon my whole life for love. To alter everything that makes sense to me and to move into a different world where the only known will be the beloved. Such a sacrifice may be the result of love … or is it that life itself was already worn out? I had finished with that life, perhaps, and could not admit it, being stubborn or afraid, or perhaps did not know it, habit being a great binder.

I think it is often so that those most in need of change c...

CarrollBlog 7.19

THE MATTER

by Kim Addonizio

Some men break your heart in two…

—Dorothy Parker, "Experience"

Some men carry you to bed with your boots on.

Some men say your name like a verbal tic.

Some men slap on an emotional surcharge for every erotic encounter.

Some men are slightly mentally ill, and thinking of joining a gym.

Some men have moved on and can't be seduced, even in the dream bars you meet them in.

Some men who were younger are now the age you were then.

Some men aren't...