Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 53

CarrollBlog 5.7

Always

by Pablo Neruda

I am not jealous

of what came before me.

Come with a man

on your shoulders,

come with a hundred men in your hair,

come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,

come like a river

full of drowned men

which flows down to the wild sea,

to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all

to where I am waiting for you;

we shall always be alone,

we shall always be you and I

alone on earth

to start our life!

CarrollBlog 5.5

"I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction's job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I guess a big part of serious fiction's purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. … We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy's impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character's pain, we might then also more easily conceive of...

CarrollBlog 5.4

"Hedgehog's dilemma":

The hedgehog's dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is an analogy about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs all seek to become close to one another in order to share their heat during cold weather. However, once accomplished, they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp quills. They must step away from one another. Though they all share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not ...

CarrollBlog 5.3

"After she broke up with him, he began barraging her with flowers, letters, texts, emails. One night he even showed up at her door at midnight to proclaim his undying love. None of it worked. She'd had enough hurt and loneliness. In the years they had been together, he missed or ignored so many of her clear signals. Finally she gave up on him and any possibility of *them.* These romantic gestures he made now would have meant so much to her only a short time ago. But at this point they just...

CarrollBlog 5.2

There are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will...

CarrollBlog 5.1

"I remember when I taught creative writing to freshmen at Boston University. The first month almost every student wrote about sex. I went to my advisor and asked him why I am getting twenty stories about having sex.

He said, "Are all the stories terrible?"

I said, "Yes."

He said, "That happens every semester. When you love something, you want to write about it. But you never know enough about it to write it in an interesting way until you know it closely enough to hate it as well."

Penelo...

CarrollBlog 4.30

Desire

by Mary Mackie

in my dreams

I hold my lovers

next to me all at once

and ask them

what was it I desired?

my hands are full

of their heads

like bunches of cut roses

blond hair, brown hair, red, black,

their eyes are pools of bewilderment

staring up at me

from the bouquet

what was it I desired?

I ask again

was it your bodies?

did I hope by draping

your flesh over me

I could escape

boredom

loneliness

gray hairs shooting

towards me

from the future

like thin arrows?

did I...

CarrollBlog 4.27

LONG DISTANCE

by Dana Gioia

Two weeks of silence broken by this call,

She holds the neutral phone against her cheek,

Hearing his whisper cross a continent.

Once words were never distant from his lips.

Now sound alone would stroke her like a kiss.

She could tell him everything in a touch

And read his certain answers in embrace.

But now his voice seems oddly out of place,

Almost anonymous, as if she overheard

A stranger talking on another line.

The conversation...

CarrollBlog 4.26

A terrible traffic jam. Cars lined up all the way down the street. I walk past a city bus jammed with people both sitting and standing. Every one of them seems to have long or angry look on their face. What the hell's going on-- Why aren't we moving? Passing the front of the bus I look over again and see the driver: He's holding a large sprig of lilac to his nose and, eyes closed, has on the biggest smile.

CarrollBlog 4.25

Telemarketer

by Brett Garcia Myhren

"I'm reading on the couch

when she calls, asks for me by name.

I smile at her scripted intimacy,

imagine her cubicle with photos of pets,

the long bend of light

on her lacquered nails.

"Listen to this," I reply,

"David kissed the soft inner banks

of women's thighs."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, there's more," I say,

"Thighs like loamy earth

that cup the rivers, or lilies

blooming in rose and mint."

"Is this a bad time for you, sir?"

"Is it for you?