Undercooked

posted on 2010-10-30 16:57:33

I was never comfortable talking
about the soul of my generation.
I often feel I'm just growing
acquainted with them before
I decide there is no soul,
no essence. Never was.

Souls are just peculiarities, after all.
And I had to give up on undecidable
problems some years back.
The unknowable held my head
underwater until I relented, suffocating.

But I've been baring and burying bits
of my soul since I've been here.
I lost some to a splinter. And the hand
I squeezed as it was removed piece by piece.
I bared it to a pastor who I doubt understood
why I found myself so insufficient.

I left some with a drunk girl who taught
me compassion, a faithful girl who taught me
guilt, one made of tornadoes who forced me
to take a chance and another still who
showed me what it feels like to make
a home inside someone else.

I squandered some on drugs. Drugs which
stole from me both time and memory.
Crashing around inside my brain in
endless chemical nuptials.
Tweak. Tweak.

I spread this thing in bits, countless bits,
scattered on platters, fragments
littered along buses, planes, cars, trains,
in terminals and ports not of this world.

My soul is in all these places, hidden
or in plain view. I can't tell you
what it means. Or if there's meaning,
anyway. I only know that's how it happened.
Here I am. Where to next?

A Huge Weekend...and sleepiness

posted on 2010-10-04 03:02:14

It's been a big weekend. I'm pretty exhausted and not entirely ready for the week to come but I'll have to get a good night's sleep and let that suffice as preparation. I'm still working on the weblocks/lisp stuff. Should have a blog article up by this Friday with any luck and there are plans for more in the series.

I enjoyed a friend's wedding in San Antonio the past two days. One thing I noticed today is that I never posted a Milosz poem that seemed appropriate to the weekend's events. I figured I would have by now. I'm quite fond of it so here it is, from Unattainable Earth, page 9:

After Paradise

Don't run any more. Quiet. How softly it rains
On the roofs of the city. How perfect
All things are. Now, for the two of you
Waking up in a royal bed by a garret window.
For a man and a woman. For one plant divided
Into masculine and feminine which longed for each other.
Yes, this is my gift to you. Above ashes
On a bitter, bitter earth. Above the subterranean
Echo of clamorings and vows. So that now at dawn
You must be attentive: the tilt of a head,
A hand with a comb, two faces in a mirror
Are only forever once, even if unremembered,
So that you watch what is, though it fades away,
And are grateful every moment for your being.
Let that little park with greenish marble busts
In the pearl-gray light, under a summer drizzle,
Remain as it was when you opened the gate.
And the street of tall peeling porticos
Which this love of yours suddenly transformed.

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