Dear Marianela,

I hope you read this, because my phone is, as usual, out of service, and I want to say that those poems are wonderful. I'm posting "since feeling is first" here, so it'll be more easily accessible for me in the future. Thank you for showing them to me.

since feeling is first

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all the flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

- e. e. cummings

Also for the

rapture.

I'm reposting this

poem for the rapture tomorrow.

Your Blinded Hand

Suppose that
            everything that greens and grows
should blacken in one moment, flower and branch.
I think that I would find your blinded hand.
Suppose that your cry and mine were lost among numberless cries
            in a city of fire when the earth is afire,
I must still believe that somehow I would find your blinded hand.
            Through flames everywhere
            consuming earth and air
I must believe that somehow, if only one moment were offered,
    I would
            find your hand.
I know as, of course, you know
            the immeasurable wilderness that would exist
            in the moment of fire.
But I would hear your cry and you'd hear mine and each of us
     would find
            the other's hand.
                         We know
            that it might not be so.
                          But for this quiet moment, if only for this
                             moment,
and against all reason,
            let us believe, and believe in our hearts,
            that somehow it would be so.
            I'd hear your cry, you mine--
                         And each of us would find a blinded hand.

-Tennessee Williams

I have a

really intimidatingly large amount of chemistry to do tonight, so I'm updating my blog instead. I really want a donut. I blame you, Carolyn. And ramen. Yesterday, I bought some balogna and salami, but I don't really feel like eating it anymore.

Again, the Body

When you spend many hours in a room alone
you have more than the usual chances to disgust yourself--
that is the problem of the body, not that it is moral
but that it is mortifying. When we were young they taught us
do not touch it, but who can keep from touching it,
from scratching off the juicy scab? Today I bit
a thick hangnail and thought of Schneebaum,
who walked four days into the jungle
and stayed for the kindness of the tribe--
who would have thought cannibals would be so tender?
This could be any life: the vegetation is thick
and when there is an opening you follow
down its tunnel until one night you find yourself
walking as on any night, though of a sudden your beloved
friends are using their stone blades
to split the skulls of other men. Gore everywhere,
though the chunk I ate was bland;
it was only when I chewed too far and bled
that the taste turned satisfyingly salty.
How difficult to be in a body,
how easy to be repelled by it,
eating one-sixth of the human heart.
Afterward, the hunters rested
their heads on each other's thighs
while the moon shone on the river
for the time it took to cross the wedge of sky
making its gash through the trees . . .

- Lucia Perillo

Incredible. ". . . that is the problem of the body, not that it is mortal / but that it is mortifying."

I absolutely cannot

wait for school to be over. You have no idea. You think you want to be out as badly as I do. You don't.

Instead of doing stuff now, I'm going to make a list of things I want to do this summer. No promises I'll actually do any of them.

1) Read books. Read lots of books.
2) Write at least one short story.
3) Improve my poetry skillz.
4) Improve my sketching skillz.
5) Study Roman/Greek mythology (sit in on class?).
6) Sleep
7) Research a lot a lot.
8) Take the bus to D.C.
9) Watch Parks and Recreation.

That's all I can think of right now.

This poem is happy.

Happiness
 

So early it's still almost dark out.

I'm near the window with coffee,

and the usual early morning stuff

that passes for thought.

When I see the boy and his friend

walking up the road

to deliver the newspaper.

They wear caps and sweaters,

and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.

They are so happy

they aren't saying anything, these boys.

I think if they could, they would take

each other's arm.

It's early in the morning,

and they are doing this thing together.

They come on, slowly.

The sky is taking on light,

though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

Such beauty that for a minute

death and ambition, even love,

doesn't enter into this.

Happiness. It comes on

unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,

any early morning talk about it.


-Raymond Carver

I read somewhere

of some poet talking about poetry and how to read it. "Poems just mean what they say," he said. I don't know what I think about that.

Bio lab is over. Thank goodness.

New Year's Eve

However busy you are, you should still reserve

One evening a year for thinking about your double,

The man who took the curve on Conway Road

Too fast, given the icy patches that night,

But no faster than you did; the man whose car

When it slid through the shoulder

Happened to strike a girl walking alone

From a neighbor's party to her parents' farm,

While your car struck nothing more notable
Than a snowbank.

One evening for recalling how soon you transformed

Your accident into a comic tale

Told first at a body shop, for comparing

That hour of pleasure with his hour of pain

At the house of the stricken parents, and his many

Long afternoons at the Lutheran graveyard.

If nobody blames you for assuming your luck

Has something to do with your character,

Don't blame him for assuming that his misfortune

Is somehow deserved, that justice would be undone

If his extra grief was balanced later

By a portion of extra joy.

Lucky you, whose personal faith has widened 

To include an angel assigned to protect you

From the usual outcomes of heedless moments.
But this evening consider the angel he lives with,

The stern enforcer who drives the sinners

Out of the Garden with a flaming sword

And locks the gate.

-Carl Dennis

I have almost

officially decided that I don't want to be pre-med anymore. My new ideal is just becoming a really great researcher and writing while I wait for experiments to run. It fits better, I think.

A Hundred Bolts of Satin

All you

have to lose

is one

connection

and the mind

uncouples

all the way back.

It seems

to have been 

a train. 

There seems

to have been

a track.

The things

that you

unpack

from the

abandoned cars

cannot sustain

life: a crate of

tractor axles,

for example,

a dozen dozen

clasp knives,

a hundred 

bolts of satin--

perhaps you

specialized 

more than

you imagined.

-Kay Ryan