Perhaps this can
be a poem about how I think about the future. It can be a poem of servile
innocence. Since I do not “think” about the future.
I read through
my journals, 2010 to 2011. In summary: many lists; I get caught up in petty
disputes; do not know what I in fact am, since the “knowing” I desire is
something like “real being.” Must think more softly, in the face of modernism.
Someone traffics
in her youth.
Fragment: “Tries to kill sorrow with vanity”
I get (i.e.,
comprehend) “the conceptual”; yet, what I desire most is the writing of a great
contemporary philosopher.
Christine on
literary realism: This is when coincidence and personal connections
(interrelatedness) drive a story (are a story?), i.e., “It turns out that
everyone actually knows one another”; “So-and-so turns out to actually be related to another person,
instead of just present in or at the same place and time.”
A fragment: “Orphée, symbole de l’amant-poète”
At the end of
her unfinished novel, a strange art object appears:
On a folding table buckling under great weight sat a
cube-shaped structure of 4’x4’x4’. It was constructed from dark wood, the
exterior worked with carvings of figures in relief: a parade of animals. Each animal
imitated, to the best of its abilities, the carriage of a human, starting with
the cat, who balanced a stick at the end of her nose, upon which stick balanced
a lemon. Behind followed a goose, behind the goose a spaniel, behind the
spaniel a sheep, behind the sheep a monkey, a goat, a wolf, a cow, a horse, a
bear. The wolf was playing a clarinet or long pipe, and thus the other animals
all appeared to be in the midst of a dance, each kicking out one curly-haired
paw or hoof in a kind of coordinated ecstasy. They processed along a hillside
that overlooked an ocean. Clouds hung from the rear wall of the carving and in
the distance sat a mountainous island with a pair of brick fortresses atop it;
a cliffy peninsula, with breakers foaming at its base. This vertiginous mass
returned the eye to the mainland of the foreground, where at the center of a
plain sat a series of columned arches, betokening a single-storied hall. From
the keystone at the center of each arch there hung a ribbon tied in an
elaborate knot, and from this ribbon hung a bunch of myrtle, along with the
symbol of some trade or craft; one saw a pair of crossed keys, a ship’s anchor,
a scythe, an hourglass, a drawing compass, a beehive, a spade, a bridle, an
anvil, a lyre, a harpoon, a scale, an ear of wheat, a whip, a hammer, a rifle.
In a field beyond this hall, littered with curving wildflowers, there ran a
pack of hounds, and these hounds were joined by two male figures on horseback,
one of whom held both his hands to his mouth as if to amplify a voice, and all
ran in pursuit of a stag, who leapt over a stile before a thick woods, in the
narrow young trees of which perched a round-eyed owl and a pair of spotted
pheasants. In a clearing stood three more stags; at the right and left these
animals leapt in profile and at center the third stag stood on a pile of rocks;
shoots of leaves sprung from the ground beneath his hooves. Fruit trees, apple
and pear, grew in an orchard beyond this scene, and then came vast expanses of
cultivated land, lines of tilling like grooves left by the teeth of a comb. A
clear stream reflected in its surface the small bodies of a passing flock of
sparrows; and a group of rabbits, basking in the grass alongside these waters
were overseen by a boy with a switch in one hand and a ball in another, who
wore upon his head a strange brimless hat. The sky was shot with veering doves.
On one long, rocky slope, were a series of ancient crosses, each of which was
bowed with age and from which tresses of parasitic plants dangled. A hermit in
a peaked hood picked his way among these grim reminders of human law and folly.
Before the hermit jogged a horse. Below the man and animal one saw a valley.
Within this valley sat the ruins of a brick villa with a domed roof. Giant
flowers, rose and geranium, grew from vases, and on the front of each vase was
the face of a bearded sea sprite or almond-eyed dryad. A spring arranged itself
into a natural fountain just beyond this architecture. Water shot in curling
symmetrical jets…
I discover that
writing, as a profession, is about putting oneself into a constrained position,
from which there are limited means of escape. The undertaking is not about the
words themselves or even some technical skill distinct from survival. One must
possess only the ability to tolerate a given position long enough to make it intelligible
to others.
When I was 13 I
swore to myself that I would become a novelist.
I have always
wished to recover from a certain amnesia. It is not exactly my own (does not
represent a “loss” in my “personality”), nor is it the same thing as forgetting.
Just as
purchased goods can never “turn around” to bestow value on the currency that
has communicated them…
I wanted to write
the story of a metamorphosis. The story is at least partly based on a dream I
recall from the diary of another writer. In the dream, which may not be a dream
but simply a vision the writer has while seated at his desk, an image of a
white horse appears on the wall. It is a white horse that haunts the writer’s
mind. The white horse has escaped its traces somewhere on an urban street. It
is moving toward the suburbs with an eye to the countryside. It is successful
in this movement because it progresses without hurry. It does not gallop. It moves
along the street with the gait of a horse that drags a heavy cart behind it.
The horse moves successfully toward its liberation since it does not appear to
be a fugitive. My heart beats more quickly when I think about this story, which
I have almost certainly partially invented. The horse hides its fear of
slaughter. It plays a game.
Irony is a kind
of secrecy. It is a principle of groups.
A dream: A night
goes on for years, and one must make use of public transportation to cross it.
Also: the discomfort of day breaking, though perhaps over the course of months,
and the fatigue one feels in this brightness, thoughts one can barely bring oneself
to associate with light.
When I was young
or fairly young, I only remember being unable to stop committing errors.
Zachary says,
“You have an OK marriage.” I want to say, “You have an OK idea of what is
interesting.”
“It’s some wish
of another I remember. Or don’t remember and continue not to remember. I start
to remember and continue not to. No, it’s a dead state.” (She experiences
desire.)
Another list:
a.
Evidence from reading, as well
as changes in pitch
b.
Word as unit
c.
Drive
d.
“whereas when you read certain
e.
combinations come out at you”
f.
Retraction of statement
g.
How not to take just one path
h.
Oh, I would certainly say a
kind of purgatory…
i.
July 4, 1983
j.
following years of health
problems
k.
amphetamine use and an avid
addiction to diet
l.
pills”
New list:
a.
Highly contextual
b.
Actual looking
c.
Smelling
d.
Tasting
e.
“without you”
f.
From previous experience
g.
Could be first-hand, though not
obtained through
h.
senses, ha
i.
“you,” “always,” “unless,” “repeatedly”
j.
So not “always”
k.
Should appear about to
l.
It does not look like it will
stop raining
m.
Consequence
n.
LSD
o.
Discussion of the pale
p.
Place!
q.
Beyond which, “infernal
dogmatism”
America is a way
of doing things.
Make an
illogical jump—dissociation—but, then, imperceptibly—so, quickly—return to
render it logical before anyone has seen. In this sense, you may seem to
improve on reason.
There have to be
some essays that reflect upon that which can be seen in a glance. It’s
necessary to have these essays because I can’t think of any other way of posing
my question, which is to say: Is there that which can only be seen in a glance?
I wanted to be
present for myself. I would say, “to.” But that is not the right word.
Travel is an aid
to memory.
To read: Rémy de
Gourmont, Esthétique
When, in your
book, are you going to get around to talking about the things that are, a., not
permitted and, b., will therefore never happen?
Catalogue: Images
perceived in sleep; Images perceived with eyes shut (waking); Images perceived
in light…
(An
anachronistic democratic gaze, apparently forgotten since the 1930s.)
Irigaray: “Their
properties are our exile.”
Is it possible
we somehow die for a time, a year, a month, a day, without realizing this—then awake
to find ourselves, which is to say “someone,” present again, attentive,
expectant, apologetic, even?
America as zone
of enforced undifferentiation.
You may think,
“I will always feel like this.” You may think, “I cannot change quickly
enough,” or: “I cannot change ‘correctly.’”
Description is
just a series of tricks about recognition?
The present as a
time we visit.
A is denial. B
is self-preservation.
I do not know
for how long any of the characters in this book can persist as characters.
the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
