At night, your hair was white waves,
the sand caressed our skin that could not be contained,
but God told you
you would be like the sand and the mountains,
eternal; ephemeral, like the breaths that escape our bodies:
Is this line of your arms around my breasts to cease,
like this night, when you will saddle your donkeys
and look towards a flash of pink -the sky bleeds
like a woman.
I do not bleed like a woman.
I have become drier than the brown warmth
into which we sink our bodies.
"I'll try not to hurt you", you said,
but I could already feel you lying,
and her shadow passed between us,
flashed and was gone, like a bat passing through the wind.
But tonight feels different - a mirage, perhaps.
I am drawn into the waves of your body,
like the bucket of a young girl, dipped into the well, slowly,
then faster, to slake the camels' thirst.
I have grown thirsty, my love, for the water of your kisses.
You do not have enough saliva to quench my thirst,
and when the dawn bleeds like a woman into morning,
I too, have become a woman again, sweet and prickly,
like the cactus flowers that line our tent,
like the taste of your tears.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Endings
Sometimes I find endings to be the hardest part - especially since they are so important, since the end is the final taste of the story that will stay in the readers' mouth. For "TV Lullaby", I am still struggling to find an ending. In addition to the two endings in the two previous posts, I am also considering ending it at: "Amid the smell of lasagna and robes, silks robes, chiffon robes that you left that night, I wait for your body to fill the synapses.", but that seems a bit too sudden. I would like to find a closer sentence to follow "Amid....synapses", and close with that, but that closer sentence is eluding me - which is annoying, but ok, since, like many works on this blog, I consider "TV Lullaby" a work-in-progress.
TV Lullaby: Alternative Ending
When you spoke about her, I didn't realize you were speaking about you. Her brown curls were falling onto the shoulders of her Chanel suit, and you were sitting in a robe, watching TV, munching on peanuts. Abe once told me you have the memory of an elephant, and I imagined the peanuts sending energy that enhanced the connections in your brain, synapses filling with electricity and chemicals; I wondered if maybe behind the elephants' memory, there was a love of peanuts, tasty and salty, like your tears that I licked in the dark. My tongue was pink; your tears watered the roses of my lips, but salt kills flowers. You told me that yourself, one night, but I could not hear you over the TV, the music to which we had begun to live our lives, empty dinner-plates cleared of the leftover crumbs of conversation, scent of lasagna on your body, and an endless amount of robes - silk robes, chiffon robes, terrycloth robes covered in rainbows.
Her brown curls were falling onto her Chanel suit - white, with slight green at the fringes. "She loves someone else", you said. "How can you tell?" I asked. "The kiss was too long.", you said, and you looked like an elephant.
Abe was eating peanuts, holding my hand. "I don't know how you put up with her; she has the memory of an elephant", he said. "So?" I asked. He shrugged. "Sometimes love is about forgetting." "No, that's not love - that's just happiness". He laughed, and his lips tasted like wine. "You've been drinking again", I said. "So have you", he replied.
Amid the smell of lasagna and robes, silks robes, chiffon robes that you left that night, I wait for your body to fill the synapses.
The TV croons a static-filled lullaby, formed by electric connections I can not understand. I play with the remote, and the black box is filled with naked bodies. We stumbled across porn once. I was enthralled by the glistening thighs. "Change the channel", you said. So I did. But now I allow myself to watch the bodies wrestling each other, looking like scenes from a Greek amphora, painstakingly glazed onto the side by a kiln that burnt the potter’s hand. His wife did not hear him when he cried. She was too busy fucking the blacksmith.
The bodies on-screen are swift and graceful – but the kisses are too long.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
TV Lullaby
When you spoke about her, I didn't realize you were speaking about you. Her brown curls were falling onto the shoulders of her Chanel suit, and you were sitting in a robe, watching TV, munching on peanuts. Abe once told me you have the memory of an elephant, and I imagined the peanuts sending energy that enhanced the connections in your brain, synapses filling with electricity and chemicals; I wondered if maybe behind the elephants' memory, there was a love of peanuts, tasty and salty, like your tears that I licked in the dark. My tongue was pink; you watered the roses of my lips, but salt kills flowers. You told me that yourself, one night, but I could not hear you over the TV, the music to which we had begun to live our lives, empty dinner-plates cleared of the leftover crumbs of conversation, scent of lasagna on your body, and an endless amount of robes - silk robes, chiffon robes, terrycloth robes covered in rainbows.
Her brown curls were falling onto her Chanel suit - white, with slight green at the fringes. "She loves someone else", you said. "How can you tell?" I asked. "The kiss was too long.", you said, and you looked like an elephant.
Abe was eating peanuts, holding my hand. "I don't know how you put up with her; she has the memory of an elephant", he said. "So?" I asked. He shrugged. "Sometimes love is about forgetting." "No, that's not love - that's just happiness". He laughed, and his lips tasted like wine. "You've been drinking again", I said. "So have you", he replied.
Amid the smell of lasagna and robes, silks robes, chiffon robes that you left that night, I wait for your body to fill the synapses. The TV croons a static-filled lullaby, formed by electric connections I can not understand. If I could find the synapses, could I gently undo the chemical pathways, erasing the friction between us, like a cable-technician gently prodding the black box? Or would I merely hunker down on the kitchen floor, like some pornographic cliche, waiting for your body?
We stumbled across porn once. I was enthralled by the glistening thighs. "Change the channel", you said. So I did.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Art and Loneliness - and Vacation
I was recently pondering the pop cultural connection between art and madness: The concept of the mad (usually starving) artist has its corollary in the neat mapping out of various psychological diagnoses onto long dead artists: Emily Dickinson was depressed, and Dostoevsky may have suffered from schizophrenia…the list goes on.
This seems to be paralleled by a pop-cultural connection between prophecy and madness: Cassandra's prophecies were seen as madness, where in the Bible, prophets are constantly being taken for crazy people, and thus, their words go unheeded.
This seems to have continued in the Middle Ages, when there was a connection between seizures, fits of madness, and prophecy/religious truth. This phenomena has been documented by Foucault, and, as a college professor taught me, adds an interesting dimension to Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". Even in the Bible, in the book of Samuel 1, Saul is seized by a sort of fit that causes him to prophecy*.
I think that in popular imagination, the madness of the artist, who has replaced the prophet in the modern, secular world, is deeply tied to unhappiness. The malady most attributed to artists is depression, and the image of them is one of lonely starvation in an attic.
Recently, I wondered: If I were 100% satisfied in every area of my life, would I still be able to write? That question scared me. Was I merely buying in to pop culture? And did the answer matter - after all, I plan on continuing to pursue optimal satisfaction in my life no matter what. I realized however, that the answer may be that humans can never be 100% satisfied - even if you achieve something, you will always strive for the next level - it is part of our nature, and it what keeps us going. Of course, from an evolutionary perspective, this means we have a strong drive for survival, which is good for the spreading of our genes. From a religious perspective however, the Rav Soliveitchik saw this aspect of human nature as part of man's divine mission, which he outlined in "Lonely Man of Faith".
Loneliness and art seem also to be related; perhaps because to create art, you must recede inside of yourself, at least while you are creating. On the other hand, the act of creation can make you feel more deeply connected - to yourself, to God, to others.**
I keep thinking of this line from Lev Grossman's "The Magicians". I do not have the book on me, so I will have to paraphrase: A student asks his teacher why the students of the school develop the ability to do magic, and the teacher replies that it is loneliness. To me, at least, magic in the book is a metaphor for art, but especially for the art of writing, and this scene resonated with me more than I care to admit.
On an unrelated note, I will be traveling, God willing, from May 24 through July 5th, and may not update the blog during that time. Thank you for reading, and I hope to update when I get back. Have a marvelous summer, full of beauty and adventures.
* See verse 10: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08a10.htm
** Hence part of my hesitations about blogging, or rather, about creating for a blog: How much can you be inside your interior world when you are conscious of the cyber gaze?
This seems to be paralleled by a pop-cultural connection between prophecy and madness: Cassandra's prophecies were seen as madness, where in the Bible, prophets are constantly being taken for crazy people, and thus, their words go unheeded.
This seems to have continued in the Middle Ages, when there was a connection between seizures, fits of madness, and prophecy/religious truth. This phenomena has been documented by Foucault, and, as a college professor taught me, adds an interesting dimension to Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". Even in the Bible, in the book of Samuel 1, Saul is seized by a sort of fit that causes him to prophecy*.
I think that in popular imagination, the madness of the artist, who has replaced the prophet in the modern, secular world, is deeply tied to unhappiness. The malady most attributed to artists is depression, and the image of them is one of lonely starvation in an attic.
Recently, I wondered: If I were 100% satisfied in every area of my life, would I still be able to write? That question scared me. Was I merely buying in to pop culture? And did the answer matter - after all, I plan on continuing to pursue optimal satisfaction in my life no matter what. I realized however, that the answer may be that humans can never be 100% satisfied - even if you achieve something, you will always strive for the next level - it is part of our nature, and it what keeps us going. Of course, from an evolutionary perspective, this means we have a strong drive for survival, which is good for the spreading of our genes. From a religious perspective however, the Rav Soliveitchik saw this aspect of human nature as part of man's divine mission, which he outlined in "Lonely Man of Faith".
Loneliness and art seem also to be related; perhaps because to create art, you must recede inside of yourself, at least while you are creating. On the other hand, the act of creation can make you feel more deeply connected - to yourself, to God, to others.**
I keep thinking of this line from Lev Grossman's "The Magicians". I do not have the book on me, so I will have to paraphrase: A student asks his teacher why the students of the school develop the ability to do magic, and the teacher replies that it is loneliness. To me, at least, magic in the book is a metaphor for art, but especially for the art of writing, and this scene resonated with me more than I care to admit.
On an unrelated note, I will be traveling, God willing, from May 24 through July 5th, and may not update the blog during that time. Thank you for reading, and I hope to update when I get back. Have a marvelous summer, full of beauty and adventures.
* See verse 10: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08a10.htm
** Hence part of my hesitations about blogging, or rather, about creating for a blog: How much can you be inside your interior world when you are conscious of the cyber gaze?
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Menage a Trois
The opera curtain's red matched the velvet of her dress, and I could not help but admire the pearls that sat demurely by the nape of her neck, where her hair was gathered into some sort of bun-thing that she had a fancy name for.
Never had the soprano's voice sounded so fine, as Violetta sang of parties and passion, spilling her notes like fine wine, and I felt like the evening was a merlot that I was sipping, slowly, one stolen caress at a time, facing the repudiating glances of the people sitting next to us, as my fingers crawled up her thigh, while Violetta continued to bemoan the fate of one in love, and I pondered which bar we would go to afterward, and pictured her fallng, naked, into the silken sheets of our hotel - even better, falling naked with Violetta, played tonight by a sumptious blonde - an unconventional choice, I am sure, though I don't know much about opera.
That was always Debra's passion, not mine. Debra had many passions - poetry, art, human rights - or were they hobbies? The lines seemed to blur, as Sunday afternoons became taken up with rallies and poetry readings. "Don't you have anything you care about?", she had asked, me, shortly after our second date, but I didn't - or at least, not the way she did, her head thrown back, hair bobbing up and down her neck as she shook her head with excitement, eyes glistening, looking the way skin does when its covered in after-sex sweat. "You have enough passion for both of us", I often said, but she would just shake her head and go back to making French toast or folding the laundry.
That night, on the way out of the opera, hands entwined, standing on a maroon carpet beneath a chandelier that glittered like the moonlight, I felt a palm on the back of my shoulder. I turned around, only to feel a blonde girl with green eyes wedge herself in the space between us, to see her kiss my girlfriend passionately on the lips, and I was close enough to touch her thighs.
"Carry, darling! It's been ages - you must join Mitch and me for drinks. It's ok Mitch, isn't it?" I was too shocked to say no, really, even as I saw the naked silk sheets dream being delayed, right in front of me. Debra had never mentioned a lesbian past. As she and Carry chatted like a pair to teenage girls, I numbly followed, trying to recollect - ah, she had mentioned a college friend, Carry. Of course, I had made out with some of my college friends - but they had all been of the opposite gender.
The bar was dark, and reminded me of the speak-easys from old movies. I half-expected to be served by men in white tuxedos, with finely polished shoes. Instead, the waiters seemed to be bored college students, trying to get by. That's what happens when you go to a bar near NYU, I suppose.
Somewhere near the second round of vodka martinis, I stopped trying to follow the conversation. I was vaguely aware of laughing, and could see Debra's hair falling loose around her face. "Kiss me", she said, and I did.
I must have been pretty drunk by the time the three of us ended up in our hotel room. I remember seeing them, arm against arm, breast against breast, followed by a vague impression of bodies hauling up against my own.
When I woke up the next morning, I was on my own. I stumbled to the dresser, trying to ignore the pounding headache that was taking over my body. I squinted at the note: "Breakfast with Carry. You're very drunk. Order coffee. Love, Deb."
So I did, and sipped my way back into sanity, followed by a shower that was refreshing in that special way that only hotel showers can be - maybe because you know each second of water is part of the hundred dollars you are paying for a room. Humans value things that they are told are valued - and what other way to tell you your shower is valued than to make you pay a hundred dollars night for it?
I was still lying in bed, naked, watching some TV, when Debra came back. "Good morning darling", she said brightly. I grumbled. She came to me and kissed me on the cheek. "Why are you so cross? It's what you wanted, isn't it - you've been fantasizing about it for ages." I shrugged. She shrugged. "I am going to change. Then I thought maybe we could go out for lunch and do some shopping - I want to blow my next paycheck at Bloomingdale's." I could hear her rumbling around in the closet-cum-changing room that seemed to be a bourgeois hotel staple, and wondered if once this ingenious invention had operated to protect the privacy of chaste women, or whether it had once been used by prostitutes unwilling to show their post-coital breasts to the shopkeeper who didn't have the extra cash.
"What happened to Carry?" I asked. "Oh, she went back to work." I could hear the comb stubbornly making its way down her brown curls. "How come you never told me you had a girlfriend?" "Oh, you know." "No, I don't." "Well, I didn't want you to think I was gay." She stepped out of the closet, looking like a cut-out from a fashion magazine, in a zig-zag striped tunic thrown over black leggings with studded high-heel boots. Her hair was artfully thrown over one side of her face, and she wore dangly earrings. "God, you're beautiful", I said. "I might be beautiful, but I'm not God." She giggled. "What do you say we ditch the afternoon shopping?" I asked, stretching out lazily on the bed. She pouted. "But we're in New York only for the weekend, and sex - sex is something you can do anywhere." I frowned. "That is the worst attitude towards sex I've ever heard", I said, "in that case, why have sex anywhere? There is always something unique about the place you're in the you could be doing instead." She sighed. "God Mitchie, sometimes you're so provincial." "I hate it when you call me that. I've told you - my mother calls me Mitchie." She rolled her eyes. "Let's just can this discussion, ok?' she asked, but I shook my head. "No, I'm tired of canning things - I don't beleive in throwing problems in relationships down the metaphorical toilet", I said. She laughed. "Oh, so now our relationship has problems, does it?" "Why does everything have to be so melodramatic?" I asked. "Well, I am going shopping. If you feel like apologizing, you know where to find me", she said, as she stormed out, cluthing her Coach handbag.
For a second, I considered going after her. Then I realized it wasn't worth the effort of getting dressed. I turned the TV on and tried to catch some football. Maybe that is what I should have answered long ago - "Don't you have anything you care about?". "Yes, sex and football.". So I sipped the game like a fine wine, to take off the taste of last night's merlot that had turned into vinegar.
Never had the soprano's voice sounded so fine, as Violetta sang of parties and passion, spilling her notes like fine wine, and I felt like the evening was a merlot that I was sipping, slowly, one stolen caress at a time, facing the repudiating glances of the people sitting next to us, as my fingers crawled up her thigh, while Violetta continued to bemoan the fate of one in love, and I pondered which bar we would go to afterward, and pictured her fallng, naked, into the silken sheets of our hotel - even better, falling naked with Violetta, played tonight by a sumptious blonde - an unconventional choice, I am sure, though I don't know much about opera.
That was always Debra's passion, not mine. Debra had many passions - poetry, art, human rights - or were they hobbies? The lines seemed to blur, as Sunday afternoons became taken up with rallies and poetry readings. "Don't you have anything you care about?", she had asked, me, shortly after our second date, but I didn't - or at least, not the way she did, her head thrown back, hair bobbing up and down her neck as she shook her head with excitement, eyes glistening, looking the way skin does when its covered in after-sex sweat. "You have enough passion for both of us", I often said, but she would just shake her head and go back to making French toast or folding the laundry.
That night, on the way out of the opera, hands entwined, standing on a maroon carpet beneath a chandelier that glittered like the moonlight, I felt a palm on the back of my shoulder. I turned around, only to feel a blonde girl with green eyes wedge herself in the space between us, to see her kiss my girlfriend passionately on the lips, and I was close enough to touch her thighs.
"Carry, darling! It's been ages - you must join Mitch and me for drinks. It's ok Mitch, isn't it?" I was too shocked to say no, really, even as I saw the naked silk sheets dream being delayed, right in front of me. Debra had never mentioned a lesbian past. As she and Carry chatted like a pair to teenage girls, I numbly followed, trying to recollect - ah, she had mentioned a college friend, Carry. Of course, I had made out with some of my college friends - but they had all been of the opposite gender.
The bar was dark, and reminded me of the speak-easys from old movies. I half-expected to be served by men in white tuxedos, with finely polished shoes. Instead, the waiters seemed to be bored college students, trying to get by. That's what happens when you go to a bar near NYU, I suppose.
Somewhere near the second round of vodka martinis, I stopped trying to follow the conversation. I was vaguely aware of laughing, and could see Debra's hair falling loose around her face. "Kiss me", she said, and I did.
I must have been pretty drunk by the time the three of us ended up in our hotel room. I remember seeing them, arm against arm, breast against breast, followed by a vague impression of bodies hauling up against my own.
When I woke up the next morning, I was on my own. I stumbled to the dresser, trying to ignore the pounding headache that was taking over my body. I squinted at the note: "Breakfast with Carry. You're very drunk. Order coffee. Love, Deb."
So I did, and sipped my way back into sanity, followed by a shower that was refreshing in that special way that only hotel showers can be - maybe because you know each second of water is part of the hundred dollars you are paying for a room. Humans value things that they are told are valued - and what other way to tell you your shower is valued than to make you pay a hundred dollars night for it?
I was still lying in bed, naked, watching some TV, when Debra came back. "Good morning darling", she said brightly. I grumbled. She came to me and kissed me on the cheek. "Why are you so cross? It's what you wanted, isn't it - you've been fantasizing about it for ages." I shrugged. She shrugged. "I am going to change. Then I thought maybe we could go out for lunch and do some shopping - I want to blow my next paycheck at Bloomingdale's." I could hear her rumbling around in the closet-cum-changing room that seemed to be a bourgeois hotel staple, and wondered if once this ingenious invention had operated to protect the privacy of chaste women, or whether it had once been used by prostitutes unwilling to show their post-coital breasts to the shopkeeper who didn't have the extra cash.
"What happened to Carry?" I asked. "Oh, she went back to work." I could hear the comb stubbornly making its way down her brown curls. "How come you never told me you had a girlfriend?" "Oh, you know." "No, I don't." "Well, I didn't want you to think I was gay." She stepped out of the closet, looking like a cut-out from a fashion magazine, in a zig-zag striped tunic thrown over black leggings with studded high-heel boots. Her hair was artfully thrown over one side of her face, and she wore dangly earrings. "God, you're beautiful", I said. "I might be beautiful, but I'm not God." She giggled. "What do you say we ditch the afternoon shopping?" I asked, stretching out lazily on the bed. She pouted. "But we're in New York only for the weekend, and sex - sex is something you can do anywhere." I frowned. "That is the worst attitude towards sex I've ever heard", I said, "in that case, why have sex anywhere? There is always something unique about the place you're in the you could be doing instead." She sighed. "God Mitchie, sometimes you're so provincial." "I hate it when you call me that. I've told you - my mother calls me Mitchie." She rolled her eyes. "Let's just can this discussion, ok?' she asked, but I shook my head. "No, I'm tired of canning things - I don't beleive in throwing problems in relationships down the metaphorical toilet", I said. She laughed. "Oh, so now our relationship has problems, does it?" "Why does everything have to be so melodramatic?" I asked. "Well, I am going shopping. If you feel like apologizing, you know where to find me", she said, as she stormed out, cluthing her Coach handbag.
For a second, I considered going after her. Then I realized it wasn't worth the effort of getting dressed. I turned the TV on and tried to catch some football. Maybe that is what I should have answered long ago - "Don't you have anything you care about?". "Yes, sex and football.". So I sipped the game like a fine wine, to take off the taste of last night's merlot that had turned into vinegar.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Whore
Sometimes I think that in another life I would have been a whore, my crinolines crinkling against men in wainscotted jackets, whiskeys competing with cigars between their fingers. We would have laughed; maybe even discussed politics, and I would have smoked just to show that I was a man, comfortable in the world of newspapers and shoe-shine. Afterwards, I would go to bed with them in creaking beds with faded sheets, on top of wooden floors that vibrated from the sound of the downstairs piano.
Syphillis would have taken a few, leaving me lonely, with less money to spend on silk, as the diseases of sex and dissatisfaction ravaged my face the way men ravaged my thighs. I probably would have wound up a haggard, grey-clad woman, jumping off an arched marble bridge that overlooked a river wound in willows, sometime afte dawn, as men drove by on their carriages, to return to the wives they were afraid to kiss.
But still, what fun we would have had, the slow unbottoning of my dresses, the corsets untying between your fingers, and your body against mine. Standing there, on that river, I do not think I would regret the nights when drunken hands caressed my face like a broken flower; I think I would have smiled at the thought of your palm against my shoulder, and your kisses beading my neck like silver, a color matched in my reflection in the sulky waters, waiting gently, like a bed or a lover, to embrace my dying body.
Syphillis would have taken a few, leaving me lonely, with less money to spend on silk, as the diseases of sex and dissatisfaction ravaged my face the way men ravaged my thighs. I probably would have wound up a haggard, grey-clad woman, jumping off an arched marble bridge that overlooked a river wound in willows, sometime afte dawn, as men drove by on their carriages, to return to the wives they were afraid to kiss.
But still, what fun we would have had, the slow unbottoning of my dresses, the corsets untying between your fingers, and your body against mine. Standing there, on that river, I do not think I would regret the nights when drunken hands caressed my face like a broken flower; I think I would have smiled at the thought of your palm against my shoulder, and your kisses beading my neck like silver, a color matched in my reflection in the sulky waters, waiting gently, like a bed or a lover, to embrace my dying body.
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