Friends

"Loneliness"
Rainer Maria Rilke

Being apart and lonely is like rain.
It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains;
from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs
to heaven, which is its old abode.
And only leaving when heaven drops upon the city.

It rains down on us in those twittering hours
when the streets turn their faces to the dawn,
and when two bodies who have found nothing,
disappointed and depressed, roll over;
and when two people who despise each other
have to sleep together in one bed -

that is when loneliness receives the rivers.

Translated by Robert Bly from the original German

"Einsamkeit"
Rainer Maria Rilke

Einsamkeit ist wie ein Regen.
Sie steigt vom Meer den Abenden entgegen;
von Ebenen, die fern sind und entlegen,
geht sie zum Himmel, der sie immer hat.
Und erst vom Himmel fällt sie auf die Stadt.

Regnet hernieder in den Zwitterstunden,
wenn sich nach Morgen wenden alle Gassen
und wenn die Leiber, welche nichts gefunden,
enttäuscht und traurig von einander lassen;
und wenn die Menschen, die einander hassen,
in einem Bett zusammen schlafen müssen:

dann geht die Einsamkeit mit den Flüssen...

---

It's been so long since I've seen the ocean. I guess I should.

It was a great decision to go for a walk today. This weather has treated me (and the rest of Cambridge) so well. From Mass Ave I walked through Harvard Square down Eliot Street. Upon reaching the Charles, I walked the path closest to the river. Each bench, a landmark, when not littered with trash, was sprouting with freaks of the Cantabridgian kind. There was the man feeding the geese (it appears they have yet to fly south... but why would they when it's exceeding fifty degrees in December?) keeping a conversation among his feathered company. The three hooligans on the next bench conspicuously rolled a blunt-- the bearded one, the goofy one, and the overweight chick with monstrous tits. And there was me, quietly keeping to the dirt path. Turning onto Mt. Auburn, I crossed toward Longfellow Park (remember when little Ernie Longfellow looked out from his home and saw past the farmland the Charles? Well, this is that land). A woman played with her dalmation. A guy took a piss on the backside of Henry Wadsworth's monument. And sprawling ahead was the Longfellow homestead (the closest place I can call home here). This weather is nice, and each ray highlights why it is I love living here.

"White Towels"
Richard Jones

I have been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness,
telling the story of my life
to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer.
I carry them through the house
as though they were my children
asleep in my arms.

Anastasia & Sandman
by Larry Levis

The brow of a horse in that moment when
The horse is drinking water so deeply from a trough
It seems to inhale the water, is holy.

I refuse to explain.

When the horse had gone the water in the trough,
All through the empty summer,

Went on reflecting clouds & stars.

The horse cropping grass in a field,
And the fly buzzing around its eyes, are more real
Than the mist in one corner of the field.

Or the angel hidden in the mist, for that matter.

Members of the Committee on the Ineffable,
Let me illustrate this with a story, & ask you all
To rest your heads on the table, cushioned,
If you wish, in your hands, &, if you want,
Comforted by a small carton of milk
To drink from, as you once did, long ago,
When there was only a curriculum of beach grass,
When the University of Flies was only a distant humming.

In Romania, after the war, Stalin confiscated
The horses that had been used to work the fields.
"You won't need horses now," Stalin said, cupping
His hand to his ear, "Can't you hear the tractors
Coming in the distance? I hear them already."

The crowd in the Callea Victoria listened closely
But no one heard anything. In the distance
There was only the faint glow of a few clouds.
And the horses were led into boxcars & emerged
As the dimly remembered meals of flesh
That fed the starving Poles
During that famine, & part of the next one--
In which even words grew thin & transparent,
Like the pale wings of ants that flew
Out of the oldest houses, & slowly
What had been real in words began to be replaced
By what was not real, by the not exactly real.
"Well, not exactly, but. . ." became the preferred
Administrative phrasing so that the man
Standing with his hat in his hands would not guess
That the phrasing of a few words had already swept
The earth from beneath his feet. "That horse I had,
He was more real than any angel,
The housefly, when I had a house, was real too,"
Is what the man thought.
Yet it wasn't more than a few months
Before the man began to wonder, talking
To himself out loud before the others,
"Was the horse real? Was the house real?"
An angel flew in and out of the high window
In the factory where the man worked, his hands
Numb with cold. He hated the window & the light
Entering the window & he hated the angel.
Because the angel could not be carved into meat
Or dumped into the ossuary & become part
Of the landfill at the edge of town,
It therefore could not acquire a soul,
And resembled in significance nothing more
Than a light summer dress when the body has gone.

The man survived because, after a while,
He shut up about it.

Stalin had a deep understanding of the kulaks,
Their sense of marginalization & belief in the land;

That is why he killed them all.

Members of the Committee on Solitude, consider
Our own impoverishment & the progress of that famine,
In which, now, it is becoming impossible
To feel anything when we contemplate the burial,
Alive, in a two-hour period, of hundreds of people.
Who were not clichés, who did not know they would be
The illegible blank of the past that lives in each
Of us, even in some guy watering his lawn

On a summer night. Consider

The death of Stalin & the slow, uninterrupted
Evolution of the horse, a species no one,
Not even Stalin, could extinguish, almost as if
What could not be altered was something
Noble in the look of its face, something

Incapable of treachery.

Then imagine, in your planning proposals,
The exact moment in the future when an angel
Might alight & crawl like a fly into the ear of a horse,
And then, eventually, into the brain of a horse,
And imagine further that the angel in the brain
Of this horse is, for the horse cropping grass
In the field, largely irrelevant, a mist in the corner
Of the field, something that disappears,
The horse thinks, when weight is passed through it,
Something that will not even carry the weight
Of its own father
On its back, the horse decides, & so demonstrates
This by swishing at a fly with its tail, by continuing
To graze as the dusk comes on & almost until it is night.

Old contrivers, daydreamers, walking chemistry sets,
Exhausted chimneysweeps of the spaces
Between words, where the Holy Ghost tastes just
Like the dust it is made of,
Let's tear up our lecture notes & throw them out
The window.
Let's do it right now before wisdom descends upon us
Like a spiderweb over a burned-out theater marquee,
Because what's the use?
I keep going to meetings where no one's there,
And contributing to the discussion;
And besides, behind the angel hissing in its mist
Is a gate that leads only into another field,
Another outcropping of stones & withered grass, where
A horse named Sandman & a horse named Anastasia
Used to stand at the fence & watch the traffic pass.
Where there were outdoor concerts once, in summer,
Under the missing & innumerable stars.

"The Abandoned Valley"
Jack Gilbert

Can you understand being alone so long
you would go out in the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the well
so you could feel something down there
tug at the other end of the rope?

---

Well, I'm definitely not alone; I'm not alone?

"Anticipating an Ianless Christmas"
Virginia Tamez

I sit in a room that is dark
(but not dark enough)
and is almost empty
(but then there's me)
and listen to noise from another room
(where people are happy)
and think about you.

I take off my glasses
(so my tears won't smear the lenses)
and hope someone goes looking for me
(but doesn't find me)
and realize that my hands are cold
(my mind was elsewhere)
and think about you.

I picture you sitting beside me
(would this box hold our weight?)
and chew a vanilla-flavored tootsie roll
(I can feel cavities forming)
and wonder if these scissors will cut skin
(hypothetically, of course)
and think about you.

I leave the room by myself
(your ghost is too shy to follow)
and tell everyone I'm okay
(well, the one person who asks)
and I give the best smile I can muster
(still trying not to think about you)
and think about you.

hey remember that time i had a theme for the year. i forgot about it but i think i i stuck to it.
"i wanted the "theme" (yes, i am weird and attempt to create themes for the years of my life...)of this year to be about happiness, contentment, and not comparing myself to everyone i see around me. but that means that i need to try harder than last year. in order to try harder i need to have confidence that i can get better and that trying harder won't be in vain. when i attempt to have this confidence i usually screw the situation up.
i think the theme of this year so far maybe has been happiness in some aspects but also in those same aspects awkwardness and lack of the ability to be a normal human being. i wish that i was a dog. but mostly i wish that i was perfect. hmm.
maybe i can tell myself that i'm as close to perfect if i can be happy or joyful in all situations. or maybe if i just give up trying to please others and up basing my entire life around what others want me to be or to do
i don't know. all i know is i am alive and i should do what i want no matter what. then maybe i can succeed by my own definition of the word.
i want a life less ordinary, a life extraordinary."
i think i did the opposite of fail at reaching this goal.
2009 was a good year. some of it i wish didn't happen exactly how it did but live and learn. anyways it's all working out!
i am content with everything right now.
snow
being terrible at track
laughing
not caring about being awkward
not being awkward (sometimes)
even failing calc. there is no use. but i guess i'll still try.
i think i'm growing up. i still care about other people and their stupid thoughts but not as much. most of them i won't see in a matter of months.
i do what i want.
i deal with the consequences.
i laugh, cry, sing, dance, smile, feel stupid, feel superior, want, need, love and grow.
i think i have succeeded by my own definition of the word.
i just need to work on letting go.
one
finger
at
a
time.

"Ozymandias"
Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

---

I have had very little background in poetry and merely post what I find interesting. This means that I rarely pay attention to symbolism or rhyme scheme and have no interest in poetry I do not immediately understand. I see the value of struggling to understand something, but I do not care to do that. This being said, I'm unaware of this, but apparently I've been posting a lot of poetry lately with the same tone/mood/irony. Does this selection break that tone/mood/irony?

As always, if you have a suggestion for me to post, please email me at exceptindreamsATgmailDOTcom. Thank you.

"The Aliens"
Charles Bukowski

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here

"The Spirit Says, You Are Nothing"
Larry Levis

But you were young, and you had
Plenty of time:
Going west,

You slept on the train and did not smile.
Under you the plains widened, turned silver.

You slept with your mouth open.

You were nothing,
You were snow falling through the ribs
Of the dead.

You were all I had

"Their Sex Life"
A.R. Ammons

One failure on
top of another.

"No es que muera de amor"
Jaime Sabines

No es que muera de amor, muero de ti.
Muero de ti, amor, de amor de ti,
de urgencia mía de mi piel de ti,
de mi alma de ti y de mi boca
y del insoportable que yo soy sin ti.

Muero de ti y de mí, muero de ambos,
de nosotros, de ese,
desgarrado, partido,
me muero, te muero, lo morimos.

Morimos en mi cuarto en que estoy solo,
en mi cama en que faltas,
en la calle donde mi brazo va vacío,
en el cine y los parques, los tranvías,
los lugares donde mi hombro acostumbra tu cabeza
y mi mano tu mano
y todo yo te sé como yo mismo.

Morimos en el sitio que le he prestado al aire
para que estés fuera de mí,
y en el lugar en que el aire se acaba
cuando te echo mi piel encima
y nos conocemos en nosotros, separados del mundo,
dichosa, penetrada, y cierto, interminable.

Morimos, lo sabemos, lo ignoran, nos morimos
entre los dos, ahora, separados,
del uno al otro, diariamente,
cayéndonos en múltiples estatuas,
en gestos que no vemos,
en nuestras manos que nos necesitan.

Nos morimos, amor, muero en tu vientre
que no muerdo ni beso,
en tus muslos dulcísimos y vivos,
en tu carne sin fin, muero de máscaras,
de triángulos obscuros e incesantes.
Muero de mi cuerpo y de tu cuerpo,
de nuestra muerte, amor, muero, morimos.
En el pozo de amor a todas horas,
Inconsolable, a gritos,
dentro de mí, quiero decir, te llamo,
te llaman los que nacen, los que vienen
de atrás, de ti, los que a ti llegan.
Nos morimos, amor, y nada hacemos
sino morirnos más, hora tras hora,
y escribirnos y hablarnos y morirnos.

( Translated into English by Constantino Diaz-Duran )

"Poema 12"
Pablo Neruda

Para mi corazón basta tu pecho,
para tu libertad bastan mis alas.
Desde mi boca llegará hasta el cielo
lo que estaba dormido sobre tu alma.

Es en ti la ilusión de cada día.
Llegas como el rocío a las corolas.
Socavas el horizonte con tu ausencia.
Eternamente en fuga como la ola.

He dicho que cantabas en el viento
como los pinos y como los mástiles.
Como ellos eres alta y taciturna.
Y entristeces de pronto como un viaje.

Acogedora como un viejo camino.
Te pueblan ecos y voces nostálgicas.
Yo desperté y a veces emigran y huyen
pájaros que dormían en tu alma.

( Translated into English )

"Samurai Song"
Robert Pinsky

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

---

It's raining.

"It's Raining In Love"
Richard Brautigan

I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.

It makes me nervous.
I don't say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.

If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
and she says, "I don't know,"
I start thinking : Does she really like me?

In other words
I get a little creepy.

A friend of mine once said,
"It's twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them."

I think he's right and besides,
it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That's all taken care of.

BUT

if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think : Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
instead of me.

i feel like the first few weeks of school werent that long ago and already winter break is coming up. everything is still so new here and constantly changing that ive barely just begun to get my bearings. reading the last entry i posted is kind of funny, because all the things i thought i was sure about have changed so much. 1st. things ended with steve and i immediately after writing the entry haha. i remember feeling soooo shitty, but in all honesty, it wasn't a bad break up. he's more into going out at every opportunity and finding guys to go home with. im not. he's still my best friend here, and we get a long really well and i know if i ever want a fun night out i can go with him. now that the initial "bahomgimincollegeandneednewfriendsstage" is over ive drifted apart from some of my closer friends and found new ones. ive also realized i dont have too many friends here hahaha. steve (aforementioned) and ted are my main gays, marianne is a little crazier than i thought.
THE absolute most important thing that's happened to me though is Brandon. we've been dating for two months and i can honestly say i love him. ive never said that to anyone before and i've never felt this way about anyone before so i think that i really do. everything between us has been going pefectly and it's making me extremely happy. not in a giddy schoolgirl kind of way either, just in a really fulfilling kind of way. were on the same page on so many levels that its just made everthing come so easily. he is also extremely handsome/cute/hot/whateveryouwanttocallit he is it.
it makes everything that much better.
an important lesson i learned from steve and probably any other halfhearted attempt at a relationship or hookup or whatever in my life is to no longer compromise. not myself, and not on the behalf of others. if it's not exactly what you want don't settle for it. i've compromised by hooking up with boys im not really attracted to and tried to convince myself i was. ive compromised by having relationships with boys who i know im not compatible with and never really liked that way. ive also compromised by hooking up with boys who i cant have relationships with just because i thought it would be fulfilling. all of it has pretty much made me feel a little bit like shit everytime but i always ended up pretending it made me happy.
anyway, back on subject.... im not compromising anything with brandon, and i feel like a better person with him and that's part of the reason why i love him. i spend most of my time now cooking frozen dinners and playing videogames and boardgames and having lots of sex and occasionally going out. i have accumulated a LOT of good stories here. clubbing until sunrise, drinking until i wake up with mysterious knee injuries, walking 5 miles home from a party 1 mile from campus, getting crunk with people from realworld, enbarrassing first dates, winning 1st place at lesbian bowling night, karaoke on SoBe, holding pythons, cooking my first thanksgiving turkey with brandon, and bunches of other things that i never would have seen myself doing. it probably seems like i drink a lot here which is weird because at home i never drank before i graduated. ive found a balance though. i definitely cut loose as most freshmen are prone to, but when i drink now it is almost always in moderation, and usually only once a week, if at all.
i've actually matured here a lot more than i ever intended to. i know what i want in life and im chasing after it. i still enjoy everything here in miami and i couldnt imagine being anywhere else and im really focusing on my school work and am really excited for my career after college. in all likelihood ill stay during the summer with an internship, im also driving my car down after winter break. i know it seems premature but i know brandon and i are really committed to eachother and i have lots of things to do and friends to see and more and more it's feeling like home to me. i feel like ive barely touched on whats been happening here but i've written more than enough for now. i am really excited to see everyone over winter break and catch up on our lives. i know ive done a shitty job keeping in touch with most people, but there are definitely a handful of people back home i know i'll always care about.

"The Planned Child"
Sharon Olds

I hated the fact that they had planned me, she had taken
a cardboard out of his shirt from the laundry
as if sliding the backbone up out of his body,
and made a chart of the month and put
her temperature on it, rising and falling,
to know the day to make me - I would have
liked to have been conceived in heat,
in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex,
not on cardboard, the little x on the
rising line that did not fall again.

But when a friend was pouring wine
and said that I seem to have been a child who had been wanted,
I took the wine against my lips
as if my mouth were moving along
that valved wall in my mother's body, she was
bearing down, and then breathing from the mask, and then
bearing down, pressing me out into
the world that was not enough for her without me in it,
not the moon, the sun, Orion
cartwheeling across the dark, not
the earth, the sea - none of it
was enough, for her, without me.

---

Happy Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for this year?