“I like to be mystified.”

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

“Lines for Winter,” from New Selected Poems by Mark Strand, © 1979, 1980 by Mark Strand.

_____

I like to be mystified. Because it’s really that place which is unreachable, or mysterious, at which the poem becomes ours, finally, becomes the possession of the reader. I mean, in the act of figuring it out, of pursuing meaning, the reader is absorbing the poem, even though there’s an absence in the poem. But he just has to live with that. And eventually, it becomes essential that it exists in the poem, so that something beyond his understanding, or beyond his experience, or something that doesn’t quite match up with his experience, becomes more and more his. He comes into possession of a mystery, you know—which is something we don’t allow ourselves in our lives.

I mean, we live with mystery, but we don’t like the feeling. I think we should get used to it. We feel we have to know what things mean, to be on top of this and that. I don’t think it’s human, you know, to be that competent at life. That attitude is far from poetry.

Poet, MARK STRAND, interviewed by Wallace Shawn in his Essays.

“For want of my love.”

Mexico

(one of the more brilliant b-sides oddly vacant from Morrissey’s latest compilation Swords)

Sexed

Poetic search

Somehow poetry and the search for a more just order on earth are not contradictory, and rational thought and dreams are not contradictory, and there may be something necessary, as well as ridiculous, in the odd activity of racing back and forth on the bridge between reality and the world of dreams.

WALLACE SHAWN from his “Introduction” to Essays.

The pits

uid=2496972089493594025, originally uploaded by S3CR3T @G3NT.

Taking notice.

Yes, the conditions in the world are terrible, certainly—but I still could feel that the topic could be discussed in a leisurely manner. When one hasn’t noticed that it’s one’s own boot that’s standing on the suffering person’s neck, one can be calmly sympathetic to the suffering person and hope that over time things will work out well for them.

WALLACE SHAWN from his “Introduction” to Essays.

Photo: Vidiot

Get out now.

“Why do we waste so much time trying to complete things that can’t be realistically completed?”

On “patriotism”

The United States is a monster that must be stopped, controlled.

“Patriotism” can seem to be as harmless as the loves of certain musical instruments, food, a landscape. Certain personalities from one’s own country can seem so charming, so delightful. But “patriotism” always seems to mean: If you feel a fondness for your country, then it ought to be worth it to you to do “x.”

Patriotism is considered to be an emotion a person ought to feel. But why? Why is it nobler to love your own country than to love someone else’s? Why is it particularly wonderful to think that the place you’re from is the greatest in the world? Why should individuals speak in the the first person plural about “our ideals” and “the things we believe”?

If certain great figures from our country’s past have had valuable insights, by all means let’s be inspired by them. But let’s not make a fetish out of it.

For citizens of small, weak countries, patriotism might be connected to a yearning for justice. For people who are despised, who despise themselves, more self-esteem might be a good thing. But for people who are already in love with themselves, who worship themselves, who consider themselves more important than others, more self-esteem is not needed. Self-knowledge would be considerably more helpful.

WALLACE SHAWN from “Patriotism” in his new collection of Essays. Chicago : Haymarket, 2009.

Thanks BD

truth

700 Club

America. Your God is just
as extreme, evil, hateful,
vengeful, and fucked-up
as theirs.

My 700th post.