For a woman, at the border, the sense that no one can comprehend the extent and intensity of her suffering is an understandable consequence of the sense of never having been known. She is saying to those around her, not ‘I want you to suffer as I have suffered,’ but “it is through my pain you shall know me.’
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act
of political warfare.
2/3 of my blog is now only viewable to me due to the new tumblr guidelines. I will likely post a heartfelt and sincere goodbye this week, but I advise you to save what you want from here before this blog becomes defunct. Truly (and strangely) shocked and saddened by this turn of events.
Edit: For those who are already asking me if this blog will migrate to a new location—I promise I will give you more details in the near future. This project has always been, to my mind, my own little private haven of hodge-podge hermitude that a fairly significant audience ended up tuning into. That said, it tickles me (aw shucks, honors me) that others have appreciated the art and tidbits that make me enthused about, and intrigued by, an often devastating and senseless world. I will be sure to fill you in on any new home for my obsessions…if such a home is possible. And I welcome suggestions for alternate refuges for misfit digital hoarders.
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.
No mistake or crime is more horrible to God than those committed by power. Why? Because what is official is impersonal, and being impersonal is the greatest insult that can be paid to a person.
“At Least”
Raymond CarverI want to get up early one more morning,
before sunrise. Before the birds, even.
I want to throw cold water on my face
and be at my work table
when the sky lightens and smoke
begins to rise from the chimneys
of the other houses.
I want to see the waves break
on this rocky beach, not just hear them
break as I did all night in my sleep.
I want to see again the ships
that pass through the Strait from every
seafaring country in the world—
old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,
and the swift new cargo vessels
painted every color under the sun
that cut the water as they pass.
I want to keep an eye out for them.
And for the little boat that plies
the water between the ships
and the pilot station near the lighthouse.
I want to see them take a man off the ship
and put another up on board.
I want to spend the day watching this happen
and reach my own conclusions.
I hate to seem greedy—have so much
to be thankful for already.
But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.
And go to my place with some coffee and wait.
Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.
Revenge is an admission of pain; a mind that is bowed by injury is not a great mind. The man who has done the injury is either stronger than you or weaker: if he is weaker, spare him, if stronger, spare yourself.
by Sylvia Plath
The month of flowering’s finished. The fruit’s in,
Eaten or rotten. I am all mouth.
October’s the month for storage.The shed’s fusty as a mummy’s stomach:
Old tools, handles and rusty tusks.
I am at home here among the dead heads.Let me sit in a flowerpot,
The spiders won’t notice.
My heart is a stopped geranium.If only the wind would leave my lungs alone.
Dogsbody noses the petals. They bloom upside down.
They rattle like hydrangea bushes.Mouldering heads console me,
Nailed to the rafters yesterday:
Inmates who don’t hibernate.Cabbageheads: wormy purple, silver-glaze,
A dressing of mule ears, mothy pelts, but green-hearted,
Their veins white as porkfat.O the beauty of usage!
The orange pumpkins have no eyes.
These halls are full of women who think they are birds.This is a dull school.
I am a root, a stone, an owl pellet,
Without dreams of any sort.Mother, you are the one mouth
I would be a tongue to. Mother of otherness
Eat me. Wastebasket gaper, shadow of doorways.I said: I must remember this, being small.
There were such enormous flowers,
Purple and red mouths, utterly lovely.The hoops of blackberry stems made me cry.
Now they light me up like an electric bulb.
For weeks I can remember nothing at all.
I recognize that I love—you—by this: that you leave in me a wound that I do not want to replace. (Jacques Derrida, The Post Card)
But isn’t desire always the same, whether the object is present or absent? Isn’t the object always absent? —This isn’t the same languor: there are two words: Pothos, desire for the absent being, and Himéros, the more burning desire for the present being.
(via astranemus)
In Memory of Alice Alsup, 1990-2014
Her heart was paired with
a strained will, itself itself,
looking for bits of water.
Her heart rang blooms
from witted country dust.
Born, Texas, from scoria
of course, no more
than flower-trash found
wilting in the void.
Totaled in absolution.
Those deep roots alone
might stand all lonesome,
swimmingly, across
some plank-skied wharf
that has never sought
anything but daydreams,
pressed bulbs, full of sea.
Dry it rams in streamings
through Texas, now brined
and sickened, flank of water.
–It is mimed –You, mine.
Like an Agnes Martin, people think of me as calm and serene
while inside, I rail and rageSo I make my sharp angles more and more soft
as a kid’s new eraserI want to clothe myself constantly in Agnes Martin paintings
and always be that safe and sereneAnd carry little cards that say
‘Untitled’— Safia Jama, from “Self-Portrait as an Agnes Martin Painting,” published in BOMB
Little Bristling Soul 