Dmitri Kasterine Saul Bellow, Vermont 1984
“Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.” Saul Bellow, “Mr. Sammler’s Planet” 1970
Mister Chu:
Painfully and utterly and truthfully true.
“Presume not that I am the thing I was.”
-Henry IV, Part 2: Act V, Scene V
Mister Chu:
His name is Glock
and yet I am not certain why.
More than anything
he makes me think of Laos,
Cambodia, it may be the hat.
On his front is the number 8
for there were seven before him
and none quite right
but as soon as he was
he was.
He has two faces
a biological development
that is in no way a comment
on his loyalty or discretion.
He is designed specifically
for the only terrain he exists in;
the fearful mind.
To know how little you feel
About how much you don’t know
Is a cycle without an end
A loop that extends further
With each day but is beyond
Any prospect of interruption
The bad news is the good however
For the weighted shadow
Remains always dimmed.
-JG
Mister Chu found himself somewhat alone this evening (whilst amongst many others) and decided to make a self-portrait of how he looks (not to others, but to himself). After an hour of work he realized that this creature was not at all him (too colorful, too good a listener, too much leaning forward, almost straining with enthusiasm), but instead would make a good friend. He wonders what Pessoa would have made with clay a few brushes? Yet one more character.
—Jeanette Winterson (via marigriffin)
As my father did
I cut my nails
and likely will ‘til
all else fails
as it did for him
not long ago
and yet they say
the nails still grow
for some time after
the breath is gone
the tune is there but
not the song
yet still we clip
and shape and file
our lives and hopes
within some style
as if a lock
and its single key
might yet remain
in memory
I cut my nails
as my father did
nor can this truth
now be hid
from my own son
and the future told
by these scissors
I now hold.
-Johnny Goodyear
Cats and dogs, it rains them
and some define themselves
(and others) by a particular allegiance.
After a lifetime of having them
and feeding them and killing them
(apparently for their own good)
I’ve concluded that the abiding difference
between them is to be found
in the speed with which they react.
Open a door and unless pursued
or stung by hunger
the cat observes each contingency
considers and then enters.
The dog if it hasn’t already chased off
bowls in at a full barge
paws slipping on the unrugged floor
nose agape and running.
In their unconscious movie
both want what will be given to them
(or taken from us)
and both act in perfect truth
but at differing frames per second.
Too cold out tonight for the burglars
who could wear dark coats of course,
but the wind is racing, unrelenting,
and only the most professional of thieves
would force themselves out of their own house
and into yours to do even a half a night’s work.
We’ll put the alarm on, but more from habit
than expectation it’ll see any trade.
Burglars are people too, subject to weather
and other interferences. A getaway car
that won’t start. Sudden holes in the gloves.
An allergic reaction to long-haired pets.
Imagine the Careers Counselor years before:
“Scared of the dark and a fear of heights?
Hardly the tools for a Roof & Window man.
Are you sure you won’t consider extortion or blackmail?
White collar crime’s only getting bigger,
some of my boys are doing just fine with mail fraud.”
Sneak thieves operate well enough in daylight
even when it’s cold, although fewer doors are left open,
but you have to wonder if the darkness robbers
keep an eye on the forecast for nights like these
and hope the wife doesn’t lay out long underwear on the bed, saying
“Find something heavy to steal, you’ll soon warm up.”
They say adrenalin keeps a man warm, but hanging around,
all that hiding in the bushes or in a parked car
(engine and heater off), waiting for the bathroom light,
the bedroom light, to finally go dark. Avoid readers, those who stay up
their nose in a book, their ears wide open. You want the talk-show crowd
fallen asleep heavily halfway before the end.
Probably best to burgle happy people, less likely to bump into them,
up and worried, walking the halls. But there’s no need to worry tonight,
unless you’re a burglar behind on your rent. Record lows in Texas
mean that only the most committed will be out working.
The rest will be at home with their disappointed wives
their dogs and dreams and largely unrequited alarms.
There is no retirement from God
if you were once indentured
in his employ.
And no answers.
No escape from the created self.
-Uncle Joe
What is coming is not a shinier version
of what has already been. The future
is as different as we are to the dark.
A king who at one time was more powerful
than a God would hide in the mental ward of himself
if confronted with this industrial world.
It will be no different for us
but sooner, and it will be unpleasant.
The best time to be has already been.
I do not wish the children of our children‘s
children the life they will have.
There will be no room for in between.
Arroz Poetica
I got news yesterday
from a friend of mine
that all people against the war should
send a bag of rice to George Bush,
& on the bag we should write,
“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.”But to be perfectly clear,
my enemies are not hungry.
They are not standing in…
Stray cats die by way of absence
like lovers, when they stop appearing
it is fair to consider them dead.
-Nanny Chu
Simona Ghizzoni
Mister Chu:
I find this strangely powerful. The strange part being I have no idea why. But still.
It says here
(in this unknown thing
I am referencing)
that Mister Opalka
took the same photograph
of himself, his face
each year for forty years.
He did many other things also
in the artist line of work.
If one searches in the tunnels
of a man’s life randomly filled
by the robot engines
one can find all manner
of paint and penciling.
Interspersed throughout
is him looking back at you
through the same eyes set
to different depths
in an aging face
quiet and kindly
and quizzical and blank.
He doesn’t appear
to have put on or lost
any significant weight
over the years.
It is an awful pity
this was the first consideration
that came to mind.
In mitigation
the art of another’s face
is arresting
and as he continues to look
over the passing time at me
I wish only I knew more
than the so very little I do.
