The Weight of Horses

My mother's cousin, Kurth, was the only other literary type in our family. We didn't have much in common until I went to college to study English, but then we had so much to talk about. The fall before he died he sent me advice on how to extricate myself from a term paper on deconstructionism and Cormac McCarthy. Jaws of Life couldn't have pulled me from that mess, but Kurth's loving eloquence ushered me through some long, bleary nights in the library.

I miss him all the time. I wish I'd had more time with him. My last memory of him before the funeral is this: Kurth, Andy and I sitting at a dining table outside at his country house, Newbold Revel. No sounds, just the wind in the new lavender. No smells, just the perfume of the new lavender and heavy, unfiltered cigarette smoke. We were full of rare roast lamb and mashed potatoes made by a man who lived by himself. I can't remember anything he said. We talked about poetry.

I'm thinking of him now because of a Linda Gregg poem I read yesterday called The Weight. Kurth had a stable named Blackacre out in Austin; he loved horses.

The Weight

Two horses were put together in the same paddock.
Night and day. In the night and in the day
wet from heat and the chill of the wind
on it. Muzzle to water, snorting, head swinging
and the taste of bay in the shadowed air.
The dignity of being. They slept that way,
knowing each other always.
Withers quivering for a moment,
fetlock and the proud rise at the base of the tail,
width of back. The volume of them, and each other's weight.
Fences were nothing compared to that.
People were nothing. They slept standing,
their throats curved against the other's rump.
They breathed against each other,
whinnied and stomped.
There are things they did that I do not know.
The privacy of them had a river in it.
Had our universe in it. And the way
its border looks back at us with its light.
This was finally their freedom.
The freedom an oak tree knows.
That is built at night by stars.

They say that 'Time assuages' ...

They say that 'Time assuages' ...

They say that "Time assuages"—
Time never did assuage—
An actual suffering strengthens
As Sinews do, with age—

Time is a Test of Trouble—
But not a Remedy—
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady—


by Emily Dickinson

Material warmth

I bask in it.

A dress for all seasons.

Chloe, do me right like you always do.

These pants rule.


D&G, yes please. Thanks for improving my day.

What a perfect spring afternoon at the Arboretum. Let's go there.

On the other hand, when Milly does spring it looks like Kool-Aid threw up on the 1970s.

I secretly like this one, but not enough to want to see it on myself or anyone I know.

Goosh! Taking a page from dEliA*s playbook evidently.

I think Teeny's mom from "Now and Then" wore this dress.

Priceless g-mail gems from the vault.

"I'm extremely un-wise but have been versed in the art of getting my shit fucked up."

Vivamus mea darling, atque amemus

Roommate Jessica and I went through all of her old love letters from roughly age 13 to roughly present day. We spend one afternoon once every six months or so reading relics of her adolescence and laughing and cooing over them. That, plus brioche french toast and leftover chicken posole is basically the Very Best Way to Spend a Sunday.

Among the early letters we found her first high school boyfriend's translation of a Catullus love poem. The other translations I looked at were so dry, this 17 year old boy's translation knocked me out:

Let us live, my darling, and also let us love.
And let us value all the rumors
of severe old men at only one penny.
The sums will rise and fall,
but for us, once brief light has fallen,
night will be one perpetual sleeping.
Give me a thousand million kisses.

Catullus

Give me a thousand million kisses! Yes, please.

A Lover Sings

ALSO, Billy Bragg's "A Lover Sings".

This line slays me:

"There is no real substitute
For a ball struck squarely and firmly"

Poems and Lyrics, take Billy Bragg for example.

I'm writing a country song now and trying to slam down one line so ridiculously moving and good that if I never write another for the rest of my life I will be proud of what I've done. Maybe I should go back through all of my old poems, pick the best lines, and make songs out of them. Now that I realize that song lyrics aren't just dumb poems and that they're actually sort of difficult to write well, I'm studying the masters for guidance.

Billy Bragg's lyrics are so unexpected but so accessible, they cut deep, they mean something. I think it's important to speak directly from experience, not to fracture and flay difficult emotions through the prism of abstraction. Which is what I tend to do when I write poems. Which makes me write either bad or boring poems.

"Walk Away Renee" played this morning and, as usual, stopped my heart for a second. I made up the line breaks but the important stuff is all Bragg.

Please read:

Walk Away Renee

She said it was just a figment of speech
and I said, "You mean figure."
And she said, "No, figment."
Because she could never imagine it happening. But it did.
When we first met, I played the shy boy.
When she spoke to me for the first time my nose began to bleed.
She guessed the rest.
The next day we went on a bus ride to the ferry
and when nobody came to collect our fares,
well, I knew then this was something special.

I couldn't stop thinking about her,
and every time I switched on the radio
there was somebody else singing a song about the two of us.
It was just like being on a fast ride at the fun fair:
The sort you want to get off because it's scary
and then as soon as you're off you want get straight back on again.

But all love is strange,
and you have to learn to take
the crunchy with the smooth I suppose.

She began going out with Mr. Potato Head--
it was when I saw her in the car park
with his coat around her shoulders that I realized.
I went home and thought about the two of them together
until the bathwater went cold around me.

I thought about her eyes and the curve of her breasts
and about the point where their bodies met.
I confronted her about it,
I said, "I'm the most illegible bachelor in town."
And she said, "Yeah, that's why I could never
understand any of those silly letters you sent me."

And then one day it happened,
she cut her hair and I stopped loving her.

My hood

I'll miss it when I leave because it's this awesome.