Filed under: poems | Tags: abandonment, Camus, death, fallenness, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Orpheus, philosophy, Portland, San José, the Columbia, The fall, the Willamette
The Columbia has abandoned us,
the Willamette, too; and the Guadalupe; and
San Jose. And Portland. We’re
abandoned into history. We’re run aground on
a little island,
but it isn’t really a little island — it’s
a sea monster.
Verily.
The sea monster doesn’t want to drink tea
with us; it doesn’t want
to play tennis. In fact the sea monster seems to have no
interest in anything about us, what we do or whatever happiness we’ve managed
to scrape together in this small insignificance we call existence.
In fact the sea monster seems to want us for
lunch. This sea
monster is life.
Heidegger said
we’ve been abandoned into the world.
We’ve fallen
into it.
Does this sound familiar?
We’re falling together.
I smell the concrete
who knows how far down.
“La chute” Camus called it. “The fall.”
I can’t even turn my head to look.
It
doesn’t matter.
You are here
and
it’s wonderful.
We were told the Northwest is a big foolish beast,
no sea monster: a Cerberus
for we sweet Orpheuses
to blanket with sound.
We’ll smile as we play
our lyres. We’ll sing in
harsh voices.
We’ll pluck the breath from each other’s chests
while there’s still breath left to draw.
We’ll live breathless.
Au bout de soufflé.
Is there concrete below?
Has the war started?
I don’t care.
I’m happiest when I’m with you.
You wrote in a little card,
“Coup dedans là. Tout sera OK.“
Hang in there. All will be OK.
Come sea monsters. Come Cerberus. Come fools.
Come fall.
Filed under: poems | Tags: absurdities, Cambodia, drinking, Everything, Nietzsche, philosophy, war
Everything takes on
a wistful luster
when I’ve been drinking,
as though I’m not watching
the present
but a gay past
be born.
I say to my love,
“This is what I imagine
when I imagine life in Cambodia.”
We are working;
she is painting and I am attempting
to confound myself with Nietzsche.
Everything stinks with this luster.
It’s like watching my life
unfold before my very eyes.
I am sinking.
“This is war, you know,”
I am saying.
“This is nonsense,”
she is.
I can see
everything within the context of my existence
and suddenly everything
is transformed by the light
of its proximity and
its innocence.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anachronism, Dante, Heidegger, Michelangelo, Nietzsche, philosophy, Rainer Maria Rilke, Socrates, Stoicism, the Crusades, water
In the face of great art,
I am mute.
I could not stand before the statue of David,
could not say,
“You must change your life.”
I have not transcended this Being,
the petty existence we woke with
and wake with every morning.
Though nor am I a Stoic.
I have not accepted this state,
could not accept it;
I won’t float downstream
in the face of this bloody river.
I am not the type to establish
some Kingdom in the Desert,
nor some City of Dis.
In the face of everything I’ll fly,
until I am picked from the world’s
Teeth.
A horse can’t see its own behind.
The gadfly’s best work is done while the great beast
watches only the path ahead.
If I am an arrow,
I await my bow.
Until then,
I will remain in my quiver,
and show the others
what rotten wood they’re made of.
