And what about at the sacristy

Grandmother, when I was so much younger, brought me
To the sacristy. It was my birthday. A man was there.
He was wearing a gown, wearing a smile, and smelled
Of something else. I was supposed to ask for blessing
Only he was able to give, or so said Grandmother.
This was another lifetime ago, of course, although

I still do remember the door. And the wall. The shape
Of what was dark and deeply engraved on sides of pews.
Grandmother smelling of talc and old lipstick,
The old man with his voice thick as torso.
The noviciate I whispered with one night of songs
Who stepped back into the shadows in fear when told.

The bible has long been unread. The child on afternoons
Reading verses long gone. Still, these days I continue 
To refer what it is: poetry: the word turning flesh.
The old man who was called Father was a stranger.
Grandmother has stories I will never come to know.
I heard a bell outside the sacristy

And with the door I had come into behind me, the man
Turned his back towards a blind corner in the room
And disappeared. There is always another door.

Exactitude

Is it possible to know what we want?
Don't we still get ahead of ourselves
not at all unlike

a five-year-old child who thinks it knows
what it wants, if only for a moment
an hour, a minute 

before it finds itself wanting something else
yet again.  How we spent years trying
exactitude.  I think I know

as I've been taught, and learned:
to envision the map, to draw it carefully 
as a CV, a bio, a folder of

accomplishments, works in progress and 
downplayed failures, silent emptinesses.
And when the map

is finally done and we stand right at mark
the middle of X, we find ourselves:
the audacious asking:

do you really know what you want?

astrology

1.  maybe it is in our nature to wait--though the word nature is a loaded word and subject to arguments.  maybe we have the tendency to wait.  to while away our time waiting for something by living.  in any case, maybe we all are waiting for Godot.  who can tell.  and who can say otherwise.  there are some things we know are coming.  the inevitable.  only we don't know the when.

2.  B* passed away.  the dog of some years.  kidney failed.  there is a sense of emptiness in the house.

3.  there are many things we know, but do not think about.  the end of the world, for example.

4.  JJW reads signs in the zodiac.  a feat he showed the first time in B*.  foggy night and the group was smoking and suddenly he said "you're a ----" from out the blue.  an uncanny ability to read the signs of people.  everyone's zodiacs were guessed right.  including a brief description of the you.  and what signs were compatible with you.  and what signs would be bad for you.  i wondered:  do you right away read the person in front of you; can you right away read the lover for you.

5.  JJW recently posted a photo smiling by the Mona Lisa.















 

design

"Art as life is design," I recall saying, "an appearance
of random.  Even though it is not."  
What would I have thought if I were across the room,
thinking of the pieces of today:
a conversation on diplomacy, a paper stack,
a calendar with running days, an unanswered letter.

























  

palimpsests

some days ago, two young men made a performance called "white wall".  it was made of a white sheet held high and wide, with two cuts on it where the men placed their lips and talked between themselves.  the audience were meant to overhear.  their conversation short: about how nothing signifies something; how something could be anything; and anything, nothing; and how even nothing means something; and something, anything...finally the men ended their play, possibly out of breath chasing their own conversation's tail.  i thought about bertolt brecht.  and waiting for godot.  someone from the audience whispered virginia woolf.  i said nothing, thinking of the young man who thought of the performance.  how difficult it is to be "new" these days.  how the world must be older than we think.  older than it lets on...

yesterday, a korean artist brought out her painting of a girl whose head was lost inside the clouds inside an upturned fish bowl.  the goldfishes swimming on air outside the glass, swimming beside her ears. her other painting was of a girl with extra large rabbit ears.  surrealism.  how she recalls dali in the background of her figures, in the strokes and colors she chose.  how her portraits call frida in the length of her women's necks, the slopes of their shoulders, the immobile staring of their heads. 

today, i begin reading The Portland Vase...