I started reading Ondaatje, and the light went out. So... I will excerpt from what I read tonight. -from Tin Roof
---
There are maps now whose portraits
have nothing to do with surface
. . .
And beneath the sea
there are
these giant scratches
of pain
the markings of
some perfect animal
who has descended
burying itself
under the glossy
ballroom
. . .
So how do we discuss
the education of our children?
Teach them to be romantics
to veer towards the sentimental?
Toss them into the air like Tony Curtis
and make 'em do the triple somersault
through all these complexities
and commandments?
. . .
Oh, Rilke, I want to sit down calm like you
or pace the castle...
I have circled your book for years
like a wave combing the green hair of the sea
kept it with me...
I am too often busy with things
I wish to get away from, and I want
the line to move slowly now, slow
-ly like a careful drunk across the street
no cars in the vicinity
but in his fearful imagination.
Wanting
'to go into chyrsalis . . .
to live by the heart and nothing else.'
Or your guilt --
'I howl at the moon
with all my heart
and put the blame
on the dogs'
I can see you sitting down
the suspicious cook asleep
so it is just you
and the machinery of the night
that foul beast that sucks and drains
leaping over us sweeping our determination
away with its tail. Us and the coffee,
all the small charms we invade it with.
. . .
I wanted poetry to be walnuts
in their green cases
but now it is the sea
and we let it drown us,
and we fly to it released
by giant catapults
of pain loneliness deceit and vanity
