-> . . . ) Memoirs of the Architect ? {Post title}
When the calico cat on the couch fades
in the slanted rays of the wintersun
And when the streets outside the window
reach not for home but for their origins
Gentle, gentle, do my tears come.
Without the calculus of my memory to guide
those tears
Without the nurture of my once heroic
imaginings
Quiet, quiet, the pain slips heavily.
Toward anger . Time
the . out
Knife . of
slips time
home. lost,
Cannot,
for whatever reason,
That these viscous drops of blood are mine.
And so bloodied a knife in my trembling
hand
Call me to mind,
A japanese garden I once
saw in a photograph which I perceived
with an ambition to become an architect.
A designer of my struggling end.
Little pebbles, little pebbles
meaning
. for
. nought
Quiet .
11/17/83 JARED
There’s no eagerness here.
Nor will it ever come to pass
But in the thick, timid soul
of the non-architect.
There.
It is irremediable. ( . . . ->
[The “retroblogging” project: this is a “back-post” transcribed from paper on 2010-11-28. I’ve decided to “fill-in” my blog all the way back. It’s a big project. But there’s no time limit, right? The above entry was surprising to find.
It appears to mark the very specific moment when I gave up my childhood dream to become an architect. I’m not sure it explains why, though. UPDATE: This poem was published to my daily poems series as Poem #1692.]
Category: My Poetry & Fiction
Caveat: While the Men Converse
[The “retroblogging” project: this is a “back-post” added 2014-06-19 I’ve decided to “fill-in” my blog all the way back. It’s a big project. But there’s no time limit, right?
These pictures, above, are undated but they appear in a journal from the years 1983~1984, near other pages which bear dates from mid-August of 1983. Those entries are also in the same pen, so I have assumed these undated pictures date from that time and have thus posted them here on this date. UPDATE 2022-04-14: I have added this as one of my daily poems, #2082.]
Caveat: Within
Within Where Iron Factories spouted grey, There I dwelt by Mahhalian shores. So Doctor Hubert came with a Word, For plastic Angels of the new Hell City; for mind-slaves of Its hurt. There I became blest--his Apostle. Wind beat a slime to a sandy shore There I began to hear of his word. And from a dead-empty, bloody Hell All the eyes glossy-dull by a hurt The Rats fled; became his Apostles So he promised to remove the grey. Said he: No one can refute my Word There I said: Amen! Ruin this Hell Dr. Hubert! Destroy my deep hurt! He smiled: follow me, my Apostles. Showing us how to survive the grey Leading us to a candy-green shore. Dancing, we were far from any Hell Hoping, we failed to feel any hurt Loving, thus were we his Apostles. Plastic melted; we denied the grey Eyes flickering/reflecting a shore Free, happily alive with his Word. Under a rock, the centipede hurts, And he crawls, to sting an Apostle Leaping, then he dies cadaver-grey He's left to rot on a slimy store. I run; I search for His holy Word, The rats return whispering of Hell For Hope, thus I became an Apostle Then the rat-emperor came in grey, And drove us to a cadavered shore, Erected a cross for harmless Words Removed the candy, revealed a Hell No! Not Dr. Hubert. Not the Hurt! He brought Apostles to the shores, He destroyed hurt with his Words-- But Hell revealed the Grey within.
[The “retroblogging” project: this is a “back-post” transcribed from paper on 2020-01-04. I’ve decided to “fill-in” my blog all the way back. It’s a big project. But there’s no time limit, right? The above entry was written on a rainy fall afternoon as I started my senior year in high school. You will note that the monospaced font is critical to this poem, since a uniform line-length, in characters, was one of the constraints I’d set for myself, above and beyond the demands of the traditional sestina. I also posted this poem as my daily poem for the day of transcription.]
Caveat: Il pleut
Il pleut
O where are all the other raindrops?
I'm falling all alone.
The city races onward,
The sky is thick with clouds,
Can't you see it's raining here,
But something here is wrong.
Einstein and Planck are dead now,
The frogs and squirrels don't know,
The raindrops keep on falling,
The universe goes on.
My window's partly open,
I hear the sounds without,
The sound of falling raindrops,
But everything is gone.
O quand il pleut ou allons les rats?
I haven't seen a one.
The telephones are ringing,
The voices, they're not there,
The squeaking of small rodents,
A-dancing to their song.
Newtonian mechanics,
Relativity now,
The rats sleeping in their places,
Their tails, they are too long.
And everything is quiet,
The sky is changing blue,
And the rats have stopped their dancing,
But everything is gone.
O what's the meaning of these flowers?
They've cropped up everywhere.
In the sun, grass grows quickly,
A sidewalk stone gives in,
Flowers of different colors,
And colors make a song.
The light, it seems uplifting,
But: E=mc2,
Drowning by our planet's mass,
Some fleeting fast photon.
Once more the clouds come back here,
The sun is covered up,
Flowers weep small raindrop tears,
And everything is gone.
[The "retroblogging"
project: this is a "back-post" transcribed from paper on 2013-02-18.
I've decided to "fill-in" my blog all the way back. It's a big
project. But there's no time limit, right? The above poem (quite atrocious, methinks) was written in a
journal I was keeping while at Harvard Summer School in 1982, between my junior and senior years in high school.]
Caveat: Cage of lions and I we are two things
Cage of lions and I we are two things
Secure within immutability
safe inside my sphere
I pound my head against
its walls
begging to be free.
Then a man with silver key
cracks my prison
sets me free.
I grab some glue,
I gasp for breath
I beg the man to take his
key, and go away.
Patching sphere
repairing cracks
I turn around and
pound my head against
its other walls.
I know the answer
I have asked the questions
but no one tells me how
Dog and bug are in a room.
A green plant.
[The “retroblogging” project: this is a “back-post” transcribed from paper on 2010-11-28. I’ve decided to “fill-in” my blog all the way back. It’s a big project. But there’s no time limit, right? The above entry was written during an angsty end to a bitter junior year in high school.
UPDATE: this poem was reblogged as daily poem #2074, 2022-04-06]
Caveat: Frogs and horses, why are they?
Frogs and horses, why are they?
Time is inescapable.
A burden. We cannot ever
escape. A child knows not time
but they make him learn.
They throw it on his back,
and he never notices
until one day,
then it is too late,
and they are happy.
[The “retroblogging” project: this is a “back-post” transcribed from paper on 2010-11-28. I’ve decided to “fill-in” my blog all the way back. It’s a big project. But there’s no time limit, right? The above entry was undated, but I’m guessing sometime around the end of 1981, based on which journal it was in and what was nearby – I didn’t always fill in my paper journals linearly. UPDATE 2: this poem was reblogged as daily poem #1367, 2020-04-28]