bi_janus
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Posts posted by bi_janus
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Some mornings I must set aside time to cry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/a-boy-to-be-sacrificed.html?_r=1&hp
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I suppose that hugging along with many other expressions of friendship and compassion have been treated as narrowly sexual expressions by school administrators for many years--at least as long ago as I was in the one room schoolhouse. The problem is that when school administrators paint every display of human affection as unacceptable, the lesson is unfortunate. I remember that when I was leaving high school this same crowd sent us off to the jungles with M-16s because they believed that dominoes would fall in Southeast Asia. That fear was unjustified as is the fear that a hug will lead to carnal chaos in the hallways. Interestingly, among the first things male soldiers do after surviving battle together is to hug one another. Now that I think of it, hugging should be seen as a patriotic duty.
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Thanks, James. While reading your kind comment, I realized that I had misplaced the apostrophe in Yvor Winters' name. The edit function, alas, won't let me make the change.
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Questions for Hart Crane
Bi Janus
for Myron Ochshorn (1920-2012)
Were you difficult
because of coyness?
In my youth I struggled
with you, and you
held me tight all the way
into the sea.
In my age,
ashore, you are
the last one who
moves me to weep.
The veneer of indirectness
cannot conceal you.
Whom did you think
you would disappoint,
one woman among
all the men, not enough?
Did you think the Gulf
tenderer than your
own drunken judgment?
And all because you
were on your knees
before those sailor boys
as Winter’s crowd,
protesting the whole while,
was before you unable
to help itself.
In my youth
I thought you
another Blake.
I know better
in age.
Still, while I would converse
with Eliot across
a linen-covered table,
with you I would
sneak to the back row
of a second-run cinema
under the flickering projector
to savor the touch
of your shoulder
on mine in the darkness.
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Original Face Instruction Manual for Worrywarts
Bi Janus
Inattentive breathing
or mindful breathing,
step without attention
or mindful step,
all thought and action
collapse
toward the still point in the precise turning
of inhalation
to exhalation.
From the still point in the precise turning
of exhalation
to inhalation
the world that can be enjoyed and suffered
arises.
No object,
no category,
not time,
not this,
not that,
arises in any other way.
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I read the piece two more times. I think maybe James was writing a tale about the failure of adolescent impulse control--a sort of darker Ferris Beuller's Day Off. I think we have to be open to reading about the darker sides of human nature, but I cannot forgive the character's judgement of Citizen Kane. Really, James!
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Interesting article to be published in the Sunday NYT Arts & Leisure section.
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Everyone's entitled to a really bad day occasionally, but I worry about seeing this lad's name on the news shortly.
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This I hope is knowledge we find, Des and Richard, with every mindful step. Your poem is an anthem, Des.
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Fever
Bi Janus
Fever is another way to see the world,
a photo creased with edges curled,
pasted into a dusty journal,
sepia-tinted pulsing diurnal.
The evening hawks a fuzzy wooze,
a tipsy stupor nearly snooze,
that, uncensored, loves laugh-talking,
eyes too heavy for steady walking.
Fever, now a singular way to endure,
no longer a symptom in search of a cure.
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Jim’s Voyage
Bi Janus
A sea can have mountains,
or a river,
and climbing
is a sidelong journey
against gravity and tide.
Luffing sails before the wind,
hesitate and concentrate,
as a man might rest
leaning on his walking stick
face turned up to a crest,
before the wind takes you
at angles to the goal.
Switching back on the chop,
tacking to shore from shore,
an improbable journey made
possible over a certain length
but whiling an uncertain time.
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Savior Victorious
Bi Janus
. . . all shall be well,
All manner of things shall be well.
Gods were rooted things,
whose parlors topped
mountains we visited
unshod, before we made
them airy and vaporous,
smudging their edges
out to every place.
Then we took them
where we went,
slung like papooses,
we making
everywhere our home
until the word
lost meaning.
Damn, you’re so easily
impressed by life eternal.
Victory, you call it
and you’re made
his jealous goad,
a crowner of sovereigns,
and cannibal.
To hell with the meek,
we do love the big winner.
What gifts of his glorious
incorruptible body
are you savoring today?
Well, sweetie, I’ve been there,
though not for three days.
I’ve managed minutes away,
enough to share
the hidden geist.
Is my power
a Savior’s mark,
the single notch
on my bedpost?
Tremble before me.
Hosanna, I kid you not.
The defibrillator’s hand,
not the Holy Ghost,
jerked me back
across the blood
red intractable river
to the community
of silence.
And the men and women
coming to the bedside,
preparing to anoint
the corpse,
saw the stone
rolled back, but
only miracle tarnished,
syndicated with no
angelic pronouncement,
God’s power, reduced
to parlor trick,
rendered pedestrian
when a Sodomite finds
the spark of resurrection.
Now, if you found
one facing life
professing beatitudes
all the while,
you should wonder
at him, her, not a deific brawler,
awe-filled by mercy,
and humble.
All shall be well,
All manner of things shall be well.
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Thank you, Colin.
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Terrifying and nicely done. I'd like to think that Federal law enforcement agents would be subject to some loving correction. On the other hand, from experience, I can say that the number of Christian fundamentalists and Mormons in Federal law enforcement is scary and a topic not often discussed.
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Well, I'm back at work this week. My co-workers are always mildly surprised when I show up after a bout. There's the moment of surprise quickly replaced by solicitude. As to gardening, I think it a fair metaphor for many experiences with cancer therapy. Now, I am shame-faced at I driving you to Wikipedia and garden dreams. Better I should drive you to your garden.
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Return of the Gardener
Bi Janus
The mild surprise,
unconcealable,
almost out the door
between the legs,
a sly pup
pulled back by its tail,
shame-faces
put right
with smiles.
No card to pass
around this time.
You’re looking better,
not so drawn,
a succulent suffused—
epidemiologists ask,
steroidal edema
masking wasting?
The pruning’s
long done.
Now, the poison
for the nematodes
mixed and spread.
The little buggers,
cut in half,
become two each.
In the present case
eradication
is the homicidal cure,
and a flowery
shrub reprieve
is what you take,
a tenuous balance
among things,
proper and not,
growing in the soil.
The bed’s
put right as rain
one more time.
Back to anthrax,
pertussis and E. coli,
influenza churning
through unremarked,
disaster an
intellectual puzzle.
Marshal some strength,
planting season
approaches.
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Ah, poor Galileo.
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Very nice. I love how the second and fifth verses play against each other. Thanks for sharing you work.
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A Friend’s Pain
Bi_janus
Strangle the desire
to bind the gash.
Pain unlike
problem is
not subject
to reason.
Sit with him
on the road
and cry.
Hold and
shore him.
Some pain,
though you
feel, you
cannot touch.
Later, you will
shake the dust,
walk and talk.
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What a great way to spend a gray morning, on the sofa and covered with an afghan, visiting delightfully conjured worlds. I add my thanks to you all and thanks to the Dude!
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Being the father of very nice absolutely straight kid and the friend of very good gay adoptive parents, I'm heartened by this story how families are found and how people of all ages continue to grow into their natures.
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Warm good humor and just the edge of an uncertain resolution until a happy end. Entirely engaging. Love Elbow!
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A lovely tale of anxiety from an unexpected source. Immediately after reading the story, I sent the link to the story to my son.
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Very sweet, indeed. Thanks.
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Arab Spring
in News & Views
Posted
This remarkable young writer is so much more than a victim. I've attached a link to a podcast of a talk he gave at Columbia U in October 2010. His L'Armée du salut has been translated from the French and is available in America.
http://maisonfrancaise.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=225:abdellah-taia-moroccan-literature-in-french-october-22-2009&catid=10:video-and-audio-recordings&Itemid=52