It's high autumn on the river walk -- everything tangled, browning, falling, thinning. There are some brilliant red berries, still, and the milkweed's fuzz is a pure, impeccable white; some things are green still -- pines, bushes, an odd stand of grass near the bank. It's compost time, things going to seed, disseminating. More sexual than spring. Again, the ducks and geese, spotting me on the footbridge, swam upstream toward me. I had nothing for them. Looking at the denuded bushes, I thought "All wick, and no flame."
I saw the riverside hut again, a domed tent patched with plastic, surrounded by debris and a lawnchair. I did reread Bachelard on the hermit's hut, prompted by a post on the Hermitary. It was very satisfying to read. The idea of a hut -- primal shelter against encroaching cold and dark -- has been an image that resonates deeply with me. I was looking at Isay and Abramson's fine, sad collection of photographs and interviews, "Flophouse" yesterday. The flophouse being among the most elementary and marginal of shelters for deeply lost and alienated men. It sits on my shelf right next to Margaret Morton's "Fragile Dwelling," again a wonderful, heartbreaking collection of photographs of makeshift urban shelters, some oddly and wildly beautiful. Next to these two sits "Joseph Cornell: Master Of Dreams" and I can't help linking his oneiric and fabulous boxes with little dwellings, huts, rooms. And next to all of them is Luc Sante's collection of police photos from the early 1900's, "Evidence," murdered bodies sprawled in tenement rooms.
The odd spiky pods I'd been wondering about are burcucumber, but what I have been calling "wild buckwheat" probably isn't. I still haven't identified the beautiful, delicate grass.
Walking, I felt odd, not-myself, lonely, stranded, strange, temporary, doomed, yet somehow at home in all that. As if all those sensations were simply part of the inner landscape, as much as the weeds and vines were a part of the outer.
I have a poem about dwellings. The "plow this shantytowns under" line is from reading Morton's book.
ABODE
Who has no house now will never build one.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke
The autumn’s past. This is the house I’ve built.
A roof, a floor, four walls, a door, that’s it,
sub code, badly measured, unvarnished, raw,
overly apophatic, you’ll complain,
but even a window would be luxury,
a campy tribute to an enthused age
when casements spilled their buttery, mullioned light
into the obscure forests of our selves,
or to last night, when fitful, needling rain
slashed accents graves upon the windowpane
where my face floated, backward, looking in.
Before you know it the bulldozers will come
to plough this shantytown under. Then you’ll see,
from freshly fertilized, newly enriched tracts,
glass spires beanstalking up toward eggy gold,
all window, panoptical, endlessly prospecting,
until the light off their façades at sunset blinds you
and you fall to your knees, afraid, misreading GOD.
And then I’ll shelter under the startling call
of geese who cross the night-time winter sky
in ragged Vs, dark-of-moon dull, no more
than air wrinkling between the naked trees,
and, at the eye’s cold corner, sybilline,
a sudden blinking of the pleiades.
3.2.02
Friday, November 07, 2003
Post-Atkins Toasties
Frankly, Scarlett, I'm sick of all the ceaseless yammering about "carbs." They're shilling low carb BEER, for goodness sakes, on the TV. Carbs, buns, abs -- is there no end to this phonemic madness ?
Are Atkinsites allowed to take communion ? Are there low carb wafers, now, to accommodate them ? If so, are they equally transubstantial ?
I do hope, decades from now, this cultural obsession will find itself remanded to the slag heap of silly diets, viz. the grapefruit diet and metrecal fads of my parents' generation.
My own idea of a great meal is a toasted potato sandwich with a side of rice. No, who am I kidding. Laundry starch, spooned straight out of the box.
Hearing I'm a vegan, most peer at me with deep concern and horror: where do you get your PROTEIN ? As if I were courting kwashiorkor by not gnawing on the bleeding shanks of beeves from dawn till dusk.
There's a wierd/weird (note to self: check the damned spelling already!) diner nearby with some vile name like the "lo-fat cafe" that we frequent from time to time for their tasty "air fries" and because they have several vegan selections. They do make it a point to cater to the anti-carb set, needless to say. Many of its patrons seem, well, buff. Musculissimo. It's a strange joint linked to a body building store where one can buy vast tubs of powdery protein supplements. It's scary in there. Feel the burn. Call the fire department, already. I think of generations of kidneys cowering under the onslaught of nitrogenous wastes.
Here, in the House of Toast, we offer asylum from the madness.
And we applaud the CDC's recent inclusion, in their list of salubrious exercise, "purposeless wandering."
Are Atkinsites allowed to take communion ? Are there low carb wafers, now, to accommodate them ? If so, are they equally transubstantial ?
I do hope, decades from now, this cultural obsession will find itself remanded to the slag heap of silly diets, viz. the grapefruit diet and metrecal fads of my parents' generation.
My own idea of a great meal is a toasted potato sandwich with a side of rice. No, who am I kidding. Laundry starch, spooned straight out of the box.
Hearing I'm a vegan, most peer at me with deep concern and horror: where do you get your PROTEIN ? As if I were courting kwashiorkor by not gnawing on the bleeding shanks of beeves from dawn till dusk.
There's a wierd/weird (note to self: check the damned spelling already!) diner nearby with some vile name like the "lo-fat cafe" that we frequent from time to time for their tasty "air fries" and because they have several vegan selections. They do make it a point to cater to the anti-carb set, needless to say. Many of its patrons seem, well, buff. Musculissimo. It's a strange joint linked to a body building store where one can buy vast tubs of powdery protein supplements. It's scary in there. Feel the burn. Call the fire department, already. I think of generations of kidneys cowering under the onslaught of nitrogenous wastes.
Here, in the House of Toast, we offer asylum from the madness.
And we applaud the CDC's recent inclusion, in their list of salubrious exercise, "purposeless wandering."
Thursday, November 06, 2003
A Link Letter
Being a Mac User, a point-and-click kinda guy, when I found that I had to mess with the Blogger "Template" code in order to have a link list, well, I was sure I'd immediately do something incredibly ham fisted and deep six the whole internet, if not the fabric of the space-time continuum itself. I took me days to figure out that, in the LoFi blogger interface, where I apparantly am by dint of my infra OSX infra IE6.0 system and browser, one has to insert a bit of code into one's text in order to link, my palms again sweat with a trespasser's trepidation. I nearly had V. tach when it came time to insert the "Bostonite's" web ringy thingy. But now I feel like a real hacker, and it's time to act like a real blogger (there are those who'll argue I am more a diarist that a cyber link-centered blogger, but I'm trying !) Anyway, I'd like to pay a bit of homage to the blogs on my link list. In order, then.
Buzzflash, of course, is an amazing collection of continuously updated news and progressive opinion, decidedly anti-Bush. Res ipse loquitur.
Trappists is the website of the Trappist monastery, Gethsemani, where Thomas Merton lived. My interest in Buddhism and Zen led me to Merton, and from him to the contemplative traditions in Christianity. Plus he's a marvelous writer. His journals are spectacular, and reading the prose in Seven Story Mountain is like swimming in a clear, cool stream.
I'm not sure how I found coffee sutras, probably through a google on some contemplative-related terms, but from my first encounter with this elegant blog I was hooked. He's a poet, and writes about east/west contemplative issues.
Veg is a vegan bulletin board, part of "vegsource," an excellent web resource for vegans, we quasi-anorexic aliens from the Lost planet, Vegas, the patron planet of hopeless causes (Go Kucinich !)
mahablog probably also goes without saying. Spiffy. professional, lefty and informative.
Duemer is a beautiful blog/site, resplendant with poetry links, by Joseph Duemer, a notable poet, teacher and critic. I feel an odd connection to Duemer because I once wrote a bitchy poem about him after I read one of his reviews a few years ago of a book of poems called "The Rooster Mask."
Hgpoetics is poet Henry Gould's site. He edits Nedge, and has printed some of my poems in the past. He's a lovely poet, and a very funny blogger. Years ago, I learned of Pessoa and heteronymy from an essay in "A Glass of Green tea -- With Honig," a collection of essays he's edited. I found his blog through a link on Duemer's site.
Hermitary is a nice site about hermits. See above Merton, Trappists.
Meetingbrook is a beautiful website about Meetingbrook, a contemplative community that combines Zen and contemplative Catholicism. It contains a webloglike section ("Today at Meetingbrook") with some exquisitely beautiful writing and thoughtful reflection.
Philocrites is a Unitarian blog. I approve of Unitarians.
I really don't know how I found jenblog, but I'm glad I did. It's a blog one can read for the charm of the writer's prose and for her lovely spirit and personality. She's a fellow Massachusettsian, too. I'm a sucker for local color.
Cut-to-cure is a surgeon's medblog. I'm an internist. There are contless variations of this duck joke that explains the difference.
This blog feetfirst is another medblog; she blogs on medicine, but also that part of life (yes there is such a thing) that is NOT medicine. I should thank her for linking to my Calcium Disaster entry, "Audite," and wish her luck on her upcoming boards. (I just re-certed a year ago. Mega angst !)
Hermes is a PGY-2 IM resident, a top-notch writer, who blogs about the crazy and painful life of training.
Docenoch does urgent care. That's sort of what I do.
Pharmawatch is an exceedingly well documented blog about the evil tricks of Big Pharma. It's a by an Australian doc, and I recommend it highly.
I found frumpyprof on the blogger home page "recently updated" scroll. Randomly. It's a new blog; the writer's got an interestingly dysphoric voice.
I found Mittfraud via a Boston Phoenix article about our Ken-Doll, Church of the Sub-Genius, pierce-Brosnan wannabe Venture Capitalist governor, Mitt Romney. He is wealthy, vapid, loathsome; a feed-the-rich, no-new-taxes, let's bring back the Death Penalty bobblehead. The site presents well researched documentation of the mitty-gritty of the Mitthead's not-so-amusing vicissitudes.
That site is linked to chimesatmidnight, more good stuff on the Mitthead and folks of his ilk.
Lileks is a famous dude, kinda righty, but his stuff makes me laugh.
Anitarust oh how onanistic, but that's me. Go there. I am so cute. K-U-T-E.
Breakfast deconstructs the "Hungry Man Breakfast." I hearly compounded my neck fracture laughing when I read it. Yes, I can be juvenile.
Finally, blaugustine is an example of a gorgeous, artful blog by an artist. Go there and admire her artist's books. She is amazing.
Buzzflash, of course, is an amazing collection of continuously updated news and progressive opinion, decidedly anti-Bush. Res ipse loquitur.
Trappists is the website of the Trappist monastery, Gethsemani, where Thomas Merton lived. My interest in Buddhism and Zen led me to Merton, and from him to the contemplative traditions in Christianity. Plus he's a marvelous writer. His journals are spectacular, and reading the prose in Seven Story Mountain is like swimming in a clear, cool stream.
I'm not sure how I found coffee sutras, probably through a google on some contemplative-related terms, but from my first encounter with this elegant blog I was hooked. He's a poet, and writes about east/west contemplative issues.
Veg is a vegan bulletin board, part of "vegsource," an excellent web resource for vegans, we quasi-anorexic aliens from the Lost planet, Vegas, the patron planet of hopeless causes (Go Kucinich !)
mahablog probably also goes without saying. Spiffy. professional, lefty and informative.
Duemer is a beautiful blog/site, resplendant with poetry links, by Joseph Duemer, a notable poet, teacher and critic. I feel an odd connection to Duemer because I once wrote a bitchy poem about him after I read one of his reviews a few years ago of a book of poems called "The Rooster Mask."
Hgpoetics is poet Henry Gould's site. He edits Nedge, and has printed some of my poems in the past. He's a lovely poet, and a very funny blogger. Years ago, I learned of Pessoa and heteronymy from an essay in "A Glass of Green tea -- With Honig," a collection of essays he's edited. I found his blog through a link on Duemer's site.
Hermitary is a nice site about hermits. See above Merton, Trappists.
Meetingbrook is a beautiful website about Meetingbrook, a contemplative community that combines Zen and contemplative Catholicism. It contains a webloglike section ("Today at Meetingbrook") with some exquisitely beautiful writing and thoughtful reflection.
Philocrites is a Unitarian blog. I approve of Unitarians.
I really don't know how I found jenblog, but I'm glad I did. It's a blog one can read for the charm of the writer's prose and for her lovely spirit and personality. She's a fellow Massachusettsian, too. I'm a sucker for local color.
Cut-to-cure is a surgeon's medblog. I'm an internist. There are contless variations of this duck joke that explains the difference.
This blog feetfirst is another medblog; she blogs on medicine, but also that part of life (yes there is such a thing) that is NOT medicine. I should thank her for linking to my Calcium Disaster entry, "Audite," and wish her luck on her upcoming boards. (I just re-certed a year ago. Mega angst !)
Hermes is a PGY-2 IM resident, a top-notch writer, who blogs about the crazy and painful life of training.
Docenoch does urgent care. That's sort of what I do.
Pharmawatch is an exceedingly well documented blog about the evil tricks of Big Pharma. It's a by an Australian doc, and I recommend it highly.
I found frumpyprof on the blogger home page "recently updated" scroll. Randomly. It's a new blog; the writer's got an interestingly dysphoric voice.
I found Mittfraud via a Boston Phoenix article about our Ken-Doll, Church of the Sub-Genius, pierce-Brosnan wannabe Venture Capitalist governor, Mitt Romney. He is wealthy, vapid, loathsome; a feed-the-rich, no-new-taxes, let's bring back the Death Penalty bobblehead. The site presents well researched documentation of the mitty-gritty of the Mitthead's not-so-amusing vicissitudes.
That site is linked to chimesatmidnight, more good stuff on the Mitthead and folks of his ilk.
Lileks is a famous dude, kinda righty, but his stuff makes me laugh.
Anitarust oh how onanistic, but that's me. Go there. I am so cute. K-U-T-E.
Breakfast deconstructs the "Hungry Man Breakfast." I hearly compounded my neck fracture laughing when I read it. Yes, I can be juvenile.
Finally, blaugustine is an example of a gorgeous, artful blog by an artist. Go there and admire her artist's books. She is amazing.
Garlic and Sapphires in the Mud
AXIS
There’s slim hope for the small --
a ring of bone, its peg.
We name the part and its breach:
Axis and Hangman’s,
C2 and traumatic spondylo-
listhesis.
When Atlas shoulders the world
he feints left, and right,
on a pivot that’s thin as a tooth,
baby’s first.
Sometimes axle tree means the sun.
I prefer the gallows
where Odin hung for nine days once, ashen,
but kept his head.
My axis met its Ragnarok head-on,
cracked, and held.
11.6.03
There’s slim hope for the small --
a ring of bone, its peg.
We name the part and its breach:
Axis and Hangman’s,
C2 and traumatic spondylo-
listhesis.
When Atlas shoulders the world
he feints left, and right,
on a pivot that’s thin as a tooth,
baby’s first.
Sometimes axle tree means the sun.
I prefer the gallows
where Odin hung for nine days once, ashen,
but kept his head.
My axis met its Ragnarok head-on,
cracked, and held.
11.6.03
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Axis
Time enters the body, said Simone Weil.
Trussed up in the DeSalvo-Gregor Samsa collar, and relatively housebound, I am in a new relationship with both time and body.
The work clock has stopped. No more ten to six, no more Monday through Friday. I have a vague sense of DKs teaching schedule, a sort of work-clock-by-proxy, a dim ticking through the walls, barely applicable to me.
This little cracked circle high in my neck is making its own sweet time. C2. See, too. Sea two. I suppose it deserves a poem. The Axis. I have written poems about the other named spinal bones, the Atlas and the Coccyx. It's the least I can do, eh, for my li'l buddy C2 ?
Night Time is different, too. I've been waking after every REM cycle, so regularly I can predict the time: ninety minutes later than when last I looked. If I'm lucky, 3 hours.
I don't wear a watch anymore. I'm not bored. Time does not weigh or drag. But I feel ever so slightly restless, untethered, anxious. Like a shaking hourglass.
10:30 AM is the "dishonorably-late-to-be-in-a-bathrobe" hour.
"Lunchtime" happens later; during worktime I'd wolf the jelly-sandwich-and-apple down long before high noon. Now I'm nuking oatmeal and raisins at 1:30. I could not be more sedentary lately, with this injury and the rainy weather. Metabolism gutters to a slow, slow burn.
Other timestones ? Recertify in Internal Medicine again in 2014. Pay mortgage off in 2018. I don't like to think of those things.
The floor is farther away now. I have to turn en bloc to see around. I haven't seen my bellybutton for six weeks, other than in the most metaphorical navel-gazing sense, which I suppose I'm doing lots of. Viz, this.
But yes, I must do an axis poem. There will be a hangman in it. I'll work in "clot the bedded axle-tree" and yggdrasil, the poles, the axis mundi.
Trussed up in the DeSalvo-Gregor Samsa collar, and relatively housebound, I am in a new relationship with both time and body.
The work clock has stopped. No more ten to six, no more Monday through Friday. I have a vague sense of DKs teaching schedule, a sort of work-clock-by-proxy, a dim ticking through the walls, barely applicable to me.
This little cracked circle high in my neck is making its own sweet time. C2. See, too. Sea two. I suppose it deserves a poem. The Axis. I have written poems about the other named spinal bones, the Atlas and the Coccyx. It's the least I can do, eh, for my li'l buddy C2 ?
Night Time is different, too. I've been waking after every REM cycle, so regularly I can predict the time: ninety minutes later than when last I looked. If I'm lucky, 3 hours.
I don't wear a watch anymore. I'm not bored. Time does not weigh or drag. But I feel ever so slightly restless, untethered, anxious. Like a shaking hourglass.
10:30 AM is the "dishonorably-late-to-be-in-a-bathrobe" hour.
"Lunchtime" happens later; during worktime I'd wolf the jelly-sandwich-and-apple down long before high noon. Now I'm nuking oatmeal and raisins at 1:30. I could not be more sedentary lately, with this injury and the rainy weather. Metabolism gutters to a slow, slow burn.
Other timestones ? Recertify in Internal Medicine again in 2014. Pay mortgage off in 2018. I don't like to think of those things.
The floor is farther away now. I have to turn en bloc to see around. I haven't seen my bellybutton for six weeks, other than in the most metaphorical navel-gazing sense, which I suppose I'm doing lots of. Viz, this.
But yes, I must do an axis poem. There will be a hangman in it. I'll work in "clot the bedded axle-tree" and yggdrasil, the poles, the axis mundi.
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