Diary Entry #821: Ars Quotidiana

James Bowden

after Diannely Antigua

1.
Everything is a place to hold a loss.
Everything is a place to hold a loss.
Everything is a plug to stop up a hole, for a moment,
a year, however long the dam can hold.
Each hole, really another faux floor falling out of
The Hole™, which itself but a preternatural chunk of
the hole I was born into being.

                    3.
                    I begin where I am most vulnerable: an addiction to poetry
                    allows me to revisit intensity my brain can no longer conjure up at will. Rachel
                    always gave me this look, her features gentle with affection, pupils
                              dark
                    with need, and her hands–frantic but steady, bringing toward like a child
                    who has starved before but knows that at least for tonight, she shall sleep sated.
                    I’m whistling to Beethoven’s Archduke Trio, writing sad lines with the force
                    of Kingdom Come, no longer caring who caresses my stubbled cheek. It’s true–
                    a lesser lover hurts more than none at all, each mediocre kiss
                    a reminder of what was lost, and every whispered word is necessarily
                    a perjury. I wonder if your absence reads too clearly off my face. All
                    lovers want to know they can be loved, and reciprocation is an
                              inescapable
                    construct. How can I come to anyone without a
                              past?
                    In conversation, all roads lead to Rome. On TV, Gordon *whumps* away
                    with his mallet. When you tenderize a cut of meat, you puncture holes
                    in the connective tissue, allowing the meat to absorb seasonings
                    and marinades better. I, like a steak. Tenderness is
                              begotten
                    by breaking. I open my holes to the world, but your scent lingers
                    on me like urine. Like tens of territorial hickeys. Your
                              memory
                    the freeway overpass I dwell beneath.

2.
How could hunger not be relevant?
How can there be anything but hunger when such a hole towers?
God, I am weak. I do kick, though.

---

This poem draws large inspiration from Diannely Antigua’s “Diary Entry #28: Ars Poetica”, which has been one of my favorite poems for a while now and hence marinating in my brain a long time. Particularly the an addiction to beauty is a place to keep a loss line. I drew the force of Kingdom Come part from TKS’ “My God, It’s Full of Stars”, probably the first poem I ever really loved (we won’t count “Invictus” here, God forbid). The whole idea of come to me without a past with respect to lovers does come from somewhere, but it escapes me from whence currently.

Am having fun with these list poems lately! As it turns out, I tend to have a number of disparate thoughts on a subject and often want to write in much more to a poem than a poem can take while still being cohesive. And Lo, a solution! The entry number is not made up.