On the contrary.

“I Know You Think I’ve Forgotten”, Jane Hirshfield

This poem is really rather implicit, how much it leaves in the blank space around the words. I’ve not forgotten either. Cannot forget something so important.

“Lilting”, Derrick Austin

I’ve put this up here before, but I came across it again today and so here it is again. I still just love that opening line, In bed, we are lavender together. And the whole poem too.

“Wistful sounds like a brand of air freshener”, Bob Hicok

This is fucking lovely. I mean, fuck.
First, talk about relatability: It’s not that I don’t have enough sadness, but I’m always looking for better, more aquatic or tastier sadness, for the kind of light that comes when the sky tilts its head at dusk and wonders, in colors we understand as language, why this all has to end. This kind of reminds me of another poem, which I’ll interject below.
Then: I’ve noticed that out of the nothing that could be here, everything is. Like, what, fucking beautiful. And of course, the ending: I’ll be the man in the t-shirt that has an extra sleeve in case the third arm I need shows up, because so far, I’ve dropped almost everything I’m desperate to hold. Which for me, evokes: to hold to hold to hold, which I used as counter as to find to find to find before, but I’m now thinking that perhaps we cannot really hold and so it really is about finding then, right?

“i’m going back to Minnesota where sadness makes sense”, Danez Smith

This also, fucking fucking beautiful. I don’t think I loved it so much when I first came across it, mainly saved it and sent it to Anna (who is from Minnesota), anyhow, I like sending poems to people, but this one cuts deep anyhow. Gets at the meat of it, and leaves it, that’s the meat, that’s really all that could be done, and something of the sort.

“Hell”, Franz Wright

To this, touche. Funny, a good counter.

I saw some slides today on art, art as avoidance, as approach, as escape. A resplendent smattering of shattered and scattered aspects of reality. (@hammuraber)
I’m not quite settled on art and its purpose or any of that jazz in general, and I do enjoy thinking of it here and there, but it must be multitudinous and so I don’t feel bad leaving it at that much of the time.

“The Gods Watch Us Through the Window”, Beth Ann Fennelly

Lol. I think I actually laughed at this one. A kind of dry laughter. Anyhow, a stone. I’ve been playing with an idea from Sisyphus, which is getting stuck into a poem I’m struggling with, so perhaps that’ll show face in the coming days.