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Sunday, August 7, 2005 |
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Goodnight, Peter You held the line for as long as you could, and God bless you for it.  9:15:38 PM  comment []
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 TWO TRANSLATIONS BY PAUL BOWLES* "The Art of Poetry," from The Lamp Stories by Paul Colinet The bird is in the bag; the bag, in the egg; the egg, in the rock; the rock, in the little finger; the little finger, in the moon; the moon, in the hunting dog; the hunting dog, in the steamship; the steamship, in the forest; the forest, in the powder-box; the powder-box, in the ring; the ring, in the kitten; the kitten, on the desert island; the desert island, in the blotter; the blotter, in the empty head; the empty head, in the night. "A Certain Dead Woman," from Minute Stories by Ramon Gomez de la Serna A certain dead woman said to me: "Don't you know me? You ought to. When you were with the other one, and kissed her false hair, it was my hair you were kissing." * from She Woke Me Up So I Killed Her: Translations by Paul Bowles (San Francisco: Cadmus Editions, 1985. 7:45:14 PM comment []
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The day begins hotter than predicted; indeed, the week's projections all have been revised upward. The aluminum window latch is hot to the touch when I slide the glass open and shut to release a spider who rode in on yesterday's dried denim. In the heart of the putative herb garden a single poppy blossoms, deep vivid red-orange in the mess of composted grass hay. It's beautiful, the flower--fragile tissue of its petals drying dark at the edges, wrinkling moistly toward the center. Lovelier than it might appear to me were it one of many others blossoming together, of its kind or not. Glorious, it is, like bindweed on a midden. I seem not to want to work. I seem just to want to comfort myself always. I sit, I think, I feel pain, I seek to alleviate it. Or numb myself to it. Reading and studying does this, and so does creating if you start with a struck vein. But any casting about mentally only brings the pain again to the fore and creating then seems not worth the risk of stimulating unpleasantness. Better passivity. Apple sleeps pressed hard against me as I write, the whole of her backbone in contact from my knee to my hip. In the plant room, a dead bat lies on the wood floor like a tiny black fist, the naked membranes of its wings tightly clutching the empty velvet egg of itself. I have the week's cookies to bake yet; the sugar and butter are half-creamed together in the bowl, the eggs coming to room temperature on the work table. A few dishes to wash. I'll use today's laundry-water allotment to wash the rag rugs; tomorrow, sheets and towels. By Tuesday we'll be desperate for clean clothes!
I've had a phone call: Surprise Valley Sally will visit me this afternoon. Hallelujah! A human! I'd better finish the baking... |
