Solar Guano

Are you not my man in a robe?

2004-11-14T01:43:00.000-08:00

DEAR JACK,

I’ve asked this of only one other; when can I come visit? I’ve yet to be so forward with you and I’d rather get it out of the way. I have another reversal, but if you have another name by all means…Quickly then, a reversal of a Celan poem:

HAIR MOONS

Below the white-white cityscape.
A grass-
Level word
Disperses out to darkness’ meeting; no longer
Moving speeches to end spoken under this side
Of animalkind.

I wish I were in love with things at grass-level, but I’m afraid I’m just in love with being pretty which is just a little higher. Pathetic, I know, but where is there a court that would convict? There isn’t one, but do I have you? Are you not my man in a robe? I know you think me too cute, but there is time for finding names for this, my worry. Celan says ’there is an end to giving of names.’ The longer I think of it the more I believe it, and that is sad in itself. Name me, Jack. Keep naming. Can you name there? Are you yourself named any longer? Can you name at all in your mind?

The road sign and its shadow; the sign is not its shadow, it is itself. And the shadow is itself. Do you even care? I can walk through a shadow, but not through the golden yellow sign. A snippet from a magazine: ‘Dress yourself in wild attire to stoke your energies.’ Ah, the ‘Whatever it takes’ ethos, no? ‘Just don’t hurt yourself.’ These are just the cop-outs I’ve been looking for.

Someone broke in last night and deliberately stole my sense of humor. I hadn’t locked the door so one might say it was my fault. Had it been in the planning for days, weeks? I was caught with my guard down, and that is always punished. Someone, (the thief perhaps?), keeps switching the caps on the water bottles in the refrigerator. All the colors are mixed up and there is no end to the frustration. But things are gleaming here. Gleaming like a new haircut or the feeling of a new pair of boots. This is the same negotiation, leading to the same dismay.

Solar Guano

Consider this an invitation

2004-11-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

DEAR JACK,

I have begun a master class for divas. Consider this letter an invitation. The tempos run from leaden crawls to 120 bpm, but we rescue the rose each night regardless. I am as shabby as you are light on your feet. Last night I decided to end the epoch of my embarrassment with a duet at Rosie’s Red Ballroom. There I became a singular being and everyone went along with it. It was magic. We held down an hour as if it were five minutes. I performed a suave move during ‘Now and Then.’ I love the mirrors there. They are as direct as a bullet fired. Bring more on your next visit.

I have for you a reversal from the ones I’ve written you about:

SING ME THAT SONG, THE ONE ABOUT CALIFORNIA

In skinless sunlight, sulfurous,
I smoke
under the fluffy bushes of honeysuckle.

‘Stay inside, away from hell,’ I
remember you saying. The porcelain
day blackens while

bath water and rain run together. Who
would’ve thought it so refreshing?
The sexiness of the mailman
is becoming apparent

through the haze. ‘Drain
your insides
with sunspots,’ he says.
I hear the grinding

of sand underfoot,
the piles of letters
taken away in trucks.

It takes concentration to make this heavy bed. I take for a dark sound a clattering of grins. I am beat up every day, the children of the universe sing gospel in a triumphant strain. Are you flirting with the opposition? I don’t know how to deal with that.

The afternoon is older. Answer me, Jack. Tell me if the following is true. Old sorrows have as many defects as new, yet they have learned to resist what they despise. New sorrows haven’t that luxury? It used to bother me when people said I had potential. It seemed to focus too much on my liabilities. But now that is what I hope for. Too narrow a wanting has left me lonely at times. When I was younger it had a streamlining effect. Now the surfaces are many and the guts are so few. I consider myself regal in denim. For you, another reversal:

IGNORING A FEW APPLES

An arc of tied extension
cords hangs across the wall.
Apples are lined across the television.

The nudes painted onto canvases look
nothing like each other, look

nothing like bodies. Nor
do they look like apples.

SOLAR GUANO

2004-11-08T01:38:00.000-08:00

DEAR JACK,

Skin-care experts have become the new spiritual advisors. The labels, the marketing, the expense, it is all so enchanting. I can’t keep up; the hair care alone is a tempest. ‘No more going astray,’ I promise myself, but my all is partial, not a mere repeating, a backing up. I see the same things come about often enough to raise concern. How am I extreme? I have castor oil for my hair but I never use it. I’ve also started to show the signs of aging. It is more tortuous than originally imagined. Speaking of aging, this, another reversal; a hope, a wish, a lie. A singer has sung ‘all my lies are always wishes’:

SONG

There the fly spits, where I spit:
outside a bullsure tone I stand;
where I crane, mice do nothing.
Under the bull’s back I walk
before winter glumly.

I accept you. I accept our sadness
above the broken branch on the floor.

I know I’m no Ariel, but I’m not a regular either. High heels are amazing. Do you believe? They are painful. A little lidacaine, a needle, just a small amount and you can wear anything immediately. More to the point, am I your dainty? Have our subtleties been restored? I read animosity into every cough. A single drop has value. Someone said the devil speaks in the mist. I’m no a singer. I’m not, as Auden has written, ‘desiring to become a boxer, but realizing that it is, for me, impossible, I may refuse to relinquish the desire and turn on God and my neighbor in a passion of hatred and rejection because I cannot have what I want.’ Let me believe these things, Jack. I’ve arranged the polishes, my pulse taken twice, divided the kisses into blacks and reds. What a joy to lie against the new man. Slow to respond, a lot of business comes my way. I don’t complain. Are you still poorly known? Let’s have lunch. I know it won’t happen.

Solar Guano