. .

Today I must pack, get Romulus to boarding school, think about my reading and a little class to lead. I'm off to Dartmouth tomorrow. Getting on a plane. I'll be back Sunday night. If I can check in, I might. Otherwise, wish me happy flights and I'll see you when I get back.

***

week nine

. . . . . . .

[from Utter: part ii]


-9

When he wakes every light in the house is on. He crosses through the study into the living room to look for her but she is neither on the couch nor sleeping in the blue arm chair as he expects. He turns to the dining room where he finds her body splayed in a wooden chair beside the oak table. She wears a full black slip. Her panties are pushed down around her ankles. She is barefoot. Her throat has been cut with the knife discarded on the table beside the melons, also cut open, that spill their slick black seeds into chunks of red flesh and juice. A bolt of white silk runs through the melons, back into the kitchen, forth into the entryway down the stairwell and out into the street. Her poem is written into the silk, he realizes, and he begins to shake, for he cannot take care of this, all of this, and he backs into the bedroom to pray, where when he wakes, every light in the house is on. He crosses through the study into the living room to look for her but she is neither on the couch nor sleeping in the blue arm chair.

***

. . . . . .

[redux: disappeared it]

. . . . .

Of the wash.

***

. . . .

Gorgeous Day of the Dead Bread at La Bloga. Make your own.

***

I mean why two in the morning? After sleeping 3 or 4 hours: wakefulness, my heading going like a bat out of hell. Elusive sleep again. This journal will persist on lack of sleep. It's no use writing about tiredness. Tiredness is not enough. When I was irritable and pessimistic about everything yesterday--even resentful at everything that demanded I be awake--tiredness was not enough word to give anyone. What's wrong? Oh, I'm very very tired. See what I mean? What is it about words that they cannot speak to body without peacock-feathering all their inadequacies? Say it: I'm just exhausted. Doesn't work, does it? It hardly suggests that whole strings of days, weeks, of insomnia and desks piled high and deadlines and hundreds and hundreds of emails and ten loads of laundry and events and events and events and a strange little book calling where are you where are you where are you are ready to spill past that word, exhuastion, overflowing in the infinite way the head has a way of seeming to the body who so obviously aches for it.

***

What's more (because we at Reli[e]able Signs speak only of two subjects, sleep being first since we seem to have no agency in it whatsoever, which makes it endlessly, well, unpredictable, much like the weather): weather. Which is not small talk as is supposed. But the hinge. Whether. Guess what? Yes! It is gray. And gray is clearly the new black.

***

. . .

[redux: disappeared it]

***

. .

Points off for out of focus. Which is default mode these dark gray days. The sun has gone missing and the daylight hours are ever more amputated as we grow into winter, the end of the year. I still don't know how the rest of the world copes with this darkness. Me, I start looking at plane tickets to the desert where sanely enough they don't do daylight savings. It's nearly seven in the morning; the sky in the east has only a hint of its deep deep blue. The rest is as dark as the trees.

***

And now: full sun! But Sunday morning started out the same and by noon it was gray and windy. Have I mentioned cold? It never fell. It summered, it wintered, it was sweaty and cold at once. The trees made a feeble attempt to yellow and orange; it rained for a day and all color was swept to mush in the streets. Then it turned cold enough for gloves and coats and hats and boots.

***

Notes from Brother John-Luke's lecture on the philosophy of living being:

What is the human person as a living being? What is it to live?

My first experience of living is very concrete, for I have a great diversity of vital operations--seeing, hearing, thinking, loving, touching, etc.--but I also have a profound interiority. The most profound. The temptation is to identify the human person with that which is most interior. Plato identifies man with his intelligence.

So at first I am scattered by diversity, but the older I get, the more interior I become, so that it becomes important that I have the experience of a vital unity, as well. The danger of living in interiority is the rejection of the body. But without my body--and without my diversity of vital functions--can I know what it is to live? The temptation of intelligence is towards this lack of realism.

But then, in order to make discerning judgements, I must recognize that the source of this diversity is that which determines my vital operations: objects? To what extent does object determine my vital operations (vision, for example), given that it is I who sees, not eye? Well, what is object? The table or the sensible quality of the table? --What is first when I hear, when I see? The senses allow us diversity of experience but also commonality, the same reality.

Analysis: search for order. What determines my intelligence?

I must make a distinction between that which determines my experience (object) and the conditions that inform the experience (the body in illness, for instance). We can can make wrong judgements: movement has the capacity to modify my experience, to hinder determination. Distance also. Quantity also. Thus, the material aspect can modify but does it determine?

Proper sensibles versus common sensibles. Proper sensibles determine directly my experience.

I who see, I who love, lucidity: the interior experience of myself: I think therefore I am: Descartes' certain consciousness of his eye. His I. I exist. That discovery of that I is through my vital operations, body, which is receptivity: receiving from reality. What is my will, my love? The first affection of the soul, the first cause, is myself.

The body is going to be more or less engaged in its varying degrees of life in vital unity. It's not the same thing to think as to digest food. I can abstract from reality and therefore have a certain autonomy from reality. Thinking--abstraction--that modality does not require body. I can think of you while you are gone. Intelligence is not determined by matter. It can abstract from matter.
Aristotle: is the intelligence material? If so you would have a sensible quality of it.

The seduction of my intelligence is that there is something infinite about it as opposed to the finite quality of matter, extension, body. The temptation is to see body as not noble, to privilege intelligence over body. But to exercise my intelligence--to think of a reality, there has to be experience. I cannot think outside of my sensible experience.

The sensible quality of "table" is formal abstraction. I've never touched a man. Never seen a man.

The unique character of intelligence is that it operates on abstraction. I move myself in the midst of diversity which at the same time touches something that is more than body, that the body itself cannot explain. The induction respects profoundly the relationship between diversity and unity.

***

week eight

After mass, lunch at the priory, then dishes with the brothers. A relief after the dream that left me shaken and flipping through the catechism for evidence against it. Woke and said to H in the kitchen: dreamt I joined. It wasn't bliss. Referent, he said. What are you talking about?

***

. . . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . .

Because these last weeks are relentless and all I want to do is rest.

***

[redux: disappeared it]

***

. . .

[redux: disappeared it.]

. .

Don't miss Gabe's lovely photonarrative of the Knox Million Poems Show. Thanks so much, you.

***

You're looking at a thing that doesn't exist anymore. Karen and I went back to Chambers Street so I could show her the red room, but the lot had been cleaned out, some of the building demolished. Strange to have photographed the place over weeks, to have planned to go back at some point when I might be better at seeing it, framing it, and to have it all but disappear. What kind of reality are photographs?

***

Thank you, Jake. I'm learning from you.

***

Predictable crash: struggling this morning to get to the office to meet with students and do all the work I couldn't get to this weekend with the Knox Million Poems event. I'm down with a sore throat and a fever that started the night before last and the weather has settled into the cold monotone gray I think is the color of November. What happened to fall?

***

week seven

Couldn't resist posting this photo of Jasper. Yes, the Million Poems Show was beautiful. Want to see some pictures? Listen, there is nothing better than friendship. It was wonderful to see you all again. You're amazing.

***

. . . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . .

Jasper and Karl both in Chicago, three and a half hours away. The miracle that they both got as far as O'Hare and somehow found each other. Am I prepared to improvise? To cancel if necessary? No. --Then get on it.

***

. . . .

Karen arrives today in an airplane. I'll drive out to Moline to meet her on this blustery pretty day and watch the wind in the clouds and trees on the way. There are shadows of trees everywhere moving on the sides of houses. Wind chimes and leaves. That's the sound.

I'm making mole. My feet are cold.

***

Cloves and red chilis. Cashews and Spanish peanuts. Chocolate. That's the smell.

***

Cold sunny wind. Went for a run in the yellow hat and periwinkle fleece and red/orange running shirt and two pairs of black leggings and the soft black cotton gloves. From summer to winter. Wink. Waved at Zali from a distance. He watched me run and didn't recognize me. His hands with coffee and a cigarette.

***

Returned from the Moline airport without Karen. Stupid O'Hare. Jasper sits in the airport at Oakland and waits to fly towards tomorrow's big day. On the drive back I remembered the last conversation I had in the Moline parking lot. Jake got into the car and told me a long story. I remembered what I said to him later that night. I said I heard you say two things: there is love and there is God. Yes, he said. You heard me. You heard me.

***

. . .

Four o'clock now and off to the office. H says: I love the Gina Franco fashion show in the morning.

Glad it's fun for somebody.

***

Yeah baby threw the golden raisins in. We're always eating, my kind and yours, right? Right.

***

No. Just no.

***

. .

I am not quiet enough to give you a detail. I'm looking. Hold on.

***

week six

Up for the day. Yes, it's that kind of day. That kind of week. But exciting company arrives Thursday, and I'm cooking again, so I'm getting in gear.

***

postcard: Knox College


In honor of Homecoming the English Department's Caxton Club Presents:

THE MILLION POEMS SHOW

(Poetry's revenge on television: talk, reading, collaboration, and audience participation.)

Show: Friday, October 13, 4 pm, Studio Theatre, Center for Fine Arts
Reading: Saturday, October 14, 2 pm, Muelder Reading Room, Seymour Library


featuring:

Karen Leona Anderson grew up in Connecticut and received her B.A. from McGill University. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop and the recipient of a Rotary Scholarship to New Zealand. Her work has been published in jubilat, Verse, Indiana Review, Fence, Volt, and other journals. She is currently writing a dissertation on poetry and science in Ithaca, New York, where she helps curate the SOON reading series.

Jasper Bernes was born in Southern California in 1974 and educated at Hampshire College and Cornell University. His poems appear or are forthcoming in The Canary, Bayou, No Tell Motel, Xantippe and in The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries. He lives in the Bay Area with his girlfriend Anna Shapiro and their son, Noah, and is currently working on his PhD in twentieth-century poetry at UC Berkeley.

Once a contestant on Who's Life is This Anyway?, "Karl Parker" has publicized his
poems--both prose and the other kind--in journals and webplaces such as Spoon River, Fence, Seneca Review, MiPoesias, and the tiny. He was awarded the 2004 National Arts Club Literary Committee Scholarship for Poetry and nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2005). Having received an MFA from the New School, he currently teaches creative writing at Hobart & William Smith colleges, where there's an enormous body of water, and is more than happy to be here.

Show Host: poet and critic Jordan Davis is the author of Million Poems Journal and host of The Million Poems Show, a live poetry talk show based in Manhattan at the Bowery Poetry Club. His blogs, Equanimity and Million Poems, draw more than 35,000 readers each month. His poems have appeared in Chicago Review, American Letters and Commentary, Boston Review, and Fence, among other journals. He is a columnist for the acclaimed literary review, Constant Critic, and his reviews have appeared in Publishers Weekly, Paper, and the Village Voice. He has read his poetry everywhere from Copenhagen to San Diego, giving several readings a year in New York. He has also lectured at the Poetry Project, The New School, the University of Kansas, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Columbia College, and the New York City public schools. With Chris Edgar he edits The Hat, an annual literary journal.


Musical Guest: as one-third of Nothing Painted Blue and under his own name, Franklin Bruno has released over a dozen albums of original songs since 1990, and toured the U.S. extensively. His newest band is The Human Hearts, whose debut CD Civics is forthcoming on Chicago-based Tight Ship records. Other musical projects include the "songbook" album Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs of Franklin Bruno, and several records and tours with The Mountain Goats. His criticism has appeared in Village Voice, Slate, and The Believer; his book on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces (Continuum Press) appeared in 2005. His poetry has appeared in Zyzzyva, The Hat, and the anthology Intersections: Innovative Poetry from Southern California (Green Integer). He has taught philosophy at UCLA, Pomona College, and Northwestern University; in January, he will begin an appointment at Bard College.

Sponsored by the John and Elaine Fellowes Fund, the Office of the Dean of Students, and the Office of the Dean of the College. Special thanks to the Department of Theater and Dance for their sponsorship and support.

This event is free and open to the public.

***

. . . . . . .

Terrible insomnia. Crashed into exhuastion Friday afternoon post reading, came home and circled the desk before settling in to write. Gave up for bed when I felt it felt too easy, that the tensions holding it together are uncoiling towards redundancy. Woke yesterday with an anxious head but a body too tired to take care of much of anything besides groceries with H. Circled the desk again all day but didn't look at the document. You know what to do about redundancy my head said and my head said yes but give me time to do it in, I don't feel imaginative enough today. And the other voices: what do you think you're doing? You can't be serious. Go water the plants and do laundry if you want something worthwhile to do. But I expect those when the writing is scary. If they weren't there to put up obstacles, would it have been worth it after all? So when the light slanted towards evening I went out with the camera for a walk and looked for things I wouldn't have otherwise seen--a firetruck in a repair shop window, lovers on a set of stairs, rails catching the setting light and running off into the distance on a bend--and came home with my nervous head atwitter and picked up the catechism where there is always something strange to ponder. I took it to bed. It reminds me of the joy of reading Milton. I got up all night, found nothing to do, went down again. A hard won day of rest. So I kicked and screamed the whole way. So what.

***

Protoevangelium:

"I will put enmity between you
and the woman
and between your offspring
and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel."

***

. . . . . .

Another, bright and beautiful. And Saturday! I slept.

***

redux:

[disappeared it]


***

. . . . .

So I've been here less, but wanting to get here. A day is a frame. It selects and composes. Some things are left out, substituted, saved for the next frame. Zali and I spent two evenings preparing his poems in English. He translated them from Hebrew and I helped with phrasing. We'll read them together today:

***

postcard: Knox College

Caxton Club Presents:

Israeli author Zali Gurevitch will read from his own poetry at Caxton Club at 4 p.m., Friday, October 6, in the Alumni Room, Old Main. Gurevitch, who is the Glossberg Visiting Israeli Scholar at Knox this fall, will read selections in both Hebrew and English from his critically acclaimed books of poetry, "Excerpts from an Open Dream," "Broken Line," "Land," "Hevel: The Book of the Voice," "Ha and Da: This and That," and "The Book of the Moon." Gurevitch has won numerous awards in Israel for his poetry, including the Kugel, Hershon and Akum prizes. In addition to nine volumes of poetry and translations, Gurevitch has published more than two dozen essays and a book, "On Place." He teaches anthropology, sociology and literature at Hebrew University. While at Knox this term he is teaching two courses, "Time and Place in Jewish and Israeli Thought" and "Anthropology of Dialogue." The reading is sponsored by the Glossberg Visiting Israeli Scholar Program. Supported by a gift from Knox College trustee Joseph Glossberg, the program brings distinguished Israeli academic figures to teach and give public lectures at Knox.

***

from the final section of what we read:

what what
my father, king
what is your will
i'll go and bring

my will is filled
to the brim and more
go on and bring me
an empty thing

an empty vessel
my will to keep
and keep the more
so I will empty, sleep;


(so beautiful, dear Zali)

***

. . .

Ever try to view yourself through the lens of people who don't know you? Yup. I did.

***

This photo is for Suzanne. Thanks for the light, you. I mean it. Thanks.

***

. . .

It's hard, isn't it, to live in the world when you've been coiled up with a dream?

***

. .

Longing for something, but what? On the same plane as learning a skill and finding it difficult, too difficult. But longing. There is sun. Warmth. Solitude. The ingredients, all right. Everything is in order. But not my head. My head is not right.

***

There could almost be nothing so pleasing as that repetition of the sign.

***

Redux:

[disappeared it]


***

week five

Picnic banquet after mass yesterday. Melons, cookies, spinach wraps, cider. When I turned the camera in his direction he cast me a look of mischief, held up his plate, and gave himself a halo. Ham. I had no idea. And I was afraid to bring out the camera.

***

Finishing Thomas and Beulah today in the Intro to Lit class. I remembered this morning on waking that when I presented on the book during my qualifying exam, I was asked to talk about renunciation. The question stopped me cold. Not because there isn't plenty of it in the poems, but because much of it seems linked to an everyday common place desire for a better life--or a different one. The kind of wishing everyone feels. I would have known how to better respond to the question had longing been more explicity tied to questions about race or poverty, which is nearly too much what one expects of the poems. It's an easy response and a unsatisfying answer. I'm thinking today that where renunciation becomes most pressing is with the marriage. Everywhere, the tensions between what he, what she, perceives, needs, hopes, dreams, appreciates. Of course it's in the marriage. Which somehow makes me sad.

In the poetry workshop, we're reading Jordan Davis's poems in celebratory anticipation of the Million Poems Show coming to Knox on October the 13th. Featuring Karen Anderson, Jasper Bernes, and Karl Parker (whom we've already read in the last few weeks). Muscial guest, Franklin Bruno.

***

. . . . . . .

Going to where the monks go this time of week. This is not church on Sunday. It's lighter than that.

***