jueves, febrero 21, 2008

Joseph Cornell

Six months ago, the Joseph Cornell exhibition was nearby in Salem, but I never made it. Check out the online exhibition.

I would have preferred the name, "His Mining of Far-Flung" (words the curators use in the description), instead of their title "Navigating the Imagination." Grrr, I was a ferry ride away.

martes, febrero 12, 2008

Structure: poem in progress

On one hand a news jump cut

from a blown fuse box (a boy

pointing to a burned wall) to

the electrocuted man

(shot of cables in the rain).



On the other I tell my students

the new confessionalism, always

incomplete. Never

complete me. Even the woman

who took her own life

began for me once I knew

it wasn’t me. It wasn’t a matter

of taking my own life. The new

confessionalism is not to be trusted,



like the old. Like the dairy or the meat

or hair coloring. For the first time I’m on

a special diet. The world is what

I can’t eat. And this weekend

what I can’t touch or come close to,

children, pregnant ladies, I can keep

a good 5 feet away from adults.

Atonement, what a waste.

Atonement, what a waste. Go rent La Vie en Rose.