Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Some Days Settle So That Nothing Crosses the Horizon










CLOSING HOURS

Ann Lauterbach

This trace, if it exists, is alms for delusion.   
An arch uncurls from the floor
scented with the scent of a tapestry, housed here.   
I recall the hour but not its passage
unless dream captures and ties it to sleep:
a fat bellhop smiles, shows me to the tower   
where I can watch the departure.
But some days settle so that nothing
crosses the horizon; stare as I will, no star   
needles the air. Now I am left
on the outskirts of a forest hemmed in by wheat   
where plump trees hide the image, its symmetry   
shot up and blown across the ground like feathers.   
The unicorn, the grail, blue and red wings   
of kneeling musicians, these are embroidered   
elsewhere. Perseverance was crowned.
Hope and Pity prayed for success.
How fast is this camera? Can it record a trace?   
There was a voyage. Four mounted horses   
strain against centuries.
To each is allotted: dust kicked up, smoke, plumage.


7 comments:

  1. Or maybe even if you don't: just heard BBC film critic Mark Kermode rave over "Patience After Sebald" after confessing he's never read a word of Sebald.

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  2. The basic problem is that while I still enjoy blogging, I'm truly tired of Hey! Look! Obama sucks and motherfucking crackers on multiple levels, hence the weekend vacation.

    Birds and in a few months, butterflies.
    ~

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  3. Thanks for the linked article on JSTOR. True. Funny, in, y'know, an utterly malicious way that makes me giggle even harder. True fact: it costs way less for a government library than for an academic one.

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  4. I saw Glass perform about 15 years ago in Gainesville, FL. A man in a suit and tie got up from his chair during the performance and went to the front, near the stage (this was in a small amphitheater that is part of an art museum) and began yelling, "People, people! This is NOT music! This is NOT art! You're all begin duped!"

    It's probably my favorite memory of a live musical performance ever.

    (Oh, and the performance was great).

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  5. Don't get the accusation part. People, anonymous ones at that, are constantly accusing you of something or other. Usually I don't know what. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not accusing you of being paranoid or even overly sensitive to feigned attack or even insult. And, hey, maybe it's all a part of the Kayfabe—kinda' like Superpac non-co-ordination—hereabouts. In the hedgehogs and foxes binary, that probably makes you a bustle in in the hedgerow. Not that there's anything wrong with that, or anything to get hung about. So. Yeah.

    Jack White, heh!

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  6. Heh! It's been fascinating getting friendly grief from friends analog and digital (and *me* analog and digital) whose opinions I value for not being as angrily partisan, as in as viscerally outraged constantly by crackers, like I used to be, it's like, you're inconsistent, and I'm like, Yes, exactly, thank you, though I'm using that in this case as a metaphor for all self-reevaluations and scourgings I'm thoroughly enjoying.

    And stop posting Def Leopard allusions!

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