Unlearn the Constellations to See the Stars

Earthgirl and I took motherfucking Metro (and O! Metro motherfuckers) yesterday to see the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective at the East Wing, that's the video of our trip, where were you? Some really good images of permanent East Wing art, but East Wing allows you to take photos of permanent exhibitions while forbidding photos of visiting exhibitions, I was only able to sneak one shot of a Lichtenstein, this one, taken totally at random:

And got HEY!ed by the guard, annoyed I made him look up from his iPhone. Lichtenstein's cartoon-themed paintings he's renowned for never ever oomphed me (despite the above), but up those stairs to the left of that painting, up the stairs past Lichtenstein's cartoon phase, Holyfuck. Holyfuck. I had never seen his sculpture in person, Holyfuck, the dot paintings, Holyfuck, the Japanese paintings, Holyfuck. HEY!, here start the Mekon requests I promised, below the fold more Mekon requests lotsa links, Jack Gilbert poems!

• The end of capitalism?
• For the death-worshippers.
• Hold that football, Lucy.
• Personal thoughts on anger.
• Rivers of Santorum.
• A victory over suppression?
• What Romney lost.
• He didn't get rich being a generous motherfucker.
• He didn't get rich being a generous motherfucker.
• Powerful wishful thinking.
• When assholes clash.
• Scandals and Veteran's Day.
• Most startling photos of 2012?
• So, Metro was single-tracking Red Line for maintenance like they do every fucking weekend, forty-five minute wait there, forty-five minute wait back, they motherfuckers were charging Rush Hour fares. Fuckers.
• Hey! Did you know that Washington DC has a professional soccer team? It's true, they play at four this afternoon in Summer in Houston, where they never win, where Houston plays on a cheater's field, where if they come out only a goal down I'll consider it a victory.
• Dusk & Dawn.
• Julian Cope compendium. This is one of my five favorite songs.
• Fuzzbox.
• Music w/roots in the aether.

FAILING AND FLYING

Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.






SOUTH

Jack Gilbert

In the small towns along the river

nothing happens day after long day.

Summer weeks stalled forever,

and long marriages always the same.

Lives with only emergencies, births,

and fishing for excitement. Then a ship

comes out of the mist. Or comes around

the bend carefully one morning

in the rain, past the pines and shrubs.

Arrives on a hot fragrant night,

grandly, all lit up. Gone two days

later, leaving fury in its wake.

FIDELITY

Jack Gilbert

He's absurd about the fountain.
Obsessed.

That the verse be pure
And the letters cut with grace.

For this sorry square,
The brutality of this sun.

Proportions,
Where there isn't even a library.

Or he speaks of the girls
Coming for water.

How that one arranges the light,
Is this year's accomplishment.

What if she does take the morning
On her? And those breasts?

Already there is gossip
That only leaves her peasants.

To celebrate so a village girl
Soon to be broken.







TEAR IT DOWN

Jack Gilbert

We find out the heart only by dismantling what

the heart knows. By redefining the morning,

we find a morning that comes just after darkness.

We can break through marriage into marriage.

By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond

affection and wade mouth-deep into love.

We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.

But going back toward childhood will not help.

The village is not better than Pittsburgh.

Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.

Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound

of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls

of the garbage tub is more than the stir

of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not

enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.

We should insist while there is still time. We must

eat through the wildness of her sweet body already

in our bed to reach the body within the body.