Sunday, April 19, 2009

Found Poem from pages 12-13 of John Updike's Thirteenth Novel


I could not possibly need convincing, when shopping a wide selection--and smooth skins--I can,
And do, wonder in the same number of calories as you. And then my unhappiness is insubstantial,

Knowing it only from a can. Who he is, and where we are lovegazing together, really grates your beets
When, muttering about the gem of a vegetable he was, the fat man has stopped pretending to be asleep.

For the most inspired work of Narcissus, I needed another you. One I had found in a book--insubstantial,
Imagined on the becalmed waters of
the ferocious sea of my seeking, reflecting back the blue sunshine.
A gem of a carrot grows through a keyhole or a cast-off ring, like a versatile root spreads in your sleeping
Heavy, next to a spoiled man. In my middling years would I go this far? Afforded the rank of the earth?

In his gross voice, he has the temerity to tell of a cyclist's weekend of splitting his pants. The sunshine
Benefaction for his blindness. He needn't fear for his life, my desire being longer, hot and fresh enough
To eat. His personal "achievements" on the waves of air. Wholly disintegrate the dignified useful life in the earth.
Covered now with blue in green moss, lichen aging in millimeters. Interchangeably used for the ranting miniaturist

Bemoaning her in-grown state here descending into revenge's cake. Again, rice-powdered regrets aren't enough.
Called upon are the ripped hibiscus, the promise-packing punch, and we will change again into being, for a moment, Enough. Day in and day out, the tote bag of love is used. Interminably, for aging each other--miniaturists
Ourselves should be in every woman's rotation beyond the two, tired centerpieces of a frozen wedding cake.

The strokes I am tempted not to take, for both our sake, holding onto our pets, champagne splits, these moments
Are pulled out after the first year. After our own genteel atrocities of coldness, when to be sick all over again, in the air Spun scarf. Indoors beckons with a fresh bouquet by one beating the sweetness into the typical sponge cake
Over which the human pilot has resumed the controls from a moon-haunted silence to make granita, not grudges

Like me, thinking that my solitary rebellion was fully-weaned. Your understanding proves it yet substantial as air.
I could not possibly need convincing, promising everything, my mind, my body's secrets to who will listen--That I can.
Looking towards me, you are spurned into auto-pilot again, into moon-haunted silence to make granita, grudges
Toward the same face at thirty, glaring. As you grate your beets, your heart, where we are together lovegazing.















The writer Annie Dillard has said that turning a text into a poem doubles that poem's context. "The original meaning remains intact," she writes, "but now it swings between two poles [or two people.]"













18 comments:

Σφιγξ said...

http://www.observer.com/node/39731

And, Updike's Guardian Bad Sex in Fiction Lifetime Achievement Award, which celebrates "crude, tasteless or ridiculous sexual passages in modern literature."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/nov/29/awardsandprizes.badsexaward1

"But here let us reluctantly leave them, for biomechanics is one thing but intimacy quite another, isn't it ..." --Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day

Σφιγξ said...

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12929-sometimes-i-wish-we-were-an-eagle/

Σφιγξ said...

After I finished Card XVIII, I played this in the car. I was struck by the similarity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwaiE9nZWCk

Σφιγξ said...

Goodness, I am unbelievably consistent, except that I interpreted the ninth novel, The Coup (1978), long after the coup de grâce was delivered to the misplaced authority; the king, the father, the adulterer's adulterer. Unlike the note to Charles, there was no flight with another. I had much to work out then, with the eponymous novel, S.. Perhaps I was no better with my poison pen; I have often thought that I would not sacrifice the dyadic mysteries here again, or at least deal so openly with someone that the central inspiration of my life isn't slandered. It was very disrespectful, what I did.

Also, there is the novice's lesson in being all too willing to summon the stamp of permanence
after a few weeks of inseparation.

I was not very nice then, either, when I laughed over the fat man's obituary.

Σφιγξ said...

It really wasn't the fact that so-and-so paired off with whomever in the intervening hours, but that I allowed it to magnify my inadequacies, which are often subjected to the pressures of an abyssal dive. I hate being that person.

Σφιγξ said...

Yes. This is graceless. You can enter into the legal language protections against such things.

Σφιγξ said...

Graceless statements in the writing; I was striving to express how one might allow guarantees against the novel's circumstances, of running off, backfashioning dissatisfaction.

Without saying so, that is why you and L became so close, her divorce? She has that look of being taken by surprise.

I am not opposed to signing any documents to protect your interests; I gather material insecurity is an issue we have yet to negotiate.

As a child through a decades-long deferred divorce, I can say that it hurt me very much to see that happening to my mother, and like most of my acquaintances from similar situations, recognize that it is unjust, to wrangle over property and parental rights. I am very opposed to entering relationships, sealing them, just to depart from them. This is why I would never date anyone my age; at a tender age, I had a low tolerance for frivolity.

Σφιγξ said...

Is this what is bothering you?

Σφιγξ said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy1OuHCOXmc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJO3EfVjyk

http://www.ostia-antica.org/regio2/4/4-2.htm

http://www.ostia-antica.org/regio3/10/10-2.htm

Exercise 46.

Σφιγξ said...

Do you want to know my second greatest fear is, besides divorce? Bankrupting cancer and health conditions. I do not want to operate or aspirate anything that would force treatment. I will just say a prayer, since the outcome is the same.

Requiring long-term care in advanced age may be an inevitability that I can I support, but I am fairly capable now, of keeping people alive.

Σφιγξ said...

I think about living a long, healthy life and maximizing my contributions with the age-related benefits, if there are any, by far. I prefer to have one continuous love story and the burden of children with their bottomless requirements for money. I will say, I know.

Σφιγξ said...

Exercise 89 will go here.

Σφιγξ said...

https://www.ajronline.org/doi/10.2214/AJR.10.5856

Σφιγξ said...

Exercise 89. Thank you for reminding me.

https://1drv.ms/i/s!AsA4BY25Ql_1mXwtTGliBRWMZCH4?e=WmdjaM

Σφιγξ said...

You look back at this Updike novel about the flakiness of wives picking up the next new thing, like going on a meditation retreat in an ashram...Can you, in all your metamorphoses in life, trust that you didn't make a mistake? How can you judge me?

Σφιγξ said...

Few have the courage and persistence to change their lives (those lived intimately and those lived in public), which is why Judaism does not proselytize. The Light among nations is separated into sparks, and the desire to join the Jewish nation and keep mitzvot resides in degrees in all people. The Fire is lit, and the change happens by degrees. I cannot deny it is there.

Unlike changing one's vocation or taking up a dietary regimen and losing massive amounts of weight or changing one's sex, the journey has elevated my time, completely.

There is no personal incentive to changing habits, moving beyond lifestyles, and challenging received teaching. My family is very hurt and angry that their beliefs are suddenly not good enough for me. I do not create needless conflict with them, and we still see each other.

Σφιγξ said...

They do not bring it up anymore. We eat more scaled fish, and they like having a big dinner together Saturday night.

Σφιγξ said...

*Dayan Ha'Emet - The True Judge.

https://akhlah.com/hebrew/hebrew-word-of-the-day/dalet-words/