{ Paul Guest: Melancholia. }

[delga]

Melancholia
by Paul Guest

Almost I rushed from home to tell you this:
that melancholia, the word, when broken
down to its roots, its ancient Greek particulars,
means black hole. How perfect. How yes,
I've been reading the dictionary again.
How ready I am to adopt this codified cosmos,
where at the center of things we see
and helplessly grow to love, oxygen and water,
the night around us rumbling with trains—
how there is in the heart of them this word.

Lorded over by the seraphim in shabby pajamas
who refuse to shave, whose wings
are matted, who endlessly sigh,
we are filled by God with ridiculous longing
in this universe of anxious matter: lost
marbles and empty tubes of lipstick
the color of cranberries; the dank fug
of old books never to be read and the wind
ever to disturb; the newborn squirrel
at your feet, dazed and dying in its nest
of cement. Undone by the stars
like buttons on a blouse, I’ve tried to escape.
I ended up here. I would tell you
Why my nails grow faster than yours,
Never snag on the hem
of anything, or why in an audience
of coughers I am safe from sickness.
I would tell you how it would be
to fly like Flash Gordon on a gold rocket sled
through a black hole’s heart,
through melancholia, where time soon stops.
But I would be wrong. In error
there’s freedom, though, and since no one knows,
it is safe to say on the other side
you’d find a world of sentient blue beanbags
who love the poetry of Petrarch,
and while you rested from your journey,
they would be happy to hold you
and hum softly in the dim dark your favorite song.
It’s true. I have seen it, though
I find myself here without good reason
and no comfortable place to sit.

I’m riddled with errors, machine-gunned
by wrong, leaking half-truth like rain
on a sun-rinsed day, like this day
which leaves no room for melancholia, for black bile,
the true meaning of the word
which I misread and gave myself to
happily, my heart skipping rope like a girl,
and to think I almost rushed here to tell you.

Comments

[twincy.livejournal.com]

Okay, unrelated, but: Skarsgard is set to film a post-apocalypse epic entitled Melancholia later this year. Co-starring: his dad. I'm a little excited.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know! Also including the two Charlottes - Rampling and Gainsbourg! <3

[zeitheist.livejournal.com]

I think I've misunderstood what this poem is about, but frankly it feels like exactly what I needed to read today. ♥

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Do you ever misread something, only to find that the accurate text is lacking in compare to what you originally found there? That's basically what this poem is about.

About to email you. Have an odd, possibly embarrassing (for me!) request.