{ Jennifer Finstrom: On Etymology. }

On Etymology
by Jennifer Finstrom

Word origins taken from Chambers Dictionary of Etymology

When I learn a word's history, its meaning
changes; there is no returning from that point.
Of course, we all understand how it is
with moon, the liquid connection
between lunar and lunatic: this is
felt where the blood gutters nearest
the heart. But other words hide their pasts,
keep old selves locked in cupboards,
in medicine cabinets, behind heavy doors.
For example, take focus. This simple word,
only two syllables, that we have come to accept
as a central point. But focus conceals a fiery

precedent. In Latin, it is a hearth or fireplace,
cognate with bosor, Armenian for red.
Johannes Kepler used it in an astronomical text
as the burning point of a lens or mirror.
And as well, there is no going back
to the image of chameleon as lizard. No, now
it exists fierce and golden, Greek
chamailéon or ground lion. This
transition to mammal from reptile
is almost as great as the difference between
blood and the root that lies behind it:
the Old Germanic blodan, possibly to bloom.

{ Richard Jackson: Point of View. }

Point of View
by Richard Jackson

While his memories pace back and forth like expectant
Fathers, he tries on the loneliness like a loose-fitting shirt.
Somewhere in the room there is the ticking of a palmetto bug.
It reminds him of the planes on the way to Kosovo,
The fading crackle of wireless ground-to-air talk.
He'd like to take an eraser to that life, leaving
Just a few ghosted lines separating one nothing
From another nothing. Outside his window there is a
Darkness except for one balcony where a woman is sitting.
The smoke from her cigarette disappears into the stories
Reflected in the windows above her. She is probably reading
One of those romance novels where the characters speak
In the extinct language of a love she once knew.
Okay, let's drop the fiction. You know who you are.
Despite searching for yourself under stone, in trash bins,
Behind boarded doors of houses about to collapse.
The old loves pile up like skeleton sculptures in a Capuchin
monastery. What do they know about how we come back?
The things you want to say are as light as helium.
Now it's 12:14 A.M. In this world, two parallels meet,
The circle never closes. Maybe you have cried out
In your sleep. It's so hot the leaves are burning off
The trees. By Fall we'll be able to see right through
The forest into the future. By then you'll know this is
about me. The palmetto bug is just keeping time.
What's at stake here is how we define ourselves.
You are me when you are not you. I am you
When I am not me. The branch above us wonders if
It is time to fall. Our lives line the post office
And supermarket walls like runaway children.

Sometimes we just want to appear in our own mirrors.
I've double-locked the doors. It's so hot the blackout
Won't end for a few more days. In Lebanon
The light spreads out like shards of a mortar
Round. One family trying to escape is hit by
A random bomb. This is really about us, isn't it?
Are bombs random? These lines? Who was it
That I began with? As a kind of defense? There's a barge
Stuck where the river changed course. Day and night
Take turns trying to escape our field of vision.
Hope spreads its tentacles but we know better.
When I started, this was supposed to be about love.
But look, we can't even control what we think about
The moon, the train's distant whistle which is sad
Or promising, the existence of centaurs, peacekeepers,
Runaways, skeletons. I can't stick to one subject
For more than a line. In no time at all I will find
A real self. I don't know how many bugs have come in
Through this open window, a kind of lung these lives
Pass in and out of. You, me, him, I understand, I do,
Your hesitation. The branch, too, is about to fall. You,
It, have no idea how much of me this love has become.

{ THE STARS THE MOON THEY HAVE ALL BEEN BLOWN OUT.* }

Having never ever done one of these before I suddenly find myself in the position of wanting to? ANONYMEME! Except, not quite? I don't know. It's a game; let's call it that.

HIT ME WITH SECRETS, GUYS.

Serious/not-so-much, whatever. Just. I don't know. INDULGE ME. Have something to say? SAY IT. Have something to shout? TAKE IT OVER THERE. I will take: text, pictures, quotes, whatever. If you spam me with poetry I am probably not going to protest. This is ~secret~ spam. Go crazy.

--

( I still have eczema. )

--

*) This is exactly how I remember this song when it plays in my head. BUT THEN IT STOPS AND I WAS IN THE DARKNESS; THE DARKNESS I BECAAAAAAAAME. All the time! I fucking love this song.

--

Just realised that it's been FOREVER since I've had one of my weird Jethro-JDM-Claire Forlani dreams. How disappointing!

Whatever: I'm making up for it by reading lots of Puck/Rachel Glee fic. SHUT UP IT'S GREAT.

{ Richard Jackson: After All This. }

After All This
by Richard Jackson

After all this love, after the birds rip like scissors
through the morning sky, after we leave, when the empty
bed appears like a collapsed galaxy, or the wake of
disturbed air behind a plane, after that, as the wind turns
to stone, as the leaves shriek, you are still breathing
inside my own breath. The lighthouse on the far point
still sweeps away the darkness with the brush of an arm.
The tides inside your heart still pull me towards you.
After all this, what are these words but mollusk shells
a child plays with? What could say more than the eloquence
of last night's constellations? or the storm anchored by
its own flashes behind the far mountains? I remember
the way your body wavers under my touch like the northern
lights. After all this, I want the certainty of hidden roots
spreading in all directions from their tree. I want to hear
again the sky tangled in your voice. Some nights I can
hear the footsteps of the stars. How can these words
ever reveal the secret that waits in their sleeping light?
The words that walk through my mind say only what has
already passed. Beyond, the swallows are still knitting
the wind. After a while, the smokebush will turn to fire.
After a while, the thin moon will grow like a tear in a curtain.
Under it, a small boy kicks a ball against the wall of
a burned out house. He is too young to remember the war.
He hardly knows the emptiness that kindles around him.
He can speak the language of early birds outside our window.
Someday he will know this kind of love that changes
the color of the sky, and frees the earth from its moorings.
Sometimes I kiss your eyes to see beyond what I can imagine.
Sometimes I think I can speak the language of unborn stars.
I think the whole earth breathes with you. After all this,
these words are all I have to say what is impossible to think,
what shy dreams hide in the rafters of my heart, because
these words are only a form of touch, only tell you I have no life
that isn't yours, and no death you couldn't turn into a life.

--

Re-post? Don't even care. After all this, I want the certainty of hidden roots / spreading in all directions from their tree. I want to hear / again the sky tangled in your voice.