a shandean commonplace book

So what if the old man on the bus is trying and                              failing to remember his dead mom’s face, as if the past were not a cartoon tunnel scratched on a wall?                             He’s still trying, and when did we forget our cattle-shoes and feather-parkas, how we carry with us a lowing sadness, an extinguished memory of flight? Today I’m going to count all the                blackbirds between the prison and the Walmart where, right now, in its galloping sadness a bald man who sounds like a car horn is hector-lecturing his infant-hushing           ...

for Fadwa Soleiman Said the old woman who barely spoke the language: Freedom is a dream, and we don’t know whose. Said the insurgent who was now an exile: When I began to write the story I started bleeding. Freedom is a dream, and we don’t know whose— that man I last saw speaking in front of the clock tower when I began to write the story? I started bleeding five years after I knew I’d have no more children. That man I last saw speaking in front of the clock tower turned an anonymous corner and disappeared. Five years after I knew I’d have no more children my oldest son was called up for the army, turned an anonymous corner and disappeared. My nephew, my best friend, my second sister whose oldest son was called up for the army, are looking for work now in other countries. Her nephew, his best friend, his younger sister, a doctor, an actress, an engineer, are looking for work now in other countries stumbling, disillusioned, in a new language. A doctor, an actress, an engineer wrestle wi...

I always thought death would be like traveling in a car, moving through the desert, the earth a little darker than sky at the horizon, that your life would settle like the end of a day and you would think of everyone you ever met, that you would be the invisible passenger, quiet in the car, moving through the night, forever, with the beautiful thought of home. Carl Adamshick

My grandfather on his Allis Chalmers WC tractor, a natural Communist who hated Communism, is an example of Marx’s proletariat, though nothing near in his own mind what Marx meant by the masses — musing in his messianic beard, Marx intuited the enigma of surplus value that my grandfather understood from a cutter bar and threshing drum driving into the futre as the combine harvester, thus increasing the bushels he could harvest each hour, thus increasing his hourly productivity for each minute expended of muscle foot pound power — but Marx didn’t forsee, exactly, that the tractor would develop into a techno Taj Majal, complete with safety-glass cab, filtered A.C., a surround-sound systme that could rival Carnegie Hall or blast Led Zeppelin at decibels that left your ears dazed, easily drowning out the invincible tractor’s roar — and the hydraulics, so wsift you could lift the discs with the touch of a finger — and all this, in the old man’s mind, contrasting with the tractor he put me on...

This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calmed—see here it is— I hold it towards you. John Keats

It could be on a card, tucked away somewhere buried In a drawer under tools, the keys to doors Left long behind, folded like a phone number Into the black book of forgotten friends—the name Of that plant, tropical lenient frond we keep By the window for light in our kitchen, each broad leaf When young untwisting from its woody sheath Like a scroll unfolding, patiently, out of itself Until a mask emerges, or what looks a mask, Triangulate, emerald, shaped like a melting heart, Mottled in bordered squares like a turtle's shell, Each a trim of isinglass and lustrous depth of green. I look at the look of it and think Les Demoiselles D'Avignon, each glance turned slightly otherwise But still fixing on the viewer, so when you walk away You almost feel whatever it is beholding you From within the painting's flourishing Of brush and pigment, some distillation maybe Of the model's only life, the extract the artist Refines out of accidence. Quintessence Would be the word, but Pic...

The chiropractor sent me home with my left ankle taped, my neck cracked, and instructions not to sleep on my belly, so when it came time for bed, I dropped a tequila shot, laid back and closed my lids, entrails exposed to vultures of bad dreams. From the neighboring pillow, my love whispered theories of meditation, biofeedback, post- traumatic stress, and prayer. When she asked, "If a divine creator made the universe, who made the divine creator?" I mumbled, "Are you trying to talk me to sleep?" She smiled, then babbled past midnight, contemplating out loud the metaphysics of leaf production, the wonder of molecules that make up our bed, the web of my cell structure connected to hers, until I fell asleep, imagining the mitochondria of words, thinking, if god is love, let me sleep to this sound of her voice. Cheryl Dumesnil

The days were delightful and the hours were light, Particularly when one was on one's own And woke up in the middle of the night Never less alone than when alone. Reconciled to solitude, despite The machinations of the telephone That tempt the air with tenderness and spite, Never less alone than when alone. Mornings which dawned dim but not quite white, If paler than paper, ivory or bone, Promised the gorgeous sights of trite daylight, Never less alone than when alone. The shape of the day, its realistic rite, Depends upon which way the dice are thrown, From right to left, or it might be, left to right, But never less alone than when alone. Conceived in the depths but born upon the height Where the mountains of tomorrow shone, The soul may take its solitary flight, Never less alone than when alone. Daryl Hine

that men might learn what the world is like at the spot where the sun does not decline in the heavens.                           —Apsley Cherry-Garrard Frost bitten. Snow blind. Hungry. Craving fresh pie and hot toddies, a whole roasted unflippered thing to carve. Craving a bed that had, an hour before entering, been warmed with a stone from the hearth. Always back to Eden—to the time when we knew with certainty that something watched and loved us. That the very air was miraculous and ours. That all we had to do was show up. The sun rolled along the horizon. The light never left them. The air from their warm mouths became diamonds. And they longed for everything they did not have. And they came home and longed again. Elizabeth Bradfield

1. Indeed I live in the dark ages! A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens A hard heart. He who laughs Has not yet heard The terrible tidings. Ah, what an age it is When to speak of trees is almost a crime For it is a kind of silence about injustice! And he who walks calmly across the street, Is he not out of reach of his friends In trouble? It is true: I earn my living But, believe me, it is only an accident. Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill. By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me I am lost.) They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it! But how can I eat and drink When my food is snatched from the hungry And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty? And yet I eat and drink. I would gladly be wise. The old books tell us what wisdom is: Avoid the strife of the world Live out your little time Fearing no one Using no violence Returning good for evil -- Not fulfillment of desire but forgetfulness...

After a century, humpbacks migrate again to Queens. They left due to sewage and white froth   banking the shores from polychlorinated- biphenyl-dumping into the Hudson and winnowing menhaden schools.   But now grace, dark bodies of song return. Go to the seaside—   Hold your breath. Submerge. A black fluke silhouetted against the Manhattan skyline.   Now ICE beats doors down on Liberty Avenue to deport. I sit alone on orange   A train seats, mouth sparkling from Singh’s, no matter how white supremacy gathers   at the sidewalks, flows down the streets, we still beat our drums wild. Watch their false-god statues   prostrate to black and brown hands. They won’t keep us out though they send us back.   Our songs will pierce the dark fathoms. Behold the miracle:   what was once lost now leaps before you. Rajiv Mohabir

The sun rose here at 6:07 a.m. The weather, patchy fog, mostly sunny later, Highs 69-75. The fellows at THE PERFECT AUTO SHOP are kidding around, feeling chipper. . .                    . . . like having four aces, The phone rings. A voice at the other end says: "I need a quote on a water pump." "You need a quote?" (from one of the aces) "I'll give you a quote: 'To be or not to be, that is the question.'"            and hangs up! A minute later the phone rings back. A perky voice replies: "To sleep, perhaps to dream."              and hangs up! In Abilene? These guys have been watching the moon too long. Carl Rakosi

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are On their last leg. So what am we to do? A letter of complaint go just so far, Proving the only one in step are you.   Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes. A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad Before they gets to where you doesn’t knows The meaning what it must be meant to had.   The meteor have hit. Extinction spread, But evolution do not stop for that. A mutant languages rise from the dead And all them rules is suddenly old hat.   Too bad for we, us what has had so long The best seat from the only game in town. But there it am, and whom can say its wrong? Those are the break. Windows is shutting down. Clive James

Understanding is love’s other name.                        Thich Nhat Hanh

I admire the way mouse dashes across the top bracket of the blinds while we’re reading in bed. I admire the tiny whip   of its tail at the exact second my husband tries to grab it. I admire the way it disappears into our house and shreds various   elements. I admire the way it selects the secret corridors behind cupboards and drawers, the way it remains on the reverse   side of our lives. The mouse is what I think of when I think of a poem, or of music, going straight for the goods, around   the barrier of our thoughts. It leaves droppings, pretending to be not entirely substantial, falling apart a little here and there.   Clearly, it has evolved perfect attention to detail. I wish it would concentrate on the morning news, pass the dreadfulness out   in little pellets. Yesterday I found a nest of toilet paper and thought I’d like to climb onto that frayed little cloud. I would like   to become the disciple of tha...

Activism is the rent I pay for living on the planet.                        Alice Walker

Like any good son, I pull my father out of the water, drag him by his hair   through white sand, his knuckles carving a trail the waves rush in to erase. Because the city   beyond the shore is no longer where we left it. Because the bombed   cathedral is now a cathedral of trees. I kneel beside him to see how far   I might sink. Do you know who I am, Ba? But the answer never comes. The answer   is the bullet hole in his back, brimming with seawater. He is so still I think   he could be anyone's father, found the way a green bottle might appear   at a boy's feet containing a year he has never touched. I touch   his ears. No use. I turn him over. To face it. The cathedral   in his sea-black eyes. The face not mine—but one I will wear   to kiss all my lovers good-night: the way I seal my father's lips   with my own & begin the faithful work of drowning.     Ocean Vuong ...

“Listen, if it’s got four wheels or a dick you’re goin a have trouble with it, guaranteed,” said Palma.                         Annie Proulx

The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. Derek Walcott

You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty. Jessica Mitford

I have thought much upon who might be my ilk, and that I am ilk myself if I have ilk. Is one of my ilk, or me, the barber who cuts the hair of the blind? And the man crushed by cruelties for which we can't imagine sorrow, who would be his ilk? And whose ilk was it standing around, hands in pockets, May 1933, when 2,242 tons of books were burned? Not mine. So: what makes my ilkness my ilkness? No answers, none forthcoming. To be one of the ilks, that's all I hoped for; to say hello to the mailman, nod to my neighbors, to watch my children climb the stairs of a big yellow bus which takes them to a place where they learn to read and write and eat their lunches from puzzle trays—all around them, amid the clatter and din, amid bananas, bread, and milk. all around them: them and their ilk. Thomas Lux

No amount of belief makes something a fact.                        James Randi

River was my first word after mama . I grew up with the names of rivers on my tongue: the Coosa, the Tallapoosa, the Black Warrior; the sound of their names as native to me as my own.   I walked barefoot along the brow of Lookout Mountain with my father, where the Little River carves its name through the canyons of sandstone and shale above Shinbone Valley; where the Cherokee stood on these same stones and cast their voices into the canyon below.   You are here , a red arrow on the atlas tells me at the edge of the bluff where young fools have carved their initials into giant oaks and spray painted their names and dates on the canyon rocks, where human history is no more than a layer of stardust, thin as the fingernail of god.   What the canyon holds in its hands: an old language spoken into the pines and carried downstream on wind and time, vanishing like footprints in ash. The mountain holds their sorrow in the marrow of its b...

    It may be that when we no longer know what to do     we have come to our real work,     and that when we no longer know which way to go     we have come to our real journey.     The mind that is not baffled is not employed.     The impeded stream is the one that sings.                         Wendell Berry