"How will you be known? Some
registered complaints. You passed them
in the hallway, their new haircuts.
The bosses are known by new wars.
What salmon are left hurry upstream—
cold swaths in the bay. Linnets, by
rose fire at the edges—(linnet or finch?
the word edge has wings made of “e”);
the moon rests in a mantle
of minutes, its boundaries in back
of the trees. Boundaries
are known by their nothings—;
you will be known by your dreams."
"Nothing you become will disappoint me
I have no preconception that I’d like to see you be or do.
I have no desire to foresee you, only to discover you.
You cannot disappoint me."
Words fail at describing the obliterated space of your absence. You were a poet of the highest caliber and a friend to the least of these. Your music has sustained and your wisdom uplifted me. I remember our first introduction, and how I knew immediately that we’d be good friends.
"The truth is, goddesses are lousy in bed.
They will do anything it’s true.
And the skin is beautifully cared for.
But they have no sense of it. They are
all manner and amazing technique.
I lie with them thinking of your
foolish excesses, of you panting
and sweating, and your eyes after."
"How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not laguage but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds."
— Jack Gilbert, The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart (reminds me of a thought I had the other day)
I’ll never forget how you standing barefoot in the kitchen, made that lonely beige apartment home for a while. We didn’t have the ingredients for guacamole, but you made do with lime and Indian spices.
My weird mind wanders and my brave heart breaks.
I’ve nailed some milestones, but I’ve made mistakes,
Cuz I got more faults than a map of California earthquakes.
I am taking a nap beneath your covers.
Wake me if you like me.
Wake me if you want me
Wake me if you need another poem.
Your once and future lover
has made himself at home.
Hay tantas cosas para gozar y nuestro paso por la Tierra es tan corto,
que sufrir es una pérdida de tiempo.
Además, el universo siempre está dispuesto a complacernos,
por eso estamos rodeados de buenas noticias.
Cada mañana es una buena noticia.
Cada niño que nace es una buena noticia,
porque significa que dios todavia cree en nosotros.
Cada hombre justo es una buena noticia.
Cada cantor es una buena noticia,
porque cada cantor es un soldado menos.
Por eso hay que desconfiar de el que no canta porque algo esconde.
Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, Master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
"
—
-Khalil Gibran, The Prophet (Chapter 3 - On Marriage)
I’ve been trying to explain to people for years the importance of standing apart and on your own even as you love someone. Now I just refer them to this.
It’s two years on now and I still miss you, of course. I did my taxes early this year, in February in fact; April still feels like loss a little. I’ve been trying to write your parents a letter but I still don’t have the words. I never really understood until after you left, how many bridges you’d burned and people you’d hurt. You were trying to make good though I think. The poem I wrote you still applies; I’m still working on the laughter and music and irreverence, and the seriousness too.
—
i won’t mourn you in the way that movies tell us to, you were always so aware of cliché.
i have a few tears for you, but mostly i have jokes, and most of them racy and off-colour.
we were learning how to face life together, and most of what we’d figured out so far, involved laughter, irreverence and music.
we were learning how to be serious too though, so it came as a surprise to me, that you left during tax season.
we shared ambitions so unreasonable, that we spoke of them in code, and sometimes we were forced to scale them back.
we were supposed to finish piecing together, you know, next week, when we both had time, our theory of unconventional kindness.
i will remember you as you were, that night when you tried to kiss that girl, at the Black Cat, and failed.
I acquired Jack Gilbert’s collection, “The Great Fires” the other day at City Lights in SF; I returned there to celebrate the anniversary of my first poetry purchase, also Gilbert, a year earlier. I gave away “Refusing Heaven” to someone worthy of it. Now I begin what is certain to be an extended affair with this new collection. One early poem reminds me of why I fell in love with Gilbert - his irreverence, quickness, humor.
—
Lovers
When I hear men boast about how passionate they are, I think of the two cleaning ladies at the second-story window watching a man coming back from a party where there was lots of free beer. He runs in and out of buildings looking for a toilet. “My Lord,” the tall woman says, “that fellow down there surely does love architecture.”
This was the sign I was looking for, the sign that I should go ahead with my affaire, my Champagne Affaire, money and mess be damned. I was searching for inspiration for a party and I found this poem. It blows my mind:
Tonight I think it is safe to say we drank too much. Must I apologize for the volume in my slobber? Must I apologize for the best dance moves ever? No.
Booze is my tuition to clown college.
I swung at your purse. It was staring at me.
We swerved home on black laughter. bleeding from forgettable boxing.
I asked you to sleep in the shape of a trench so that I might know shelter.
These are some meditations on culture, art, politics, tech and the beautiful struggle. I am a digital grio, curator of big ideas, non-stop social commentator, design-curious techie, aspiring entrepreneur and philanthropist, DC native.
“There are limits on rights that society has generally agreed to, and while defining and redefining those limits is a robust and important part of our...”
