Indefinite Animals
From literary fiction to The Leftovers, writer Patrick Somerville describes being adrift in the world of TV.
My sense of storytelling, however, has hopefully gotten a little sharper. My sense of the importance of scenes, too. It’s funny—you can write a whole book without a real scene in it. Narration can be that powerful, for better or for worse. It can blur the story as much as it tells it. For a writer like me, I think my work is better when I’m standing to the side and not somehow trying to interpret it in real time through the narration. Working in TV has reminded me to get out of the way.
The TV said the planes have hit the buildings.
& I said Yes because you asked me to stay.
Maybe we pray on our knees because the lord
only listens when we’re this close
to the devil.There is so much I want to tell you.
I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.
You should come to our party.
National Poetry Month Day 3: “Refuge(e)” by Traci Brimhall, translated by Erika Meitner
–Traci Brimhall
Refuge(e)
baby snowflake baby moon baby fortune
teller / sleep mother sailboat night-skytime spirals to infinity
time curls like hair in the rainbaby cloud baby moon baby music
book lollipop rocket-ship skyscraperi will wander the city without you
i will wander the city in search of youwith no devices to guide me
with no words, no sustenance, no transportjust add drama. just add statues. just add stone.
there are snakes in every circus / there’s a heart in every pandababy star baby moon baby paw-prints
sunflower mother rowboat bridgewe will be tented refugees
we will be sacrificed to the fire godswe will live in a red-roofed castle
until flocks of birds flee toward the mountainsjust add recycled sunrise / just add recycled ballads
telescope violin newspaper checkered-flagwe will ride the moon down. we will slide the golden edge
of somewhere indeterminate when our homeis destroyed. carousel ferris wheel sheaves
of wheat—we glean only darkness from the fieldsbaby tether baby anchor baby home full stop
baby shadow baby anger baby demon full stopto keep you from crying / to watch you sleep
to watch you sleep like a lantern on the oceanto watch you sleep like leaves tossed on the wind
inverted, tucked in, bounded, squared away–Erika Meitner
(via therumpus)
Source: therumpus.net
Lovely paintings by Dmitry Samarov in our latest issue.
Sulphur saturates air by the ear
listening to gravel pop under truck tires
slow along the ring road, men surveilling.The girl drops to her knees.