on the telly

 

 

 

(my favorite sp)

Two Views of a Cadaver Room

1
The day she visited the dissecting room
They had four men laid out, black as burnt turkey,
Already half unstrung. A vinegary fume
Of the death vats clung to them;
The white-smocked boys started working.
The head of his cadaver had caved in,
And she could scarcely make out anything
In that rubble of scull plates and old leather.
A sallow piece of string held it together.

In their jars the snail-nosed babies moon and glow.
He hands her the cut-out heart like a cracked heirloom.

2
In Brueghel's panorama of smoke and slaughter,
Two people only are blind to the carrion army:
He, afloat in the sea of her blue satin
Skirts, sings in the direction
Of her bare shoulder, while she bends,
Fingering a leaflet of music, over him,
Both of them deaf to the fiddle in the hands
Of the death's-head shadowing their song.
These Flemish lovers flourish; not for long.

Yet desolation, stalled in paint, spares the little country
Foolish, delicate, in the lower right hand corner.

Sylvia Plath

of late,

and entirely against my will, I have been:

- obsessed with Quentin Tarantino films
- using vegan shampoo
- drinking nothing but Orange Pekoe tea
- contemplating an unorthodox piercing
- taking extra shifts at work
- steeling myself to watch Blue Velvet, Midnight Cowboy and Naked Lunch (no, its not porn!)
- eating very seedy, healthy bread
- trying to explain awful poetry
- direly wanting to dye my hair blue (because of this)
- considering universities outside the province
- listening to The Doors
- psyching myself up to the concept of driving
- ignoring fun literature
- staying up too late
- enjoying the work of Sean Penn
- trying to be sociable
- trying to paint (for this)

calligraphy practice

I wrote out alphabets and quotes while listening to Anna Karenina on audiobook. I am no pro, but I think that the fruits of my first attempts are bordering upon beautiful. Slowly but surely, my fingers and my fountain pen aquaint themselves.