Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Bridge Building

At the table beyond us
With her little suede slippers off,
With her white-stocking'd feet
Carefully kept from the floor by a napkin,
She converses:

'Connaissez-vous Ostende?'

The gurgling Italian lady on the other side of the
restaurant
Replies with a certain hauteur,
But I await with patience,
To see how Celestine will re-enter her slippers.
She re-enters them with a groan.
-Ezra Pound, "Black Slippers: Bellotti"

6 comments:

Jen said...

These Ezra Pound poems are beautiful, FJ.

Would it be okay if I shared one of mine here, with you?

Thersites said...

Sure! Would love it!

Jen said...

thanks, FJ.
I will warn you, it's glum.
And I'll be honest, I'm posting it here because you're a friend. And yesterday just sucked. :p


i hope
------
i am utterly spent

i think i felt it coming
for a few months

things seemed too good
as if i was coasting,
and even being praised for
my "strength"

i'm sick of the eternal question
what is the purpose?
why ask that?
why ask why for that matter?

the purpose is what i assign to it.
i decide.

i decide.

my faith is pathetic.
i feel pathetic.

in my bones.
i am sick of this constant application of meaning
and looking for silver linings
and assigning an eternal correlation to every
little
thing

some things are just things
and who am i to decide how GOD works?
who am i?

i have no idea how HE works.
or why HE does things.
or if HE
EVEN
CARES.

i haven't a clue.

i'm sick of putting a gloss
of cheap
faith
on every pile of
steaming
hot
shit
that i come across

right now it just looks like shit.
glossy
ugly
shit.

i don't believe in any of it
and i get mad just thinking
of being FAITHFUL.
PRAYERFUL.
GRATEFUL.


i hope
that soon i will look back
and see some value.
some goodness.
i really do hope



Speedy G said...

Very nice. Glum, but honest. And I do like the other/OTHER subjective distinction. It's a nice touch.

I hope that you put all these thoughts together in one place somewhere. So that people who knew you, or thought they knew you, can one day really get to know you.

Jen said...

It's weird...lately i have this feeling that there's a moral obligation to not spread this pitiful thinking. as if it's contagious. in reality, i think that's actually part of the problem...

but no. i haven't put anything but photos in one place. i guess you're right, though. when we attempt to be honest (as honest as we can be), people appreciate that. it somehow eases the burden when we know that other people (especially the ones we put on a pedestal) go through the same things. so there. i guess that if you follow that logic...it's a moral obligation TO TALK ABOUT IT. not to avoid it.

hmmm

Thersites said...

Well, I wouldn't go quite that far and call it a moral obligation. But it is something rather special and intimate. You don't HAVE to share it. But it is rather nice when you do.