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Tag Archives: joyce
say yes. “yes”
“…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” Ulysses J. Joyce
yes
May Day/ for dublin
Looking For Work In Dublin
The same girl sitting on different buses going by over and over I knew if I saw her one more time the rest of the world would completely liquefy and go with her. Wishing to avoid that whirlpool of a thing I knocked back the coffee, paid and left keeping my eyes firmly focused on the side-walk made my way to Eccles street. Side-walk, cross-walk not daring to look up risking my life in the traffic like a blind man saving the world.
In the crumbling doorways tilted columns boarded windows planning permission posters all along the way safe to be looked at on the right side of the street I had no fear of buses as the decaying signs of Eccles street lead me down to the Georgian centre for saving the ruined life of city boys saving ruins among the ruins 90 days repairs a lifetime then out with you maybe meet again in some emergency of violence queued up amidst the hospital flu wishing you weren’t here.
there must be some as yet undiscovered carpet to sweep you under.
On my helter skelter straight way down to the bus station maybe O’Connell street. instead some nameless to me slope of a road not to far is that the tower of Ulysses where once Telemachus watched black mass Mulligan sacred shaving interrupted by old Ireland who may have forgotten her own tongue but remembering to bring the milk had her tits compared to moo-cows and other things I cannot now remember. everything old once was new like some profundity this rolls around in my brain tickling something in me I’m not sure of any more than why.
Cutting across I decide on O’Connell, I am afraid of the city only now when I am so indecisive about destinations as if there is some gang of violence waiting for that sign I send of not knowing where I’m going. Jackals of the lost man wandering seeking safety in the numbers of O’Connell, safe among the herds, oblivious to the old, ignorant of the new. penniless. No merchants sanctuary, a foreigner among the African languages and Friesian competitors, children named Rosalitta frown then smile, German hippies Burberry plaid guitars,
Somehow I don’t belong except to old bullet holes on the GPO, rusted tin enamelled placards above the discount shop on Talbot, soldier statues, new inns ward, eroded Grecian friezes on greasy brick work, stained glass window cracked holes. Noticing no one seems to notice like me wanting to some how take the time to repair myself, remind myself, inquire of the passer byes as to whom they attribute freedom to.
We are in a hurry to forget, do our best to not remember.
There has never been another day like today
There has never been another way
It has always been so
World without life
Amen.
A long cat stretch beach of green benches
Cobble stone tides break debris from yesterday’s storm
Soggy cardboard
Bleached pigeon bones
Desperate for sunglasses
Into the leather sleeves of my dreams
I fold my head.
re joyce part 5 of 5.
salamander yellow pad
Monday, March 5, 2012
re Joyce part 5 of 5
They got home three flights up. he made a snack of pasta tomatoes olive oil and parmesan which they both ate at the table together. Homework was difficult. A writer’s tantrum over how boring and stupid her idea to write about an alien. Aliens aren’t even real so how can I have him do anything! I wasted a whole page on a boring idea! He suggests a waiting meditation to let the blockage pass. Well Dad, can I read while I meditate? They lay down on the bed together, she reads her latest Beverly Cleary and he’s on volume two of the newest Teddy Roosevelt biography. Soon they’d have to get up, make the drive down to pick the Mom up from work. Six today instead of half six. It was four forty-five now. They’d read until it was time to go. Now the child to bed, the wife in the other room reads, he sits in the kitchen looks out the same morning window now into dark still February night occasioned by car lights almost streaky red, amber and green traffic lights across the green. Old blues radio “To lay in the wind… To lay in the rain… Wish I was laying in your loving arms again.” maybe Katie Webster, maybe not. A pour of Connemara twelve year old single malt peated turf smoke infused honey, purple heathers, iodine ocean ozone and enough heat to loosen your tongue. Last visit home a gift from duty-free to each other. Joyce, Dublin, Whiskey, the wife homesick today too. E-mail from her father. Mother’s ok. He’s ok. The dog’s ok. Everyone’s ok. The election is coming. Fine Gael should walk through. The country’s fucked either way.
salamander yellow pad
salamander yellow pad
Sunday, March 4, 2012
re Joyce part 4
Three minuets to home and home work. Not to bad though. They were nuts for it back in Ireland, sometimes two hours or more of the stuff in third class. She still missed her friends from the little two room school house, neighbours, could walk the lane be at their house in a few minuets. Ten years old and she had lived in three different countries, Ireland, Canada, America, in six different homes and for three months in a tent. Little gypsy indeed, first transatlantic crossing at six weeks, learned to walk on the most exquisite beaches Nysna Indian Ocean South Africa. Now she was learning French, Spanish, long division in Litchfield Connecticut and writing stories and poems, he forte, counted as homework! Voluntarily she’d taken up chorus. Voluntarily she was attending school full stop. Originally the plan had been for home school. Dad would be the teacher. Research into the legalities and curriculum had been done, contact with local support groups had been made and she had drawn up the schedule herself, all prior to the move. During the summer there were tours of the local school. He told her about it. Told her they could go just to see. “What if I don’t like it? what if I still want home school?” “No matter what”, he said, “you can choose.” So they went. Met the teachers of the fourth grade, saw the art room, the music room, the library , the computer room, the gym, the stage, the cafe and on the way out she asked, “Dad? Would it be alright if I went to this school?” She hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings about his not being the teacher any more.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
re Joyce part 3
He went by the quieter way nothing so annoying as small town tourist traffic feeding sharks, two local police SUV’s flashing lights clog main street to harass some elderly New Yorker who double parked to drop a letter in the post box. A quick drop off now in true police wisdom blocks the intersection for at least a half hour. Gallows hill brought him out behind all that. Right turn then left past the cemetery regiment GAR, immigrant Ireland, Poland, Italy, Japan, sisters, brothers, priests and the girl with the funny name, Kelsley who had the same surname as he. How many years how many cemetery miles walked, and other than his own direct family never seen his own surname upon the stone? Right again, past the frozen pond where this past autumn ducks, herons, seabirds , turtles and G-E-E-S-E! spotted by the child. Then between the two smaller ponds, either side of the school drive way. It was there they’d stopped, watch the first beaver she had ever seen, keen eyes of hers noticed ripples on the water as they were heading home after her first day in American school. He’d stopped the car along the roadside. They stood there for about a half hour before Mr. Beaver disappeared. At the top of the hill turned yet again into the parking lot, parked. Waiting watching for signs of school being over, made notes in a black notebook heard a radio interview and live music Madeleine Peyroux. Had been certain it was Billie Holiday. Listen now, maybe playing local, the wife would love that. It was greying up again cold enough to cause his fingers pain. Few more minutes and the little treasure would be his again.
re joyce part 1
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Re joyce part 1
For two dollars he bought a copy of Ulysses. Two dollars for a book of some of the best English language ever written. Twentieth century Shakespeare. Appropriately original publisher – Shakespeare & Co. Unfortunately it was not one of those copies, but it was a hardcover Everyman edition from the fifties or maybe the sixties. Most important was the font size. How many people their lives ruined by trying to read micro-dot re-issues, Melville, Cervantes, Homer, Shakespeare and epically Joyce! All squished into cheap toilet paper stock so as to be sold on the cheap. Words the size of Joyce’s need space and a paper firm enough to hold them. Too close and not only strains the eyes but the reader cant help but skip ahead hoping for some oasis from the claustrophobic inevitably blame the work as tiresome difficult and not worth the bother. Some one said you cannot take one word out of Joyce’s work without ruining the whole thing (proves it is a work of poetry). You cannot also smear those words together and not ruin the whole work. Each must have space to stand alone alongside each other word. Then equally as part of the whole they can be savored and the genius of Joyce made obvious.
