"Soft stockings coddle them by day and nail-bossed leather shoes buttress them, but my toes refuse to pay attention. Nothing interests them but emitting toenails, horny plates, semi-transparent and elastic, to defend themselves—from whom? Stupid and mistrustful as they alone can be, they never for a moment stop readying that tenuous armament. They reject the universe and its ecstasy to keep forever elaborating useless sharp ends, which rude Solingen scissors snip over and over again. Ninety days along in the dawn of prenatal confinement, they established that singular industry. When I am laid away, in an ash-coloured house provided with dead flowers and amulets, they will go on with their stubborn task, until they are moderated by decay. They—and the beard on my face."
“Toenails” — Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges
Although, it is a myth that the nails and hair continue to grow after death.
How can something die if it is nurtured, daily.
The clover did. (What was its secret?)
Was it a jarring death, in that jar? Did it hurt?
Emptied out, no scars mar these smooth glass curves,
where I am ready for reuse.
"Epithalamion? Not too long back
I was being ironic about “wives.”
It’s very well to say, creation thrives
on contradiction, but that’s a fast track
shifted precipitately into. Tack-
y, some might say, and look mildly appalled. On
the whole, it’s one I’m likely to be called on.
Explain yourself or face the music, Hack.
No law books frame terms of this covenant.
It’s choice that’s asymptotic to a goal,
which means that we must choose, and choose, and choose
momently, daily. This moment my whole
trajectory’s toward you, and it’s not los-
ing momentum. Call it anything we want."
Marilyn Hacker, “On Marriage” — Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons
(Source: spirit-mouthedghostdancer, via oogishkamaanisee)
Ursus Wehrli is a Swiss artist and comedian who likes to tidy things up.
Remember when I knotted us in narrative, knitted us an atmosphere out of those cruel letters. Letters spelling words one after another, forcing lines, forcing action and the passage of time. I bent them, made them chase each others’ tails in what I thought was a protective ouroboros we could be safe within.
Keep them up there, in the far off sky. The world revolves, while we stay still.
Atmosphere is sky is air is breath, and we must breathe. Inhale those barbed letters, exhale those words that force action and movement and the passage of time.
So keep the spring under your step, and keep the sunlight on your face.
Quiet Company, Tie Your Monster Down
Got curious about an opshop jumper I purchased last year, and finally checked its tags. Who knew I’d been wearing bonus Kinks lyrics all this time! This has definitely become one of my funnier opshop stories.
Tag reads:
The old fortune teller lies dead
on the floor. Nobody needs
fortunes told anymore
The trainer of insects is
crouched on his knees
And frantically looking
for runaway fleas
I miss your bones. Lars.
