(no subject)
Jesus but jesus I am unproductive.
Sarah Manguso
Asking for More
I am not asking to suffer less.
I hope to be nearly crucified.
To live because I don’t want to.
That hope, that sweet agent-
My best work is its work.
The horse I ride into Hell is my best horse
And bears its name.
So, friends, drink your cocktails and wear your hats.
Thank you for leaving me this whole world to go mad in.
I am not asking for mercy. I am asking for more.
I don’t mind when no mercy comes
Or when it comes in the form of my mad self
Running at me. I am not asking for mercy.
Love Letter (Clouds)
BY SARAH MANGUSO
for B. H.
I didn’t fall in love. I fell through it:
Came out the other side moments later, hands full of matter, waking up from the dream of a bullet tearing through the middle of my body.
I no longer understand anything for longer than a long moment, or the time it takes to receive the shot.
This kind of gravity is like falling through a cloud, forgetting it all, and then being told about it later. On the day you fell through a cloud . . .
It must be true. If it were not, then when did these strands of silver netting attach to my hair?
the rest of that one is not as nice, so moving on:
SARAH MANGUSO
A Glittering
One mourner says if I can just get through this year as if salvation comes in January.
Slow dance of suicides into the earth:
I see no proof there is anything else. I keep my obituary current, but believe that good times are right around the corner
Una grande scultura posse rotolare giù per una collina senza rompersi, Michelangelo is believed to have said (though he never did): To determine the essential parts of a sculpture, roll it down a hill. The inessential parts will break off.
That hill, graveyard of the inessential, is discovered by the hopeless and mistaken for the world just before they mistake themselves for David's white arms.
They are wrong. But to assume oneself essential is also wrong: a conundrum.
To be neither essential nor inessential-not to exist except as the object of someone's belief, like those good times lying right around the corner-is the only possibility.
Nothing, nobody matters.
And yet the world is full of love . .
Sarah Manguso
Asking for More
I am not asking to suffer less.
I hope to be nearly crucified.
To live because I don’t want to.
That hope, that sweet agent-
My best work is its work.
The horse I ride into Hell is my best horse
And bears its name.
So, friends, drink your cocktails and wear your hats.
Thank you for leaving me this whole world to go mad in.
I am not asking for mercy. I am asking for more.
I don’t mind when no mercy comes
Or when it comes in the form of my mad self
Running at me. I am not asking for mercy.
Love Letter (Clouds)
BY SARAH MANGUSO
for B. H.
I didn’t fall in love. I fell through it:
Came out the other side moments later, hands full of matter, waking up from the dream of a bullet tearing through the middle of my body.
I no longer understand anything for longer than a long moment, or the time it takes to receive the shot.
This kind of gravity is like falling through a cloud, forgetting it all, and then being told about it later. On the day you fell through a cloud . . .
It must be true. If it were not, then when did these strands of silver netting attach to my hair?
the rest of that one is not as nice, so moving on:
SARAH MANGUSO
A Glittering
One mourner says if I can just get through this year as if salvation comes in January.
Slow dance of suicides into the earth:
I see no proof there is anything else. I keep my obituary current, but believe that good times are right around the corner
Una grande scultura posse rotolare giù per una collina senza rompersi, Michelangelo is believed to have said (though he never did): To determine the essential parts of a sculpture, roll it down a hill. The inessential parts will break off.
That hill, graveyard of the inessential, is discovered by the hopeless and mistaken for the world just before they mistake themselves for David's white arms.
They are wrong. But to assume oneself essential is also wrong: a conundrum.
To be neither essential nor inessential-not to exist except as the object of someone's belief, like those good times lying right around the corner-is the only possibility.
Nothing, nobody matters.
And yet the world is full of love . .