Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don’t care if they lose it; they’ll just make another one. This openness is what every artist needs.
all, animal, ashes, back, bark, belly, berry, big, bird, bite, black, blood, bone, breast, breathe, brother, burn, child, claw, clothing, cloud, cold, come, cook, count, cry, day, die, dig, dirty, dog, drink, dry, dull, dust, ear, earth, eat, egg, eight, eye, fall, fat, father, fear, feather, fight, fire, fish, five, float, flower, fly, fog, foot, four, full, freeze, give, good, grass, green, guts, hair, hand, he, head, hear, heart, heavy, here, hold, horn, how, hundred, hunt, husband, I, ice, if, kill, knee, know, lake, last, laugh, leaf, left, leg, lie, live, liver, long, louse, man, many, meat, moon, mother, mountain, mouth, name, near, neck, new, night, nine, nose, not, old, one, other, play, pull, push, raid, rain, red, right, river, road, root, rope, rub, salt, sand, say, scratch, sea, see, seed, seven, sew, sharp, shoot, short, sing, sister, sit, six, skin, sky, sleep, small, smell, smoke, smooth, snake, snow, speak, spit, split, squeeze, stab, stand, star, stick, stone, straight, sun, swell, swim, tail, ten, that, there, they, thick, thin, think, three, throw, tie, tongue, tooth, tree, turn, two, walk, warm, wash, water, we, wet, what, when, where, white, who, wide, wife, wind, wing, wipe, woman, woods, warm, work, year, and yellow.
The 200 words chosen by linguist Morris Swadesh as the basic vocabulary template for all human languages (as reported in John D’Agata’s endlessly fascinating About a Mountain, which I devoured on a three-hour bus ride home from Calgary earlier today).
Notice that why isn’t included. Nicely echoes a statement made elsewhere in D’Agata’s study of Las Vegas, nuclear waste disposal, and suicide: “We don’t ask ‘why.’”
Also, louse?
(via booksinthekitchen)
This is a crazy thing to think about.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery—even if mixed with fear—that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
Today I went to a used bookstore & bought everything awesome :)
If you asked me to draw a picture of myself I’d draw two. One would be a portrait of a happy, self-confident, regular-looking woman and the other would be a close-up of a giant gaping mouth that’s ravenous for love.
Oh & also:
“You don’t have to read to write poetry, you do for anything else.”
Something from my student’s statement of progress:
“In this class I feel my writing skills as far as poetry go have not improved, perhaps there is no room for improvement.”
packing up summer clothes, taking out winter ones
season’s finally changed. the end of this semester marks my being halfway through with my mfa program. crazy, crazy, crazy the things time does.
what i’m saying is, there’s a comfort to the rhythm of folding clothes and stacking them. i hope i find something i’d forgotten i own.
“Her my body,” by Bob Hicok
The dog licks my hand as I worry
about the left nipple
of the woman in the bathroom.
She is drying her hair, the woman
whose left nipple is sore.
We looked this evening
for diagonal cuts
or discoloration
or bite marks from small insects
that may be in our bed.
It is a good bed, a faithful bed.
A bed that won’t be hurt
by the consideration we gave
to the possibility of small
though disproportionately
strong insects in our bed.
The blow-dryer sounds like a jet
taking off. The first time
I flew to Brussels, people began
the journey happy but ended
with drool on their shirts.
She is drying her hair
though she has never been to Brussels.
Drying her hair
though she could be petting a dog.
Drying her hair
while having red thoughts
about what the pain in her nipple means.
I would not dry my hair
in such a moment but I am bald.
The body of the woman
has many ways to cease
being the body of the woman.
I have one way
to be happy
and she is that way.
I would like to fly with her to Brussels.
We would not be put off by the drool.
This is what happens when people sleep.
We would buy postcards of the little boy
who saved Brussels when he peed on a fire.
We would be romantic in public places.
For the moment
these desires can best be furthered
by petting a dog.
I’m also working on this theory.
That sometimes a part of the body
just hurts.
That the purpose of prayer
is to make the part of the body
that sometimes just hurts
the little toe or appendix.
Something vestigial or redundant.
Something that can be jettisoned.
I have no reason
to use the word cancer
while petting a dog.
Here is a piece of a second
during which a jet is not flying
nor is it on the ground.
I’m working on a theory
that no one can die
inside that piece of a second.
If you are comforted
by this thought you are welcome
to keep it.
From January 1999 at Luna Park in West Hollywood, Zach Galifianakis plies his craft. This is where it all began.
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