Once More to the Lake

Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fadeproof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweetfern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end; this was the background, and the life along the shore was the design, the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with the flagpole and the American flag gloating against the white clouds in the blue sky, the little paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp and the paths leading back to the outhouses and the can of lime for sprinkling, and at the souvenir counters at the store the miniature birch-bark canoes and the post cards that showed things looking a little better than they looked...
It seemed to me, as I kept remembering all this, that those times and those summers had been infinitely precious and worth saving. There had been jollity and peace and goodness.

E.B. White - Once More to the Lake, August 1941

Snowin'

I Believe

I believe in steep drop-offs, the thunderstorm across the lake
in 1949, cold winds, empty swimming pools,
the overgrown path to the creek, raw garlic,
used tires, taverns, saloons, bars, gallons of red wine,
abandoned farmhouses, stunted lilac groves,
gravel roads that end, brush piles, thickets, girls
who haven't quite gone totally wild, river eddies,
leaky wooden boats, the smell of used engine oil,
turbulent rivers, lakes without cottages lost in the woods,
the primrose growing out of a cow skull, the thousands
of birds I've talked to all of my life, the dogs
that talked back, the Chihuahuan ravens that follow
me on long walks. The rattler escaping the cold hose,
the fluttering unknown gods that I nearly see
from the left corner of my blind eye, struggling
to stay alive in a world that grinds them underfoot.


Jim Harrison - I Believe

and will have to answer the call on my own.

✴ I did not sleep hardly at all last night, and when Warm returned this morning I formally agreed to take part in his expedition to the River of Light. I am convinced now of his genius, and though I am loath to abandon my post I have elected to follow my heart and do just this. What am I living for, after all? I look upon my past with disgrace. I was herded and instructed. But I will be herded and instructed no more. Today I am born anew, and my life will be my own again. It will be different ever after.

Patrick DeWitt - The Sisters Brothers

what fresh hell is this?

Nick Cave - The Proposition

this way of life

x

last tour

no!
don't leave my body on the shore!
i've never wanted to inhabit it more!
enjoy it
nurture it
un-poison it
join it
root it
sharpen it
knit it together at the mouth of another
sailor with cold limbs in need of ease
good food
warm bed
sleep
and a view

beyond!
again!
no!
i want to live my own imagination
not cede it to dead men's
while my body suffers
emptied
abandoned
torn away
again obliged to open water
while an unwilling heart
rages to keep intact

my home is a sliver on the horizon
i am there! i am there!
meet me there! meet me there!
weighted down with spoils
to adorn the promised land
and revel around a true centre
join our bodies
to finally stay
grafted
alight
whole
grown

fucking

a verb
in cars
like the old days
pushing further
into new subdivisions
that grow
as we grow
dense
and lived in
newly ready
again
like we move
new pavement
pushing further
into our bodies
at the edge
of new streetlight
when we come
back
again
we will have
to drive further
to find
the yet
uninhabited
houses
to fuck against
when the neighborhood
grows
like we grow
newly dense
into our bodies
yet again
at the edge
of new streetlight
to inhabit
a lit city
laid out
underneath us
a verb
we grow
fucking
in cars

inversion

From a great and terrible fall, a leap through insubstantial air, grasping but touching nothing, an ocean breaks frenzied descent.
Calm coolness envelops. Moving limbs propel body through quiet substance with constant contact, reminding flesh of its aqueous, internal nature. A water-dweller all long, mistaker of arms for wings swims in graceful acrobatics through diffuse, marbled light. Quiet dominates. Vastness satiates, yields, encompasses form made to revel in depths far away from harsh, changeable, brightness of day, earth, and air. Below exists invulnerable to such surface whims; in constance and secret, treasures lie for a suited one to navigate, undisturbed, save for the undulating swish of weighty, watery cloak. Float slow, carried - water makes a body buoyant, suspended, darkly illuminated. Ocean and occupant justify the other, righted, found in slow dynamism and restful ease.

mandlebulb

here