now that i am back from nats i can (hopefully) turn away from slam for a minute and concentrate back on poetry. as a detox from all the lynchings, monkey knife fights, oversized ballerinas and theatrics from the last week i have re-read “Book of My Nights” damn, i musta been like a plant out of water for months cuz i ripped through it in record time. found this particular gem where stanzas 1-5 are so eeringly familiar to me right now, its not even funny. i am a bit perplexed by the ending but maybe that revelation will have to wait for a few months, or maybe never. i dont want every poem in the world to make sense to me. i dont want to be told exactly how to feel and what to think- thats a monologue. poetry should always be a dialogue between the poet & the reader. call me ole school and let me wonder at the complexities of a fated man.
Fill and Fall
from Li-Young Lee's "Book of My Nights"
As long as night is one country
on both sides of my window, I remain a face
dreaming a face
and trace the heart's steep path: Night
and falling.
There's no place
my hand, full of its own going away,
ever found along a body
falling beside me.
And the way to the crowning grapes lie sealed
to all but one who's heard
what nights are for: Falling,
as water falls
to fill and fall, overwhelming
basin after basin,
as each must kneel
inside himself to find
the tiered slopes
only brimming masters.
You try’n take mah book and I will stab you…maybe I’ll jsut have my knife-fighting monkey do it! Understand that beeyotch!!….LOL