hello sinister. i have been trying to think of an answer to matilda's question for a while now, and have come up short with pretty words. i wanted to write about standing alone on a dark road, having just come away from sitting on a porch swing with a boy i used to love, and probably still do. we swang for a while, eventually letting our meaningless small talk evaporate into the humid sky, making no music together save for the creaking of the swing, moving back and forth with the motion of his foot as he set the pace of rocking. i left, after a bit, and smoked, standing next to my car and looking down the curving road of his new neighborhood. the street was lined with trees, big trees with lots of leaves. the night was dark and windy, and with those trees and that wind, you could hear the breeze coming before it reached your face. i turned my eyes upward, and let my head follow. i closed my eyes, then, and breathed in. how do you fall in love the right way? i exhaled, again, like i was supposed to that night, and came home. i read a poem. and i think it might have the answer, if only i could grow old and discover just what it is that makes people go along alone for a while, standing at midnight in new streets in old towns, feeling the wind and the sky and the sound of moving nowhere, remembering the easy mindless movement from forward to backward, remembering a kiss in a street somewhere else, in another time. the poem talks about things i know. things in may. things blinded. i have tried to discern the difference between loving someone and the idea of something, the difference between having some kind of love reciprocated by a boy or only, in reality, getting fucked over by a boy. i don't know how it works. william carlos williams does. we, at this point, are the children of which he speaks, and i hate us for it. The Ivy Crown The whole process is a lie, unless, crowned by excess, it break forcefully, one way or another, from its confinement-- or find a deeper well. Antony and Cleopatra were right; they have shown the way. I love you or I do not live at all. Daffodil time is past. This is summer, summer! the heart says, and not even the full of it. No doubts are permitted-- Though they will come and may before our time overwhelm us. We are only mortal but being mortal can defy our fate. We may by an outside chance even win! We do not look to see jonquils and violets come again but there are, still, the roses! Romance has no part in it. The business of love is cruelty which by our wills, we transform to live together. It has its seasons, for and against, whatever the heart fumbles in the dark to assert toward the end of May. Just as the nature of briars is to tear flesh, I have proceeded through them. Keep the briars out, they say. You cannot live and keep free of briars. Children pick flowers Let them. Though having them in hand they have no further use of them but leave them crumpled at the curb's edge. At our age the imagination across the sorry facts lifts us to make roses stand before thorns. Sure love is cruel and selfish and totally obtuse-- At least, blinded by the light, young love is. But we are older, I to love and you to be loved, we have, no matter how, by our wills survived to keep the jeweled prize always at our fingertips. We will it so and so it is past all accident. ***** maybe we'll get it right some day. love, lou xxx _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+