Sinister: i can't see the point of patient love when everyone just wants to get fucked.

[lindsey baker]

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



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