Want to see how a plague spreads?

Go to Google Maps and type the word “church.”

What starts things

are the accidents behind the eyes
touched off by, say, the missing cheekbone
of a woman who might have been beautiful

it is thinking about
your transplanted life-line going places
in someone else’s palm, or the suicidal games
your mind plays with the edge
of old wounds, or something
you couldn’t share with your lover

there are no endings

people die between birthdays and go on for years;
what stops things for a moment
are the words you’ve found for the last bit of light
you think there is

-Stephen Dunn 

It was on evenings like this,
in spite of the good talk
and drink, no more love-worries
than usual, and a fine commotion
of crickets in the late summer heat,
it was on evenings like this he knew
his true life lay elsewhere, it must,
so much acceptable pleasure here
yet so much yearning. He was home,
some muted pinprick of unease
prodding him, dully, from afar.
 
He told a story about a black bear
who swam the Delaware Water Gap
to get to New Jersey, where bears
can’t be hunted, a story of animal wisdom,
survival. As if the bear knew,
as if there were a secret network of bears.
 
His guests were pleased.
 
The state of Pennsylvania wanted its bear
returned. In fact, New Jersey owed them
nine bears, there was proof.
Like certain departures, betrayals,
it became a matter for the courts—
the rights of bears, of hunters and bureaucrats …
 
You can walk out of your life
if sadness properly instructs you.
And can’t humiliation send you,
knees bleeding, over the forbidden wall?
That’s what he was thinking
as his wife poured more wine for the guests,
as a beneficent moon half-lit the yard
and the erotics of friendship
made its edgy argument against despair.
The guests left; it was time.
He and his wife cleaned up, talked,
made sweet, drunken love.
Nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong
except there was this life,
intuited, unclaimed.
He suspected she sensed it too, hers,
something more utterly hers.
 
Elsewhere bears were trusting their bodies
to take them to safety, but what did bears know
about water and wind and chance?
He could see a bear caught in turbulence,
swept downriver, where no law
could keep it from being killed.
 
It’s a comedy, he thought.
His hand was resting on her hip,
it could be anybody’s hip,
anybody’s hand … In a dream
Stendhal heard Don Juan speak:
“There are not twenty different sorts of women,
and once you’ve had two or three of each sort,
boredom sets in.” To which Stendhal said,
 
“A man who trembles is not bored.”
 
Maybe it was all about trembling,
some old trepidation before the next step.
Maybe, like Stendhal, you connive
to give yourself a wake-up call
in the middle of the night.
 
He kissed her, and in the settled dark
rolled away into the other world
of their bed. It was easy.
   No, that was not applause
coming from the crickets.
He understood that relentless buzz, more
than mere desire, less than misery.
 
—Stephen Dunn

The feeling of BACKFIRE BACKFIRE BACKFIRE ALWAYS EVERY TIME.

12/06/2006

Oh, just stab me in the chest. I’d say you really know the way to a woman’s heart.

My hometown is like a secret
that I keep.

The Bay Area is like a secret
being kept from me.

Los Angeles is like a secret 
that I don’t want to hear.

08/29/2006

Don’t waste your time on us, we’ve doomed ourselves and we fucking love it. Don’t question the reasons for capitalism anymore-everything humans have ever created was only a distraction anyway. In fact, don’t question anything and don’t blame anyone. Trace it back to the roots, we’ve been fucked since the beginning … each man for his own circle.

Where are my fellow humans who have noticed the circles? Everyone’s always talking about squares …

I’d close my eyes if it didn’t bring me that much closer to everything I’m trying to escape. I’d open my eyes if it didn’t bring me that much closer to everything I’m trying to escape. You don’t understand . . . if I push myself away I’m only that much closer. You don’t understand … it’ll never be alright. You’ve revealed to me that it’ll never be alright.

I feel enough to kill us both. I am almost dead. I am almost alive. I’m still waiting. One day I could really be surprised. I hope it knocks me off of my feet. And into my grave. I hope it knocks me right off my feet and into this grave I’ve dug for myself.