Broken Arrows

- "Broken Arrows" by José González, from Veneer (2003)

It's Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean

 "It's Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean"

Poem for Sriram Shamasunder
And All of Poetry for the People 

It’s a sunlit morning
with jasmine blooming
easily
and a drove of robin redbreasts
diving into the ivy covering
what used to be
a backyard fence
or doves shoving aside
the birch tree leaves
when
a young man walks among
the flowers
to my doorway
where he knocks
then stands still
brilliant in a clean white shirt

He lifts a soft fist
to that door
and knocks again

He’s come to say this
was or that
was
not
and what’s
anyone of us to do
about what’s done
what’s past
but prickling salt to sting
our eyes

What’s anyone of us to do
about what’s done

And 7-month-old Bingo
puppy leaps
and hits
that clean white shirt
with muddy paw
prints here
and here and there

And what’s anyone of us to do
about what’s done
I say I’ll wash the shirt
no problem
two times through
the delicate blue cycle
of an old machine
the shirt spins in the soapy
suds and spins in rinse
and spins
and spins out dry 
not clean

still marked by accidents
by energy of whatever serious or trifling cause
the shirt stays dirty
from that puppy’s paws

I take that fine white shirt
from India
the threads as soft as baby
fingers weaving them
together
and I wash that shirt
between
between the knuckles of my own
two hands
I scrub and rub that shirt
to take the dirty
markings
out

At the pocket
and around the shoulder seam
and on both sleeves
the dirt the paw
prints tantalize my soap
my water my sweat
equity
invested in the restoration
of a clean white shirt

And on the eleventh try
I see no more
no anything unfortunate
no dirt

I hold the limp fine
cloth
between the faucet stream
of water as transparent
as a wish the moon stayed out
all day

How small it has become!
That clean white shirt!
How delicate!
How slight!
How like a soft fist knocking on my door!
And now I hang the shirt
to dry
as slowly as it needs
the air
to work its way
with everything

It’s clean.
A clean white shirt
nobody wanted to spoil
or soil
that shirt
much cleaner now but also
not the same
as the first before that shirt
got hit got hurt
not perfect
anymore
just beautiful

a clean white shirt

It’s hard to keep a clean shirt clean.

 - by June Jordan, from Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (2005)

Monster

If you like scary movies, I encourage you to watch this. It's a short film called Monster, created by the filmmaker Jennifer Kent. Eventually, she took a lot of the themes and ideas from this piece and wove them into the 2014 film The Babadook, which she wrote and directed. In case you haven't seen it, I'll refrain from writing any spoilers, but suffice it to say that The Babadook is a terrifyingly honest meditation on motherhood and mourning. It may be the most intelligent and truly scary horror film I've seen in the last several years. Monster is like the CliffNotes version: slightly less intense and experiential, but interesting enough to fill you in and make you sound smart.

- Monster (2005) by Jennifer Kent

Love Love Love

- "Love Love Love" by The Mountain Goats, from The Sunset Tree (2005)

When the Levees Broke

It's strange to think that Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans ten years ago today. I was eleven years old at the time, and my memories of the event are hazy and selective. I can remember riding to school with my mom, listening to the radio. My dad was talking, barely audible over the wind, and of all the details, I really only recall that he lost his umbrella at some point and that the trees were all shaking. His transmission cut out at some point, and around the same time we got to my school. My mom gave me a hug and assured me things were okay, but I realized that there was a very real possibility that I wasn't going to see my dad again, that he was mortal like every one else in New Orleans.

Later, after we heard he was okay, I remember seeing the news, the floods, and staying up until 3:00 a.m. when the AM reception from New Orleans was strongest so that I could hear his broadcasts. People had no idea what was going on and why the government wasn't helping; I recall a lot of angry voices

There's plenty else, too, of course. I plan to write a portion of my thesis about this, so I've been thinking about it a lot recently. Like most millennials, my understanding of Katrina (along with 9/11, the Columbia disaster, Benazir Bhutto's assassination) has deepened and complicated over time. It's strange to think that my generation will be one of the last to remember these events, but I suppose that's how history works.

I plan to spend my day working and sleeping in my spare moments. I am exhausted and barely coherent, but I am alive and that is its own blessing (and I use that word very rarely).

If you are reading this, which you are, thank you.

Fish in the Dish

The magic of funk revival.

Also, I love the numerous shots of silhouetted/shiny women that this video editor decided to place alongside the music. It really makes me believe that the fish in question really does belong to Sharon Jones.

-"Fish in the Dish" by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, from Naturally (2005)

Magnolia Mountain

If I were to make a list of twenty or thirty songs that I have consistently loved over time, this would surely make the list. It was originally written and performed by Ryan Adams and the Cardinals on the album Cold Roses in 2005. I first heard the album in high school, after I bought a used copy for five bucks at It's A Beautiful Day in Kansas City. It's a nice little collection of songs, and the original version of "Magnolia Mountain" is incredible. But this version (perhaps more specifically Joan Osborne's vocals) is remarkable in a different way--it's more unabashed, whereas I guess the Cardinals' version is a bit more restrained in the beginning. Maybe I just think so because I heard this cover before I heard the original (hearing this was my compulsion to buy Cold Roses in the first place), but I do think that this cover has a wonderfully apparent authenticity in its performance.

I'm beginning to babble, but I think you might get the idea. I love this song.

 

"Magnolia Mountain"

Phil Lesh & Friends, 2005