6: Scheherazade
Either Tuesday or Wednesday will have to be Poetry Night here at Tatterdemallion — I’ve got class early and late on both days. I was at school for twelve hours straight today, which is just too damn long, is exhausting, and which leaves me feeling a brittle shell of a human being. So. Here is a poem that I like quite a bit right now. I know nothing of Richard Siken, but I’m desperate to get his book based on this poem and another that I’ve got written down somewhere.
Scheherazade
Richard Siken
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.
You know, this has been one of my favorite poems for quite a long time. I’m a little bit in love with the way he phrases things.
<3