"kafka" poems
In the last months of March 2014,
Soldier Othello the Moroccan moor
Was in Stratford-upon-Avon at the graveside
Of William Shakespeare the English bard,
He was observing the anniversary
Of Shakespeare and his European brother Cervantes,
He had in his pocket another charm and amulet
Given to him by his paternal grandfather,
This time round not a charm for love portion,
But a mystique totem to raise the dead from dusts,
As Othello himself has hitherto over-matured
Above the painful torture of *** with aristocrats,
He has left it for the Jewish aristotrash; Frantz Kafka,
Whose torturous appetite for *** with German women,
Was the sorriest eyesore of his thespic efforts.
Like Jesus at the grave of Lazarus
Othello groaned by shouting; William the son of John!
No response, he shouted again; Shakespeare the bard!
Then the mystique powers of Othello’s amulet
Electrified Shakespeare back to life,
What is your problem you black moor,
The ***** of Morocco, the soldier
Who beguiled Desdemona into betrothal,
Not because of glory of your work,
But due to charms of your love portion
Bequeathed to you by your witch mother,
What brings you to my sepulchre,
For only to perturbed my purgatorial peace,
What brings you!?
Questioned Shakespeare the bard.
Am no longer the moor, blackness is class
But not the race, as race is bankrupt,
I come here to salute you with good news,
That your European brother, Alfred Nobel,
Currently rewards thespic bards like you,
Whether black or white, blue or green,
The ***** bards from the natural forest,
He also rewards, so wake up and pick the prize!
Retorted Othello in virtue of truth,
And also tell me the native bricks
Of your beautiful architecture;
Where and how did you mold thy bricks?
Your brown English bricks that walled your culture;
***** clown, leapfrog, mercurial, oxymoron,
Falsitafity, Shyllocking, colleaguery and window,
Cauldron, graymalkin, woo, betroth, infatuation and so on.
From underneath his sepulcher Shakespeare broke
A violent gaggle of laughter as if he was ten English skeletons,
You Othello you are still a beautiful moor
Whose foolishness time has not condemned to oblivion,
You are as a fool as I created you ; I will only teach you
One brick, the window , that you go and put on
Your wind disturbed African huts,
Put the wind door on your hut,
And be flexible in your tongue
To give it English elegance
Combine and shorten wind and door
To get your cultural brick of; window !
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 9:39 AM UTC
I am alive by luck at this point.
I wonder if the gun that will eventually take me has been made.
Whose trigger will bury me.
How many bullets, like a flock of sparrows, will come carry my life to its final bed.
Today, I am alive but there is no law to thank.
If not me, then someone else.
Born into a game of chance we never asked for. Traded diplomas for obituaries. Traded graduation speeches for eulogies. Traded futures for an early grave. Forced to cash in their chips. We don’t want to play anymore.
And this too is eulogy. And this too is prayer. And this too can resurrect the coffin wood back to a tree. Can sing back alive whatever parts of you died with them. Whatever leapt in your throat at yet another headline.
Mourning until you, too, are a thing to mourn.
But we will no longer be martyrs.
We are the rude awakening to politicians who pawned out our safety, who bartered our lives for bribes.
You say “gun reform is not the answer” but all I can see is a bullet rattling like a pinball in an innocent student’s jaw.
You smell like gun smoke and
I can see the AR15 you're holding behind your back and
I guess it's easy to crack jokes about dodging bullets when you're the one firing them.
Give teachers books not bullets:
Kafka isn’t kevlar.
Bronte isn’t bulletproof.
And how sick is it that we must add school shootings to your list of proud american traditions.
Throwing opinions like punches.
How many more have to die before you decide your ego isn’t as important as you think it is?
And I, too, am buried alive
My soggy grave parting its greedy lips.
To you, my bones, when ground into gunpowder and mixed into water, taste like champagne.
My pulse, as thin as an obituary panting beneath sweaty palms, and sure
We are “just kids,”
But you are forgetting we are the next generation
And you autopsy your fists.
Call it reclamatory.
Lately, when asked “how are you?” I respond with a name no longer living.
And who knows if mine will be next
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 10:32 PM UTC
Is it really this hard
to find people I can go back and forth in discussion with
about Buddhist and Hindu theology compared and contrasted against Christian and Yoruba
I want to scream and shout and dance with somebody over Janet Jackson's new album
and at the same time
feel the heat and talk with somebody about how extremely sad and depressing
but oh so good Giovanni's Room was
I want to be able to speak with somebody whom can quote Malcolm X and Kafka in the same breath
Somebody who could see the logic of Pac and Immortal Technique on the same piece
with the Budos Band or Mulatu on the back track
I want to know people whom know
just exactly who
Suki Lee and Bayard Rustin are
can we talk about Jacob Kinohoor's ***
at least for a moment
then get into some B.B. King or Johnny Cash
have you seen Dune
the one from the eighties
James McAvoy shirtless
as well as John Goodman’s acting
were only good things about the other
if you read it
even better
what about the ***** that sat by the door
Or
killer clowns from outer space
let's be shady and point out all the inaccuracies on the history and discovery and channels
praying for that day
that's not in February
They show Shaka Zulu in full
without commercial interruption
Or maybe a documentary about native American people
with actual native actors
that do not depict them all as either
plains people
Or Inuit
Cause you already know
not everybody is Eskimo
then let's put on our own private production of legally blonde
followed by encore presentations of the classic scene
Of Miss Celie and miss Ofelia going in over Harpo
can I discuss with you
how the Patriot act nullifies everything in constitution
And the bill of rights
even though they never were intended to be permanent any way
It would be nice to not have to explain a Corporatocracy
all my life Ive been into Egyptology
You do know that Imhotep was the actual founder of medicine
by a good 2000 years
not that Hippocrat
the thing is
I'm still learning
when attempt to delve that deeply into people
which I don't even consider that deep
They often misunderstand
They often concluded without thinking
maybe
just maybe
©Christopher F. Brown 2015
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 11:30 PM UTC
I’m talking to you
in my head
been cultivating this shyness
since I was three years old
talking to inanimate objects
painted smiles, rubber-skinned
metal frames
turning wheels
the family minivan kept me company
as mountains rose and fell
like held breaths
let go.
playing games with pregnant raindrops
rolling down the glass
obsessed with the shark’s fin triangle
the wipers could not
reach.
I’m obsessing over seeing you.
always trying to be invisible
your eyes beginning to skim past I,
they didn’t used too.
*“The voices that once spoke love
but did not mean love.”*
the withered rose living
in the trash,
abandoned friends in the attic
forgotten songs
unfinished books
I am the forgotten
I am the abandoned
I am the left behind
cobweb-and-cotton-dust-collector
the silence connoisseur
I wear loneliness like an unwashed favorite shirt
If I die
Will you read this?
Does anyone else think such things
or is Tonio Kroger my only brother?
I am Kafka’s cockroach,
everyone is waiting for me to die
or to change into what you want me to be.
my name will not be in the history books
by the time my children’s children will have children
I am no one.
Everything fades in this world
like whiteboard-marker on acetate lives.
Desolate corners and garbage
tell stories
art is vandalism, vandalism is art.
and people wear diamonds but they are worth nothing.
and babies inherit their father’s eyes.
I am not yours.
You are not mine.
Isn’t ownership objectification?
If a man owns a clock
does the clock own the man?
Let’s be
money and greed
or
greed and suffering.
one cannot survive
without…
Let’s be
the mismatched pyramids
of wealth and population
form a parallelogram
like bricks on an unstable wall
never falling down.
Apr 15, 2012
Apr 15, 2012 at 7:46 AM UTC
A random provocation of amber light
A blond redhead
The cruelty in everything more complicated
Like falling asleep alone
Or Franz Kafka in an ally
Aug 12, 2012
Aug 12, 2012 at 1:45 PM UTC
Dear,
Parents. Siblings. Friends. Lovers:
Give you this.
Give you that.
You take ten
and I take that:
NOTHING!
My shoulder? Please!
And my home too?
Progress with ease
as I wish for you.
But a moment for ME,
oh but just one,
I’d like you to SEE
just what you have done;
Sorrow and pain,
my tongue will stutter,
but through my tears
my RAGE will flutter.
Though this may be the gist
of my anger in reign,
a WALL and my fist
returns...no gain.
When Austen, Kafka, Garcia-Marquez
instead hit the wall,
ALL ties are dead.
“YOU here for me,
but not I for you.”
Is all you can see...
All you can do...
Your ear I implore,
a little sympathy too;
FRUSTRATION galore,
to hell with you!
Sep 3, 2013
Sep 3, 2013 at 7:45 PM UTC
Kafka and his Giant Insect
Which Might Be a Cockroach
But Maybe Not
We Could go to Das Schloss and ask Mr. K
An insect woke up one morning and realized
He had been transformed into Gregor Samsa
From a life focused on eating hair and grease
Glue, soup, bread, paper, leather
Sewerage, butter, meat (fresh and decayed)
Makeup, cookies, sugar, toothbrush bristles
Cookies, pizza, flour, tacos, apple pie
Dead bodies, feces, and his own species
He now had to deal with the confusion
The sorrow of being Gregor Samsa
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 4:28 PM UTC
Scattered, splattered gold – like sunshine, once
It crashes into a dark place, a cave by the sea,
Where no one ever goes.
She can pick it up, let it slip and drip
Between her fingers, fingertips. But
She can’t put it back together again.
This girl, someone’s child, she dances
And reads books, and likes to ride her bike
To ride roller-coasters, to fall in love like
The famous people. Mickey Mouse.
She loves love.
Or she used to, she once did, not now.
When she was young, she would write poems
And she would know so, that they were poems.
But somewhere, the rhythm of her mind changed:
Syncopation, alliteration, became the sing-song
That helped her through the night.
*tonight
i don't belong here
my skin is not mine
hair like rope
up, i climb
to nowhere
tonight
pits where my eyes were
petals for lips
irises
we fall into blue
deep violet, violent blue
like oceanwater weight
i am, but not here
like kafka on the shore*
So now she stays, she lives in the dark place,
That same cave where the sea places
Her secrets, things that need to be saved.
And she’s wrist deep in what used to be
Something warm, and sweet, and really quiet –
Holding sundust, smeared
Willing it back into the sky.
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 8:38 PM UTC
the hills were beginning to grow
the grass greening on the approach
to Blue Earth, and how
in summer
Minnesota shed her old coat
to shy guilty into brief silty lakes
like the
joy of a little kid, sneaking a forbidden dip.
remarking, casually, about
white warm flowers hung low from
planned oaks, and the impossible way the town
pulled local hills close, to coat
in dandelions. and cultivate
all under an ambitious midwestern sun.
rolling through the stop sign, hand on mine
you told me if you’re moving at all
you should keep it in second gear.
and we had so far to go, but in the light that
broke through westbound clouds,
we became less so.
contented to spread toes out in earth we
dug into Minnesota, the middle coast:
a land we could like to get to know.
and you:
looking down at the salt, the sand, the scars of
the grand american plantation:
the last coast.
knowing that by the next coast, we
you and me.
we'd be through.
saying, ‘how could anybody die?’
saying,
‘how could anybody tell you anything true?’
undercut by the honest waves of the little lake,
the hum that drummed in my gas tank.
trying, for once, at a little piece of truth:
when I leave this place I leave
a part of me behind.
and that part of me
will be you.
saying there’s only so much sweetness in the soil,
only so long after the thaw,
and grief is rich and dark and made for sowing:
must be, for maintaining verdant local hills, must be
for to keep corn sweet. must be for to put
grief
on the table. must be for to
keep with us.
for to keep a little bit to eat.
saying, we bleed but together we make a hole
to bury both our bodies in.
saying there’s a west out west but too late it’s
already hemmed us in.
saying now I am only a fragile assimilation of this weak
and fractured purpose that drives me, and you are
beautiful enough I would lie to let you love me.
even I would scorch this soil if only things wouldn’t grow I would
saying Blue Earth is still in the trucker's atlas is
only an excuse for sunshine. a point,
where freeways go.
saying,
“with earth, so green, that here they call it 'Blue'.”
saying
“I could learn to love a leopard.”
saying
“how dare you.”
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 7:20 AM UTC
I GAVE THIS LITTLE CREATURE IN MY BATHROOM
THAT SITS THERE
EVERY DAY
EVERY NIGHT
ON THE TILES
A NAME-
KAFKA
YES, LIKE THE
FAMOUS WRITER
AND I WAS WONDERING
IF MY KAFKA ALSO
MORPHED INTO
THIS CREATURE?
IT’S HARD TO SAY HOW HE LOOKS LIKE
DON’T WANT TO COME UP REALLY CLOSE
I BET HE IS UGLY
MAYBE THAT’S WHY
BUT EVERYTIME I GO TO THE BATHROOM
I SMILE
I SEE KAFKA
AND I SMILE
STILL THERE!
GOOD MORNING KAFKA!
GOOD EVENING KAFKA!
ONE DAY HE WAS GONE
AND I LOOKED EVERYWHERE POSSIBLE
NO SIGN OF KAFKA
I GAVE THIS CREATURE A NAME
AND NOW I MISS IT!
Aug 1, 2013
Aug 1, 2013 at 6:32 AM UTC
sleepy eyes open glimpse high ceiling red wood beams house built in 1920s glance out window tree tops blue skies mountains in distance flock of birds flying east chirping sounds passing car engine accelerates inhale deep breath through nose stretch legs plantar dorsal flex feet raise arms over head stiffness in shoulder feel strange sensitivity in right pectoral above ****** cautiously examine with hands feel coarse lump growing more like nub smell moss glare down at growth protruding from chest panicky by soreness rise from bed to mirror on closet door tree stem jutting out from chest inspect dark bark like calloused growth little leafs budding this cannot be race in nervous tantrum run to bathroom suffer painful weight pulling me down clutching carrying foliated limb with arms see myself in mirror horrified stagger back to bed lie on right side branch resting on mattress breathe anxious breaths reexamine pectoral area feel sinewy roots spreading under skin across chest up neck down over stomach waist legs forget how to get home disorientated nauseous exhausted what is this flora invading me ******* kafka metamorphosis post-modern hyper-real narration without accountability jorge luis borges metaphor without mindfulness fairytale run wild jean baudrillard simulacrum psychosis room now filling with plant undergrowth stinking of earth dirt gooey slugs worms shells bugs festering climbing towards windows voracious for light warmth moisture blocking out morning sun entire body trapped in tangled twisted leafy twigs excruciating pain fright lungs gasping suffocating encroaching darkness fatigue loss surrender wake up 4 AM from nightmare scared to fall back to sleep
Mar 6, 2010
Mar 6, 2010 at 3:45 AM UTC
Started off in the [clouds]
and after falling and crashing down,
touched the roots of a redwood.
Now with the help of giraffes
I scale it's back as I'm looking
to climb my way up the trunk.
Branch after branch,
contact causing
**** hoping no one
stops my conquest
and burns this tree to ash.
Talking to fauna,
birds chirp, to attempt
continuing this saga,
after she left I reduced to
nothing but a larva, as I now
undergo the metamorphosis,
similar to that of Kafka's.
Trauma induces this
determination, of being reunited
in clouds with her creation,
and if up there nothing for me
is waiting, then abort mission,
swing towards a new notion,
and from the the clouds
I'm perched upon, jump
and plummet into the [ocean].
25 hours pass before
the tip of the tree is reached
and as the sun rises, I realize
I'm above the horizon and
on clouds perched I instantly
recognize the eyes hidden
under eyelids.
Finally we've met again,
tragic ending as I reach for
her to grab my hand.
Unstably standing on this branch
and as she hands me hers, she
retreats and pulls back.
Slipping, she let me fall
and midair I hear my heart
crack, falling thousands of feet,
I'm thinking of the love she couldn't
keep, and before the impact a thought passes my head; so honest.
Humans like myself, too ambitious in their conquest,
meant to stay at trunk of trees, and clouds, strictly homes for a goddess.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 2:51 PM UTC
When it was late, and quiet,
And we'd lie in bed in silence
Staring up at the ceiling or
at the shadows on the wall,
Just when I'd think we'd
run out of things to say,
Just when I'd let myself start to drift
toward the peacefulness of unconsciousness,
You'd sigh deeply and plunge head-first
into an existential rant
worthy more of Kafka or Camus
than a half-asleep me.
Me, worried about the absurdity of gas prices,
not the absurdity of life.
And I'd roll my eyes when you'd ask me questions
I'd never even entertained, let alone have the answers to.
And you'd wonder if you'd ever find a meaning,
or a purpose.
And I'd tell you not to worry; to live more in the moment
If there is meaning, you'll find it
If not, you'll define it.
And you'd kiss me gently on the forehead,
And I'd roll over and fall asleep,
But I suspect you'd lay awake for hours after,
Never truly satisfied with the answers I, or anyone else
could ever seem to give you.
And I wonder now sometimes,
If you lie in bed next to someone new,
And ask her the same questions you used to ask me.
Maybe she has better answers.
Maybe she makes you forget about your questions.
Maybe you still lie awake at night,
wondering if you'll ever find what it is you're looking for.
And I still don't have the answers,
And I still don't understand all the questions,
But sometimes I lie awake at night,
Staring up at the ceiling or
at the shadows on the wall,
And I wonder if I'll ever find a meaning
or a purpose.
And I find I'm never truly satisfied with the answers
anyone can ever seem to give me.
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 12:52 PM UTC
herein lies common fault - loosely hanging on a speculative conjecture
than exact detail.
mind's prison- asylum.
you go in to see furtive showcases
of the many names walking without
faces. you went in without invitation. only or abstract solicitation.
there is something that sinks
deeper than marrow, blows colder than December winnow, something that burgeons beyond naked sense.
inside this lair,
conflated you are with bent question marks to their distinct, curved smallnesses. you peek into the window of my eyes and inside this airless vault, we are both
heavy with staring at each other
dripping and bare-all, yet
this rigmarole of eyes contain
their visceral silences still.
i stripped them all of their voices
and they only look at each other
with onerous eyes, pondering
about their places, answerless
and just whirling in capacitous space --
Sep 20, 2015
Sep 20, 2015 at 3:50 AM UTC
Sometimes I imagine sitting under our dining table wanting to chop my hair off, days and nights oppressed, yet not to run the rat race. Partly because I was too resistant to be happy, but with the first monsoon showers, I almost collapsed inside my oversized grey T-shirt that began to turn white, infinite gaps inside mind channels, I sat and watched strange men winning Wimbledon. I stopped writing one thousand words a day, themes and perspectives slipped into a closed brown diary, and I always worried what if someone finds it and reads it aloud in the public sphere in Prague, right in front of David Cherry’s rotating Kafka, how miserable he died thinking he was worthless, how miserable it would be to listen to voices that came beneath my dining table. I talk to a shy Kafka, every day, under our dining table, today he shaved my head.
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 4:48 AM UTC
i
today we dress as cowboys
and the ladies look charming
but still is there justice
you are asking..
well,arn´t you the party poopers
up there is the moon
blow it a kiss
and down babylon..!
ii
do i sneak around and steal
from you
no..
do i sneak around and spy
on you
no
so what do i want..
you ask of me
i don´t know..
iii
well lily i think
that is just you
being paranoid
hell is this that
kind of world..
you scary cat
steal from you
spy on you
a kafka void
we must look
to what we
know as true..
iv
well i am not
here to hold
your
******* hand
i thought you
were..
no, this is war-
long periods
of boredom
interspersed
with inexplicable
fear and
emotion turned
on a sixpence..
we can´ t be
together and
we can´ t be alone..
that´ s true
so,we drink
smoke marijuana
and have ***
isn´t war hell..?
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 8:49 AM UTC
Fusty walls and shadows
Left mice in the lurch
They said „no!“ to Kafka
On that day when a man in pajamas walked
In front of his house
And secretly eated
Fresh autumn grapes.
Boy with a fishhook and pieces of bread
Was hunting frogs near the coast
While Kafka went from door to door
People were offering him a glass of maple juice
Or just watched him in silence.
Shadows were whispering Judge's vanity name
And frogs were moving in the mud
Kafka’s leather bag
Went carried by a river
In searching for peace.
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 10:55 AM UTC
What was Kafka thinking? Felice Bauer-
blonde, in a homely sort of way- couldn't
think of him the same way after. He'd asked
her that question (hidden behind his obsession
with his own self-hatred, his surety that she hated him too).
Could you- might you- do you think you'd be able to bear it-
M a r r y i n g m e?
History tells us they didn't tie the knot.
Kafka, probably, didn't mind a lot.
Franz Kafka: that hopeless man,
couldn't look in the mirror without shying from his own reflection.
Kafka, who'd balk at the slightest hint of romantic attention.
More story than man, really. Had more eloquence in his
smallest finger than ever came out of his mouth.
No wonder Felice had her doubts.
Feb 11, 2018
Feb 11, 2018 at 9:32 AM UTC
Aku ingat awalnya
Mimpi itu aku simpan
Mimpi itu aku timbun
Aku tidak berasumsi
Aku tidak berekspektasi
Tapi kau datang
Di malam yang tidak kusangka
Mencari celah untuk masuk
Mencari cara untuk dekat
Ya, kamu waktu itu
Saat awal mula tahun ini
Secepat angin ku ada di pelukmu
Ku terbaring di kasur
Ku merasa hangatmu
Ku ada di sisimu
Ku memilikimu
Mungkin memang benar,
kata Kafka waktu itu
"He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found."
Memang mungkin,
tak perlu susah payah
tak perlu menunggu
apalagi mencari
Karena bila takdir
Ia akan datang sendiri
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 24, 2016 at 8:16 AM UTC
**** them all
I'll wear what I want and my nose ring too
that principal ***** is scared of me anyway
she looks every direction except mine
I try to walk near her in the hall
so she'll see I've busted the dress code
she's good at getting really engrossed in a conversation when I'm near
like the waitress at Applebys that looks right through me when I wanna order
people are so good at looking right through you it's scary
I can't look through anything
I see it all
I see my footprints on the sidewalk
fuckin' followin' me
I see fuckin' atoms splitting
I see all the colors of light in the air
but sometimes I just see black
I go to fancy department stores
just to pull out clothes and let 'em drop
nobody fuckin' looks at me
except they're wondering if they'll have to call the police
maybe someday they'll have to call the police
then they'll see me
maybe for the first and last time
**** them all
sometimes I walk behind someone and grunt at 'em
I giggle when it scares 'em
but they always step aside and don't look at me
I just keep walking with those footsteps followin' me
and those colors turned to black in my eyes
I do like the **** who knocked me down that time
instead of steppin' aside
I like him fine
at least he saw me
at least he looked at me when he punched me
even if he did give me a nosebleed
and I lost my ring
tore it right out of my left nostril
and now there's a fuckin' scar
the janitor bandaged it up for me so I could go to class
I love that janitor dude
he's fuckin' awesome
he gives us *** and has a black cape hangin' on his wall
we can put on if we're in that kinda mood
it feels good to wear that cape
like Captain Fuckin' Invisible
sometimes it takes the black away
sometimes the *** brings the colors back
I'd rather skip class and smoke *** with the janitor
but we're reading The Metamorphosis
now that's a fuckin' great book
a fuckin' nobody who becomes a monstrous vermin overnight
nobody's gonna forget that that's for sure
I wonder if Kafka locked himself in his room
like I do
I could turn into an insect and no one would know
since they don't look at me
well if they do look they don't see me anyway
I guess I am a vermin to them
the principal who doesn't wanna see me
and my sister who pretends she doesn't know me at school
and even my mom who only looks at me
to make sure I'm not wearing profanities on my shirt
**** that
fuckin' big huge vermin fuckin' creepin' up behind you and grunting
and nobody even sees it comin'
that's a giggle right there
nobody sees it comin'
'cause nobody sees me
nobody sees me at all
Dec 17, 2012
Dec 17, 2012 at 4:06 PM UTC
I smell burning lights of neon and blue.
It's Christmas, they say. Inkblots have formed
their own sentences, helping me
write.
In the midst of this slow night,
I swear I am right.
And I pull Kafka from the shelf
because I want to hear him talk.
I am my own vermin, and we can be random
together.
I love you Kafka, I say.
I love you.
Kafka.
I love you.
Shall we dance despite your limbs?
Samba's playing, I am left staring at you
then back at him,
and right back at you, right where you stood
tiptoeing as you reach the topmost corner of the
cupboard.
You know I never hide any can of insecticide, Kafka,
because I get it, you'll wither.
But I love you, Kafka, I say.
I love you.
Kafka.
I'm a bit colorful with a drag of dirt.
I'm a bit Spanish when I shake my hips.
I turn French right before midnight.
I lose sight and might when the clock chimes
two in the afternoon -
I become just by looking at you.
Because I love you Kafka, I say.
I love you.
Kafka.
I.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 11:37 AM UTC
I am haunted by iguanas
Crawling though the attics of my dreams
And lately my front teeth
Are growing some kind of orange fur
I worry that ring tailed lemurs
Have stolen my remote control
I'm ridiculed by spider monkeys
Holding my underwear for ransom
My faithful cat ignores my worries
Unless her dish is empty
Now ants seem vaguely threatening
And magpies watch me in the morning
Late at night, I wonder what advice
Kafka or maybe Aristotle could offer
But they've never friended me or twittered.
Mar 22, 2012
Mar 22, 2012 at 2:46 AM UTC
The excerpt below is from an interview Philip Roth gave to Daniel Sandstrom, the cultural editor at Svenska Dagbladet, for publication in Swedish translation in that newspaper, and in its original English in the Book Review of the New York Times (March 1, 2014).
It was laid out in normal article (paragraph) form, but I chose to re-present here, line by line, sentence by sentence, for it struck me as I first read it, as a prose poem, and a source of inspiration for me. But then I realized, I could not improve upon his words, just risk diminishing them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The struggle with writing is over” is a recent quote. Could you describe that struggle, and also, tell us something about your life now when you are not writing?
Everybody has a hard job.
All real work is hard.
My work happened also to be undoable.
Morning after morning for 50 years,
I faced the next page
defenseless and unprepared.
Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation.
If I did not do it, I would die.
So I did it.
Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
It was also my good luck that
happiness didn’t matter to me
and I had no compassion for myself.
Though why such a task
should have fallen to me I have no idea.
Maybe writing protected me
against even worse menace.
Now?
Now I am a bird sprung from a cage
instead of (to reverse Kafka’s famous conundrum)
a bird in search of a cage.
The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.
It is now truly a great relief,
something close to a sublime experience,
to have nothing more
to worry about than death.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/books/review/my-life-as-a-writer.html?_r=0
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 12:18 PM UTC
Black mouths
Running down the walls
They gather here
But no one cares to see them
A dead worm sinks through the crust
And blood wells in
Where? Where? Where?
Shrinking to the bone
Where? Where? Where?
Kafka on the shore
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 5:06 PM UTC