Poem: Taxi

by Tristan
 
Keep the painting up; no need to take it
 down. Yes, leave it. The way it was before, don't
change it, can't change it, don't like it that way.
 It's good the way it was; no, leave it, leave it.
 I'll fix it later. Bring her in here? When it's finished.
Not too soon. Hurry, she'll be here, must be ready.
 Waited too long for this, can't wait any longer, must be ready, must have it finished. The way
she wanted it. God, so tired, so tired, but no
time today or any tomorrow, she'll be here then and
 it'll be just the way it was before and she won't
have changed at all, I promise, not changed at all.
She's coming back today, did you know that? I
told you, I know, I know, can't stop thinking about it.

 You know that. Sorry. No, no, move that table over
 here, and it needs something to go on it-bring mom's
 vase down from the attic, I'll go cut some flowers.
Don't forget the water. Water for the
 flowers. She doesn't like her bed by the window. Doesn't
like the sun in her face like that anymore. She used to
sleep under the window-she liked it to wake her up

 in the morning, but I guess the sun is colder in
 the city, and it moves too fast. She needs to slow down.
That's why she's coming back. She doesn't want to remember
 the city. She wants to forget about being away, and I'm glad
 of it, glad she's back. Was afraid I'd lost her, isn't that silly? Stupid
 of me. Nothing will have changed, we'll be kids again, I promise.
Then you can stop by and visit, after she's back in her old room,
and we can sit out on the porch, all of us. Mom will be there too,
 the way she always was. And nothing will have changed. The house
won't be empty anymore.
Not that vase! The other one, the
 one with the flowers on them, I forget what they're called. I don't think they're real
flowers anyway, one of us painted them on the vase in school. They're just flowers, and
Mom kept the vase. I don't know why, I would have thrown it out if
someone gave it to me. Always hated that vase,
 hated it, oh, maybe we shouldn't bring it out after all. Why
 would anyone want that in their room? She'll hate it. No, it'll do.
 Don't have a choice. Maybe she won't
notice. Here, I've cut some roses from the trellis, do you think she'll like
 them? I think she will. No, I know she will. There weren't any flowers
 in the city. She'll have missed
them. She won't
 have changed a bit,
 I know it.
 I know it.
There's the taxi.

Poem: Girl in the Art Museum

by Tristan
  
she is the outofeye
inhabitant of
His surroundings,
   the unseen sleight of hand
  of the Statues against the window,
       outlined by the washed-out afternoon.
the escalator
 will carry him
             Under
          with moneymetalhands
   if he does not look away.
the ill-made god coughs 
with sterile electricity,
waiting.
Her meetmyeyes
made him fear the Statues.

Poem: The Whale

by Tristan

I am the
undertow,
the current under me.
I plug my nose against
the water,
the womb water,
the cement-mixing water,
sinking into
me.
I hug my knees
against the
sunshine noise:
The sacred is reduced
to stage fright
and
water-logged newspapers,
washed up on the curb.

Poem: The Waterfountain Woman

by Tristan
  
I got the broken woman,
The one-armed hunchback,
Along with her immortal thirst
Hanging above the fountain,
The water frozen in St. Louis Arch
Just the way he carved it. No one ever told me
If she was broken in the carving
Or in the shuffle of cardboard boxes:
Den to cellar to attic across winters.
She pulls her shawl closer
With her good hand.
Another woman is under glass,
Somewhere,
My grandfather's elegy,
With both arms bracing her corn husk form
As she stoops for a drink of water.
But I got the broken woman.

Poem: 12:14 Digital

by Tristan
  
Horns, jostling arms--move them along
No machetes made for concrete jungles.
Guitar riff! Ringtone. "Y'ellow?" Silence.
Sewer steam rises from the city street
Discordance of the cigarette men.

Poem: Wind at Night

by Tristan

The sounds of the wind in the darkness drift
Carry whispered visions, long-dreamt myths
From where they've come, I do not know
From all the wide world, they've come to show
The forgotten joys and forgotten woes,
Memories of paths where the young boy goes
The unremembered trails to youth's proud feet
Though wise old man's yet still may meet
On some cool leaf-strewn autumn day.

And the trees, they reach to brush the star-flung night
To snatch a twinkling diamond from God's sight
And bring it down 'mong branches twist'd and gnarled
The guiding vision thus ensnarled
Will remember to us then its many watches kept
While hill and plain and city slept;
Over the lovers alone together in the night
Lit by a light that was not starlight
Blind to the world around them in decay.

The trees, they reach to brush the whispered darkness lore,
Catch hold of it, to dance, 'til neither is no more.
The wind at last gives a gentle nudge, and the diamond-star is free --
To sail and soar away up there, filled with a gentle glee,
While we down here alone must wait
For wings to grow at the will of fate.
At last the trees and wind their dance must end
With longing blessings the trees do send
The wind to travel, farther on its way.

Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark Haddon)

by Tristan D.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon has been the focus of quite a bit of praise from critics and readers, so I had been looking forward to reading it for book discussion at the library. However, I thought the book fell far short of the reviews--definitely one of the more overrated books that I've read.

The book is unique, I’ll give it that. Haddon’s narrator is Christopher Boone, a teenage boy with Asperger’s Syndrome, who sets out to find the murderer of a neighbor’s poodle, though this turns out to be entirely insignificant and quickly resolved, soon overshadowed by the dramas of Christopher's parents. Seeing the story through his eyes is interesting from a psychological standpoint, but—and this is a big but—he never really clicks as a character. It too often seems like Haddon shoves Christopher at us and says, “Pity him. He’s not like you.” And maybe we do pity him—but we never understand him, and we certainly never empathize with him. He remains distant and cold, and never really develops or grows as a character. I’ve always felt that no matter who the character is, and no matter how bizarre and incomprehensible his circumstances, it’s the author’s central duty to the reader to make us understand him. We need a connection, any connection, and Curious Incident only succeeds in widening the gap.

Book Review: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez)

by Tristan D.

I stretched back in a beach chair and dug my feet into the sand, reached
over to the blanket where my father slept and picked up
the newly-bought book. I spent ten minutes scratching off the "Oprah's
Book Club" sticker and rubbing off the stubborn residue that it
left behind, wondering why a Nobel-Prize-winning novel needed Oprah's
stamp of approval before people bought it. But anyway.

The book was Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude,
and two days after I bought it from the Browseabout bookstore on a
lazy Rehoboth Avenue in mid-June, I am happy to say that it is one of
the most powerful things that I have ever read.

It is of just the right weight and flexibility for a paperback, and
has a smell of seashells and salt-wind that adds to the magical realism
pioneered by Márquez's words. One Hundred Years of Solitude is the
story of six generations of the family of José Arcadio Buendía, the
founder of a mythical town called Macondo. I was half-way through the
novel before I realized that Macondo was located in Colombia—the name
of the country is never referred to, and Márquez's descriptions leave
the reader with an impression of a landscape that is so timeless and
familiar that its exact location in the world of reality is difficult
to place.

This is a story of characters, of human beings whose inner beauty and
ugliness drive them through a world of Colombian history and human
mythology. Each one is recognizable and unique—despite the endless
repetition of the same names across the generations—and I fell in love
with each of them, even when I had to hate them. There were moments of
tragedy where Márquez demands that we laugh, and moments of joy where
he demands that we ache. It is an intensely realistic story populated
by lost ghosts, prophetic gypsies, and thirty-two failed rebellions
all led by the same silversmith. It is filled with all the
contradictions and absurdities of real life, which only serve to make
it more powerful and life-changing, and I strongly recommend that you
go out and buy this book.

The New York Times Book Review perhaps said it best: "One Hundred
Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of
Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race. It
takes up not long after Genesis left off and carries through to the
air age, reporting on everything that happened in between with more
lucidity, wit, wisdom, and poetry than is expected from 100 years of
novelists, let alone one man…Mr. García Márquez has done nothing less
than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound,
meaningful, and meaningless in life." You will be changed. Promise.