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m_d_hThe book contains five chapters, and I've decided to read no more than one chapter per day. Now I've read two chapters. The second chapter is one poem, but its pages are mostly whitespace, each page turn becomes part of the poem, each page switches point of view from the last.
A major theme of his poetry (so far) is the loneliness of unreturned love. The first time I started this book, I felt his capacity to love, and his capacity for loneliness, both so strong, that I wanted to love him, I wanted to become the one who loved him back and would not leave. That's my dominant emotion while reading these poems. I want to become the one who will not leave him.
And look at where I am, look at where I work, look at the past two decades of my life, I've been the person who doesn't leave, even as the world and its population change around me.
I keep saying I'm going to leave, however. The pets will pass, the career will end, I will figure out what to do with this house and how to hand off T to the rest of the universe. It's not that I don't leave ... I'm leaving imperceptibly slowly ... I've selected natural endpoints that approach me faster than I approach them ...
But if somebody were to miss me as intently as Jacob Steinberg writes about missing his lovers, perhaps I'd never leave. Or if somebody were to express how he misses me as poetically,
Can you trap me with your verse? Your verse, and your cock, your fingers, and your lips, your eyes, and the warmth of your back against my chest; I am trappable, dominable, I am susceptible, able to feel passion, and able to decide that this next chapter of my life will not leave anyone until my body is finished. But I am not feeling that passion here, or now. Neither within, nor directed toward me. And I will not miss this present so painfully as Steinberg's poems miss their past.
I want to miss my future so painfully as Steinberg's poems miss their past.
A major theme of his poetry (so far) is the loneliness of unreturned love. The first time I started this book, I felt his capacity to love, and his capacity for loneliness, both so strong, that I wanted to love him, I wanted to become the one who loved him back and would not leave. That's my dominant emotion while reading these poems. I want to become the one who will not leave him.
And look at where I am, look at where I work, look at the past two decades of my life, I've been the person who doesn't leave, even as the world and its population change around me.
I keep saying I'm going to leave, however. The pets will pass, the career will end, I will figure out what to do with this house and how to hand off T to the rest of the universe. It's not that I don't leave ... I'm leaving imperceptibly slowly ... I've selected natural endpoints that approach me faster than I approach them ...
But if somebody were to miss me as intently as Jacob Steinberg writes about missing his lovers, perhaps I'd never leave. Or if somebody were to express how he misses me as poetically,
Can you trap me with your verse? Your verse, and your cock, your fingers, and your lips, your eyes, and the warmth of your back against my chest; I am trappable, dominable, I am susceptible, able to feel passion, and able to decide that this next chapter of my life will not leave anyone until my body is finished. But I am not feeling that passion here, or now. Neither within, nor directed toward me. And I will not miss this present so painfully as Steinberg's poems miss their past.
I want to miss my future so painfully as Steinberg's poems miss their past.