COMMONPLACE

After the Divorce, I Think of Something My Daughter Said about Mars (poem): Once you go, you can never come back. If you returned to Earth, the gravity would turn your bones to noodles. I mean your skeleton would sort of melt. So if you go, you have to stay gone. * * * Who Remembers the Armenians? by Najwan Darwish (poem): I remember them and I ride the nightmare bus with them each night and my coffee, this morning I'm drinking it with them You, murderer- Who remembers you? * * * THE BOOKS I HAVE NOT READ by Shel Silverstein (poem): Here are the books I have not read That I promised to read someday. And who knows? Maybe after Baseball games, circuses and taking naps, Playing drums and building planes, Drinking Cokes and telling jokes And playing spin the bottle, And watching stars and driving cars And getting married and working a job And having kids and getting old And getting fat and getting gray- I may * * * TELL ME by Shel Silverstein (poem): Tell me I'm clever, Tell me I'm kind Tell me I'm talented, Tell me I'm cute, Tell me I'm sensitive Graceful and wise, Tell me I'm perfect- But tell me the truth. * * * Woody Allen: This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs. I guess that's pretty much how I feel about relationships. They're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs. * * * ?: I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, just more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but they wouldn't let me. * * * Ted Kaczyncski: The reason why the system teaches us to be horrified at violence is that violence of any kind is dangerous to the system. The system requires order above all; it needs people who are docile and obedient and don't make trouble. * * * Jessica gives me a chill pill by Angie Sijun Lou: Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else. * * * Erykah Badu: Write it down on real paper with a real pencil. And watch shit get real. * * * Hansel: Sting. Sting would be another person who's a hero. The music that he's created over the years- I don't really listen to it. But the fact that he's making it, I respect that. * * * Lou Reed: The music is all. People should die for it. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music? * * * Love Is by Kim Casali: Love Is... when there's no other place you'd rather be.