#79 - 5 years of The Alipore Post :)
Art by Madeleine Pfull
Relax by Ellen Bass
Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.
André Kertész, Martinique
Other poems I've enjoyed reading:
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand."
-from Go to the Limits of Your Longing by Rainer Maria Rilke
"I don’t like reading morning newspapers,
not for the violence in their pages,
stripped bare in black ink, fresh on creased paper.
This country is jaded, the city, bitter,
and I’d like to lead your exhausted bodies
to the rush of the sea, lapping at our
feet, inviting us to stay for some chai."
-from In This Age of Discontent by Kim Kaul
"Don't be mad,
I'm in bed thinking
of you at work."
-Joshua Beckman
"Sun makes the day new.
Tiny green plants emerge from earth.
Birds are singing the sky into place.
There is nowhere else I want to be but here." -from For Keeps by Joy Harjo
"...I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder" -from I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Recommended Listening:
4 Levels Of Mario Music: Noob to Elite
Podcast: Ménage à Moi
10 recommended podcasts for creative freelancers and businesses in 2020
Art by Liz Rowland
Links of the Week:
David Hockney on Vincent van Gogh
Roxane Gay's Best Essays of 2019
How To Reinvent Yourself: A Guide (essential reading)
Liz Rowland's heartwarming illustrations celebrate culture and community
What comics teach us about ourselves
A handy template for planning your creative resolutions for 2020 by 99U
Artists Share Their Advice on Preventing Burnout
Essay: Reuniting with Awe
It's Kind Of A Funny Story-Therapy Scene
via Dog With Sign
Instagram Loving:
Asia Orlando (have to get started on the #OurPlanetWeek drawing challenge today!)
Yesterday was the 5th birthday of The Alipore Post. Originally, I wanted to curate a newsletter with all my favorite poems in it that I discovered over the past 5 years. But that seemed too gargantuan a task because I love most of the poems I share. I decided to share Ellen Bass' Relax again because people need it now more than ever, methinks.
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been on this journey with me. I couldn't have done it without you. :)
Sending hugs,
Rohini