- 64 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
The unusual voice encountered in Curses and Wishes carries a quiet, slightly elevatedconversational tone, which flows from intimate secrets to wider social concerns.
The poet has faith in economy and trusts in images to transfer knowledge that speech cannot. In Curses and Wishes the short, simple lines add up to a thoughtful book possessed with lyrical melancholy, a harmony of sadness and joy that sings: "May happiness be a wheel, a lit throne, spinning / in the vast pinprick of darkness." By the close of this ambitious work the poet has inspired readers to see the multifaceted effects of our human connections.
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Yes, you can access Curses and Wishes by Carl Adamshick in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Poetry. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Out past the dead end sign
There! Look me full in the face!—in the face. Understand, if you can, That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.
—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Last night, touching the skin
that has become your eyes,
I fell into a charred landscape
I recognized from childhood.
Once green. I touched,
once and once, the fastened
lids of your face. Forgive me,
for what I think, for what
I sometimes believe I want.
that has become your eyes,
I fell into a charred landscape
I recognized from childhood.
Once green. I touched,
once and once, the fastened
lids of your face. Forgive me,
for what I think, for what
I sometimes believe I want.
And
A year into our marriage I lost my eyes.
They were blowfish pulled from the sea,
two balled-up, quivering hedgehogs,
dead rats, Victorian paperweights.
Wet and swollen, they fell from my face.
My muddy grenades, my receipts,
my teacups of warm rain. Amnions.
I carried one in each hand, weeping.
They were blowfish pulled from the sea,
two balled-up, quivering hedgehogs,
dead rats, Victorian paperweights.
Wet and swollen, they fell from my face.
My muddy grenades, my receipts,
my teacups of warm rain. Amnions.
I carried one in each hand, weeping.
And
We make our own pain.
I was once dumb enough
to believe this. I remember
making the box, dovetailed
cherry, burning into the wood
my devotion. I only wanted
your grief, wanted to watch
it drift toward the center
of a small lake and sink
where the moon struck water.
But you never get just one
thing and you never know
how what you get might
flourish like something
delicate under hothouse
glass. Your eyes are in
the lake of my body. I quiet
every time they turn and focus
on a different aspect
of the still black. I thought
the offering would allow
them sleep, free your hands
from their weeping, but,
it has become our argument.
The angry staves humming
for want in our one sad duet.
I was once dumb enough
to believe this. I remember
making the box, dovetailed
cherry, burning into the wood
my devotion. I only wanted
your grief, wanted to watch
it drift toward the center
of a small lake and sink
where the moon struck water.
But you never get just one
thing and you never know
how what you get might
flourish like something
delicate under hothouse
glass. Your eyes are in
the lake of my body. I quiet
every time they turn and focus
on a different aspect
of the still black. I thought
the offering would allow
them sleep, free your hands
from their weeping, but,
it has become our argument.
The angry staves humming
for want in our one sad duet.
And
My husband’s body is soft.
I touch him in the dark.
I have darkness like death.
I see the way his stomach
sees: churning blood;
a whiteness of black
racing toward a pinpoint;
an infinite conical field.
I hear a sitcom open loud
in the living room.
I could hate him
like other women hate
their husbands. Their pleasure
one of secrecy and small.
They must love their own
commitment; sycophants
giving themselves
to the fervent hands,
to the risen penis,
letting that dark room shield
them from the warm,
bright sperm, which in the end,
it doesn’t do. That dark
ties them to the invisible,
glorious bleeding. It’s not hate
I feel. It’s something deeper
moving in something darker,
more significant. It has nothing
to do with him or me
or television. It’s unconcerned
with our lives. I love my husband
as I love life in all its confusions
and joys. When I take him
in my hands, I know the buses
stop running. Still, when I lead
him to the bed and my mouth
opens on his open mouth,
I know the world closes in
to listen and waits for us to return.
I touch him in the dark.
I have darkness like death.
I see the way his stomach
sees: churning blood;
a whiteness of black
racing toward a pinpoint;
an infinite conical field.
I hear a sitcom open loud
in the living room.
I could hate him
like other women hate
their husbands. Their pleasure
one of secrecy and small.
They must love their own
commitment; sycophants
giving themselves
to the fervent hands,
to the risen penis,
letting that dark room shield
them from the warm,
bright sperm, which in the end,
it doesn’t do. That dark
ties them to the invisible,
glorious bleeding. It’s not hate
I feel. It’s something deeper
moving in something darker,
more significant. It has nothing
to do with him or me
or television. It’s unconcerned
with our lives. I love my husband
as I love life in all its confusions
and joys. When I take him
in my hands, I know the buses
stop running. Still, when I lead
him to the bed and my mouth
opens on his open mouth,
I know the world closes in
to listen and waits for us to return.
And
I can’t help but think you gave them away,
left them on a park bench for that child
to find. Green, light as fresh marjoram.
When they were shrouded in your skin,
when they lived in your body, I studied
them as a brewer marveling fermentation.
The heart knows nothing. It just moves
its blood, chamber to chamber. They
glossed over in sex. Focused on something
beyond the room, their watery curves, loose
as muscles in a milk bath, would whisper
the names of currents, stars, jasper and jade,
whatever I was thinking. I wanted to live
in them, lonely, listening to the music
you couldn’t hear from the outside.
left them on a park bench for that child
to find. Green, light as fresh marjoram.
When they were shrouded in your skin,
when they lived in your body, I studied
them as a brewer marveling fermentation.
The heart knows nothing. It just moves
its blood, chamber to chamber. They
glossed over in sex. Focused on something
beyond the room, their watery curves, loose
as muscles in a milk bath, would whisper
the names of currents, stars, jasper and jade,
whatever I was thinking. I wanted to live
in them, lonely, listening to the music
you couldn’t hear from the outside.
And
When you weren’t home I would put my finger
in the rut o...
in the rut o...
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Even though
- Memoir
- New year’s morning
- Harvard, Illinois
- Junkyard
- Compassion
- Home
- Our flag
- Dissection
- Nursing
- Hope
- Benevolence
- Iphigenia
- Arithmetic
- The book of Nelly Sachs
- Sleep
- War as the cherry blossoms
- The emptiness
- Correction
- Night
- The confession of an apricot
- The farm
- Oyster bar
- Pelican
- Fluency
- Almost
- Out past the dead end sign
- Acknowledgments