December 2011
36 posts
8 tags
Let’s make sure to treat this year gingerly,
take him for slow walks in the cold,
a handful of oats and loose harness,
not gallop through too fast.
Love him a little bit each day,
but not so much that his broken
leg keeps you from the gun.
The year will carry you
but is not the only one,
there are others waiting beyond
the mountains in the unbroken dark.
-C.S. Henderson
10 tags
If I'm lonely, then I'm lonely
If I’m lonely, then I’m lonely. So what
if I’m lonely? Wednesday is lonely
and careens into my mug. The new year
is lonely and keeps
calling me to hang out.
My basil plant is lonely and thirsty. I am
lonely and in need of a shower,
which are probably not
the least bit related. The trees
are lonely and loneliest in the forest.
The trees are lonely with a tree house.
The...
2 tags
thestarstoday-deactivated201305 asked: Is there any sort of formal "training" for poets? Or is most of it instinctual and improvised?
claritea-deactivated20120304 asked: Your words really touch me. I love reading your work. What is your process?
7 tags
582 Love Sonnets to the Rock: 6
After the fantastic idea mentioned in this post by TheLazyLazarus
Better love is still awake, the sun
ajumble of flakes of cold yellow.
Another multivitamin and yawn
drawn into the sleeve,
another jagged toe into the shin.
I get a little nervous in each obsidian
night opened like a maw
and cackle. Starry jaunty bat
wing moon shines against
the granite kitchen and groans
in. Into the...
10 tags
There Were Lulls
I
The attic breathed as if it were.
About to be kissed, the taste
of keyhole burrowed into my tongue.
II
I worshipped the sun
in a mason jar, loved
the poem as a plea
from stray cats.
III
The mange
of faith clogged
my shower, razed
the ancient
chapel of dust
bunnies.
IV
There were lulls filled with holy
Irish coffee until it stumbled
with me into the desert winter.
...
9 tags
This Christmas
My mother proved she was still in charge
when she made me take a post-meal shot.
My brother proved he was still more clever than me
when he told me how he got an illegal
to buy him rum in sixth grade.
My father proved he could still teach me
when he made four shots in a row
and beat me in a beer pong game.
My family proved that the ones
who ferment together, stay together.
-C.S....
8 tags
(christmas was full of doubt)
I.
Innumerable women, each in love
like a city. Men, who think they are only one,
like a flower — we bloom too late.
II.
There are no dogs allowed in this park
but we brought one anyway and forgot
to pick up after it. There are no thoughts
allowed but we think of it anyway.
III.
The eternity of birds
resolves in the violin
of a manakin. We don’t need
the opera, just a...
Anonymous asked: I THINK YOU SHOULD POST A GPOY RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW I SAY.
5 tags
Rejected Consequences: A Chapbook of Failures
thetargetbird:
I’ve been playing around with the idea of putting all of my Rejected Consequences together for a while, and I figured why not do it during the season of giving. It even comes complete with a brand new reject! You’ve always wanted Santa to bring you The Target Bird’s Rejected Consequences in a neat little package, right? Thought so.
...
4 tags
Happy Holidays, Have a Chapbook
comefriendlybomb:
I hope you’re all having a good enough holiday that reading a long chapbook about diseases won’t spoil it, because here comes one:
This chapbook is an extension of a project I worked on in late October, which I’ve continued to revise and play with a little bit since then. It owes whatever coherence and elegance it might have to the help and inspiration of several tumblr poets...
1 tag
matespawnkill asked: To your knowledge, are there any books available containing C.S. Henderson's writings?
7 tags
Rejected Consequences: A Chapbook of Failures
I’ve been playing around with the idea of putting all of my Rejected Consequences together for a while, and I figured why not do it during the season of giving. It even comes complete with a brand new reject! You’ve always wanted Santa to bring you The Target Bird’s Rejected Consequences in a neat little package, right? Thought so.
...
7 tags
Reject 32
If love moves into coherence
as a form of confession,
slipping past beauty and any
theories we had for negotiating it
onto the roof to take home,
we’ve overstayed our welcome
and must force happiness
into hands into pockets.
-C.S. Henderson
7 tags
Reject 31
If love concludes that everything, including falling
off the roof or into itself, is deliberate and leaves
a space so big that even the pleasantness
of a freshly rolled cigarette is a negotiation
with vertigo, then we should consider ceasing
to believe in progress, which is to say we should
cease believing in anything.
-C.S. Henderson
7 tags
Seeing Swansongs In The Clouds
I wandered, wanting to be furious
and done with getting older and returning
to the relapse of manifestations: the sunset’s direction
is still irrelevant; a kiss’s romance is in the zigzag
of particles between the hair; harmony can be found
in the basement and lost before noon; being fruitful
in the face of wasteful days is only OK
after a third cup of coffee.
Instead I should...
7 tags
The house feels weak sometimes (I
exaggerate, of course, but I feel
tired too, filled with light not-
quite snow and all sorts of sleep (noon
slides in with something like a boom
(what is a boomless boom?) and I am
cold chasing it) especially in the rain,
which looks like a flailing helpless thing)
and also full, a bit drunk, and nauseous,
trapped in flu season without the fire.
-C.S....
3 tags
What does everyone write in?
I think about this sometimes, insomuch as how it affects how I write. Personally, I’ve been using these guys: small Writersblok Bamboo notebooks, but I think they push me towards writing smaller poems and shorter lines than I would otherwise write if I used a larger notebook. I am also about to run out of space in my last notebook, so there’s that, too. Thoughts?
7 tags
I Wake With Moments Stretching Their Arms As Wide...
and the sphinx of night cleaving
the vectors of entropy to slip between
the doors. Their dregs tell me
that tomorrow will be misty
and morose and unbent in
a youness, that the spiders
of winter bring a terrible love
and leave sheet music for
juvenile songs of meanness.
How to wake up and pay rent
when I hear guns always
at a distance and spend
time always looking for new
ways to pass...
6 tags
Because I'm Drunk Too Often To Ask Otherwise
Build a flume for hope
who walks on carnival
feet and avoids straight
lines. The digging heavy
trees gawk at December
blooming in an ache,
spit in the coffee,
and go to AA at lunch.
What great love
leads to consistency?
What moon will apologize
for the undark night?
What city will offer
more than a lock of
feathers when I’m missing
the flock? What drink
will feel more homely...
7 tags
Reject 29
If love is what other rooms look
like when the furniture is moved
without apology, we must remember
to send postcards for each forceful
negotiation with the world’s
nothing and adapt as it touches
the shallow space between
the thoughts of skin.
-C.S. Henderson
7 tags
I talk without lust,
lurching among New York’s bridges
in the smacking ginger sobriety.
Hurry pesters me, streets liquefying,
afraid I will never love as well
as the rapid river.
Indecision brow beats the sun
then wipes the sweat and pierce.
Each cut is a rehearsal
of halves and fear
of the meridian’s extinction.
Each cut is a reprise
...
7 tags
Reject 28
If love carries consciousness around
like a cigar stub (the gashing
match about the lips, the hollow
drone of smoke woven in time’s
willow arms), treating it like a falling
shingle in the rain is the only way
to turn the joke to a laugh.
-C.S. Henderson
6 tags
Swimming
So, I don’t have time to write a new poem on account of seeing my parents for the first time in a year. Here’s a (not so great) poem I wrote 5 or 6 years ago and edited 5 or 6 minutes ago. Sorry for the cop-out.
My nerves felt infant, Little fears born From protection and distance Floating like leaves
Under a cool stream, Covering like a sheet. I tasted subtle heat as I tried ...
6 tags
In the event that poetry
does not seem as interesting
as tiny things: brunch, the search
for ice in a cold New York,
football highlights,
I promise to write
crappy little poems like this.
-C.S. Henderson
7 tags
When I Am Otherwise Unoccupied
Between each poem is a thought
of precision, between each comma
a sneeze. The tilting clutch
of verbs flange into petals unwithered,
awash in the joys of action:
To be bored all the time with people
and books and music; to flush all melodious
dreams into the sink; to wag and
wag and wag for blue-
berries to ripen in January;
to be sick from a quickstore tuna
sandwich and all nouns,...
8 tags
And the raging head billows
and booms into a half-
blooded lisp, the shuffled booze
of lavender night thrust
into the throat unending.
And the split head leaks the fiery
pomegranate of soul into
the board room, business
always handled with a torch
and scythe and march
to the witch’s tomb.
And the soggy head flails
in ecstasy, the slow viscous
thought of morning abound
with...
1 tag
sonofapritch replied to your post: metempsych replied to your post: unspecializeart… All of my line breaks are Hegelian dialectics
All of your line breaks are socialist and have to share equal poetic value. It’s really annoying when...
1 tag
metempsych replied to your post: unspecializeart replied to your post: Ambition is… i used to get this criticism a lot in workshops too i think it has less to do with grammar than trying to keep people from getting lazy and preserving unity of line. i...
1 tag
sonofapritch replied to your post: unspecializeart replied to your post: Ambition is… Usually people bitch about ENDING lines with and because “oh you should end on a strong word to give the reader pause.” I hate that too. I love you C.S. Keepin’ it real...
1 tag
unspecializeart replied to your post: Ambition is no less tangible than the future is… What’s your opinion about starting a line with “and.” In a writing workshop once, I heard someone advise against it. What do you think? Obviously your doing that here...
6 tags
A Century's Quarter Turn
I black out the earth’s revolutions,
believing that if it’s a party no one
should spin more than the birthday boy.
-C.S. Henderson
7 tags
Love Poem for a Leaving Girl
It like most art and teeth breaks
when we look at it dead on
Even considering the subject
and its strategies numerous
as the glints of sun on the open sea
I should have never said it was
possible — is the slap then
Zen or is that receiving it
Life as dumb a form
as dumber a content bursts
into the clouds my face
becoming a rumble of stones.
-C.S. Henderson
8 tags
582 Love Sonnets to the Rock: 5
After the fantastic idea mentioned in THIS POST by TheLazyLazarus
With the instant seduction
of coincidence, we estimate each other in halves
and doubles, waiting for symmetry to be
distributed. Our subjectivity erodes
with each new introspection, dreams
soaking out from my hair and rubbing
against the high dome of noon.
We cannot intimidate the architecture
of day into dispensing...
4 tags
175 21st Century Poets Worth Reading
ghostorballoon:
My room-mates and I are sitting around being angry at Helen Vendler’s assertion that no century in history has produced “175 poets worth reading.” We all feel pretty strongly that even within the first 11 years of this century there are at least that many talented poets well worth your time, as contemporaries, to look into. However, we’ve drank too much* to tackle this problem...
