I have two requests of the Listserve—
First, I have been reading the listserve every day for a few months now, and I want to express my disillusion at what I've seen. Far too many of the messages I receive from the listserve spew the same clichés that I have been listening to my whole life. Please, if you're given this gift, tell me a story, introduce me to your favorite musician, tell me about your startup, tell me a joke! Show me what makes you individual.
My second request is this: read more poetry.
Scheherazade
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.
-Richard Siken
Malcolm Drenttel
[email protected]
New Haven, CT