Wednesday, March 2, 2011

I read this poem by Ray Hsu on a plane when I was 18 years old, it was from a friend’s copy of Breathing Fire 2, a book of Canadian poets, and I was trying to kill time on this 13 hour flight. I'm still not sure what it means but I'm still so drawn to it and have to search it out every few months.

Here is an exerpt, I don't even know what it's called:

Take this shovel. It is the enemy of the ground. Use it to write a play where the shovel appears at the beginning and at the end. The people are important, the shovel is important. If a door is locked, use the shovel. If a man is wrong, use the shovel.

If I should die on the floor, use the shovel to return me somewhere. Do not use a splendid sentence the splendid sentence is not a shovel. The splendid shovel is not a shovel. Do not apologize you are not sorry.

Tomorrow I will be going on the trolley. I will not be taking the train. The map I did not take said nothing about a way to Spain. Do not follow me I did not take it.

1 comment:

Ray said...

Hey Alexis! Wanna collaborate?