"Again Joseph learned the most important of the human ailments and their treatment; he learned about the human body, which likewise conformed to the cosmic trinity and was comprised of solids, liquids, and gases. He learned to associate the parts of the body with the signs of the zodiac and the planets; to understand how it was that kidney fat was more precious than all others, in that the organ which it surrounded was connected with the organ of procreation and was the seat of the vital energies; to recognize in the liver the seat of the emotions; and to get by the heart a system of instruction written out in sections on a clay model, from which it appeared that the entrails were a mirror of the future and a source of dependable omens."
T. Mann, Joseph and his Brothers, 270
I don't know what I am doing with this - these postings - but I have been keeping a journal, saving each document to correspond with whatever was written that day, like the date here (2013.02.26), so that it is all saved in order and, without much foresight, choosing some things to leak into this more public sphere; the above I kept note of because I was told just last tuesday that my kidney is weak: which names my ailments well enough: that I lack vital energy and crave to be nourished.
On Jan. 25:
Rilke: "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
On Feb. 14th:
David Trinidad, "LOVE POEM," 1989
At 4:30 a.m., I wake up
from a nightmare, bump
through the dark apartment
to pee, then sit and smoke
a cigarette in the living
room. When I get back
in bed, Ira wakes up
and says: "you're a sweet
man, do you know that?"
I tell him I've been having
bad dreams. I'm lying on
my back; he tells me to roll
on my side. As I do, he presses
against me from behind and
wraps his arms around my chest.
"you're safe now," he whispers
into my neck. "Go back to sleep.
You won't have any more bad dreams."