I've Never Met a Rachel Yet

I've never met a Rachel yet
Who knew she was named for
The most intensely loved woman
In all the Bible, and you're
No exception, Rachel.

I love the name Rachel;
I love the many personalities
You command in your hair;
I love your gaze, and I love
The color of your eyes
Which I know so well
But could never name.

Song For Leah

I posted a song by Yo La Tengo for Rachel
the other night, here's the flipside song by
the same band for Leah. Yeah, I know it's
unfair, but no one's paying attention to this
site anyway; it's a steam valve, not a real blog.

Make sure to check out the lyric on the side.
It's a list of the ways the singer disappoints
the one she's singing to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak660F1_neY

Sorry, for disappointing you, Leah, I don't
know how much longer I can keep squeezing
the Sugar Cube.

Rachel Out In the Cold

Oh, Rachel, I know you don't like
being out in the cold. I hope
this warms you up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLxcMr9Kv1g&NR=1

I love you so much. I can find no
words of my own. You always
make my life better, but sometimes
I can't take the irony that we were
put just close enough together in time
and space for it to sometimes be
unbearable that we can't be together.

Saturday Night Secret

It's Saturday Night again, the night I spend socially though
alone with thoughts of you. I've never been one for pop psychology,
but I'm hoping this movie, The Secret, about the law of attraction
turns out to be onto something. According to this silly movie,
our thoughts attract reality, which I hope is true, because when
I think of us together, this is what I picture:

Nothing romantic or passionate, I can clearly see us standing
side by side, just happy to be together. You have a smile on
your face, a big one, and we're facing the world together.
And you, who always seem alone to me in the photos I see
of you with other people, you are no longer alone.

Catalog Aria

Rachel, lately I've found myself cataloging
Images of you, your smile; your laugh,
Oh God, how I love your laugh with that bit of surprise
It always contains; your unique gaze - has anyone else
Noticed this but me; the way you wait; the way
Your hand touches your face; your face, so beautiful;
Your openess to beauty; your complete lack of pretension;
Your love of Mahler's orchestration; your ego which should
Be so much bigger; the way you eat as a true companion,
Your good-humor and undying cheerfulness,
The troubled sleep you took in my bed once when I
Nursed you and fed you lunch before sending you home;
Your determination in the face of puzzles and models;
Your hair of the many faces, your face of the such constancy;
Your way of patiently moving your look over to me
As if you know I've been waiting, and your eyes come,
Without hurry, without resentment and with generosity.

And then there are the images of moments
Imagined and longed for but never realized:
You curled up next to me through a night
When for once I don't sleep as to not waste
The comfort of being next to you,
Rather than not sleeping from
Wondering if you ever think of me?
I imagine the meals I would cook for you.
I imagine the changes in your life,
The travels to Italy and New York together.

So many other things.
So much nicer to imagine them than
To wonder if you ever think of me?
Do you ever think of me?

Rachel, Redeemer of Banal Pop Music

Rachel, there are songs out there I just
wouldn't like - in fact I don't like - but
there's a line or something which captures
my feelings for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwJtKava4Wo

This James Taylor song just wouldn't do it
for me, but he sings

Everytime I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself.

And this is so true of me. I often think you could never
know me, just because you cheer me up so much. When
you're not around, I'm much less happy. Wonderful you.
I still can't really enjoy the whole song, but I'll still play
over and over the one line in my head while walking down
the street.

And here's a song I know Rachel doesn't like,
but for me though I want to believe but can't
in the lines:

And all the roads that lead you on are winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding

as if they might someday lead to Rachel and myself
being together, there is one line that makes me cling
to this song, which I never liked until one lovesick
day by a skating rink, I heard it and linked it to Rachel,
especially the line I can't help but find true:

I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc

Saturday Night With Rachel Somewhere Else

Oh Rachel, My Sylvaine,
My Only Beloved Rachel,
Your name sets the meter for my poetry;
And I set aside my Saturday nights
To be without you,
To be intensely without you.

Oh Rachel, all other times you are
In my mind and in my heart,
Because thoughts of you will be there
And I can do nothing but submit
With the love which makes my mind so
Hospitable a home for thoughts of you.

But Saturday nights - all alone and yet
At my most sociable! - I have to write you,
Either in my notebook, or on this screen,
Or on scraps meant for burning.
When you came to call me back from death,
I saw I liked you, but I did not suspect
The Love to come. When I first realized
I loved you, I felt no urgency. It was a crush,
Surely it would go away. But then I realized
Soon you would go away, and I panicked
Into the most desperate love,
The love where I still live now.

Could I live without you?
Truly I did not know.
Truly I do not know now.

I wrote over and over in my notebook,
Don't tell Leah
Don't tell Rachel
Don't tell your family
Don't tell your sister
Tell this notebook.

Write! I wrote. Writing has been the way
For me to keep to myself all the thoughts
Which must be stored in secrecy.
Yes, I write to not be read, and yet if only ....

But it will never be:
Lucky I guess, and so
Saturday Nights I write.

The Very Thought of You

During the day, there are so many
Distractions from you, and yet
You are always waiting right there
When my mind returns to its center.

At night, it's impossible to believe
We will not finally end together, knowing
We were made one for another in some
Unknown form or some unexpected familiarity.

Friday Night, Restless Days

I saw you again last week.
It was so easy, I invited you,
And you came, and you smiled,
Your eyes shone, and it was
Easy and free and just the same
As it used to be, and our eyes
Held steadily jut before you left.

Oh, but was it a mistake? Cause
Ever since, my heart's been breaking
At an increasingly painful speed.

No, it was no mistake. If I can't hold you,
Then I need to hold to your absent gaze,
And onto the pain which disturbs
My nights and gives life to my days.

If You Could Read My Mind, Leah

I can't believe I'm linking to this.
When I was younger I would have
looked down on it horribly as I was a horrible
snob. But hearing it tonight on The Midnight
Special,

"And I will never be set free
As long as I'm a ghost you can not see"

I gasped when I heard that line. Shock of
recognition indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta0a3DFUU0Y



I'd go farther and say there's an intriguing
relationship between extravagant striving for artfulness (just why I used to look down on it)
and complete artlessness - though he's obviously aware
it's hokey as the "paperback hero" makes clear,
but he believes in the hokiness just as he believes in his
old fashioned singing style. Art that covers artlessness which I
guess I'd call honesty. Notice, and this is very important.
He continues calling her Love.

You Smiled

I want to apologize if I've caused you any trouble.
It just seems it would be unfair to you,
Since you've caused this hurricane of emotion
In my life, if you were to know nothing of it.

I was so happy seeing you each day.
I didn't care it wasn't romantic.
I told you I thought we were friends.
You smiled as if, of course we are,
And your smile braced me and
Then broke my heart.

How gladly I would have
My heart broken every day still.
How little good it does me whole
Without you around to be loved.

Rachel's Gaze

How does it come about that you're the one?
What's special about you?
What distinguishes you above
All others so that your absence
Is my most faithful companion?

Only you are Cinderella and don't
Cease to exist at the midnight
Of your disappearance, but slip
Onto my mind's looking glass where
Nothing is more real than your pale reflection.

The funny thing is if I had not offered
To take your picture, I might never
Have really seen your eyes,
That particular to you inside-out look of them,
The beauty of their unique gaze,
Your gaze, my love, holding both
You and the world in careful reserve.

It was that moment - the moment
I viewed you as an artist does,
Impersonally - that I was lost.

UnHAppy New year

A New Year:
Can I live
Through one with
Out you, Dear?

Do I care?
Without you
I do not
Care one bit.
----------Hurt McDermott
------UNHAPPY NEW YEAR

Still drunk, I'm afraid. Leah's in bed, and I dug up this little
ditty by my good friend, Hurt, from the days before, before ....

Before that which can not be put into words.

Happy New Year 2009

Happy New Year, Rachel!
I'm thinkin of you.
Are you thinking of me?