pray for blindness

“I say: “the poem is the animal sinking its mouth in the stream,” and it’s not a metaphor, it’s like it’s my mouth. The poem is an organ, an organism, a being. All those words don’t fit it because it’s something else. Language itself is something so powerful and unknown.”

John Dominis :: Appalachia, eastern Kentucky, 1964. Dominis shot an extraordinary 12-page feature for the Jan. 31, 1964, issue of Life, titled “The Valley of Poverty” — one of the very first substantive reports in any American publication on President Lyndon Johnson’s nascent War on Poverty. This image was not published in Life magazine. | sources Livejournal & Time.com

“The low-maintenance woman, the ideal woman, has no appetite. This is not to say that she refuses food, sex, romance, emotional effort; to refuse is petulant, which is ironically more demanding. The woman without appetite politely finishes what’s on her plate, and declines seconds. She is satisfied and satisfiable.

My mouth is a fire escape. The words coming out don’t care that they are naked. There is something burning in there.