what i would actually like to talk about is capitalization, you know, of letters, and how it is completely absent from 1. this blog & 2. the three poems i've read in mort's book.
i never thought about why i don't use capital letters for informal writing on the internet. it just seemed less... formal, and then became habit. one thing i like about words is that we visualize them when we hear them or speak them. if nothing else, sometimes i say a word and visualize how it's spelled. the less i used capital letters, the more i came to visualize my spoken words without them. so when i read these poems, i try to understand how valzhyna mort made that choice.
read it.
Music of Locusts
by Valzhyna Mort
what i wouldn't give
to be a small freckle on the wind's nose
to ride in a convertible
beside a middle-aged man
a teenager will do
it's as if everything that has happened
is nothing but Security which you have to pass through
in order to get into summer
god tossed a heart like a coin
inside me
as if i were a pond
he made a wish
and lingered in the air
and everything belongs to me but hope
the mountains are kneeling like runners at the starting line
their green t-shirts billowing in the wind
then they are gigantic tortoises
he will offer to leave me
the color of his skin is
like the color of the sun at dusk
and the road is parting in front of the wheels
like an army of locusts as it rushes ahead of us
like god's stray eyelashes
the stars are falling- more light! more!
god has no time to make a wish
all he can do is cry out faster! faster!
it's impossible to fall asleep next to this man
at night all that's left of my body
is the music of locusts
