this is why we wake up late at night and light up the candles of our tv sets

i'm going through a thing right now with valzhyna mort. i discovered her for the first time two weeks ago when she read with cynthia cruz at the central park zoo. she has an awesome reading voice and the best hair cut. i bought her book, factory of tears, and although i have read it almost every day since then, i've only read three poems in it. they're just too good and i'm not ready to move on. we'll talk more when i've read the whole book.

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