October 4, 2010

Reread Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems on an all night, 13 hour, hard seat train from Beijing to Inner Mongolia. Even with all the references to China that happen here and there, seldom has my reading material been at such a disconnect with my surroundings:

and then in Harbin I knew
how to behave it was glorious that
was love sneaking up on me through the snow
and I felt it was because of all
the postcards and smiles and kisses and the grunts
that was love but I kept on traveling

--"Mary Desti's Ass"

I read Schopenhauer's On the Suffering of the World on the way back. That was more in line with my surroundings, if not my mood.