{"id":3528,"date":"2015-08-19T14:06:16","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T14:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=3528"},"modified":"2015-08-24T00:14:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T00:14:59","slug":"kafkas-axe-michaels-vest-chen-chen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=3528","title":{"rendered":"Kafka\u2019s Axe & Michael\u2019s Vest — Chen Chen"},"content":{"rendered":"

for Michael Burkard<\/em><\/p>\n

Still winter. Snowing, still. Can it even be called action, this patience
\nin the form of gravity overdressed in grey? & how should we respond to
\nthis world, with passive-aggressive silence or aggressive-aggressive speech?
\n 
\nPerhaps think of how each could be an axe, smashing through the frozen sea,
\nas Kafka calls for. An unexpected smashing, a sometimes unwelcome
\nopening. Though it could also be a shattering, a severing that leads to closing.
\nThink of peace & how the Buddhists say it is found through silence.
\nThink of silence & how Audre Lorde says it will not protect you.
\n 
\nThink of silence as a violence, when silence means being made a frozen sea,
\nbeing evicted from meaningfully being. Think of speaking as a violence,
\nwhen speaking is a house that dresses your life in the tidiest wallpaper.
\n 
\nIt makes your grief sit down, this house. It makes you chairs when you need
\njustice. It keeps your rage room temperature. I\u2019ve been thinking about
\nhow the world is actually unbearable. About all those moments of silence
\nwe\u2019re supposed to take. Each year, more moments, less life, & perhaps
\nthe most monastic of monks are right to take vows of silence that last a decade.
\n 
\nI\u2019ve been thinking of the master\u2019s tools & how they build the house of silence
\nas well as the house of speaking, though Audre Lorde says, better to speak,
\nto call out the unbearable in order to unthink, undo. Though someone else
\n 
\n(probably French) says our speaking was never ours; our thoughts & selves
\nhoused by history, rooms we did not choose, but must live in.
\nThink of Paul Celan, writing in the language of his oppressors. & by writing,
\nI mean speaking. & by speaking, I mean singing. What does it mean
\nto sing in the language of those who have killed your mother, & would
\n 
\nkill her again? Does meaning unravel completely, leaving behind
\nthe barest moan? When I read Celan\u2019s singing, I hear an unbearable hurt.
\nBut to hear it, doesn\u2019t that mean I\u2019m already bearing it, somehow?
\n 
\nThis English, I bear it, a master\u2019s axe, yet so is every language\u2014
\nevery tongue red with both singing & killing. Are we even built
\nfor peace? If I were to hear every pang, the piercing call of everyday
\nnon-peace, I would not be able to say anything, to breathe.
\nI think of breath & my teacher, Michael, one of the least masterly,
\n 
\nmost peaceful people I have ever met, & Kafka\u2019s number one fan.
\nI think of the blue vest Michael wears when his breaths turn white,
\nthe puffy vest that inspired my own blue & puffy vest.
\n 
\nEven when I\u2019m doing my best to think axes & walls, brave monks
\n& unbearable houses, the thought of Michael in his bit-too-big
\ndeep blue vest leaks in. I think, I\u2019m pretty sure I know a constant,
\nuncompromising grief would be unbearable, but what\u2019s a truer response
\nto an unbearable world? Still, I don\u2019t think I will ever stop
\n 
\ntrying to sneak into casual conversation the word ululation<\/em>. If only
\nall language could be ululation in blue vests. If silence could always be
\nas quiet as Michael, sitting with his coffee & his book, rereading.
\n 
\n 
\n\"nn,Chen Chen is the author of the chapbooks, Set the Garden on Fire<\/em> (Porkbelly Press, 2015) and Kissing the Sphinx<\/em> (Two of Cups Press, 2016). A Kundiman Fellow, his poems have appeared\/are forthcoming in Poetry, Narrative, Drunken Boat, Ostrich Review, The Best American Poetry 2015, among others. He holds an MFA from Syracuse University and is currently a PhD candidate in English & Creative Writing at Texas Tech University. Visit him at chenchenwrites.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

for Michael Burkard Still winter. Snowing, still. Can it even be called action, this patience in the form of gravity overdressed in grey? & how should we respond to this world, with passive-aggressive silence or aggressive-aggressive speech?   Perhaps think of how each could be an axe, smashing through the frozen sea, as Kafka calls [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[177],"class_list":["post-3528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-from-fancyquote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3528"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3578,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3528\/revisions\/3578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}