In my infinite insomnia, I finally saw Bright Star last night. Most have criticized it as boring, but oh, not for me. In my past-life believing depths, John Keats is my soul mate. I love him beyond loving him. Beyond having met him, beyond any criticism of his poetry, etc. If I were to choose a dinner table of people I dream to meet, it's basically Margaret Mitchell & John Keats....well... and Camus.
No matter how many times i go back to his work, even in the movie, I felt a kind of psychic connection to it. The other characters would ask him to recite something, and I would know which poem he would choose and I would instinctually begin to recite that poem with him. It was uncanny.
Tonight, I feel like he'd say:
On leaving some Friends at an Early Hour
GIVE me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap’d up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending!
’Tis not content so soon to be alone.
But last night, and when this first started in the film, they said, "Mr . Keats, please recite something." Ane he began my favorite. And I KNEW he would say it. I could see it in his eyes before he began. And he and I said together, "When I have fears that I may cease to be before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain..." He choked up in the middle, but oh! And so, I am renewing my devotion to my first real boyfriend. And recommitting his works to memory, like I had done in college.
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
Posthumous and Fugitive Poems
) as shit-starting television journalist trying to get the BBC to cover real stories instead of debutante engagements. While covering one of those debutante engagements, he puts his foot in a murder conspiracy. 
, and it kept me company through my first winter of living alone in Queens, with no TV, and no man from Alaska, whom I'd really loved. 
when I was flailing to stay above water after YTI. Come on Now Social
at the end of high school, Become You
while I was in Japan, All That We Let In
at the end of college, etc etc etc. And now, this lovely two disc live album. And just...always with the poetry these guys. Which is literally why you can pull almost any lyric from almost any song and set it in a Keats poem. 
" which I had forgotten about until today when my Cash
greatest hits vinyl arrived at my office. Then, serendipitously, John Lundberg, via the Huffington Post discussed a new album from Sugar Hill Records featuring Shel Silverstein covers. 
” features some of my favorites, like Lucinda Williams, Nanci Griffith and (sigh) Kris Kristofferson (also wrote for Johnny Cash), as well as a some other folks I’m not hip or indie enough to be well versed in. 
(perhaps one day I’ll elaborate or post my college thesis about it here). Or suburban magical realism. At the very least, small, cold coastal town magical realism. A spooky amplification of ordinary life. 
(I've since re-written several times.)
Tonight, I feel like he'd say:
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