I'M Up In The Attic Poem by gershon hepner

I’m up in the attic
and above, in my mind
the stench and the static
I leave far behind
till returning below
to the living room where
the people all know
that I’m not really there,
since the attic’s the place
where I never feel down,
since I don’t have to face
all the world like a clown,
true only to what
I think when alone,
which downstairs may be not
what I say. All my phone
conversations are often
so far from what I
have intended I soften
their meaning and try
to explain from the attic
what I had intended,
downstairs, so erratic
some have been offended
by what I said there.

Now I have to move,
not sit here and stare,
if only to prove
that I’m fully aware
of those who’re around me.
I am, and I love them,
but where I have found me
is the attic above them,
and that’s why I stay there,
away and above.
It’s easier to say there:
“You know that I love.”



Inspired by a four-line poem by Justin Vernon, cited by Nate Chinen in the NYT, January 18,2009:
Justin Vernon, the singer-songwriter behind Bon Iver, made one of the most haunting debuts in recent memory — “For Emma, Forever Ago, ” released on Jagjaguwar last year — by calling on complex emotions and drifts of dark-hued falsetto. His new EP, “Blood Bank, ” is due out on Tuesday on the same label, and three of its four songs abide by similar prescriptions. In “Beach Baby, ” a countryish waltz, and “Babys, ” a ballad with an itchy piano underlay, Mr. Vernon conjures thoughts of summertime from a distance. The title track feels better nourished and resides more comfortably in a furtive, wintry mode. But then there’s “Woods, ” an a cappella plaint that alludes to Mr. Vernon’s much publicized songwriting sabbatical in a remote Wisconsin cabin:
I’m up in the woods
I’m down on my mind
I’m building a still
To slow down the time
That’s the whole song, lyrically: its power lies in layering and repetition, Bon Iver trademarks. The twist is that Mr. Vernon uses what sounds like Auto-Tune — the digital pitch-correction device that has risen to recent, flagrant ubiquity in pop — to manipulate his multitracked vocals. Consider it a piece of commentary, or a conceptual joke, or a subversion of rustic naturalism. Whatever the case, it’s wonderfully strange, and in that sense true to form.


1/18/2009