Achtung Baby!

the way desire burns bluely

Lana Del Ray: Lolita

 

Nabokov’s Blues
William Matthews

The wallful of quoted passages from his work,   

with the requisite specimens pinned next

to their literary cameo appearances, was too good

a temptation to resist, and if the curator couldn’t,   

why should we? The prose dipped and shimmered   

and the “flies,” as I heard a buff call them

.....

it’s an accident Melissa rhymes, sort of, with Lolita,         

The scant hour we could lavish on the Blues

flew by, and we improvised a path through cars

and slush and boot-high berms of mud-blurred snow  
to wherever we went next. I must have been mute,

or whatever I said won from silence nothing  

it mourned to lose.

....

This is the sweet ache that hurts most, the way

desire burns bluely at its phosphorescent core:

just as you’re having what you wanted most,   

you want it more and more until that’s more   

than you, or it, or both of you, can bear.

Comments

the way desire burns bluely

Lana Del Ray: Lolita

 

Nabokov’s Blues
William Matthews

The wallful of quoted passages from his work,   

with the requisite specimens pinned next

to their literary cameo appearances, was too good

a temptation to resist, and if the curator couldn’t,   

why should we? The prose dipped and shimmered   

and the “flies,” as I heard a buff call them

.....

it’s an accident Melissa rhymes, sort of, with Lolita,         

The scant hour we could lavish on the Blues

flew by, and we improvised a path through cars

and slush and boot-high berms of mud-blurred snow  
to wherever we went next. I must have been mute,

or whatever I said won from silence nothing  

it mourned to lose.

....

This is the sweet ache that hurts most, the way

desire burns bluely at its phosphorescent core:

just as you’re having what you wanted most,   

you want it more and more until that’s more   

than you, or it, or both of you, can bear.