8.31.2006
August 31st, 1am, should be in bed, but, no.
It's my birthday. I am getting older. That's all i'm gonna say about it.
8.28.2006
Monday August 28th 11:18
Lift, pull. Cutting yr teeth on the effort.
What can be written? He watches his pen as it slides across the page, making curves, falling leaves, the leaf with your name. The condensation on the page must mean something. Watch, look into it. The muscles of the hand are taut, forearm pulled tight, then: relaxed. Fascinated by the human hand. The way the object is balanced in the crown of the fingers, lifted, caressed, safe in the circle. What does it show? Enclosure, pressure, exclusion, removal, denial, silence, utter quiet, doubt, shuddering in the dark. Is this all there is on this page? Looking around, finding nothing, walking without a map. Verso. Recto. Rolling up the sleeves. My eyes are looking at the sky, counting stars, toying with the ideas of astrology. Where does one meet the other? How does time come into play? The snow, anxious for the enclosure of snow, to walk down a quiet street full of muffling white mass. To walk down the street, and not feel exposed. Warm, safe in the blank cold. My fingers and toes nullified in the freeze. Time will bring all this. What else will it bring? Clap of the hands and the turning of pages, a breeze making motion where there once was one. A voice in the winter, saying a name that I should know. My voice, saying my name, reminding a stranger of something the stranger should recall. The jolt of memory, that sad slow strangulation. What can I ask? What can you answer?
****
Conversation over a small round table for two. The two mugs of coffee sit close.
--what's your name? (How can i get you to share it?)
--how old are you? (Tell me about your past.)
--how can i make you smile/laugh? (Crack the ice in that cruel heart of yours.)
--what do you aspire to? (Where are you headed? Can i follow?)
The mugs empty themselves in time. No one notices.
*****
Lying in the woods at night. Counting leaves above me, black leaves in a dark grey sky. One, a voice, two, a longing, three, excitement, four, worry, five, an organization of words, six, on and on, until the sun comes up again across the hillside. In the morning, I can see my breath and, for once, i don't mind.
****
Remember riding on the bus. Where were you at this time? Was i even remotely human? Was i completely mad, swallowed up by arrogance and solitude? Never really had a home, and wanted it that way. No job, no money, don't know how i scraped it all together, riding south to see..., riding back north again to see..., going out east, off again on again, back to a room barely mine, my essence barely there, the walls papered with stupid, endless typed pages. Mattress on the floor, a blanket my grandmother knit. A record player, guitar, typewriter. Happy existence or sad? Hopeful in its simplicity? Are you near or far in this fatal point of history?
The road at night. That's what i wanted to be. I wrote poetry about the texture of a kiss, a dizziness of saintliness, typing up all night, drinking buckets of cappuccino, burning candles, all alone in the late evening, the house asleep, everyone but me, pretending to coax out the universe through childish fear and theatrics. Theatrics: now, out of doubt Antipholus is mad. No doubt, this may be true, bu play it all out for me.
The last night, we all stayed drunk until morning, walls bare, my future a mix of death and jubilance. Askance, my crooked head, astute, my broken heart, a past i wanted to bash with a stick, but no weapon strong enough. In the morning, walking out into the sun with a sore, bare head, playing a guitar and singing a song, sharpened with impossibly hopeful notes. That much is bearable.
***
Walking onto the stage with a broken arm: a meagre attempt at pathos. Is this the play i have written? Here comes the chorus:
There once was a man from Levine
Who invented a fucking machine.
Concave or convex,
it served either sex,
and a bowl to collect all the cream.
The audience sings along. The hero of the plot is wearing a lion's costume in an attempt to frighten away a competing suitor to his lover who is dressed as a sea horse. The lover, unknown to the others, is dressed up as Kaiser Wilhelm and is spouting out endless verse of Schiller:
...The thoughts that rushed across me in that hour,
The words I sang, I'd fain once more invoke;
Within, I felt a new-awakened power,
That each emotion of my bosom spoke.
My soul, long time enchained in sloth's dull bower,
Through all its fetters now triumphant broke,
And brought to light unknown, harmonious numbers,
Which in its deepest depths, had lived in slumbers....
The sun sets on stage, and several people in the audience reach for their handkerchiefs. Satyrs frolic and clamour about the forest. Dionysius howls in delight and drinks with both hands.
***
The clink of glasses in the warmly lit gallery. They come to look, he wanders in, heart beating, looking for a different kind of exhibit. Do i belong here? he thinks. There she is, leaning forward in the chaise lounge, looking at the photograph on the wall. She is wearing a bracelet that he doesn't recognize. He shudders. Where did she get that? He crosses the room and clinks her glass. Cheers. The brush of fingers.
***
The movement of the brush against the skin. Paints his arms orange, fingers blue, dips his head into a bucket of red, splashes white over his heart.
This space desiring inscription. Make me, write me. it says.
He hesitates at the can of black paint.
"Don't make me resort to this," he pleads aloud to his solitude.
What can be written? He watches his pen as it slides across the page, making curves, falling leaves, the leaf with your name. The condensation on the page must mean something. Watch, look into it. The muscles of the hand are taut, forearm pulled tight, then: relaxed. Fascinated by the human hand. The way the object is balanced in the crown of the fingers, lifted, caressed, safe in the circle. What does it show? Enclosure, pressure, exclusion, removal, denial, silence, utter quiet, doubt, shuddering in the dark. Is this all there is on this page? Looking around, finding nothing, walking without a map. Verso. Recto. Rolling up the sleeves. My eyes are looking at the sky, counting stars, toying with the ideas of astrology. Where does one meet the other? How does time come into play? The snow, anxious for the enclosure of snow, to walk down a quiet street full of muffling white mass. To walk down the street, and not feel exposed. Warm, safe in the blank cold. My fingers and toes nullified in the freeze. Time will bring all this. What else will it bring? Clap of the hands and the turning of pages, a breeze making motion where there once was one. A voice in the winter, saying a name that I should know. My voice, saying my name, reminding a stranger of something the stranger should recall. The jolt of memory, that sad slow strangulation. What can I ask? What can you answer?
****
Conversation over a small round table for two. The two mugs of coffee sit close.
--what's your name? (How can i get you to share it?)
--how old are you? (Tell me about your past.)
--how can i make you smile/laugh? (Crack the ice in that cruel heart of yours.)
--what do you aspire to? (Where are you headed? Can i follow?)
The mugs empty themselves in time. No one notices.
*****
Lying in the woods at night. Counting leaves above me, black leaves in a dark grey sky. One, a voice, two, a longing, three, excitement, four, worry, five, an organization of words, six, on and on, until the sun comes up again across the hillside. In the morning, I can see my breath and, for once, i don't mind.
****
Remember riding on the bus. Where were you at this time? Was i even remotely human? Was i completely mad, swallowed up by arrogance and solitude? Never really had a home, and wanted it that way. No job, no money, don't know how i scraped it all together, riding south to see..., riding back north again to see..., going out east, off again on again, back to a room barely mine, my essence barely there, the walls papered with stupid, endless typed pages. Mattress on the floor, a blanket my grandmother knit. A record player, guitar, typewriter. Happy existence or sad? Hopeful in its simplicity? Are you near or far in this fatal point of history?
The road at night. That's what i wanted to be. I wrote poetry about the texture of a kiss, a dizziness of saintliness, typing up all night, drinking buckets of cappuccino, burning candles, all alone in the late evening, the house asleep, everyone but me, pretending to coax out the universe through childish fear and theatrics. Theatrics: now, out of doubt Antipholus is mad. No doubt, this may be true, bu play it all out for me.
The last night, we all stayed drunk until morning, walls bare, my future a mix of death and jubilance. Askance, my crooked head, astute, my broken heart, a past i wanted to bash with a stick, but no weapon strong enough. In the morning, walking out into the sun with a sore, bare head, playing a guitar and singing a song, sharpened with impossibly hopeful notes. That much is bearable.
***
Walking onto the stage with a broken arm: a meagre attempt at pathos. Is this the play i have written? Here comes the chorus:
There once was a man from Levine
Who invented a fucking machine.
Concave or convex,
it served either sex,
and a bowl to collect all the cream.
The audience sings along. The hero of the plot is wearing a lion's costume in an attempt to frighten away a competing suitor to his lover who is dressed as a sea horse. The lover, unknown to the others, is dressed up as Kaiser Wilhelm and is spouting out endless verse of Schiller:
...The thoughts that rushed across me in that hour,
The words I sang, I'd fain once more invoke;
Within, I felt a new-awakened power,
That each emotion of my bosom spoke.
My soul, long time enchained in sloth's dull bower,
Through all its fetters now triumphant broke,
And brought to light unknown, harmonious numbers,
Which in its deepest depths, had lived in slumbers....
The sun sets on stage, and several people in the audience reach for their handkerchiefs. Satyrs frolic and clamour about the forest. Dionysius howls in delight and drinks with both hands.
***
The clink of glasses in the warmly lit gallery. They come to look, he wanders in, heart beating, looking for a different kind of exhibit. Do i belong here? he thinks. There she is, leaning forward in the chaise lounge, looking at the photograph on the wall. She is wearing a bracelet that he doesn't recognize. He shudders. Where did she get that? He crosses the room and clinks her glass. Cheers. The brush of fingers.
***
The movement of the brush against the skin. Paints his arms orange, fingers blue, dips his head into a bucket of red, splashes white over his heart.
This space desiring inscription. Make me, write me. it says.
He hesitates at the can of black paint.
"Don't make me resort to this," he pleads aloud to his solitude.
8.27.2006
Sunday August 27 12:00AM
Des objects d'art. The three jars of pens and pencils, my grandfather's pipe (Ceçi n'est pas une pipe? When I write out "pipe" the question becomes an affirmative statement: this is not a pipe.), my red notebook, the jim dine painting above me, the tibetan prayer flags draped across that, my Da Vinci calendar, my record player to my right, films, records, books. Noise and clutter, silence and order. I throw it all down and commence true tumult.
****
Waiter walks out of the kitchen carrying a tray crammed with clutter of plates slathered with foods: roast chickens stuffed with fennel and garlic, generous sides of rosemary-roasted potatoes, quiche lorraine, cordon bleu lemon salmon, lamb shanks, veal with blackberry sauce, chicken wellington, stuffed flounder, spears of baguettes bristling from baskets hanging from his arms and neck, steam rising from bowls of mushroom and sherry soup, tomato florentine soup, lobster bisque, delicate trays of cheeses--stiltons, gruyere, livarot, and roncal; bottles of port, chardonnay, beaujolais, sherry; chilled desserts: creme brules, chocolate raspberry brioche, eclairs, white chocolate mint torte. Walking by, gets goosed on the ass by a fat, 82-year old widow heiress wearing a scandalously low cut blue dress and a Philip Treacy hat, but the waiter maintains his composure and his balance.
But then, Sauvage, the pet monkey Madame Derange purchased while on vacation in Botswana (also the restaurant's good luck charm and mascot) swings in on a chandalier and punches the poor bastard in the nuts. An involuntary electric jolt to his muscles and the waiter helplessly hurls the tremendous tray of gourmet foods like an discus. The tray hits the ceiling of the restaurant with a thunderous crash, raining down its menu on the startled patrons. The sight of mangled remnants of poached squid soup drippling down from her husband's toupee, makes poor Dame Magen make a dash for the ladies' room, but in her rush, she manages to topple over the lit candelabra which quickly sets fire to the tablecloth.
But then Tony Danza comes in and puts out the fire. Then Joseph Stalin enters stage left in drag and sings "Love for Sale."
****
ummm...don't know what that was all about.
****
Getting out those names and numbers, shoving out those thoughts, throwing fire around//then//swallow it down, curl the wet tongue around the flame.
Rivers, rivers of thought, Nile, Seine, Danube, St. Lawrence, Volga, Rhine, Indus, Tigris, pouring down the systems, drifting about the Ganges, sinking, always sinking.
Underwater, the saxophone sounds a flurry of bubbles, clicks of the valves.
Thoughts a blurred mess, a compilation of refuse.
Shuttling into the key, rattling the keys, walking down the Quay, sitting on the end of the dock in the sunshine.
I cannot produce you.
I refuse to continue in this state of mind:
Distraction and Ambivalence are my twin patron goddesses tonight. I light incense in their temples.
****
Waiter walks out of the kitchen carrying a tray crammed with clutter of plates slathered with foods: roast chickens stuffed with fennel and garlic, generous sides of rosemary-roasted potatoes, quiche lorraine, cordon bleu lemon salmon, lamb shanks, veal with blackberry sauce, chicken wellington, stuffed flounder, spears of baguettes bristling from baskets hanging from his arms and neck, steam rising from bowls of mushroom and sherry soup, tomato florentine soup, lobster bisque, delicate trays of cheeses--stiltons, gruyere, livarot, and roncal; bottles of port, chardonnay, beaujolais, sherry; chilled desserts: creme brules, chocolate raspberry brioche, eclairs, white chocolate mint torte. Walking by, gets goosed on the ass by a fat, 82-year old widow heiress wearing a scandalously low cut blue dress and a Philip Treacy hat, but the waiter maintains his composure and his balance.
But then, Sauvage, the pet monkey Madame Derange purchased while on vacation in Botswana (also the restaurant's good luck charm and mascot) swings in on a chandalier and punches the poor bastard in the nuts. An involuntary electric jolt to his muscles and the waiter helplessly hurls the tremendous tray of gourmet foods like an discus. The tray hits the ceiling of the restaurant with a thunderous crash, raining down its menu on the startled patrons. The sight of mangled remnants of poached squid soup drippling down from her husband's toupee, makes poor Dame Magen make a dash for the ladies' room, but in her rush, she manages to topple over the lit candelabra which quickly sets fire to the tablecloth.
But then Tony Danza comes in and puts out the fire. Then Joseph Stalin enters stage left in drag and sings "Love for Sale."
****
ummm...don't know what that was all about.
****
Getting out those names and numbers, shoving out those thoughts, throwing fire around//then//swallow it down, curl the wet tongue around the flame.
Rivers, rivers of thought, Nile, Seine, Danube, St. Lawrence, Volga, Rhine, Indus, Tigris, pouring down the systems, drifting about the Ganges, sinking, always sinking.
Underwater, the saxophone sounds a flurry of bubbles, clicks of the valves.
Thoughts a blurred mess, a compilation of refuse.
Shuttling into the key, rattling the keys, walking down the Quay, sitting on the end of the dock in the sunshine.
I cannot produce you.
I refuse to continue in this state of mind:
Distraction and Ambivalence are my twin patron goddesses tonight. I light incense in their temples.
8.26.2006
August 26th 12:43
A starved dog's gnaw, grinding below the ribs. Exposing the innards, revealing obscured emotions. What is the source of rage? Lack of sleep, neglect, inconsistency, power dynamics both real and perceived, excessive pressure. But enough of that bitter note, that one grey key.
I hate this so far. Start again:
Boo baw bey. Mo ma mey. (warming the jowels of the mouth) Oooo aaaa eeee. Loosening the strained muscles of the text, massaging the words out. Feel the tension flowing out of the page, leaving widening space, a true home of an alphabet in a flux of infinite combinations.
Industriousness, building upon quiet. Shuddering on lightning (get it right, get it right), the door, the wall, the ceiling, left right up down, positioning, fitting, structure (and putting myself within it, tying myself down with cord, hair, memories thinking). I am motionless, with a glint in the eye. I swing the object, I change the atmosphere. The beach, any beach, dawn, dusk, waking, tricks/trickery, a growl, a battle, a shout. Everything is in play, the roulette wheel (Les jeux sont fait!) . A reflection, a reminder, production, a dance in the dark, alone, touching the cold lightbulbs, turning the faucets on and off all night--breathing from the tap. With the grim studiousness of death, seeking, gnawing, scratching, digging, finding at last a bottom, the slip of the bathtub, the fear under the water, the slap of waves, a delicate pastry.
Throw this down the well.
Never retrieve it.
I hate this so far. Start again:
Boo baw bey. Mo ma mey. (warming the jowels of the mouth) Oooo aaaa eeee. Loosening the strained muscles of the text, massaging the words out. Feel the tension flowing out of the page, leaving widening space, a true home of an alphabet in a flux of infinite combinations.
Industriousness, building upon quiet. Shuddering on lightning (get it right, get it right), the door, the wall, the ceiling, left right up down, positioning, fitting, structure (and putting myself within it, tying myself down with cord, hair, memories thinking). I am motionless, with a glint in the eye. I swing the object, I change the atmosphere. The beach, any beach, dawn, dusk, waking, tricks/trickery, a growl, a battle, a shout. Everything is in play, the roulette wheel (Les jeux sont fait!) . A reflection, a reminder, production, a dance in the dark, alone, touching the cold lightbulbs, turning the faucets on and off all night--breathing from the tap. With the grim studiousness of death, seeking, gnawing, scratching, digging, finding at last a bottom, the slip of the bathtub, the fear under the water, the slap of waves, a delicate pastry.
Throw this down the well.
Never retrieve it.
8.25.2006
Friday August 25th 4:22am awake can't sleep.
Protraction of my waking hours, my head clogged with junk. The sounds outside my window, the snoring of the dogs, the parade in my head, boom boom. What is the meaning of all this dancing (one two three four one two three four)? This is a contest i cannot win, i drop to the floor, exhausted, feet sore, but i pass through, keep falling, the floor was never there. The number pinned to my shirt comes undone, flutters, a dead bird. Insentient.
Look up. In every window, you will see a stranger. One sweeping the floor, one smoking a cigarette, one speaking on the phone, one daydreaming, one kissing another, one playing solitaire, one eating a meal, one checking the weather, one contemplating jumping, one waiting for a knock or a letter, one dressing, another undressing. Lights on, lights off, hiding in the dark, peering out into the honk and squawk of the street below. Voices, the sound of city, a humming fan. Peering out the window, peering in the window. The eye exists to see.
But the eyelids exist to close.
Look up. In every window, you will see a stranger. One sweeping the floor, one smoking a cigarette, one speaking on the phone, one daydreaming, one kissing another, one playing solitaire, one eating a meal, one checking the weather, one contemplating jumping, one waiting for a knock or a letter, one dressing, another undressing. Lights on, lights off, hiding in the dark, peering out into the honk and squawk of the street below. Voices, the sound of city, a humming fan. Peering out the window, peering in the window. The eye exists to see.
But the eyelids exist to close.
8.24.2006
August 24. 12:52 am.
Counting all the way up to the shadowy light out in the fields. Numbers, shouting them out, but can't see who's out there listening. There's movement out there, but too dark. There's strange noises out there. The lamplight doesn't reach out that far. But that light reaches me, inspects me. I shudder and hurry indoors. I lock all the doors and pull the pistol out of the box in the closet. I check the doors again while I load it. I sleep delicately, paranoid dreaming.
The light is calling. The fields are empty.
****
A staunch building, facades frowning. A sense of mis-placed territories, and obsolete cartography. A map caught in the wind blows by, gobbled up by the foreign geography. The sun beating down, blocking all passage. A hand traces a line to follow, and you obey, willingly. Eventually night comes and you still are lost, and your companion has become silent, since time seals all lips inevitably. A magic word, and back in the sunshine, light breeze, perfect day, back in time. Lips are alive again, mumbling false and idiot hopes. Performing a sculpture in the naked air with your hands, the stroke of a hip and torso, the rounded shell of a shoulder. You spread your fingers, and the body is faded, but I still see it hanging in the air. It will always remain there. When I walk past, ten years later, it will recognize me and extend its arm, make a sign. Ten years for a sign.
*****
The grass, in the morning there is the grass, damp, soaking up the sounds of night; now a silence bound to the sunrise, quiet. What is sunlight on my cheek, the brush of a flower pedal, a fruit picked? The scurry of life, the pad of wings, is everything there? May I open this gift, loosen the bow, tear away the vestmental robes? What is human instinct? What is the body saying? Translate the message of the lungs, the liver, the heart. What does the stomach want to say? Is it all inside or coming inward? Is it all chemicals or something a bit more human? Are we chemistry in play? Remembering ashtanga, forgetting ashtanga, how did it work?
The echo of something in the air, a familar scent, chemical.
The record skips, and i lift the needle.
I place it down somewhere near you, and the melody traces your shape, lifting with your breath. You are sleeping and so are you.
I stay awake and think, playing that song over and over.
The light is calling. The fields are empty.
****
A staunch building, facades frowning. A sense of mis-placed territories, and obsolete cartography. A map caught in the wind blows by, gobbled up by the foreign geography. The sun beating down, blocking all passage. A hand traces a line to follow, and you obey, willingly. Eventually night comes and you still are lost, and your companion has become silent, since time seals all lips inevitably. A magic word, and back in the sunshine, light breeze, perfect day, back in time. Lips are alive again, mumbling false and idiot hopes. Performing a sculpture in the naked air with your hands, the stroke of a hip and torso, the rounded shell of a shoulder. You spread your fingers, and the body is faded, but I still see it hanging in the air. It will always remain there. When I walk past, ten years later, it will recognize me and extend its arm, make a sign. Ten years for a sign.
*****
The grass, in the morning there is the grass, damp, soaking up the sounds of night; now a silence bound to the sunrise, quiet. What is sunlight on my cheek, the brush of a flower pedal, a fruit picked? The scurry of life, the pad of wings, is everything there? May I open this gift, loosen the bow, tear away the vestmental robes? What is human instinct? What is the body saying? Translate the message of the lungs, the liver, the heart. What does the stomach want to say? Is it all inside or coming inward? Is it all chemicals or something a bit more human? Are we chemistry in play? Remembering ashtanga, forgetting ashtanga, how did it work?
The echo of something in the air, a familar scent, chemical.
The record skips, and i lift the needle.
I place it down somewhere near you, and the melody traces your shape, lifting with your breath. You are sleeping and so are you.
I stay awake and think, playing that song over and over.
8.22.2006
Tuesday August 22nd 12:27am
Je veux voir un visage parce que je ne peux pas regarder mon visage.
He shakes his fist at you: don't you have the courage to speak? This is not a fist of violence, but rather one of reckoning. How does one settle an account? Who scribbles what where on which ledger? Credit or debit? Are the lights dim in the dingy office that makes these claims for you? How many clerks at work? How many gone mad or blind from the flickering candles you provide? Who will stand up to your stinginess (who will fend off yr stings?)? Je veux vous maudire mais je ne peux pas. That is a language I cannot engage my tongue with. Mouth is the home of appetite.
Trouvez une langue qui sent.
****
The puddles in the street expand, making it smooth at last. The whole world, for a while, smooth, glassy, sealed, enveloped for the anthropologist's gaze. I cannot say I know the man walking down the street. I have never seen that umbrella before. It's odd the way it moves beneath these grey skies, threatening it. What kind of grasp does that hand claim? Where does the wet go? Does the rain avoid his flesh? Does the skin shrink, do the clouds ever desist? Without the sun there are no signs that mention you. Skies, junk, hanging.
The way the torso moves in the studio. The upward rise of the arms and the trail of the shoulders. Then, the sun on those same curves, making everything so sharp. Play it over and over again in your mind, it can all be designed however you'd like it. Play it, play those games, pass the time on this overcast day: watch, gaze, be an anthropologist, just for a while, play that role for me.
****
---"Un mouvement. Une action. Je m'étire hors de mes bras comme je ratisse des feuilles."
Is anything tidier? Is this pulling towards or organizing outwards? Where are the piles hidden? Who will hide the smokes when the cleaning fires begin? We can see the signs rising from the other side of the mountains. Two to the west, one larger one to the east, burning darker, blacker. Burning something too foreign to ignition. A reflection of smoke in the stream that never received a name. Clouds sinking downwards into a stoney shallow. He picks up a stone from the waters and gives it to her. She smiles, but not too much: her family's blood is calloused with caution. The wet stone has her shape, worn down in the same way. A breeze tucks a strand of her hair across her face. He notices. The smokes across the mountains and right here among them. They walk together.
*****
The spot, where the neck meets the turn of the jawbone, all in orbit below the ear, circling. With sleep comes dreaming: la bella confusione.
Does anyone dare write anything to challenge me here?
He shakes his fist at you: don't you have the courage to speak? This is not a fist of violence, but rather one of reckoning. How does one settle an account? Who scribbles what where on which ledger? Credit or debit? Are the lights dim in the dingy office that makes these claims for you? How many clerks at work? How many gone mad or blind from the flickering candles you provide? Who will stand up to your stinginess (who will fend off yr stings?)? Je veux vous maudire mais je ne peux pas. That is a language I cannot engage my tongue with. Mouth is the home of appetite.
Trouvez une langue qui sent.
****
The puddles in the street expand, making it smooth at last. The whole world, for a while, smooth, glassy, sealed, enveloped for the anthropologist's gaze. I cannot say I know the man walking down the street. I have never seen that umbrella before. It's odd the way it moves beneath these grey skies, threatening it. What kind of grasp does that hand claim? Where does the wet go? Does the rain avoid his flesh? Does the skin shrink, do the clouds ever desist? Without the sun there are no signs that mention you. Skies, junk, hanging.
The way the torso moves in the studio. The upward rise of the arms and the trail of the shoulders. Then, the sun on those same curves, making everything so sharp. Play it over and over again in your mind, it can all be designed however you'd like it. Play it, play those games, pass the time on this overcast day: watch, gaze, be an anthropologist, just for a while, play that role for me.
****
---"Un mouvement. Une action. Je m'étire hors de mes bras comme je ratisse des feuilles."
Is anything tidier? Is this pulling towards or organizing outwards? Where are the piles hidden? Who will hide the smokes when the cleaning fires begin? We can see the signs rising from the other side of the mountains. Two to the west, one larger one to the east, burning darker, blacker. Burning something too foreign to ignition. A reflection of smoke in the stream that never received a name. Clouds sinking downwards into a stoney shallow. He picks up a stone from the waters and gives it to her. She smiles, but not too much: her family's blood is calloused with caution. The wet stone has her shape, worn down in the same way. A breeze tucks a strand of her hair across her face. He notices. The smokes across the mountains and right here among them. They walk together.
*****
The spot, where the neck meets the turn of the jawbone, all in orbit below the ear, circling. With sleep comes dreaming: la bella confusione.
Does anyone dare write anything to challenge me here?
8.19.2006
Saturday August 19th 2:52am and mildly drunk
Where are the levels at? Stepping outside, cool breeze across cheek, breaking spider web across my chest, proving nothing. Rocking, the waters, rocking, i let my hand drift off the edge of the gunnels and it traces my path in the water. The waters remember and help me home. Will the sun show the way in the morning? Will it ever show its face again? I wonder if i could see the turning of the spheres, understand their meaning. I want to shout to the stars, pass on a message that will hang in time, for eternity. Hanging upside down, never falling, the pressure on the eyes and cheeks, knowing a drop is imminent. Up, down goes the rocking horse. Who is trampling whom? Whose voice is penetrating the amplifier's skin? Can i chop thru a blocked road? His fingers attempt to calm themselves; he knows patience is in order.
And what is science? and what is art but the shocking neglect of everything else? Describe a transgression: what did one speak to the other. How do two shapes meet into one. The sounds of strings: cello, two violins--stretching out something that suggests hand-written script. The experiences come first, blind, wild, sharp; understanding comes after, enlightening, dull, nullifying.
The bottle on the table, empty, spinning, making a face in all directions. My blood is full, cold, and absent. What is the tragectory of blindness, madness, cruelty, dishonesty, shame, desire, sadness. Is the hair cool? Is the skin warm? Arrangement, may I have that right at least in their words? Repeating, again and again until it is right. Touch, repeated until perfect.
Waking, what is the sun like? Where does it enter? Is it closed off or welcomed in?
Is there any sleep to produce a waking? What are the sounds in your street below? Was it ever there?
I swear that it is gone while you sleep.
Counts on its fingers the ways to keep quiet.
And what is science? and what is art but the shocking neglect of everything else? Describe a transgression: what did one speak to the other. How do two shapes meet into one. The sounds of strings: cello, two violins--stretching out something that suggests hand-written script. The experiences come first, blind, wild, sharp; understanding comes after, enlightening, dull, nullifying.
The bottle on the table, empty, spinning, making a face in all directions. My blood is full, cold, and absent. What is the tragectory of blindness, madness, cruelty, dishonesty, shame, desire, sadness. Is the hair cool? Is the skin warm? Arrangement, may I have that right at least in their words? Repeating, again and again until it is right. Touch, repeated until perfect.
Waking, what is the sun like? Where does it enter? Is it closed off or welcomed in?
Is there any sleep to produce a waking? What are the sounds in your street below? Was it ever there?
I swear that it is gone while you sleep.
Counts on its fingers the ways to keep quiet.
8.18.2006
August 18th nearing lunchtime
Spending the day in the sun, producing nothing but mantric thoughts. The band on my thumb testifying to futility: a trophy without a shelf or meaning. The flowers in the garden grow high, high enough to hide everything that's going on from view. The vegetables are growing, their leaves becoming rough and crisp in the August sun. August. A time of over-robust growth and banality, of patient expectation and disappointment, dread and resolve. Everything's coming and ending here. My birthday closing it all up with a neat bow, unwanted and tiring. Can i swallow up a day i couldn't care less about? The sun, the great sign in the sky, watching me, thinking about me, pressing upon me.
****
I'd like to colour in the boundaries of voice. It's based in deep browns, earth, but shaded with greens, and surrounded by tones of fire: sun. Moving blue along its edges, urging it forward, (from swerve of shore to bend of bay) somewhere that no one knows where it is going.
***
On his bicycle, he rides along the stubble of the bullet-ridden wall from the night before, blood now dried into ancient paint to be forgotten. He heard the sounds but: didn't dare look. Imagination enough to prevent sleep for a few days. Can't think of it now; have to work, somehow i have to work. Instead, he looks downward, watching the sidewalk, all the familiar cracks and dips, how the weeds grow profusely in that one crack along the wall; where the concrete disintegrates into gravel in the shape of a maple leaf, here the name scribbled when the concrete was just poured: "Lukacs." Every morning, seven days a week he sees that name: "Lukacs." Then the turn in the street, slowing to duck down under the low branch. Work, forgetting, consuming myself into work.
****
****
I'd like to colour in the boundaries of voice. It's based in deep browns, earth, but shaded with greens, and surrounded by tones of fire: sun. Moving blue along its edges, urging it forward, (from swerve of shore to bend of bay) somewhere that no one knows where it is going.
***
On his bicycle, he rides along the stubble of the bullet-ridden wall from the night before, blood now dried into ancient paint to be forgotten. He heard the sounds but: didn't dare look. Imagination enough to prevent sleep for a few days. Can't think of it now; have to work, somehow i have to work. Instead, he looks downward, watching the sidewalk, all the familiar cracks and dips, how the weeds grow profusely in that one crack along the wall; where the concrete disintegrates into gravel in the shape of a maple leaf, here the name scribbled when the concrete was just poured: "Lukacs." Every morning, seven days a week he sees that name: "Lukacs." Then the turn in the street, slowing to duck down under the low branch. Work, forgetting, consuming myself into work.
****
8.17.2006
August 17th daylight hours
Lifting, shrugging, standing throwing. Am i a futile tool? When i pass through the threshold, what transformation will overtake me? A damned shock. I dip my chin.
8.16.2006
Wednesday August 16th 7:53pm
The sound of piano. (Bill Evans, delicate, cool; Ahmad Jamal subtle and spacious; Art Tatum multilayered, multidirectional; Duke, beautiful melody and colour; Dave Brubeck, blocky chords and classical affinity). Sound of a tinny piano in the parlour downstairs. Downstairs, divergent space. Locale, approximation, nearness, the nearness of ye. The sound of the piano. Sound. The sound congregating in the body, wire and wood, reverberating in the body, echoing from out of the body, sending out into the larger body, blood and bone. The piano. Sound. A machine of bold conversions, of strict calculation into a mode of sympathy, of tune, of tone, warm bend of colours, cool comfort in blue, the shoosh and spat of drums. Keyboard, white, blank palace to be filled, stirring, never stirring, sleeping, never waking. Tapping at keys with letters and failing to see the comparison, words deficient, notes on a page without result, challenging no immediate consequence. Can I wake the sun of an age? Can I open and close old compartments at will? Who is walking down the halls, silently, dressed in costume, or instead let me dress you in more pastoral garb, joie de vive, dancing to the pipes of Pan. I slip on a glove, I tie on a bracelet, I button a sleeve, zipper, put on coat, words words words all to be undone when the erotic urges them forward in a gush.
The pomme of the mouth, the leaf of the cheek, vine curve of the eyebrow, pastoral portrait, image of something. Something hidden in the bunching trees. Shape, name, metaphor, the robust sounds of words applied to an appropiate agent. The juice of sex. Une pomme, profound, sweet, a simple delicacy, hanging on the vine, awaiting pleasures.
**
What is the status of a line? Can someone shout it from the balcony? Let me know, let the street know. Do they know? Sound it out, moisten your jaw:
"Against innumerable salient modalities and phonetics, some dubious and many outright profidious, the line rotates, turning upon this basis: falsity metamorphizing into truth, doubt disintegrating into surety." I said that. Just now, just saying it. Aloud, filling space with voice and thought, leaving the page to hover, without decoration. Instead, Sound.
Roar. To extend an area or volume. Production. Output.
Building fortifications in the library. Yow. Mouth the sound: yow. ye. you. Say.
Raw words. Say the words.
The figure in the street, the dark figure in the street, pointing up to my window, disappearing. The aloof posture of the streets there, the aged echoes, the foreign voices of neighbours. A river with a name I cannot know, it objects to me, it deviates from its course when it hears my name, swallows the vowels, shallows the bowels, follows the howls and cowls. Finds solace in another strait, hugs a stranger and tells him her troubles. Drunk all night together.
Or another:
With a voice as big as a saw, cuts and ers, taws and ahs. Sea. Ha.
A radiation of articulation, echoing outward. A poised contaminant, injecting itself into the old city, the underground city, the city of daylight, the city of intoxication (knows the city's secret name), city that lights up below the eyes, preventing sleep and awakening profound thinking, city that grows in the weeds, city of the kidneys; shuffling the deck of cities, grabbing "city" in a big fist. Grrr. And wakes up with a pillow wet with sweat; outside there is only city, making its terms clear, marking its territory like a dog. Looks outside, no dark figure in the street. Turning away from the window, the dark figure, standing now at the foot of his bed, pointing, silent.
**
Keep. Going. Keep the grinding hand moving, keep pushing down on the bulk. Coltrane now, opening up the valves, blowing out a mystic smoke. Inhale the fume. Engage the strides, power the wake, pioneer the drive, tin, tin, bang the pot with the handle of a gun, swing at the air in wild strokes beckoning something fierce in you, searching for it on the map, trying to find its location in strange flats that do not welcome you. How unexplored is this path, in time will it close in, surround and suffocate ye? Dead, only breathing in bark and leaf in the dark terminus.
How sour does it get? What colours can be mixed with Time to produce Future and imitate Past? Stark as the scream can get.
Now--graduating into something that trims its sails flawlessly into the wind. The white sails on the horizon, day after day, seeking something. On the radio, everyone hears the details and debates abandonment. If everyone empties out of a town, does the town lose its name? At night, it rains, and it is mostly dark, except for the rare brown light of a dying lamp. Who will hold out through this catastrophe? The roads become useless except as conduits for waters that seem to belong there. Was water always present on the lands that I walked upon? Talking incessantly about the madness are waves. When the rain finally stops, there is a circling light on at the tower, and the radio repeats the message of ghosts; only the water hears. Outward, on the horizon: a sail. There is no one to recognize it and defend themselves against its menacing solitude. It slices through the dark water with a pointed efficiency.
**
The notes suddenly turn downward. Static comes in for a moment then is gone. Punctuation cuts it in two. Asleep, I shout into the telephone or, awake, type out these words.
The pomme of the mouth, the leaf of the cheek, vine curve of the eyebrow, pastoral portrait, image of something. Something hidden in the bunching trees. Shape, name, metaphor, the robust sounds of words applied to an appropiate agent. The juice of sex. Une pomme, profound, sweet, a simple delicacy, hanging on the vine, awaiting pleasures.
**
What is the status of a line? Can someone shout it from the balcony? Let me know, let the street know. Do they know? Sound it out, moisten your jaw:
"Against innumerable salient modalities and phonetics, some dubious and many outright profidious, the line rotates, turning upon this basis: falsity metamorphizing into truth, doubt disintegrating into surety." I said that. Just now, just saying it. Aloud, filling space with voice and thought, leaving the page to hover, without decoration. Instead, Sound.
Roar. To extend an area or volume. Production. Output.
Building fortifications in the library. Yow. Mouth the sound: yow. ye. you. Say.
Raw words. Say the words.
The figure in the street, the dark figure in the street, pointing up to my window, disappearing. The aloof posture of the streets there, the aged echoes, the foreign voices of neighbours. A river with a name I cannot know, it objects to me, it deviates from its course when it hears my name, swallows the vowels, shallows the bowels, follows the howls and cowls. Finds solace in another strait, hugs a stranger and tells him her troubles. Drunk all night together.
Or another:
With a voice as big as a saw, cuts and ers, taws and ahs. Sea. Ha.
A radiation of articulation, echoing outward. A poised contaminant, injecting itself into the old city, the underground city, the city of daylight, the city of intoxication (knows the city's secret name), city that lights up below the eyes, preventing sleep and awakening profound thinking, city that grows in the weeds, city of the kidneys; shuffling the deck of cities, grabbing "city" in a big fist. Grrr. And wakes up with a pillow wet with sweat; outside there is only city, making its terms clear, marking its territory like a dog. Looks outside, no dark figure in the street. Turning away from the window, the dark figure, standing now at the foot of his bed, pointing, silent.
**
Keep. Going. Keep the grinding hand moving, keep pushing down on the bulk. Coltrane now, opening up the valves, blowing out a mystic smoke. Inhale the fume. Engage the strides, power the wake, pioneer the drive, tin, tin, bang the pot with the handle of a gun, swing at the air in wild strokes beckoning something fierce in you, searching for it on the map, trying to find its location in strange flats that do not welcome you. How unexplored is this path, in time will it close in, surround and suffocate ye? Dead, only breathing in bark and leaf in the dark terminus.
How sour does it get? What colours can be mixed with Time to produce Future and imitate Past? Stark as the scream can get.
Now--graduating into something that trims its sails flawlessly into the wind. The white sails on the horizon, day after day, seeking something. On the radio, everyone hears the details and debates abandonment. If everyone empties out of a town, does the town lose its name? At night, it rains, and it is mostly dark, except for the rare brown light of a dying lamp. Who will hold out through this catastrophe? The roads become useless except as conduits for waters that seem to belong there. Was water always present on the lands that I walked upon? Talking incessantly about the madness are waves. When the rain finally stops, there is a circling light on at the tower, and the radio repeats the message of ghosts; only the water hears. Outward, on the horizon: a sail. There is no one to recognize it and defend themselves against its menacing solitude. It slices through the dark water with a pointed efficiency.
**
The notes suddenly turn downward. Static comes in for a moment then is gone. Punctuation cuts it in two. Asleep, I shout into the telephone or, awake, type out these words.
8.13.2006
Sunday August 13th 10:49 pm
Describe the curvature of the fingers: delicate, seemingly casual, yet, in truth, stringent in their performance. This is a performance after all, pure composition on display. And i throw my critique upon the wall like sour paint and i mouth the word manipulation; it sounds moist. But this moisture is sweet, I like its texture as it tickles my tongue, gives my teeth a wet edge that is satisfying. Reading, the pages are damp with others' saliva. Reading: steam.
Walk around the room and find its edges; this may be difficult, because it's off the page. Use your imagination, take wild guesses that you know are wrong. Design a personality that fits. Are the walls reflective of any interiority? How does the interplay of choice work here? In the morning, i turn on the lamp and read, making the blue wall of the bedroom fade. I don't think when dressing, a choice in reach only (proximity). We hit the correct word: proximity is the issue here. Keep looking at the composition; it's never close enough. Keep throwing paint on it, the coloured bubbles returning your own reflection. Again and again: the paint slides off, down along the wall, wanders across the floor, then gathers, assuming the form of a human being, business casual, gets a good job and later moves into a 20,000 sq. ft. trophy mansion on the outskirts of town. Yet, regardless, the composition still stands.
I sit in the easy chair and look. Just look. My mouth opens gently, as if seeking a kiss, then begins to describe the curvature of the fingers, only i am not speaking, merely my lips rounding on the mute words, a blind phonetician trying to communicate to an arrogant perfomance that won't stir to look an admirer in the mouth. Sitting in the green room waiting for the accolades. (accolada--to embrace around the neck.)
A confusing tumble of clutter, will you find a home? I clench my teeth, making the face of a monster, yes a confirmation, a declaration, and simultaneously a wave of a torch. Terror.
One day, it will snow again, but this will be new snow, a new name for it, a baby comforted in a cradle. Who is up, who is down? Last winter, it was snowing, it was cold, and you found need for a coat and a scarf. This summer, i discard the winter's comforts.
Let me name a song, please sing it aloud and i will stamp out the time with my heel. But i forget all the titles, my eyes wide with disbelief, walking down the street. Waiting for the tune to sing, the perfect time. A disguise. Hiding behind the words. The curvatures. One, two, three, four: One, subtle, central axis, pointing; two, top, lifting, sunlit; three, secondary, repeating, changing; four, only a hint, is it really there? This question disappears into five, since it demonstrates it. Curvature, stratovarius, tender slide across the tension, the joy in the hollowed out spaces, the suggestions only. This is me playing along the curvatures, here, on these words. Can you hear the tune coming through? On what kind of soundwaves will this strange music reach ears?
Stratovarius. The sunlight editing and re-editing the room. Throwing up words, trying to keep up, trying to keep in time as the shadows move.
Walk around the room and find its edges; this may be difficult, because it's off the page. Use your imagination, take wild guesses that you know are wrong. Design a personality that fits. Are the walls reflective of any interiority? How does the interplay of choice work here? In the morning, i turn on the lamp and read, making the blue wall of the bedroom fade. I don't think when dressing, a choice in reach only (proximity). We hit the correct word: proximity is the issue here. Keep looking at the composition; it's never close enough. Keep throwing paint on it, the coloured bubbles returning your own reflection. Again and again: the paint slides off, down along the wall, wanders across the floor, then gathers, assuming the form of a human being, business casual, gets a good job and later moves into a 20,000 sq. ft. trophy mansion on the outskirts of town. Yet, regardless, the composition still stands.
I sit in the easy chair and look. Just look. My mouth opens gently, as if seeking a kiss, then begins to describe the curvature of the fingers, only i am not speaking, merely my lips rounding on the mute words, a blind phonetician trying to communicate to an arrogant perfomance that won't stir to look an admirer in the mouth. Sitting in the green room waiting for the accolades. (accolada--to embrace around the neck.)
A confusing tumble of clutter, will you find a home? I clench my teeth, making the face of a monster, yes a confirmation, a declaration, and simultaneously a wave of a torch. Terror.
One day, it will snow again, but this will be new snow, a new name for it, a baby comforted in a cradle. Who is up, who is down? Last winter, it was snowing, it was cold, and you found need for a coat and a scarf. This summer, i discard the winter's comforts.
Let me name a song, please sing it aloud and i will stamp out the time with my heel. But i forget all the titles, my eyes wide with disbelief, walking down the street. Waiting for the tune to sing, the perfect time. A disguise. Hiding behind the words. The curvatures. One, two, three, four: One, subtle, central axis, pointing; two, top, lifting, sunlit; three, secondary, repeating, changing; four, only a hint, is it really there? This question disappears into five, since it demonstrates it. Curvature, stratovarius, tender slide across the tension, the joy in the hollowed out spaces, the suggestions only. This is me playing along the curvatures, here, on these words. Can you hear the tune coming through? On what kind of soundwaves will this strange music reach ears?
Stratovarius. The sunlight editing and re-editing the room. Throwing up words, trying to keep up, trying to keep in time as the shadows move.
Sunday, August 13th 12:24am
Rounding out into the shape of an O: all the words fall in.
(De)Void.
Until everything curls up and spins away in a glow of lights.
This is all that comes forth, this carousel at dusk. Can i wait and watch with you? The lights are warm, they will welcome you. Is this the welcome you always hoped for? I look at the trees, shaking in the spinning glow, and feel content.
I can sleep soundly knowing that there are lights out there somewhere.
I can sleep soundly knowing that there are lights out there somewhere.
The void is held back, just for awhile; can i wait and watch with you?
****************************************************************
(De)Void.
Until everything curls up and spins away in a glow of lights.
This is all that comes forth, this carousel at dusk. Can i wait and watch with you? The lights are warm, they will welcome you. Is this the welcome you always hoped for? I look at the trees, shaking in the spinning glow, and feel content.
I can sleep soundly knowing that there are lights out there somewhere.
I can sleep soundly knowing that there are lights out there somewhere.
The void is held back, just for awhile; can i wait and watch with you?
****************************************************************
8.11.2006
August 11, 1:30am
I take a pair of tablets and now I am writing. You can see the moving. The flag in the wind and two monks, and....now it hits me like a punch in the gut....two monks, one arguing for wind other for flag, master comes in and says no, only minds moving. Flapping his sleeves, shaking his staff.
But only mind moving here. Winds here lie down deep, below the grass. Thinking of the gross nebulus across the skies, the walking production of lights, the lick of the lips, the glance along the side, the snap of the fingers. In the sand, in the sand and nothing to write except the outlines of the body: the indenture of leg, the concave scoop of ass. I drag my tongue across the sand, it is a ritual, I shake a hand at the wind and waters, twisting my spine to remember how to dance. In the sea, the body leaves imprints that lasts like voices, spoken then closed forever.
Instead, a hallowed ground, a sacred place for flowers. In this holy piazza, stones curved inward from pacing feet, the tinny echo of prayers that ripen like dried photographs. The seductive glances of vases in the sunlight, faithless women, hanging bluebells, gardenias and mimosas, across from basilicas decorated heavy with the scent of rosemary.
There are strange weapons shouting lights in the hallways; what are the contents of foreign closets and attics that look out over the fields that once salivated battles? Rubbing wet cunt of a pen across the open, reaching tongues of pages, an unprocreative ecstacy, a deliberative moan.
Name the lines, express the punching at my gut, the outward tug at my ribs, know that this is not me speaking, engulfed behind the chalky cloud. Enemies hiding cruel jokes in shelves tucked beneath the grounds, hidden names of value beyond all property, behind the dark of the woods, i go looking and discover a punch in the mouth. He lifts his hand to his face, finds something unfamiliar there at last, and smiles to himself. Rising from his seat, his spine springs taut, the ceiling reaches for his crown, which finally cradles his head like an architectual madonna.
Stop. Rise to get two more tablets. What is the source of this burning nag that I wish to carve out like the guts of a cattle? Swallow. Again, punch to gut, a spread of burning flushes my face below my eyes. Silence, the sound of crickets returns. Alas.
Sturm und drang. Peux-je délinéer une carte pour trouver le coeur de choses ? Je commencerai avec les schémas et travaille ma façon dans. Die lange Reichweite. An extended limb, a cartographer's gaze that translates as hunger. Name me a prey. Eating: nothing, thus being devoured.
She taps her forehead with a handkerchief, lifting the moisture up, away. Sturm und drang. Crossing over, turning the shroud inside out, a bird's wing, opening, gentle, safe.
Outside in the trees I hear the rustling of a sage that walks in a too familiar way. He knows my name and taps on the glass. I cannot sleep until I acknowledge him.
He asks me my name.
Again and again, he asks for my name.
But only mind moving here. Winds here lie down deep, below the grass. Thinking of the gross nebulus across the skies, the walking production of lights, the lick of the lips, the glance along the side, the snap of the fingers. In the sand, in the sand and nothing to write except the outlines of the body: the indenture of leg, the concave scoop of ass. I drag my tongue across the sand, it is a ritual, I shake a hand at the wind and waters, twisting my spine to remember how to dance. In the sea, the body leaves imprints that lasts like voices, spoken then closed forever.
Instead, a hallowed ground, a sacred place for flowers. In this holy piazza, stones curved inward from pacing feet, the tinny echo of prayers that ripen like dried photographs. The seductive glances of vases in the sunlight, faithless women, hanging bluebells, gardenias and mimosas, across from basilicas decorated heavy with the scent of rosemary.
There are strange weapons shouting lights in the hallways; what are the contents of foreign closets and attics that look out over the fields that once salivated battles? Rubbing wet cunt of a pen across the open, reaching tongues of pages, an unprocreative ecstacy, a deliberative moan.
Name the lines, express the punching at my gut, the outward tug at my ribs, know that this is not me speaking, engulfed behind the chalky cloud. Enemies hiding cruel jokes in shelves tucked beneath the grounds, hidden names of value beyond all property, behind the dark of the woods, i go looking and discover a punch in the mouth. He lifts his hand to his face, finds something unfamiliar there at last, and smiles to himself. Rising from his seat, his spine springs taut, the ceiling reaches for his crown, which finally cradles his head like an architectual madonna.
Stop. Rise to get two more tablets. What is the source of this burning nag that I wish to carve out like the guts of a cattle? Swallow. Again, punch to gut, a spread of burning flushes my face below my eyes. Silence, the sound of crickets returns. Alas.
Sturm und drang. Peux-je délinéer une carte pour trouver le coeur de choses ? Je commencerai avec les schémas et travaille ma façon dans. Die lange Reichweite. An extended limb, a cartographer's gaze that translates as hunger. Name me a prey. Eating: nothing, thus being devoured.
She taps her forehead with a handkerchief, lifting the moisture up, away. Sturm und drang. Crossing over, turning the shroud inside out, a bird's wing, opening, gentle, safe.
Outside in the trees I hear the rustling of a sage that walks in a too familiar way. He knows my name and taps on the glass. I cannot sleep until I acknowledge him.
He asks me my name.
Again and again, he asks for my name.
8.09.2006
Wednesday August 9, 12:01 am
Production. Mind incarnate.
Walking down to your house. Walking down the street, walking down the drive. Driving down the walk, walk driving me down. Down, down drive the walk. Walking, forward drive, a drive. Walking into the drive, the drive driving the walk, the walk walking the drive, driving while walking, driving into walk. Walking down to your house, house, housing the walk, driving the street. Where the street drives into walk, down there is your house. Walk and the street is driving. Drive and the street is walking. Street walk and drive. On the corner of. Walk to the corner of. Drive to. Walking down to your house, where the walk becomes a drive.
The tree's branches hang over the street, sputtering the streetlight. The street hangs the tree's branches, the branches sputter, the streetlight hangs. Hanging, the streetlight, sputters the tree. The streetlight's branches, hanging the tree. Walking to your house, sputtering, hanging over the walk, driving under the branches, tree and streetlight.
Knocking on your door, standing on your porch, breeze waiting with me. Knocking, standing, waiting. Door, porch, breeze. Waiting with your door, standing on the breeze, knocking.
I am a breeze knocking, standing, waiting, sputtering. The branches hang on your porch, driving into the breeze, walking past the streetlight. The streetlight and porch, walking and waiting. Knocking at your door. Tree and streetlight.
Condensation on a window, christmas lights smudged: waiting, warm, sputtering. The moon solid, clattering in the breeze, sputtering, leaves, branches, tree and waiting after knocking at your door. Breeze smudging the porch, leaves walking on the porch. Porch and door, porch driving door, tree's branches, sputtering the street, hanging over the street, porch, waiting with streetlight and me.
Knocking. Door and porch.
Clattering behind the door, sputtering, walking, driving, hanging, smudging, waiting, and:
open with me.
*********
Production:
White is the cloth and so is the hand that chose it. White is the colour that shelters itself in your hair, where it cannot be found: but: you attempt to show me. White is the light that burns too hard, bleach in the air, pressurizing everything. I see white. You become whiter. White is the colour of intensity and ambiguity, always donned to symbolize choice and transformation. White is the colour of option, and, perhaps, invitation.
Red is the cloth and so are the eyes that chose it. Red is the colour that burns on my skin and eventually kills it off. Red is always a battle flag, and so, an appeal of desperation. Red is not the colour of ambiguity, it is one of foolish decisiveness and confidence, always entangled in error. Red is the fool's colour. It is closed off and never too far away from doom.
White is the cloth. Red is the cloth. White hand, patient, flexible, choosing. Eyes, red, glancing too fast, no real choice involved, merely chance. Red and White. White and Red.
************
Production:
Chaise lounge and elongation, this elongation itself a production, suggesting pre-conceived notions and hidden agendas, combine together in a stellar union of design and acrobatics, producing an aesthetic effect, a blush of outward stimulation with a simultaneous desire for deep introspection.
Nowhere is this going and nowhere i dive with it.
A heavy landing and the wings come off.
Walking down to your house. Walking down the street, walking down the drive. Driving down the walk, walk driving me down. Down, down drive the walk. Walking, forward drive, a drive. Walking into the drive, the drive driving the walk, the walk walking the drive, driving while walking, driving into walk. Walking down to your house, house, housing the walk, driving the street. Where the street drives into walk, down there is your house. Walk and the street is driving. Drive and the street is walking. Street walk and drive. On the corner of. Walk to the corner of. Drive to. Walking down to your house, where the walk becomes a drive.
The tree's branches hang over the street, sputtering the streetlight. The street hangs the tree's branches, the branches sputter, the streetlight hangs. Hanging, the streetlight, sputters the tree. The streetlight's branches, hanging the tree. Walking to your house, sputtering, hanging over the walk, driving under the branches, tree and streetlight.
Knocking on your door, standing on your porch, breeze waiting with me. Knocking, standing, waiting. Door, porch, breeze. Waiting with your door, standing on the breeze, knocking.
I am a breeze knocking, standing, waiting, sputtering. The branches hang on your porch, driving into the breeze, walking past the streetlight. The streetlight and porch, walking and waiting. Knocking at your door. Tree and streetlight.
Condensation on a window, christmas lights smudged: waiting, warm, sputtering. The moon solid, clattering in the breeze, sputtering, leaves, branches, tree and waiting after knocking at your door. Breeze smudging the porch, leaves walking on the porch. Porch and door, porch driving door, tree's branches, sputtering the street, hanging over the street, porch, waiting with streetlight and me.
Knocking. Door and porch.
Clattering behind the door, sputtering, walking, driving, hanging, smudging, waiting, and:
open with me.
*********
Production:
White is the cloth and so is the hand that chose it. White is the colour that shelters itself in your hair, where it cannot be found: but: you attempt to show me. White is the light that burns too hard, bleach in the air, pressurizing everything. I see white. You become whiter. White is the colour of intensity and ambiguity, always donned to symbolize choice and transformation. White is the colour of option, and, perhaps, invitation.
Red is the cloth and so are the eyes that chose it. Red is the colour that burns on my skin and eventually kills it off. Red is always a battle flag, and so, an appeal of desperation. Red is not the colour of ambiguity, it is one of foolish decisiveness and confidence, always entangled in error. Red is the fool's colour. It is closed off and never too far away from doom.
White is the cloth. Red is the cloth. White hand, patient, flexible, choosing. Eyes, red, glancing too fast, no real choice involved, merely chance. Red and White. White and Red.
************
Production:
Chaise lounge and elongation, this elongation itself a production, suggesting pre-conceived notions and hidden agendas, combine together in a stellar union of design and acrobatics, producing an aesthetic effect, a blush of outward stimulation with a simultaneous desire for deep introspection.
Nowhere is this going and nowhere i dive with it.
A heavy landing and the wings come off.
8.08.2006
Tuesday August 8th 1:58 am
Riding into/crossing over. Darkness becoming heavier and a moon that keeps echoing the same word-image. Look: give your eyes pause to look: The location that is just below the jaw bone where the neck meets: that perfect spot to look. A city that at first i could not fathom, softens, begins to know me, pronounces my name. Could a city be the echo of a human being? I begin to understand density, human failure, mediocrity, baffling success, how people are able to swallow an immensity that produces panic. Smoking cigars on the patio as the sun goes down, soothing with smoke, burning back, burning into, I want to become fire. You say something and we are laughing.
Direction, choice, to disappear, to remain silent behind a... what? Blank, white, dense. Waving it like a rifle above you. Do you realize the nature of the threat? Can I claim your name? Curiousity, choice, doubt, mystery, the void, dancing away from the effects of causation. No? Yes?
He inhales the contents of the balloon, thus inhabits the vacuum. Smoking cigar.
Thus ask: Where am i in this scheme? What role do i play here? Fiction in mind, baring its thigh.
Walking walking in the sun. Walking in the moon. Light, dark and a simple request for both.
Rising, falling. Falling, falling into.
Sprezzatura.
Direction, choice, to disappear, to remain silent behind a... what? Blank, white, dense. Waving it like a rifle above you. Do you realize the nature of the threat? Can I claim your name? Curiousity, choice, doubt, mystery, the void, dancing away from the effects of causation. No? Yes?
He inhales the contents of the balloon, thus inhabits the vacuum. Smoking cigar.
Thus ask: Where am i in this scheme? What role do i play here? Fiction in mind, baring its thigh.
Walking walking in the sun. Walking in the moon. Light, dark and a simple request for both.
Rising, falling. Falling, falling into.
Sprezzatura.
8.03.2006
Thursday August 3rd, 10:52pm
1)Distance. Performing the act of creating distance, covering ground, devouring space.
2)Vacation. A balancing act of removal, which never entirely succeeds. An attempt at creating a blank palette, to be temporarily filled with illusions.
3)Parting. A falsehood and always temporary, since nothing lost, nothing gained.
4)Meeting. Another falsehood, since all you ever meet is yourself, again and again, reflected back in different manifestations.
5)Time. Never happened, never happening. Covers over all previous entries, no distance, no separating from yourself because no self, no parting or meeting because time melds them together for always.
Jumping back into the void of Canada, the vacancy of home. The place that always seemed once removed from myself, a distant relative. Looking into the void, the void becomes you.
2)Vacation. A balancing act of removal, which never entirely succeeds. An attempt at creating a blank palette, to be temporarily filled with illusions.
3)Parting. A falsehood and always temporary, since nothing lost, nothing gained.
4)Meeting. Another falsehood, since all you ever meet is yourself, again and again, reflected back in different manifestations.
5)Time. Never happened, never happening. Covers over all previous entries, no distance, no separating from yourself because no self, no parting or meeting because time melds them together for always.
Jumping back into the void of Canada, the vacancy of home. The place that always seemed once removed from myself, a distant relative. Looking into the void, the void becomes you.
8.01.2006
Tuesday August 1, 2006 1:06am
Look: there's nothing to see.
An empty palm, symbol of my disinclination.
A sleep that sits in the chords of my stomach. Sleep, can't sleep. Dreams curling up around my circumference, want to wrap into.
Where when. A walk, a foreign place, a lightning rod, a danger.
Don't know what this means and it doesn't matter. A performance, what it means to be human.
Follow my steps, you can hear them if you listen. Join me, find me in the sound. Nowhere else.
What is a room, an apartment? What is a street or a city that wraps its legs around it? A blanket a bed, a rest. A walk down the street. not too far, just little enough to feel going nowhere. The latch falls open, an opportunity.
In the sun, hot, dripping, everything dripping apart, loose, faltering, disintegrating. Sun, penetrating into myself, an alliance, a fraternity. The sun sneaks into these words, doing its work, breaking, a hammer on rocks. Can't recover, can't rebuild. Not tonight.
Across the train tracks, across the lake, down to the neighbour's house, on the roof, elsewhere, upper or lower. Elsewhere.
--"Where are you calling from?"
--"Just wanted to see how far i could get. I'm lost now. Nowhere to be found. You're actually not speaking with me, just a recording I made a few weeks ago. Even my voice has become disembodied. I don't know who's playing this recording, I left it on the side of the highway. I'm not on the other line, it's just a stranger who is sending you this out of some unknown motivation, either malicious or benign."
The recording suddenly stops. Some fumbling is heard, then all sound dies with the dial tone.
The phone rings again. The same recording is replayed. This continues all night. I don't sleep. The next night, there's a knock on the door, and I find a cassette on my porch.
I play it: "Just wanted to see how far i could get..."
****
An empty palm, symbol of my disinclination.
A sleep that sits in the chords of my stomach. Sleep, can't sleep. Dreams curling up around my circumference, want to wrap into.
Where when. A walk, a foreign place, a lightning rod, a danger.
Don't know what this means and it doesn't matter. A performance, what it means to be human.
Follow my steps, you can hear them if you listen. Join me, find me in the sound. Nowhere else.
What is a room, an apartment? What is a street or a city that wraps its legs around it? A blanket a bed, a rest. A walk down the street. not too far, just little enough to feel going nowhere. The latch falls open, an opportunity.
In the sun, hot, dripping, everything dripping apart, loose, faltering, disintegrating. Sun, penetrating into myself, an alliance, a fraternity. The sun sneaks into these words, doing its work, breaking, a hammer on rocks. Can't recover, can't rebuild. Not tonight.
Across the train tracks, across the lake, down to the neighbour's house, on the roof, elsewhere, upper or lower. Elsewhere.
--"Where are you calling from?"
--"Just wanted to see how far i could get. I'm lost now. Nowhere to be found. You're actually not speaking with me, just a recording I made a few weeks ago. Even my voice has become disembodied. I don't know who's playing this recording, I left it on the side of the highway. I'm not on the other line, it's just a stranger who is sending you this out of some unknown motivation, either malicious or benign."
The recording suddenly stops. Some fumbling is heard, then all sound dies with the dial tone.
The phone rings again. The same recording is replayed. This continues all night. I don't sleep. The next night, there's a knock on the door, and I find a cassette on my porch.
I play it: "Just wanted to see how far i could get..."
****
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