often (disambiguation)

it is bereft of explanation,
it is beyond consideration.
at this point i don't know where
we is where you am where she says

each of her feet is a lake
she says object she says
obliteration i think obligation,

accidentally intentional, i buy another
round. i take another hit, i
ask another question.

it's not that i want to hear
the answer. i don't even wait for it--

i just watch her face, listen
to the lilt and pull of her voice,
falling intonation, pitching cadence,

the golden leaves at my back,
wind through the fresh shorn trees.

hail mary, thou art all hollows
of this airnoise, thou art this final
flight of steps. thou art my separate
moment--the space of self, the stuff
of autumnal first moon, this equinox,
this november.

thou art the one i fear most.

i touch my elbow. i touch my lips.
i hold my finger to that moment.

i ask again. she has to rephrase herself.
i don't listen i don't wait
for the answer i ask myself
another question

but what will we do
when the oberon runs out
but what will we do
when this season ends,
bleeding yellow

into the tendrils of the next

why leave?

sleep with the lights on

there is so much time

WHAT IF DISTANCE

there is so much space

WHAT IF NOSTALGIA

overlap of time and space

IF ONLY

one for __ and one for __ what

OR

if together only we

MAYBE

exist there what if

__

together things would never


break


. . .

heartbreak if only for the memory

memory if only for the heartbreak

writing between

distance if only for missing

the lines

heartbreak distance memory missing

the

nostalgia

intention

if only


. . .


industrialized together we can navigate

. . .

of leaving __'s when i woke up
early every day last autumn
turned winter to the thousands
and thousands of crows in the tree

[totality]
tops losing leaving
they become visible

. . .

corvidae:

grrrl

whatchou keepin' in there / how you get to be how you are / how old old how


we still are
anything
we ever were









gold gold gold gold gold gold
yellow gold gold GOD G-D g-ld

also:

thanks hannah, ariel schrag ?????!!, hannah again & again & again, matt bourke 4 letting me use yr photos without permission

jesus fuck

sometimes i'm not good at remembering birthdays.


just bought a train ticket to new york. eek!

returned mail

once i tried to send a letter to egypt
and it only made it as far as detroit.

i tried to send a letter to detroit
and found it in my mailbox this morning.

in the past week i have received, in addition
to the meta-return of a letter i didn't really
want to send in the first place: a mixtape, blank
photograph paper,a really beautiful piece of mailart
from a stranger. a letter from an old friend,
tea and trimet tickets. a weeklong musing.
a care package from mum, kleenex and socks.
two postcards from the westcoast.

and more. secrets.

except also this morning in my mailbox
i found a cigarette butt, marlboro light,
which means my roommate put it there
in a drunkass state. all my mail now
smells like smoke, like a brewing storm.

even the letter to minnesota got returned to me.

i don't even have the energy to read these letters tonight.
i need to write more.

wake up in 5 hours

goodnight dear world, postage stamp
desire and liberty bells and distance

so good to hear yr voice

but really

voz
voix
voce


sound, reverberation. echo, echo, echo. resounding.

eco
echo
eco

snow, then school

we are old enough / to dress ourselves

ocsober

i would really rather just be alone, but thank you



maybe
we are all dealing with the same things
in different ways


mom sends hand sanitizer
i want coffee
not a bicycle
or apology

i really want a goddamn day off.





pome project #1: 3
poem project #2: missing
poem project #3:

notecard series #2: questions of travel


art museum
plymouth park
ypsilanti
saginaw forest

history
home
history
home
history



i'm reading pilgrim at tinker creek. beauty in the mundane, the everyday. inspiration is everywhere. we just must learn how to see it, to acknowledge it, use it. we must learn to really SEE.

DON'T BE SAD

MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

love poems

i want to write them, but i am not in love. do you have to be in love to write love poems? at least pretend, then it becomes fiction. life function: poem. poem as function, equation for the poem. mathematical. poem as x. solve for y. where is life? art as motion. death as dying. love as poem. potential for or because of. //?M?YOP?IA?//

i keep forgetting things. / reliving them / like an echo / or a shadow


this is what i am supposed to be doing is this what i am supposed to be doing what am i supposed to be doing i am supposed to be doing what what what what doing am i supposed to

so say if,

blue yr eyes or



old news



no news




new news



good news



(o, & le 1st picture is credited to amir eustice. sry i forgot.)

wasting time; wasting space

if just a little less selfish or more, maybe, or if on the wrong side of the bed i wake up function present tense, decide to keep sleeping, or maybe, just this once taking care of myself a task unworthy or thoughtless or seemingly a waste of

the most challenging

a year of the small victories

this, and then, this

process[es][ing]

if i document it, does it make it less real? if i write it, does it become less of life and more of art? where that boundary lies. does it?


STEP ONE THROUGH






photo used without permission of ngl, drb.

the difference is in the choice, see?

just finished a book called darker than night. it's true crime, written by this guy tom henderson, about murders that happened near my hometown and weren't brought to trial for 18 years. two local men killed two hunters from downstate and fed them to pigs. got rid of the vehicle.

sitting and reading this yesterday, two women at a table next to mine talking about abortion. strange parallel to the text, where henderson claims all northern michigan to be rife with inbred shitheads.

IT ISN'T THAT EVIL NOR VIOLENCE NEED TO BE UNDERSTOOD, JUST THE ABILITY TO RECOGNIZE THEIR PRESENCE.

yet, couldn't we say the same thing about love? that no one quite understands it, just knows when it is there?

i'm thinking about choice, i'm thinking about essence, i'm thinking about self. human nature, life, biology and justice. some common ground upon which we all stand, the languages of our bodies, the thirsting of our souls, the desires of our hearts.

not to understand, just to recognize what is there. compassion. sympathy. just a little conversation, human interaction.