street trees

because i know all the reasons

2009-12-15T02:24:00.001-05:00

why i am here

2009-12-11T01:28:00.001-05:00

today she got naked and shook her tiny ass in my face chanting "shake yr booty! shake yr booty!" she refused to get dressed until we found her fairy costume and then fell asleep on my chest with gauze wings crushing into her back. he was going through my purse and i asked him what he was doing and he said "looking for yr wallet." she said come downstairs, dance party, and i was confident after playing cinderella, cleaning every crack of the goddamn tile floor. my thumbknuckle leaking blood the whole time i am clean and clean and clean and clean.

i said i wouldn't do this again

2009-12-07T01:20:00.003-05:00

I Had Not Cried MySelf To Sleep In Such A Long While

pt. II

2009-12-06T23:33:00.001-05:00

leave the calendar at november

2009-12-06T23:28:00.002-05:00

suddenly everything becomes about myself. it is only
& just, me. it becomes life as retribution

who knows it becomes

who have i been who was i then who am i

now?

phases.

how much
control
what need

ever a changing notion

damn heart

2009-12-03T20:01:00.000-05:00

fuck this, i'm gonna go buy a bottle of wine

1 4 1 4 one for

2009-12-03T19:08:00.002-05:00

you grab a line and i'll grab a pole honey
you grab a line and i'll grab a pole babe

you grab a line and i'll grab a pole
we'll all go down to the crawdad hole
honey, sweet baby, mine

total bookgasm

2009-11-21T15:38:00.002-05:00

came home to the essence of karyna mcglynn on my goddamn doorstep.

THE SUN IS SHINING BEST DAY EVER

still in celebration of

2009-11-19T01:20:00.001-05:00

no direction. ann arbor is the loneliest place to be lonely. rain slapping the window panes. they weren't building a treehouse, they were cutting the tree down. i want more meaning, or purpose.

-u--.

2009-11-16T19:03:00.002-05:00

definition

2009-11-16T18:37:00.003-05:00

__________________ n. infestation with cysticerci.

__________________ vt. to utilize less of a sound reproduction or transmission device than optimally possible.

__________________ adj. 1. not orderly or stable : DISORDERED 2. liable to vary : UNCERTAIN 3. not determined or resolved 4. not paid or adjusted 5. unpopulated. 6. not fixed or established.

__________________ n. a crystalline sterol, C28H44O, synthesized by yeast from sugars or derived from ergot and converted under ultraviolet irradiation to vitamin D2.

__________________ n. 1. sirius. 2. procyon.

__________________ n. embarrassment or humiliation caused by failure or disappointment.

__________________ adj. 1. lacking teeth. 2. lacking force

__________________ n. 1. a woman porter or doorkeeper, esp. in a convent. 2. a charwoman.

__________________ adj. 1. occurring unexpectedly and unintentionally. 2. not intrinsic : NONESSENTIAL 3. mus. of or denoting a sharp, flat, or natural not indicated in the key signature. --n. 1. a nonessential circumstance or attribute. 2. mus. a chromatically altered note not belonging to the key signature.

IN RE: LISTENING TO 'THE GIFT' OF VELVET U'S WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT

because it's that feeling of my body not being my body not wanting my body to be my body my brain wishing hoping trying to GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET

america aka america

2009-11-11T10:39:00.003-05:00

back from

nothing lasts that long

i think someone is building a treehouse across the street

often (disambiguation)

2009-11-03T20:44:00.003-05:00

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?

2009-11-03T20:38:00.003-05:00

sleep with the lights on

2009-10-29T02:13:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-27T14:00:00.001-04:00

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:

2009-10-25T23:54:00.004-04:00

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

jesus fuck

2009-10-20T19:12:00.002-04:00

sometimes i'm not good at remembering birthdays.

just bought a train ticket to new york. eek!

returned mail

2009-10-15T23:29:00.003-04:00

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

2009-10-15T23:20:00.002-04:00

but really

voz
voix
voce

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

eco
echo
eco

snow, then school

2009-10-15T11:42:00.001-04:00

we are old enough / to dress ourselves

ocsober

2009-10-15T11:28:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-01T12:09:00.001-04:00

MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

love poems

2009-09-30T16:54:00.002-04:00

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,

2009-09-30T16:50:00.004-04:00

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

2009-09-29T18:55:00.003-04:00

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]

2009-09-25T14:41:00.003-04:00

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?

2009-09-25T14:29:00.003-04:00

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.

chckcush

2009-09-02T14:56:00.003-04:00

the city

the city

the city

fotos used without permission of baby lauren

looks like rain, feels like fall

2009-08-22T11:02:00.001-04:00

we are, we are going to the city soon.

stormy misty's foal

2009-08-20T13:45:00.002-04:00

according to my calculations

2009-08-18T09:21:00.006-04:00

the equation for a broken heart:

let y stand for the unknown

x for conversation, thought

xx for sex

thus

x+xx/time = y (or why)

in the words of the lovely ms. anna ash: heart breakin' is a dirty game, but i'm a fall in love with you anyway..

lay me down in the tall grass

2009-08-16T21:07:00.001-04:00

field notes

2009-08-16T18:06:00.002-04:00

circus, all a circus, circus

2009-08-06T15:52:00.003-04:00

i figured out my horoscope. is this because i forced it, or because it really happened? what do you believe in? i think everyone must have something, someone.

i wrote this letter and i never, ever would dream of sending it. but i wrote it with someone in mind, addressing it to said someone. i put in an envelope. took it out. put it back in. sealed envelope. ripped it open. taped it shut, stamped it. i should never send this letter, but it's already in the big blue mailbox.

hay boi hay

2009-08-05T11:28:00.004-04:00

dear donna,

r u my silver or r u my gold? this is all 4 u. all of it.

photos courtsey of ms. hannah ensor

2009-08-05T11:25:00.001-04:00

2009-08-05T11:23:00.000-04:00

2009-08-05T11:21:00.001-04:00

ltfmrbytmlta

2009-07-28T09:42:00.003-04:00

i had a really strange dream last night. lately they all involve hiding or running. i'm not sure what this means. i need my metrotimes horoscope tomorrow, and someone to read my tarot cards. i think a cabin in the woods, or trees, this is how i remember it: sand, sepiatone, fear choking me, a dark window.

t.f.i.a.

2009-07-27T11:51:00.001-04:00

write? right? right.

my clothes always look better on donna.

dear b,

2009-07-24T14:46:00.002-04:00

i had a dream about you. you had two children and we passed under a honeylocust by a large rolling cemetery. sidewalk too small for a stroller. i don't think you have children. you would be a much more conservative father. i think we undressed by a brick wall near the foursquare cement of middle school. it was hot and autumn. it's been a few days, so i can't be sure of this. they were both boys, young, blonde, blue ringing their eyes. chatty and naked. they undressed, not us. but children don't undress, do they? they take off their clothes. no reservation of disrobing, just throwing off what inhibition couldn't keep on in the first place. a child in the bar last night resembled yr oldest dream son and suddenly, i left my body and when i returned something was broken. broken, or empty. why do i say this to you? because i thought you should know. if you ever have children, be a good father. what is dangerous? i hear you are back in the city, searching.

empty jars don't wanna be filled.

2009-07-24T14:44:00.002-04:00

learning humility

2009-07-19T17:09:00.002-04:00

i thought it was brilliant when i wrote it.
i thought i was right when i decided to.
i thought i could get through this without crying again
i thought maybe this time it would be different.
right back where i began
but i'm still growing, heart blooming wider, fuller each day until it bursts from the pericardium. still waiting, hoping you will wait with me.

we took a wrong turn, ended up in hell

2009-07-15T12:12:00.002-04:00

wishlist 1

2009-07-06T14:14:00.002-04:00

i don't have enough $$ for the party

2009-07-06T13:05:00.001-04:00

are you proud to show me what you have done?

2009-07-02T10:36:00.001-04:00

Hey Shaelyn. It's so good to hear from you. I keep meaning to be in touch....you know how my good intentions go. We're so excited that you will be here in the fall- yes, we would definitely love it if you still wanted to babysit for us. All I know right now is that Ionie will be in "school" M&W am and that Kyan will be doing afternoon kindergarten. They still haven't posted our schedules and registration is still the 15th. I will let you know as soon as I do.

Things here have been pretty summer-like, relaxed and full of ideas, some that happen, others that don't. How was your time at the Bio Station? I'm sure you had a great time. Can't wait to hear about it. The kids definitely miss you. And so does this full-time Mama! Hope you're well and that we'll see you soon.

Will we see you this weekend for Joel and Ana's wedding? Hope so.

---------------------------------
i.e. i have a job for next year.

how i feel now

2009-07-01T15:44:00.001-04:00

intraview

2009-07-01T15:31:00.005-04:00

damn |dam|

2009-07-01T15:26:00.002-04:00

verb [ trans. ]
(in Christian belief) (of God) condemn (a person) to suffer eternal punishment in hell : be forever damned with Lucifer.
• ( be damned) be doomed to misfortune or failure : the enterprise was damned.
• condemn, esp. by the public expression of disapproval : intellectuals whom he damns as rigid doctrinaire idealists.
• curse (someone or something) : she cleared her throat, damning it for its huskiness | damn him for making this sound trivial.

exclamation informal
expressing anger, surprise, or frustration : Damn! I completely forgot!

adjective [ attrib. ] informal
used for emphasis, esp. to express anger or frustration : turn that damn thing off! | [as submodifier ] don't be so damn silly!

PHRASES
—— be damned used to express rejection of someone or something previously mentioned : “Glory be damned!”
damn all Brit., informal nothing at all.
damn well informal used to emphasize a statement, esp. when the speaker is angry : this is your mess and you can damn well clear it up!
damn someone/something with faint praise praise someone or something so unenthusiastically as to imply condemnation.
I'll be (or I'm) damned if informal used to express a strong negative : I'll be damned if I'll call her.
not be worth a damn informal have no value or validity at all.
not give a damn see give .
well I'll be (or I'm) damned informal used as an expression of surprise.

ORIGIN
Middle English : from Old French dam(p)ner, from Latin dam(p)nare ‘inflict loss on,’ from damnum ‘loss, damage.’

for b (god, this is so old)

2009-07-01T15:14:00.002-04:00

Solipsist Quiver. Of the late at night variety.

Txt: I am ready
Txt: For?
Txt: That old metaphor.

[2:43 a.m. Boy and Girl walk along railroad tracks past lumberyard. Girl is trying to be artful, stable. She balances slightly on vector, using Boy’s shoulder as support. They come from a mediocre playground with a mediocre swing with a mediocre view.]

Girl: Do you believe in karma?
Boy: No.
Girl: What do you think the world is made up of?
Boy: Other people’s children.

[Girl falls. Sharp left turn into forest of stacked wood. Wind whips, clouds rush to cover full moon. Milk crate beats against chain.]

Boy’s room smells like a barn. Pigs and goats and hay.

Girl remembers the first time she was drunk, drinking beer on a tractor until her body caught on fire. She left, walking home in the grassy middle of dirt road. There was no moon and the stars were too bright to be real.
She sneaks in her bedroom window and undresses, her clothes smelling strongly of space heaters and gasoline and she wants to go ice fishing. Girl takes the pile in her arms like a newborn and throws it out the window, watches it flutter like sea foam and turtle shells and spotted brown trout. She listens to the owls and breathes the cold, cold air until she falls asleep and dreams the liquid adventures of the absurd, sepia-toned double- exposure, beer foam dripping on her pillow.

[Boy watches Girl drink a metaphor from a mason jar. Boy thinks of how strange it is, how personal to hear someone else swallow and think in the dark, without shirts and knowledge.]

Boy: Do you want to make love?

[Girl kisses Boy. Boy does not kiss back. Boy pulls away.]

Boy: I hate kissing.
Boy: It’s too intimate.

[Girl rolls over. Boy apologizes and runs his hand up and down her body, clavicle, neck, sketching compacted breast, avoiding nipple. The ripple of ribs, over slope of ass, like a hill, a knoll. Girl opens her legs and closes her eyes. Boy accepts invitation.]

Boy: You’re stomach looks so good.

[Girl pulls in her stomach like when she was young and had to walk in front of people sitting in a line. Girl feels boy spark and sweat. She pushes her fingertips into the flesh of his arms, his back. It feels like mud, resistance and firm. Girl wants to kiss boy. Girl puts a pillow over her face.]

Girl thinks about contradiction. Girl thinks of old prostitutes in the church district of Paris, Girl thinks of a plastic bag full of Boy’s hair on the sunny mountaintop. How the prostitutes laugh and giggle like Catholic school girls must. She thinks of navigation and compasses and Sunkist jelly coins the color of rainbows and how it felt so good to submerge her hands into them by the wooden barrelful. Girl thinks how she would like to be Boy, just to know, just to feel, how it is to be inside another person. Is this less intimate?

[Boy moans. Hot and sticky. They sleep on wet sheets.]

be because

2009-07-01T15:12:00.000-04:00

notes

2009-07-01T15:11:00.001-04:00

1. James Joyce, Ulysses. (A repeated phrase throughout)

2. Georg Simmel, ‘Adornment’ in David Frisby and Mike Feathersone, Simmel on Culture, Sage,
1997, 207.

3. Kaja Silverman, ‘The Language of Things’ in World Spectators, Stanford UP, 2000, 132.

4. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ‘Eye and Mind’ in The Primacy of Perception, Northwestern UP,
1964, 163.

5. Jean-Luc Nancy, ‘The Image – The Distinct’ in The Ground of the Image, Fordham University
Press, 2005, 13.

6. Donna Haraway, ‘The Persistence of Vision’ in Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Visual Culture
Reader, Routledge, 1998, 585.

7. Peggy Phelan, ‘Broken Symmetries’ in Unmarked: the politics of performance, London and
New York, Routledge, 1993, 17.

8. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1977, 202-3.

9. Laura Mulvey, ‘Close-ups and Commodities’ in Fetishism and Curiosity, Indiana UP, 1996,
41.

10. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ‘Eye and Mind’ in The Primacy of Perception, Northwestern UP,
1964, 162

11. John O’Reilly, ‘Thinking With Images’ in Rick Poynor (ed), Communicate: Independent
British Graphic Design since the Sixties, Yale UP, 2004, 229.

12. Kaja Silverman, ‘The Screen’ in The Threshold of the Visible World, Routledge, 1996, 222

13. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, 1967, #9

14. Jean Baudrillard, ‘Simulacra and Simulations’ in Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings,
Stanford University Press, 1998

15. Kaja Silverman, ‘The Screen’ in The Threshold of the Visible World, Routledge, 1996, 206

16. Donna Haraway, ‘The Persistence of Vision’ in Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Visual Culture
Reader, Routledge, 1998, 586.

if ends are the ends of beginnings

2009-07-01T14:58:00.002-04:00

are beginnings the beginnings of ends

2009-07-01T14:56:00.000-04:00

2009-07-01T14:55:00.002-04:00

all photographs in this series courtesy of the lovely ms. laura peterson & north quad-nee-frieze building, may you r.i.p.

not hungry: empty

2009-07-01T14:53:00.000-04:00

nostalgia |näˈstaljə; nə-|

2009-07-01T14:50:00.002-04:00

noun

a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations : I was overcome with acute nostalgia for my days in college.

• the evocation of these feelings or tendencies, esp. in commercialized form : an evening of TV nostalgia.

DERIVATIVES

nostalgist |-jist| noun

ORIGIN late 18th cent. (in the sense [acute homesickness] ): modern Latin (translating German Heimweh ‘homesickness’ ), from Greek nostos ‘return home’ + algos ‘pain.’

be still now

2009-07-01T14:20:00.001-04:00

The best art and writing is almost like an assignment; it is so vibrant that you feel compelled to make something in response. Suddenly it is clear what you have to do. For a brief moment it seems wonderfully easy to live and love and create breathtaking things. In this section we have archived some of the work that has commanded us in this way. In a sense, these are assignments -- in the same way that the ocean gives the assignment of breathing deeply, and kissing instructs us to stop thinking. --learning to love you more, love

OLD PHOTOS WITH LOVE

be good now

2009-07-01T13:25:00.002-04:00

heartbreak in hipsilanti

2009-06-30T17:34:00.003-04:00

it was dawn and the storm slithered in my belly -patti smith

today i wrote a letter meant for every person in my life. i mailed it to new york. the most beautiful people on the bus. photo street. o so good, o my heart.

editing the oleander review

2009-06-30T17:30:00.001-04:00

dear ann arbor,

2009-06-29T11:18:00.001-04:00

goddamn.

dear west branch,

2009-06-23T14:31:00.002-04:00

ugh. too much coffee, soul-sucking. i am so stuck between wanting to be here & never wanting to come back again i am so stagnant. i can't even write a poem about it. last night though my dad took me back to the property line & there were 4 baby raccoons in the crotch of an elm. the mother in a hole above them, hiding. /a matter of swelling or apathy / or everyone too hot to move/. tufted titmouse had built her nest right there, mama raccoon had eggs for dinner. ms. titmouse so fucking angry, flitting around, relentlessly pulling fur from mama raccoon, had a beak so full of fur she was bearded & tufted. hilarious, also baby animals really are that fucking cute. the hill really was that big. & steep as hell. only a bear could climb it, unless one happened to be real drunk. everyone i graduated with has a baby or a wife. probably will get drunk at the one bar downtown tonight & play pool with boys from high school. then sit a while by the post office before i drive home, lay in my parents' yard & look at stars, cry myself to sleep. dunno if it's this place or me that's so predictable.

obviously much more but.

dear umbs,

2009-06-22T10:27:00.002-04:00

never been so in love, never want to let it go

if i were to get a tattoo of a plant

2009-06-19T21:25:00.002-04:00

2009-06-19T21:25:00.001-04:00

if i were to get a tattoo of a bird

2009-06-19T21:09:00.001-04:00

questions of travel

2009-06-19T21:08:00.000-04:00

--elizabeth bishop

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.

Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?

Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"

sand in my hair still

2009-06-19T17:19:00.001-04:00

woke up with a dragonfly in my backpack stretching his new wings. molted skin too, all fell out. he flew away after i--

how to say best days how
to say i want it again

hungry: again, always again

2009-06-11T13:40:00.000-04:00

2009-06-11T13:39:00.002-04:00

2009-06-11T13:39:00.001-04:00

2009-06-11T13:38:00.000-04:00

SHOOT ME IN THE HEAD

2009-06-10T13:52:00.002-04:00

sparrow of my girl's arm, her arm as
she leans & they are each a bride
each dark & facing a big american
breakfast

what? you ate america for breakfast?
oh! an american breakfast. today
at dinner, she asked me if i ever
went camping in the woods & ran around
naked because she knows her sister
and i have gone skinny-dipping but
i can't remember where or when

prettiest girl to a brick wall
never been so in love
with a breakfast, never been
never been never been so far
from the water, from taking off
my clothes, never been so far
from home & the softness of her
body is there. is there another
reason? is why i find this so hard
because of the asymmetry--the
you & me, the we / we walked the
railroad bridge, above water level
one afternoon somewhere between
the roof we couldn't make it to
and the edge of the rest
of the days all melt together,
running like kohl in the rain.
without something there is something
missing. some brick wall: can't move
past not yet--myopic, maybe.

i am unfamiliar with your
habits, which form around us
as crazy masks. & who would
you say could argue & bitterly
mistake? who could
mistake what we have? how
many words could undo? & the
power of my dream of her is
a path unlike silk or woods.
your face, god, your face.

three green apples on the kitchen
counter--this is what i have,
all of what i can contain from,
obtain, remain--i guess, really
all i have left: what things
have we given, gifted what
things we have gotten, accepted.
at the end of the month i bleed
everything i have found. i
would never let you fall as hard
as i have--does this mean
i want to protect you or
that i want to own you?

the heart i found, puncturing
the gall bladder of the tree, sharp
onerous & a love gift for sweet
honeymooners. endings come as violent
swaths, sunset.
my heart for yours.
my heart for yours.
the roots break & stretch.
a blanket is your dirt body.
sickness in mine you cared for me.

the sky was full, blue, bloated.
my heart lives in my mouth,
i keep the sun in my mouth,
the sun is starting to sink
into my stomach i feel like this:
i don't know what i
am waiting for. the sky
flashes, blinks shut,
opens, shatters & conjoins.
my stomach knots like a tree.
the morning after i woke
up hard as an apple.
yesterday was the day before.
i wore a coat of leaves, sky, grass.

empty is the shirt you wore &
weightless without your chest.
in your chest has been your heart
now it is a clubhouse for the boys.
my sickness is for the boys &
i refuse to suckle an anchor.

an anchor is the cloud of grey
enjoyment. we think & we agree
that contentment is like
having a golden ring shoved & shoved
inside your pink mouth. sunset.
as long as it is after dark,
i will let you see me.
you happen to be gone.

something used to be there.
an indentation of space
where something used to be
the breath of my lover
the lover is my breath
damn sky--sun cloud
how much of grief
is guilt--selfish, sefish myopia.
grief, guilt--like
any other emotion
but harder to swallow.
it's this slant of the sun
i can't stomach--
i feel weightless, empty

[collab poem with baby lauren]

29.may.o9

dinner

2009-06-07T23:56:00.003-04:00

cornbread: dad's maple syrup, abc red snapper, fresh corn from sparrow

cornbread topped with a layer of arugula and baby swiss chard

then a salsaish thing: black beans, more corn, chive flowers, strawberries, mango, avocado, basil, garlic scapes + new undeveloped bulbs, yellow tomato (last four flash fried in olive oil)

all topped with queso

really pretty meal. aesthetics of the kitchen. don't know if i'll make it again.

soaking white beans right now for lunch tomorrow: i'm thinking a salad with the beans, lavender, mint, green tomato, arugula (or spinach), chive flowers, avocado? or fiddlehead ferns. we'll see, i guess. whatever happens, as long as it's edible. maybe currants, definitely goat cheese. or maybe not. soft boiled egg? probably not.

i think i bought pine nuts at the co-op but they seem to be missing..maybe i have a ghost. kay says she's waking up with bruises and she thinks that they are from a ghost. but that's a different story.

baby lauren's birthday

2009-05-24T21:16:00.000-04:00

2009-05-24T21:14:00.000-04:00

2009-05-24T21:12:00.001-04:00

summer.

2009-05-18T10:50:00.001-04:00

oh, now, nothing really. just the sun through the windows.

have i been here?

2009-04-30T22:15:00.005-04:00

the bad rabbit would like some carrot. he starts shoving his wiggly little nose in all the corners of the room. something smells like carrot. a blind mortician comes out of the closet, groping and yelling about the noise. the bad rabbit gets real scared and hops out the open window and across the ocean of dandelions waving like spectator sea anenome. they don't mind. but i'm stuck here, with the myth of the blind, holding my breath and praying to god he goes back in the closet. "GODDAMN CARROTS" he screams, throwing over the kitchen table. a few half-full plates of spaghetti topple over, crash, crash; they turn to ostrich eggs. the eggs begin to hatch, releasing small beady-eyed crocodiles. one egg takes a particularly long time unfolding and out of it hatches the bad rabbit. he's wearing one of those mystery man glasses and mustache combinations like hes some sort of harriet the spy. the kids are all upstairs on the top bunk playing some hybrid adult form of mary poppins goes to the doctor. they have all the silverware in the bed and bad rabbit is pissed because he needs the carrot peeler but he didn't make an appointment. he starts shitting little marble turds all over the goddamn flowered linoleum. I begin to follow him around with a little fairy wand broom and silver ashtray because i can't find the dust pan, but he starts hopping faster, ahead of me, shitting with every bounce and i can't keep up. suddenly i am aware of the neighbors at the window with their dirty noses and pink clammy hands pressed up against the freshly washed glass.

i don't make art.

2009-04-29T22:10:00.003-04:00

not quite finished. kyan drew the bicycle in the last frame, i swear. he's five.

the season comes to an end before it begins

2009-04-29T12:18:00.000-04:00

this is where we live

2009-04-29T12:12:00.001-04:00

so,

2009-04-24T20:05:00.009-04:00

i know pretty bikes are like pretty women, they come and go. and i know that women, they will come and they will go. and i know players only love you when they're playing. and i know thunder only happens when it's raining. and i know it's 8:06 p.m. but what about men? BOYFRIEND. it's all muddy, muddled, dirty. what about, uh, that small hole in the wall with a tooth wrapped in canvas hidden inside? the size of an index finger. here your lungs fill with cotton. here your heart is small. what about the small unboned rabbit skinned and rotting on a plate next to the bed? what about how the night always releases a chill and the city lights always look better out the window when drunk? what if it stays the same, the shivers are still there in the morning and the moles make constellations along the subtle curves of the skin of the back and the city still limns along the horizon just as pretty in the soft light of morning? oh, i suppose consummation always debones the phantasmagoria. what if the first jump is never enough? but every jump after could never be as good. if it isn't done right the first time? i suppose i may never be satiated with what i have. aspiration, 'til death do us part. or is that respiration, or both, oh. i thought he had a gun; i thought this is what we were supposed to do; i thought we both wanted it to be a small folded piece of the blustery night that would never unfold in the same way we closed it; i thought there was someone in the backseat; i thought we were supposed to die right then, right there; i thought we would never whisper like that, but we made it. we made it. here your heart is small. here you spiral, constantly alone, ever and cyclical and ever and ever. i suppose i may always hope for something better. is it too much to be content with the current rush? oh. i suppose maybe is a better word than perhaps. the future is always blanker than the past. but sometimes things are so much like myopia, so speckled and bespeckled and the mind just keeps running back to that one thing, that one moment. oh. oh. morning flowers are always better in retrospect, bulb to blossom, that little fire on divison street. and oh.

everything i know

2009-04-24T15:01:00.001-04:00

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

well,

2009-04-24T15:00:00.000-04:00

shit, we shouldn't have been there.

ode to the lovely ms. margaret reges..

2009-04-13T23:52:00.007-04:00

I used to make this beer starting late winter, when the first dandelion rosettes would pop up in the soggy ground, all through spring. It will foam up when poured out, but the head dissipates quickly. Don't expect it to be a fine beer, just enjoy it for what it is: a rough but tasty springtime homebrew and a real connection with nature's free bounty.

anyone want to try it soon?

1. Wash a 1-gallon glass carboy, plastic fermentation bucket, or a large, food-grade plastic jug. It's important that this fermentation vessel should not be of metal, and be very clean, with no residue of former food or drink clinging to it, inside or out. Sanitize it with a mild bleach solution (rinse very well till no bleach odor is left) or a Campden tablet if you will - although I use Campden to sanitize my wines, I never did with this beer.

2. Put the sugar and the cream of tartar into the vessel.

3. Wash the dandelion, using any mixture of roots and leaves. Make sure to pluck out any flower stems; they are bitter and inedible. There is no need to peel the roots, just scrub the dirt off them. Chop the roots and leaves coarsely.

4. Simmer the dandelion material with the grated ginger, in all the water (you'll need a large pot, or split this step into two batches). Simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Funnel the liquor into the carboy, using cheesecloth to strain it, or strain and pour it into a jug.

6. Stir well to dissolve the sugar completely.

7. When the liquor is lukewarm, dissolve the yeast in water and add to the vessel.

8. Fit the airlock if fermenting in a carboy or fermentation bucket; if using a jug, cover it with a clean towel. This was my first homebrew recipe, and I had no dedicated beer- or wine-making equipment, so it was a clean towel for me.

9. All the beer to ferment three days. No need to stir it orinterfere with it in any way; just let it sit there and do its thing. Soon enough it will start to fizz away.

10. After three days, sterilize your bottles. Siphon the beer into them and cap. More confessions: sometimes I would keep this beer, for short-term storage, in sanitized plastic water bottles.

Wait a week before opening. Chill thoroughly before opening.

Enjoy! It's easy to get addicted to this brew.

* Although I've used white sugar, I came to prefer the nutty taste contributed by dark brown sugar.

** A friend says that a darker, sweeter beer may be made by roasting the dandelion roots first. In terms of proportion, I would use roughly 50/50 roots and leaves.

*** Yes, baker's yeast. If you have access to beer yeast, by all means, use it. But I never did, because there isn't any to be had here that I know of. And to tell the truth, I liked the idea of using the homeliest, least complicated ingredients and methods to make this country beer.

I HAVE MARY POPPINS SONGS STUCK IN MY HEAD ALL THE GODDAMN TIME

2009-04-13T20:15:00.003-04:00

stupid is defined as heat is to one on one and two equals eighteen quarts of strawberries we squish with our dead skin bare feet we are making wine we are making juice and callous blood and the ripe strawberries pop like ovaries and we are fermenting in our own skins today, right now, stupid. I I I I I I I. not strawberries, but cherries, eyeballs, canteloupe, raspberries, what else are we putting in the witch's brew, cauldron bubbles and boils, frog spawn of course, three red hairs, fish eggs and rat skin and bat wings and toenails and the wine is done, by now it might be done and if it is not we will not be drunk just sick and drooling and dying, yes, still dying.

well, shit, i suppose

2009-04-13T18:38:00.002-04:00

hometown coming in strong, closing in (things i am no longer apart of, may have been once, maybe i am making that up), sudden awareness of every external thing, the things surrounding me, happening elsewhere. how much is dependent on location? how much are we a product of environment, how much is environment a product of the self? fictions of the mind vs. real life vs. the external world--is it really what we make it (i)? nothing seems vitally important right now. no motivation to write two papers due tomorrow. this seems negligent, silly, self-indulgent. what else? girls in suitcases somewhere in northern california, people i once knew (idolized?) stabbed in the throat, friends with babies, nyc serial killers in the 70s--all this shit i have no access to, but somehow find infinitely interesting. suicide of this boy a few years older than me, i was in 7th grade, friends of the family, nothing on the internet. fuck the internet. or maybe i am just so starved for something else than where i find myself now. acceptance, immerison, acknowledgement, admission, time to move on, hunker down, focus, hone in. what else but to awake, explode, keep going. prayer is something i have lost all grasp and conception of, yet somewhere i think i still yearn for it, for the idea. i want to say the nature of the thing is more important than the idea of it, i want to say we made eye contact, i want to say this matters, but i don't know what i believe anymore. the future looms blank and blinking. yesterday, today. nap. today. tomorrow is all laid out, tonight, this week, next week possibly the coming months. beyond that? i'm afraid my life will never amount to anything profound, but hey, i've been sitting here for 3 hours and haven't done shit about that. i've learned a lot, thought a lot, discovered and uncovered and recovered. like the pamphlets little girls in floral dresses hand out on the corner of state & north u: i could die today, you could die today, maybe even we could all die today. and then what? will the stars still come out tonight? will the birds still sing in the morning? and god, who is he? are we all so self-focused, centered. reliving and relieving and leaving and coming and going and staying and maybe i just want to walk and breathe and feel the air closing in around me (me me me me me me me me) because is that what it really comes down to, yes? america is for me a bug collection, right now, underglass and dissectable, or maybe that's just my past or maybe, still the possibility that i am making it all up. all of this. solipsism. what place does that notion have? invisibility, indivisibility, oh. there are so many people that have changed my life in those tiny, secret, string-theory ways. and none of them know it. and none of it is significant. oh, nothing, i suppose, nothing but this and this and this and.

oh.

2009-04-13T00:20:00.001-04:00

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank/

everything i learned today

2009-04-12T21:53:00.002-04:00

x = sex

x + y = relationship

solve for y

(thanks, ariel schrag, potential)

aversion, subversion, diversion, or meta-bored

2009-04-12T21:45:00.002-04:00

what? does this count?

poems i will recite if u ask nicely*

2009-04-12T21:35:00.006-04:00

*alternate title: poems i wish i would have written. or wish i could have written.
*alternate title: poems i recite to myself when i'm mopping. or doing dishes. or walking. or drunk & feeling self-conscious.
*alternate title: my favorite poems? maybe?

stereo - anne waldman

supermarket in california - allen ginsberg

today in ann arbor - ted berrigan

final soliloquy of the interior paramour - wallace stevens

amanda hopper's house - karyna mcglynn

green mountain idyl - hayden carruth

directive - robert frost

for grace, after a party - frank o'hara

mr. youse (not a real title; cummings never has titles) - e.e. cummings

breakfast @ the country club

2009-04-12T21:33:00.002-04:00

"oh, i'm so psyched for this audiohealing workshop nick is doing. it's so cool."

re-shit; [re]shit; re:shit; reshit

2009-04-12T21:23:00.002-04:00

shit

2009-04-12T21:17:00.004-04:00

shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit
shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit

haha. this word looks funny now. & i guess i feel better, too.

2 birds w/ 1 bullet.

LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!!

2009-04-11T15:39:00.000-04:00

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

-FRANK O'HARA

ah-duh.

2009-04-11T15:35:00.002-04:00

last night strange dream: was it snow or rain or just a lake we were floating on? oh, dreams.

"why do you have this?"
"because this is america."

-dead man