Wednesday, January 23, 2008
how you may hold many faces
in one hand
the style of performance revolves
around a curl of hair an aroma
lips moistened just
in time for
an entrance
or exit in to any variety of wardrobes
(hide in and among)
a curl of
style like sweet
silk laden lengthened hanging
from trees
or fingers
crossed
around the notes
break through
one gesture (re)peated
in one hand
the style of performance revolves
around a curl of hair an aroma
lips moistened just
in time for
an entrance
or exit in to any variety of wardrobes
(hide in and among)
a curl of
style like sweet
silk laden lengthened hanging
from trees
or fingers
crossed
around the notes
break through
one gesture (re)peated
Thursday, November 01, 2007
some old fiction or something
i'm going through some old work, thinking about compiling the various pieces of strange prose fiction or whatever genre you want to say, gathering things that came from somewhere and have otherwise sat around in the computer for some time... it's hard enough to publish strange poetry, what about strange prose... so i've just not thought much about sending much of this work out... i don't even know where to send it... though there are a few places that are a little less genre determinate such as Quarter After Eight... alas, the subtly implicit question, regarding how one does work one is inclined to do and also consider publishing as a necessary element to the ever getting a job situation, or, i'm tired of sending crap out only to get a multitude of crap rejections back in the mail... and i'm tired of the lectures on playing the game, being resilient and persistent, needing to have some connections in order to get work out there, whatever.... so here's a little ditty about mr. wilson:
Meatloaf is essentially interchangeable, with what? something thrown out entirely, silken and thank goodness for ever leaving the house getting away entirely and here we are burning teeth. cousin, watch out for cracked ice suddenly it may not be good not at all this time what is no good said obituary said this time we are searching for kindness. a woman she had mercy, walked the streets of mercy talked to the windows shopping for mercy thinking about how too many people are lacking these days lacking entirely. post: communion will be served at the 13th chime. Post: Mr. Wilson please report. Post: Lord have mercy. She sat down to feast, a brief intercession. Pray for me. Lead me to the light. To eat and a variety of blended vegetables. a variety. Thinking if only the stray thoughts were put down on paper. Thinking: Mr. Wilson ought not recover too quickly. Thinking of salvation and turning away from what she thought and flesh. Beyond vegetables. Mash potatoes. I was thinking of an after dinner fruity drink. Thinking of a rare species. It is not so wrong if it feels good. Intercess shock .. Post: these are the rules. Post: do not mix. She knows now that if Mr. Wilson arrives he will not drink wine. His eyes like Bella Legosi. She rewinds the tape, again. Mr. Wilson has not come this week. Yesterday she saw him on the street selling cigarettes. Last month he replaced light bulbs. Today he is to bring fresh bread. Post: Mr. Wilson? The dish is dirty. She looks over the newspaper in front of her. Cut into pieces. Sometimes an article. Sometimes a headline. Sometimes a word. Sometimes a photo. Sometimes a paragraph a block of prose. Sometimes she has cut through around into the text. Pieces of news paper moving around the table. Her hands over the pieces. Moving the pieces. Putting pieces together. Pulling them apart. Rearranging. The whole table becomes a newspaper puzzle. The dish is on the floor. Mr. Wilson is already aware of the events of the day. He only uses the newspaper for the floor. Puts it all over the floor. Opens pages and lays them out all over the floor from wall to wall. He will not bring a new newspaper. She knows all of the stories. Out of order. He will bring a cigarette. Lay it on the table. They will watch the cigarette. Moving around the text. Photos of people smoking. Not color photos. The newspaper is not USA Today. She is not sure what day in the U.S. is it. It is not today. Mr. Wilson did not come today. He is scheduled. Next week he will vote. She knows he will save a tree. Send someone to sit in the tree. He will compost. In his pocket. Carries extra newspaper in his pocket. She has a design of text. A newspaper crescent moon. A story about robbery. A shooting. Child abuse. Nestled in the curve a picture of a clown. At the circus. Last week the clowns left. They took their little cars and lollipops. The news is not always happy. She lifts her gaze from the crescent news. The curtains across the room are open slightly. Sunlight hits the red chair. Late afternoon sun. She has already eaten breakfast. The red chair flames. She remembers the popcorn from the circus. But not from last week. Mr. Wilson sold popcorn before he discovered cigarettes. Popcorn never lasts. Post: incoming message. Post: this is a public service announcement. Post: this station will play none of your favorite bands. One time Mr. Wilson won at checkers. He was born under a sign of luck. On the table, the star of david, in newsprint. Eventually it will be December. The sentences in the star were composed in July. A paragraph about a lost toddler. She walked from house to house. Rang doorbells. Her father was asleep. A sentence about the military in China. A headline: Local Cigarette Salesman Follows Clowns Out of Town. Mr. Wilson was not expected for diner in July. The circus hasn’t toured since 1976. Tomorrow each headline will paste itself into a perfect cube. She has solved each equation for the good of society. Soon it will all make sense, a particular order. Cutting the text into paragraphs into phrases cutting the words into letters. Cutting letters into dust. A pile of newspaper dust exactly n the middle of the table. Post: with a low tonight of 19 degrees. Post: no one ever really sleeps through the night. Post: where articulation intersects, I will find you, the story of the day.
Meatloaf is essentially interchangeable, with what? something thrown out entirely, silken and thank goodness for ever leaving the house getting away entirely and here we are burning teeth. cousin, watch out for cracked ice suddenly it may not be good not at all this time what is no good said obituary said this time we are searching for kindness. a woman she had mercy, walked the streets of mercy talked to the windows shopping for mercy thinking about how too many people are lacking these days lacking entirely. post: communion will be served at the 13th chime. Post: Mr. Wilson please report. Post: Lord have mercy. She sat down to feast, a brief intercession. Pray for me. Lead me to the light. To eat and a variety of blended vegetables. a variety. Thinking if only the stray thoughts were put down on paper. Thinking: Mr. Wilson ought not recover too quickly. Thinking of salvation and turning away from what she thought and flesh. Beyond vegetables. Mash potatoes. I was thinking of an after dinner fruity drink. Thinking of a rare species. It is not so wrong if it feels good. Intercess shock .. Post: these are the rules. Post: do not mix. She knows now that if Mr. Wilson arrives he will not drink wine. His eyes like Bella Legosi. She rewinds the tape, again. Mr. Wilson has not come this week. Yesterday she saw him on the street selling cigarettes. Last month he replaced light bulbs. Today he is to bring fresh bread. Post: Mr. Wilson? The dish is dirty. She looks over the newspaper in front of her. Cut into pieces. Sometimes an article. Sometimes a headline. Sometimes a word. Sometimes a photo. Sometimes a paragraph a block of prose. Sometimes she has cut through around into the text. Pieces of news paper moving around the table. Her hands over the pieces. Moving the pieces. Putting pieces together. Pulling them apart. Rearranging. The whole table becomes a newspaper puzzle. The dish is on the floor. Mr. Wilson is already aware of the events of the day. He only uses the newspaper for the floor. Puts it all over the floor. Opens pages and lays them out all over the floor from wall to wall. He will not bring a new newspaper. She knows all of the stories. Out of order. He will bring a cigarette. Lay it on the table. They will watch the cigarette. Moving around the text. Photos of people smoking. Not color photos. The newspaper is not USA Today. She is not sure what day in the U.S. is it. It is not today. Mr. Wilson did not come today. He is scheduled. Next week he will vote. She knows he will save a tree. Send someone to sit in the tree. He will compost. In his pocket. Carries extra newspaper in his pocket. She has a design of text. A newspaper crescent moon. A story about robbery. A shooting. Child abuse. Nestled in the curve a picture of a clown. At the circus. Last week the clowns left. They took their little cars and lollipops. The news is not always happy. She lifts her gaze from the crescent news. The curtains across the room are open slightly. Sunlight hits the red chair. Late afternoon sun. She has already eaten breakfast. The red chair flames. She remembers the popcorn from the circus. But not from last week. Mr. Wilson sold popcorn before he discovered cigarettes. Popcorn never lasts. Post: incoming message. Post: this is a public service announcement. Post: this station will play none of your favorite bands. One time Mr. Wilson won at checkers. He was born under a sign of luck. On the table, the star of david, in newsprint. Eventually it will be December. The sentences in the star were composed in July. A paragraph about a lost toddler. She walked from house to house. Rang doorbells. Her father was asleep. A sentence about the military in China. A headline: Local Cigarette Salesman Follows Clowns Out of Town. Mr. Wilson was not expected for diner in July. The circus hasn’t toured since 1976. Tomorrow each headline will paste itself into a perfect cube. She has solved each equation for the good of society. Soon it will all make sense, a particular order. Cutting the text into paragraphs into phrases cutting the words into letters. Cutting letters into dust. A pile of newspaper dust exactly n the middle of the table. Post: with a low tonight of 19 degrees. Post: no one ever really sleeps through the night. Post: where articulation intersects, I will find you, the story of the day.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
letters
old pieces, from an old piece of work, found and uncovered...
dear elle,
you told me a secret. you took your hat off. ask me.
dear elle,
i enjoy cheesy love songs. particularly those from 1979. to someone i mentioned your state of affairs. i sleep teal. it has been called a hard habit. the stucco in your voice signals a spot of closure. the end of a sentence. your knee covering spit. i tell you cover me up. history is not accurate. tame your wild vocals.
dear elle,
syntactical illusion. carry on a cup of wasting over into. push over a useless vocabulary. tell me, do you do the dew? in what state as of moment? the last sparks are dim and flaring lost. dead animals caught and choking into skeleton. overheard intimate language.
dear elle,
you told me a secret. you took your hat off. ask me.
dear elle,
i enjoy cheesy love songs. particularly those from 1979. to someone i mentioned your state of affairs. i sleep teal. it has been called a hard habit. the stucco in your voice signals a spot of closure. the end of a sentence. your knee covering spit. i tell you cover me up. history is not accurate. tame your wild vocals.
dear elle,
syntactical illusion. carry on a cup of wasting over into. push over a useless vocabulary. tell me, do you do the dew? in what state as of moment? the last sparks are dim and flaring lost. dead animals caught and choking into skeleton. overheard intimate language.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
pound – zukofsky – niedecker… a reading
niedecker:
My friend tree
I sawed you down
but I must attend
an older friend
the sun
pound:
1. direct treatment of the thing
2. to use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation
3. to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase
pound:
an ‘Image’ is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time
niedecker:
Well, spring overflows the land,
floods floor, pump, wash machine
of the woman moored to this low shore by deafness.
…
pound:
it is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works
pound:
use no superfluous word, no adjective which does not reveal something
niedecker:
…
you water my worms
you patch my boot
with your mending kit
nothing in it
but my hand
pound:
do in fear of abstractions
pound:
use no ornament or good ornament
niedecker:
…
I worked the print shop
right down among em
the folk from whom all poetry flows
and dreadfully much else
…
What would they say if they knew
I sit for two months on six lines
of poetry?
pound:
there is in the best verse a sort of residue of sound which remains in the ear of the hearer
pound:
the experimental demonstrations of one man may save the time of many
niedecker:
Hear
where her snow-grave is
the You
ah you
of mourning doves
pound:
it will not try to seem forcible by rhetorical din, and luxurious riot. we will have fewer painted adjectives impeding the shock and stroke of it. I want it so, austere, direct, free from emotional slither
niedecker:
How white the gulls
in grey weather
Soon April
the little
yellows
zukofsky:
the lens bringing the rays from an object to a focus
that which is aimed at
desire for what is objectively perfect
inextricably the direction of historic and contemporary particulars
niedecker:
Popcorn-can cover
screwed to the wall
over a hole
so the cold
can’t mouse in
zukofsky:
that historic and contemporary particulars may mean a thing or things as well as an event or a chain of events
niedecker:
Lights, lifts
parts nicely opposed
this white
lice lithe
pink bird
zukofsky:
this rested totality may be called objectification
niedecker:
July, waxwings
on the berries
have dyed red
the dead
branch
zukofsky:
the implications are that a critic began as a poet, and that as a poet he had implicitly to be a critic
niedecker:
I’ve been away from poetry
many months
and now I must rake leaves
with nothing blowing
between your house
and mine
zukofsky:
a poem as an object…experienced…perfect rest…theologically perhaps… like the ineffable…the context…dealing with a world outside, inextricably the direction of historic and contemporary particulars…desire for what is objectively perfect…context based on a world…this object in process…the poem as a job…
niedecker:
My life is hung up
in the flood
a wave-blurred
portrait
Don’t fall in love
with this face—
it no longer exists
in water
we cannot fish
zukofsky:
a context associated with ‘musical’ shape
niedecker:
Now in one year
a book published
and plumbing—
took a lifetime
to weep
a deep
trickle
zukofsky:
intention must be distinguished from accomplishment which resolves the complexity of detail into a single object
niedecker:
…
We stayed till the stamens trembled
zukofsky:
(quotes contemporary American poet) a machine made of words
niedecker:
…
Leave me the land
Scratch out: the land
May prose and property both die out
and leave me peace
sources:
Ezra Pound, “A Retrospect”
Louis Zukofsky, “An Objective” and “A Statement for Poetry”
Lorine Niedecker, The Granite Pail, Ed. Cid Corman, 1996
My friend tree
I sawed you down
but I must attend
an older friend
the sun
pound:
1. direct treatment of the thing
2. to use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation
3. to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase
pound:
an ‘Image’ is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time
niedecker:
Well, spring overflows the land,
floods floor, pump, wash machine
of the woman moored to this low shore by deafness.
…
pound:
it is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works
pound:
use no superfluous word, no adjective which does not reveal something
niedecker:
…
you water my worms
you patch my boot
with your mending kit
nothing in it
but my hand
pound:
do in fear of abstractions
pound:
use no ornament or good ornament
niedecker:
…
I worked the print shop
right down among em
the folk from whom all poetry flows
and dreadfully much else
…
What would they say if they knew
I sit for two months on six lines
of poetry?
pound:
there is in the best verse a sort of residue of sound which remains in the ear of the hearer
pound:
the experimental demonstrations of one man may save the time of many
niedecker:
Hear
where her snow-grave is
the You
ah you
of mourning doves
pound:
it will not try to seem forcible by rhetorical din, and luxurious riot. we will have fewer painted adjectives impeding the shock and stroke of it. I want it so, austere, direct, free from emotional slither
niedecker:
How white the gulls
in grey weather
Soon April
the little
yellows
zukofsky:
the lens bringing the rays from an object to a focus
that which is aimed at
desire for what is objectively perfect
inextricably the direction of historic and contemporary particulars
niedecker:
Popcorn-can cover
screwed to the wall
over a hole
so the cold
can’t mouse in
zukofsky:
that historic and contemporary particulars may mean a thing or things as well as an event or a chain of events
niedecker:
Lights, lifts
parts nicely opposed
this white
lice lithe
pink bird
zukofsky:
this rested totality may be called objectification
niedecker:
July, waxwings
on the berries
have dyed red
the dead
branch
zukofsky:
the implications are that a critic began as a poet, and that as a poet he had implicitly to be a critic
niedecker:
I’ve been away from poetry
many months
and now I must rake leaves
with nothing blowing
between your house
and mine
zukofsky:
a poem as an object…experienced…perfect rest…theologically perhaps… like the ineffable…the context…dealing with a world outside, inextricably the direction of historic and contemporary particulars…desire for what is objectively perfect…context based on a world…this object in process…the poem as a job…
niedecker:
My life is hung up
in the flood
a wave-blurred
portrait
Don’t fall in love
with this face—
it no longer exists
in water
we cannot fish
zukofsky:
a context associated with ‘musical’ shape
niedecker:
Now in one year
a book published
and plumbing—
took a lifetime
to weep
a deep
trickle
zukofsky:
intention must be distinguished from accomplishment which resolves the complexity of detail into a single object
niedecker:
…
We stayed till the stamens trembled
zukofsky:
(quotes contemporary American poet) a machine made of words
niedecker:
…
Leave me the land
Scratch out: the land
May prose and property both die out
and leave me peace
sources:
Ezra Pound, “A Retrospect”
Louis Zukofsky, “An Objective” and “A Statement for Poetry”
Lorine Niedecker, The Granite Pail, Ed. Cid Corman, 1996
Friday, September 21, 2007
on a friday
display
a crane, moving, industrial
behind a billboard
in front of the printed
architecture
of city
scape
not an e
scape
but haze
mutes silver
buildings
late september view
of heat
holding fast
to the notion of a space
surrounding
or in a place
like something that doesn't belong
in the desert
a crane, moving, industrial
behind a billboard
in front of the printed
architecture
of city
scape
not an e
scape
but haze
mutes silver
buildings
late september view
of heat
holding fast
to the notion of a space
surrounding
or in a place
like something that doesn't belong
in the desert
Friday, August 24, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
contemporary art in brazil
went here today in person... one of the best possible museums...
it is work from artists from all over, including but not limited to brazil, and the setting and atmosphere is amazing and fabulous...
http://www.inhotim.org.br
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
here's selmin's blog with some info and pics of belo horizonte:
http://www.lonelysatellite.blogspot.com/
http://www.lonelysatellite.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
thinking space
Bachelard, from The Poetics of Space
"For the house furnishes us dispersed images and a body of images at the same time. In both cases, I shall prove that imagination augments the values of reality."
"We are never real historians, but always near poets."
"Through poems, perhaps more than through recollections, we touch the ultimate poetic depth of the space of the house."
"Thus we cover the universe with drawings we have lived. These drawings need not be exact. They need only to be tonalized on the mode of our inner space."
"For the house furnishes us dispersed images and a body of images at the same time. In both cases, I shall prove that imagination augments the values of reality."
"We are never real historians, but always near poets."
"Through poems, perhaps more than through recollections, we touch the ultimate poetic depth of the space of the house."
"Thus we cover the universe with drawings we have lived. These drawings need not be exact. They need only to be tonalized on the mode of our inner space."
Sunday, August 12, 2007
brazil aug 2007
visiting belo horizonte, brazil for 2 weeks to co-teach a seminar at UMFG (University Federal at Minais Gerais)...
the hostel:
the hostel has breakfast and finally today we got up for it...
yesterday i slept 'til almost 10 i think... pretty tired... and today
we were up and out in better time... there's an open patio
between the "dining" room and our room with many plants, trees, vine growing vegetation,
some little palm trees, flowers... sort of tropical...
and the dining area (also where we sit to use the computer and work) has a big
glass door that just stays open to the outside patio...
a nice cool but fresh breeze blows around the patio this morning... temps in the 70s, sunny, perfect...
the hostel room:
tiny room with tiny little beds and a tiny little bathroom... also include a little refrigerador and a little tv...
portugese:
no one speaks english. portugese is not like spanish. sometimes i can communicate a sentence or an idea. but i can't understand any of what is said back to me. i listen to the portugese cds and read the phrasebooks... but by the end of 2 weeks i'll no little more than how to order beer and food from a menu.
the seminar course:
critical geography, globalism, urban experience... sounds good.... we're still figuring out how/what we're talking about... spending today reading and preparing to begin the class tomorrow... will post some interesting or relevant quotes that might help focus/locate the ideas for the course... selmin is good and smart and insightful... and i can talk and make things up... so i think we'll get through it alright...
writing:
i don't know if i can write any poems here. i will record my thoughts. consider images. take notes... the actual writing always comes later, on the verge of forgetting...
photos:
to come.
the hostel:
the hostel has breakfast and finally today we got up for it...
yesterday i slept 'til almost 10 i think... pretty tired... and today
we were up and out in better time... there's an open patio
between the "dining" room and our room with many plants, trees, vine growing vegetation,
some little palm trees, flowers... sort of tropical...
and the dining area (also where we sit to use the computer and work) has a big
glass door that just stays open to the outside patio...
a nice cool but fresh breeze blows around the patio this morning... temps in the 70s, sunny, perfect...
the hostel room:
tiny room with tiny little beds and a tiny little bathroom... also include a little refrigerador and a little tv...
portugese:
no one speaks english. portugese is not like spanish. sometimes i can communicate a sentence or an idea. but i can't understand any of what is said back to me. i listen to the portugese cds and read the phrasebooks... but by the end of 2 weeks i'll no little more than how to order beer and food from a menu.
the seminar course:
critical geography, globalism, urban experience... sounds good.... we're still figuring out how/what we're talking about... spending today reading and preparing to begin the class tomorrow... will post some interesting or relevant quotes that might help focus/locate the ideas for the course... selmin is good and smart and insightful... and i can talk and make things up... so i think we'll get through it alright...
writing:
i don't know if i can write any poems here. i will record my thoughts. consider images. take notes... the actual writing always comes later, on the verge of forgetting...
photos:
to come.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Cell Fragments: a reflection in color
1.
First, choose a word…paper, word, lipstick…the sky this morning breaking through before new fall light, before snow… tile, face, sound…books piled around, the Marx readers are always red. Red. Like Communism. Or Bricks. Or Christmas. Fire engine red. Infra-red. True-red. Apple Red. Red Cross. Red Herring. Pirates. Stop.
2.
The record of a language painted, textured, smeared in the history of presence, forgotten or pushed aside, its pages crumbling, turning to ash and flame. Can you remember this moment already happening, again.
3.
European revolutionaries in 1848 adopt their color, wave red flags. Later it becomes the color for Communism in
4.
“Reach out and sneer: Dem radicals speak to the Red States” The Register
“After reading this article, it occurs to me that Blue America sees Red America the same way Red America sees
Also, both places are dusty and full of oil.”
--punningpundit.com
5.
The red dragon on the flag of
6.
And Redcoats. Marching through the woods. Not so camouflaged. Or the Red Badge of Courage. Stay and fight, or run away, the color of blood, and war. Or the courage of not war, other-than-war, the red badge of a future that does something different from history.
7.
Sunday, March 11. Two people (women) try to drive across some rail road tracks and don’t make it. The get around one train and collide with another. They die. Trains are held up for hours. Our 8pm train is cancelled. Getting hit by a train doesn’t get you where you are trying to go any faster. Two teens trying a challenge? Two drunk women not paying attention? Two people with music playing too loud to hear the second train? What about the flashing red lights, the white and red striped arm that you have to drive around strategically if you are trying to beat the train. Two mothers no longer waiting for two someones to come back home.
8.
Blood no longer looks like blood when the bodies from which it falls are mutilated and destroyed so completely.
9.
“Two
“”Not all the kids wearing red clothing are committing crimes,” Captain O’Rourke said.”
“Due to its extreme nature, wearing red clothing during a negotiation or confrontation is never the best choice.”
“In the
10.
The set sun sends back rays reflected against the sky the last moment of a spring day constructed out of time.
11.
Red and yellow hammer and sickle logo tee: $16.95 on merch-bot.com. “The logo…makes a bold statement or no statement at all, depending on the attitude of you, the wearer. This is a must for the back of every angry youth on the planet.” (note: the “logo” is on the front of the shirt, but I guess angry youths across the world can wear this shirt “on their backs.”
12.
To invoke or embody. To call a color your own. The smell of dry grass as the summer wears on and ice cream trucks slow their rounds through streets ghostly without the sound of children. Different trucks, in different shades of cool and refreshing.
13.
A wedding in
Chinese New Year.
A Hmong funeral.
14.
She said she has emotional memory. She sees a scene from her childhood and knows, feels exactly how she felt at that moment, watching from the window, for example, the look of the street below. He says he remembers details. Every number of every player’s baseball card from the collection he had as a kid. I remember only bits and pieces of images, some of which seem to be in my mind because I saw them in photographs. According to my mental record, I couldn’t have had much of a childhood. But on the contrary, it was full of events and emotion. I can at the moment recall the huge red sun dropping in the sky in summer when we rode in the boat across the lake, returning from an impromptu dinner picnic on the small island in Muscamoot bay. Always that huge sun seeming to stand still in our western vision, keeping the evening sky lit and timeless.
15.
A moment, spatial, layered, a spot of time etched perfectly into this immediate suggestion that generic history is peppered with particular drops of
Friday, July 13, 2007
from an essay on the color red...
VIII.
She said she has emotional memory. She sees a scene from her childhood and knows, feels exactly how she felt at that moment, watching from the window, for example, the look of the street below. He says he remembers details. Every number of every player’s baseball card from the collection he had as a kid. I remember only bits and pieces of images, some of which seem to be in my mind because I saw them in photographs. According to my mental record, I couldn’t have had much of a childhood. But on the contrary, it was full of events and emotion. I can at the moment recall the huge red sun dropping in the sky in summer when we rode in the boat across the lake, returning from an impromptu dinner picnic on the small island in Muscamoot bay. Always that huge sun seeming to stand still in our western vision, keeping the evening sky lit and timeless.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
story
she runs right in front of the car at the moment i am spitting a cherry seed out the window, juice slipping down my face, no time to reach for a tissue or find the brake quite fast enough. she came from out of no where, like a drunk at the corner of cass and the fisher freeway yelling at no one and stumbling into the street to fight with the hood of my car (last week). this week: wildlife. my metal and her fur collide and then separate in an instant. i slam the brakes just as she looks at me to realize the mistake of her impatience, like the ipod clad pedestrian causality in nyc who knew only after stepping too confidently off the curb. unlike the oblivious urban trekker though, she is down and then back up in an instant. the stop is immediate and skid-free, the hit quick and short, the closest thing to blood shed is the cherry juice dripping from my lips to my new fancy summer shirt. but unlike the drunkard without reflection, she picks up, carries on, goes back to warn the others about their future of impending technological doom.
night school
fluorescent light blocks out the dusk that threatens to put us all to sleep, notice broken clouds grey in part illuminated in part almost pink above the tree dusk creeping around the clock while we try to fit in every story before parting. what evening light comes between vertical blinds, at an angle, blowing with air from the fan, clanging plastic blinds disturb spontaneous conversation, or a question, addressed out loud, while what was clearly lit by dry warm sun all afternoon turns soft like under the gaze of a particular lens, and buildings melt together with their contexts, while we listen to explanations of mysterious stories convoluted by language and movement in multiple directions, like on days I pack bags with folders and books from places all across town.
the broken clouds remind me to sleep fast, run slow, learn to wade through the moving dusk
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