and the beast goes on....

some people have spoken

so here's a poem,
though do look out for some changes in direction for this hea blog

The Importance of Dreams

Pulled over on the interstate
My hands grab the wheel, holding on
If I look away for a moment, the world will fall away
Footsteps beat with my heart and then
“dreaming again”

the police man’s lips are white chalk on black night
his voice a small bell in the depths
he hands me the ticket gingerly, pitying
my hand reaches out and takes the pink slip
“never seemed like something worth avoiding” my voice
shrieks in the world, a wind through black boughs
His gaze pulls sound from sight and I know I’ve done him wrong
But he only sighs, looks away,

“kid,” his words are exasperated, the world is concrete,
A friction driving force from force, “you’re gonna dream,
Then dream with all you got”
He walks away and it’s four minutes
Before I realize that I have not driven in 5 years
That the window beside my bed is a prism of light
The sun singing praise on the sidewalk below

THA END

yoyoyo
so now is the time to voice your discontent
with the notion of this here blog pretty much going away

if nobody objects, i'm gonna take it all down and either start over
or just leave it empty

so speak now
or forever hold yer peace

more poetry and thoughts by me?
or not?

uncertaintly seeking...advice?

so i looked back at some old posts on this here blog
to see if any of the ones from my first few years o grad school would be helpful
only to discover that they are very bitter posts
and i kinda feel the need to PURGE
as in delete pretty much everything that's super bitter or sad or just repetitive in terms of crap i was dealing with--moving from puke bucket to expressive outlet for this blog---which honestly, kinda not sure of the difference
tho i've never been good at that (eg. making mud cakes as a child with intricate designs, despite not being able to eat them)

thoughts on this?

in other news: a quote and a poem

From Joe Meno's Demons of Spring:
"So you have to figure out how to be happy in a world that isn't as good as you think it should be. You need to be less hard on yourself and less hard on your friends and less hard on everybody." Meno, 221.

and

The Fight for Flight (from going to Quebec last year)

The sun is an unexpectedly uncertain lover,
his gestures awkward, the spear of light downcast
on the flat wave of plane's wings.

The sun setting from an airplane is
yet another form of unrequited love.
The blood-stained ivory and golden rays of light
may shine as brightly
when viewed above or below, but not kindly
nor ever so clearly
as when watching Ra return to his midnight battles
on the Earth, in the sand, by the water,
where Nun can be felt more closely:
a stranger's hand on your chest,
a lover's anger abruptly spoken,
made real.

Perhaps humans should not fly,
lovers should not bicker.

Cities form like galaxies of pink and white lights
in the nebulous clouds of possibility.
Love unspoken remains
yet to be defined. The hand raised in anger
can just as easily confide.
A sunset seen from a god's eye view
remains, on the ground, alive.

so what's new?

i got so incredibly frustrated with this pattern in life
where
i get so exhausted by just trying to keep up with things
classes i'm taking, classes i'm sitting in on, job 1, teaching job, and
and just life in general
like doing laundry, dishes, sweeping, remembering to buy a pumpkin, and try to remember what it's like to be a mammal with a heart and overly sensitive pads on his hands
but
that's so tough
and i get so caught up with things that i forget stuff
like how just walking across town late at night will make me feel sane and less ridiculously pressurized/discombobulated---like how i go through cycles where i need people around and don't, i mean really really don't need people around---like how i love board games (no really, i kinda forgot how much i love them)
but
most importantly,
this summer, i found this joy just hiding underneath the day to day of my life, and i'm still not sure where it came from--it's this sense of cool relief, like if i just imagine my feet as roots that tap into the earth, that feel the water underneath the concrete, the magnetism pulling at my every molecule, the gravity tucking me into the world, then i can feel
i can feel
i can feel anything
and that's when i remember that the sun or the moon is there still, that the distant suns do shine, that the night is dark and the day is bright, and i'm here in this world holding the hands of so many others

so anyway, i have to keep getting myself back to that moment where it all feels real and less ridiculously insipid---or...or...no, no 'or', it's just that i have to, i have to....

to stay me-like

so i lied....i lie all the time....well no, not really

but here's a poem
from post-being in new york city (and i hear 'neeeeew yooooork cityyyy!?' like from those old salsa commercials, don't you?)

Freedom in the Past Tense

He is looking his friend in the eye
and thinking 'I can do anything'
in the past tense.

He is traveling to not-home
visiting new brickwork and letting go
when realizes that there can be love
without pain, misery
and closeness do not equate. Unlike directions,
one does not need the other to exist

in the past tense.
He is dreaming of being boarded up in his family house,
unable to call out, unable to remove
the screen from the window, the shackle
from each ventricle, each leaky valve.
He is recognizing the lines in his flesh, reading
that he is not so hard, hope
remains. Even within a scorched heart,
tenses have been known to change.

one more short bit before the friendship blog

i recently saw a movie where the main character came to the realization that people love spouses, children, family, friends, jobs, and many other things, but that she hadn't realized until now what she actually loved. She had been so concerned with making others happy and showing them love, in the hope that they might show her love back and give her a reason to love them, that she didn't even think about what/who she loved.
being a bit overly reflective, this struck me and echoed in my head. i've been struggling the last few years with being away from my family and tyring to do grad school and so recently i've only gotten through it by thinking 'i am the person that these people love' -- and watchign this film, i realized that i wasn't entirely sure what i loved anymore---i know that when i came here, i loved stories and my friends and soemtimes my family
but now, i don't know
and after thinking and living and just doing regular stuff, i'm starting to remember why i came here agian, but i'm still not sure what my passion is---i like doing so many things, but i don't know if i love them, if they fill me up, if they define me..

just thinking, just sitting here listening to music, maybe about ready to read a book or to sketch a weaving project, that's a good start, maybe...

tell me a story

I can't sleep (a random, poorly written poem)

Tell me a story.
One with sheep that gently ba,
ba, break through the world. Reality
is a bed sheet
hung over a window,
and when you reach through it,
someone bashes the frame down.
Crushing you.

Crush me. Tell me
the story of a man who
made bad decisions,
who waited until the last
minute. For everything.

Tell me about the sheep who don't ba,
the knights that don't fight, the dumb
blondes who turn to ther big,
dumber boyfriends and say,
"tell me a story
one where I am not dumb,
where we look at each other and part,
and I find my way to a real home, where
I am not a blonde bitch." Yes,

tell me a story. And I"ll tell you one too.
One about some sheep, a window, a sheet,
and a man counting sleep, and
when he wakes in the morning, his hand
will be bashed, his girlfriend will have gone.
He will smile with a shiver,
at the breaking of dawn.

shaky grounds

academe is a competitive, back-stabbing, passive aggressive bitch with painted finger nails, donut breath, and too much black clothing
so what the fuck am i doing hanging out with her?
i'm beginning to think that i made the biggest fucking mistake of my life going to grad school----i feel like shit all the time, i don't think my research means shit in the long run, and i've made perhaps 1 long term social connection since coming here (i'm probably over-exaggerating but it feels like 1 and a half even optimistically, with the way people drift, far faster than continents)
and now i'm trapped in indiana with a degree that means close to nothing and a life that tastes like poorly made instant mashed potatoes
yes, i'm being negative, but that's the mood that i'm in --- prove me wrong and i'll do the same the next time you're feeling nihilist
or you could just turn around and forget about the whole thing

i guess the positive might be that so many, many people want to be here, but then all i can think is, great, take my spot and i'll go die in the forest, the way i probably should have died when i was 11 and got lost in a state park
and instead of talking to people who care, i'm gonna go ahead and keep reading and writing for a paper due later this week

ode to joy; feeling like shit in such a way that life feels useless and i push away all the positiveness---wee

capitalist internet nostalgia

do you ever get that feeling?
I know, oblique and unclear much? but, still, i just had that feeling, that one where i see something about a friend, where someone says how close they are, or where the friend is all 'oh i just love this person because..' and i get jealous, and misty, and think about all the good stuff we used to do
and how it's gone
but then i'm pessimistic, and a bit gloomy, even though i'm even downright cheery right now
i've even had several people comment recently that, despite their being grumpy and fighting lately, they cheered up when i entered the room and hung out with them----which is...different, but not really

anyway, that feeling, right? i don't know if it's nostalgia (missing something i never really had, missing a moment that never existed or a closeness that was only perceived) or if its memory (remembering someone i was and someone they were and knowing it's gone and no matter how hard i try, it won't come back) or if its just distancing myself from here (wishing i weren't in indiana and identifying my me-ness with a somewhere else, a someone else)
but

no matter what it is, i wish i could be that close to that person right now

which is silly, cuz i'm going to hang out with some friends here tonight, despite my being so busy that i really should just work until daylight, sleep for 4 hours, and work until daylight again, repeating as necessary

but i suppose that a. what is lost that way just doesn't stop feeling right and good and wanted, and b. the grass is always greener, and c. i hate the internet

why hate the internet? because it reminds me of all the things i've lost, of all the people i knew, of all the people i could've known, of all the people i could've been, of all the places i could've gone
and pulls me away from right here, right now, where i'm not thinking about that person, their friends, or wishing i could be there friend again (which i'm pretty sure is the only way a person seems desirable as a friend, by not needing people at all, no matter how stupid that sounds, is, and shows us all to be)

ah, schmoozing (read: pretending not to need friends/money/job/anything when really you really really do), how i hate you so

Coming Soon to a Computer Monitor Near You

preview: three people on a beach, one of them turns to the other two, says "Did you know that since the 50s, American friendship rates have declined rapidly? Such that, each person only has 1 to 2 people they say they really trust and love? And that person is generally their spouse?"
Other two people look at first, blonde one. They look perturbed, standing on a beach, wearing swim trunks. But it is April.
One of the two says, "Hmmm. That explains a lot."

Preview 2:
see below

gah!

nuclear energy is evil
it is subsidized to infinity because 1. uranium is expensive, 2. the waste takes hundreds of years to degrade at all (and often finds its way into underpriveleged, underrepresented, minority areas, SURPRISE!), and 3. it is not efficient compared to solar, wind, tidal, and VARIOUS other alternative energies
nuclear energy is incredibly unsafe and inevitably unsound---it's generally only beneficial for the extremely wealthy in the long run, and there's practically no real plans for waht happens if things get fucked up----as far as CRAP systems, it's right up there with the prison system that privatizes prisoners and makes sure it's mostly minorities in there and then puts those prisons in counties that need more population to get more money

ugh

in other news
here is my drawing for my current project in art--a dreaming-broken-by-thunder mandala

I DO NOT CARE

i'm trying to figure out what i want to say about apocalyptic comics for a paper (which i've limited to the usa and to non-adaptations-of-books-or-films) and i don't have any fucking clue

mostly, i want to dose gently in someone else's living room on their comfy couch or antiquey chair with a cozy back and footrest just after having eaten something tasty but while still waiting for someone or something to happen
i want to look forward to that moment when that person or thing happens
when i will get up out of the chair and we will do something meaningful or fun
when i will again thank the world for a few moments in someone else's living room whose very presence makes me feel safer and wiser, with just a bit stronger sense of how the world spins on its axes

i want that so badly right now

i heart

a few lessons learned
1. don't hide in houses with thick curtains or blinds blocking out the world. don't try to keep the world out. it is in you and doing this only makes you feel unhealthy and scared and oh-so-alone.
2. (this from i heart huckabees) life is full of meaning, or something-ness, and everything means something, but
3. nothing really means anything because it could all be equally meaningful--and because life is painful, full of misery and awfulness and nihilistic moments, like too many jelly beans in your mouth after easter guests have left, but
4. it's that pain that leads to meaning, by feeling something horrible, maybe we bond with others, talking about it or sharing it, or maybe we come to understand something about ourselves, or maybe we just realize that somethingness or meaning or love/joy/warmth only exists if we make it, if we rub the sticks together
5. (rough translation of ursula leguin) love is bread in the oven; you have to bake it fresh every morning
and
6. it's spring, i ahve to admit it, and i have way too many things to do, i keep trying to do too much in too little time
so instead, i'm gonna try the reverse
too little in too much time, because that's the way that life should work
or it loses all reason/meaning/organization/joy---we should not run through our days with alist of things to do that never ends---that is merely capitalism and people and bottled-up fears trying to break their way into a place they can never go (our lives)

"stop acting like you don't have control,"
she says, pulling the covers close to her skin,
" you've chosen and you choose every day"

7. SPRING!! Oh, season, welcome!!

"give me something to sing about" - buffy

so in thinking about school and life and stuff
i feel generally uninspired

i sit in these rooms with computers and people
(the more time passes, the harder it is to tell the two apart:
both so generally uninventive and easy to overload)
i sit and i open my mouth, words come out,
they don't really mean anything
i don't even know if i mean them, just that i know i'm supposed to speak

i spent 2 hours last night, awake, restless, turning over and over
and over in my bed
(alex was on my feet, staring at me like i was a fly in his soup
except with the added disgrace that i would not pet him, which really
really drifts from that original metaphor)
thinking about class
about how this one class where the teacher calls on people to say stuff
to explain stuff quickly and discreetly, which i hate,
where she has assigned extra stuff for the break, and all i can think, all
i want to say is 'how dare you? -- this is my life, stop pressuring me
to givve you more, i read 2 books a week for you and it's not enough!? i give
my comments and my brainpower and my life to you on a weekly basis and you want more?!
more?
really?'
because i feel like a bad scholar or student or person
for not doing more (for not doing everything possible for class, like some,
who read foucault because someone said his name once
in a book
in france
as a way of being pretentious
and misdirecting the reader

and even worse
i don't have the positivity to say 'fuck it' and move on
i keep wanting to do more work, if only to feel that i deserve more free-time
which is ridiculous

it's really the result of a puritan thing, where i feel guilty for lesiure and good about work even as it drains me entirely
i mean,
i want INSPIRATION
not boring books that bore me, that drain me, that zap my strength
or i'd be doing a law degree so i could actually have some ethical power int he world
(though that's being idealistic, and even then, law can be fun)

"today I just want someone to entertain me
I'm tired of being so fierce
I'm tired of being so friendly
...
somebody do something
anything soon
I know I can't be the only
whatever I am in the room
so why am I so lonely?
why am I so tired?
I need company
I need backup
I need to be inspired"
ani d, 'face up and sing'

i internalize everything it seems
or mabye i'm just willing to admit it

today, i spoke to sara far too early in the morning, she was in boston
with my brother
(whose very presence in the world seems to require my own to balance his obstinate him-ness [not that he's good or bad, but that we are so very opposite], especially i'm sure when one is staying in his home)
and she was frustrated because his life is empty yet he pushes it on her
with space and dishwashing and rules and statements and emotional blackmailing that is generally only implied
(as reported by sara stoll in the report 'i'm on the phone with my brother so fuck off' dated blahbalh)

in the process, the point is, i realized that we, people not just my bro, work so hard for symbols that our life is full (a full planner, a full list of things to do, credentials on the wall, a phd, an mrs degree, a husband/wife/fuck buddy, a pet, a house, clothing, tools, a guitar, a shower that is not a stand-up model, a particular floorplan, a space, a garden, or in this case, a GIANT television and an empty thought immaculate home)
that we forget that it already is

we keep saying that there's NEVER ENOUGH TIME
but TIME is right HERE, passing before us, moving like photons through our every being
we are time, we are moments, here and there, where something is felt, understood:
a church with bergamot and sunlit windows in italy
a hand to hold when the word cancer slips into a room
smiling faces and good food on a cold night
words that speak the truth, possibly more truly than the truth itself

we live and we die and we move
we move on
but what's important isn't the symbol
it's the sense that we do move, we move in a space, on a trajectory, where we belong
and whether it's history or conspicuous consumption, we feel out of place when the space is someone else's (with all their assumptions and ignorances)
but that time is the moment to recognize that we are so very fragile, with our symbols, and that the only real reality is something iread that philip k dick said:

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." pkd

and we can respect each other when we realize that the words and the walls and the memories are just ways of holding back the really real, the deep night that is the universe where life is a speck of dust to be vacuumed away----we are each only trying to hold on

though, of course, that doesn't mean that some of us aren't holding on to garbage (teehee, yes tv's are NOT a good way to make life, they are crap, and history is ALWAYS intended to do something)

so what with all the rambling? hmmmm, that's the point, though, isn't it, let's ramble with one another, let's rap some ideas about (and i use rap in the 60s sense of conversing) and connec the dots with one another----because really, how else do we find that stuff that doesn't go away when we stop believing in it?? other than by holding someone's hand, and remembering we're not alone
NOT EVER

so, uh, hmm

if you've actually caught the last two blogs (which have been removed)--i should tell you that i've received a letter saying 'sorry, we didn't mean to send you a rejection letter, we're actually still considering your application and haven't come to a decision yet, but we really like you'
so not rejection....? emailing a person was a good idea, cuz they were like 'what?' and then emailed someone else who was like 'say what?' and then the sitch became clear---mistaken letter
as a result, i've taken off the last two posts, mostly for my own benefit (as i'm still kinda reeling, like 'wait, i'm not rejected? am i accepted? no, so...whahuh?)

but here's the poem from the one

the many deaths of imagination

tired of losing, he jumps out of windows
every morning. it awakens the sun
at least, pulls the sheets out from under
the world, who yawns, and shivers,
and shakes, and stares
at the blood splayed without order.

tired of losing, he helps
chinese river dolphins
jump out of sewer grates
with karate moves and a sense
of justice. he moves with gentle grace
through the soul-shattering space
of a city, a sewer
where naked apes live, and he cuts
reality from itself, leaves holes
for people to live in.

tired, he sleeps,
dreams of women with strong hearts
and hands of cold steel. they rip
the world asunder, reveal its tender graces,
the sun rising, the moon,
eclipsed by smog, the man who jumps

through windows and stares
wonderingly at the sun shining,
thinking, 'apollo in all his graces
still lies dead upon the sill'.

Comic by me

You're Welcome
has been removed
if you wanna copy of the comic, email me

a quote from borges

"The poet spoke the poem. It was a single line...
'In the years of my youth,' said the king, 'I sailed toward the setting sun. On an island there, I saw silver greyhounds that hunted golden boars to their death. On another we were feted with the fragrance of magic apples. On yet another I saw walls of fire. On the most remote of all, there was a vaulted river that hung from the sky, and in its waters swam fish and sailing ships. Those were marvels, but they do not compare with your poem, which somehow contains them all. What sorcery has given you this?'
'At dawn,' said this poet, 'I awoke speaking words that at first I did not understand. Those words are the poem. I felt that I had committed some sin, perhaps that sin which the Holy Spirit cannot pardon.'
'The sin the two of us now share,' mused the king. 'The sin of having known Beauty, which is a gift forbidden mankind.'" (Borges, "The Mirror and the Mask" in The Book of Sand)

a poem

Zombie

She takes your hand first
leaves the nail clippings in the doorway
to protect you from demons
so that she can consume you whole

Next she takes the soft flesh
of your ankle
to protect you from leaving
to keep you

Then she takes your lips
to stop the air in your throat
to prevent you from revealing
the betrayal

And you know that you've been compromised
that you gave up everything to become
to become someone
someone you never wanted to become

And when you can't even taste the morning
you know that it's too late to turn
turn around, turn into someone,
someone worth turning into

But when she reaches for your heart
it's not there, not in her mouth, but
in your hand, the beat
the bumpabump of twilight and you
you're somewhere
else

two inside jokes and some information

random, but requested, picture---s! listening to your mix and missing you...



clytoris slangg?

back in bton, sleepy, applying to things, overwhelmed by life again
c'est la vie
and i guess all is back to the norm

again i say, i have got to return some pants