I wrote something really raw and good. It took me all day. And now I am going to let a bunch of strangers pass it around and judge me.
Sat on kitchen counters and discussed woodworking and Einstein and Picasso and school.
Quietly on the sofa. Family was out celebrating.
Listening to some old favorites.
Waiting to be understood.
Dog.
Satisfied that I would not be understood just now, went to bed considering whether or not philosophy is dead. One of my heroes says yes. And what have the Romans ever done for us?
Quietly in bed.
Today started out nice, has been quiet as well, but in a strained way. I distrust it.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
It's Hard to Say...
anything. The sadness is getting to me. Like Artex in the Swamps of Sadness (and if you get the reference, you kick so much ass).
But Merry Some Dude we Killed for Knocking Over Tables at Church Was Born A Few Thousand Years Ago Day!!!
But Merry Some Dude we Killed for Knocking Over Tables at Church Was Born A Few Thousand Years Ago Day!!!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
What Shall We Say About Jack?
He wears his day glow orange cap. It is a warning to all those who approach. I am here. Do not shoot, stab, run over, douse in gasoline and set alight, drop, confuse with wild game, or otherwise maim, disfigure, or injure.
And otherwise, a dark brown suit, white shirt, cream colored necktie, polished—but not shiny—brown penny loafers, sans penny. The breath he takes before speaking is uniform, deliberate, deep, and has a certain air to those who hear it often of a small, frightened field mouse—for whom a passing cloud may as well be the wing of a circling hawk casting a shadow over his swiftly beating, tiny mouse’s heart.
It has been a few years since anyone has called him Jack. His landlord calls him Thomas. Down at the deli, he is Mr. Singer. In the lobby of the Georgian Hotel, where he has been witnessed holding quiet meetings and unclasping his briefcase to allow just a peek inside, here he is known as Mr. Martin Fletcher. He is in possession of many other monikers as well. But the one which no one now calls him is Jack. It is what leads us to conclude that this must be his real name. For a man with many names, the only one he won’t suffer is his own.
And otherwise, a dark brown suit, white shirt, cream colored necktie, polished—but not shiny—brown penny loafers, sans penny. The breath he takes before speaking is uniform, deliberate, deep, and has a certain air to those who hear it often of a small, frightened field mouse—for whom a passing cloud may as well be the wing of a circling hawk casting a shadow over his swiftly beating, tiny mouse’s heart.
It has been a few years since anyone has called him Jack. His landlord calls him Thomas. Down at the deli, he is Mr. Singer. In the lobby of the Georgian Hotel, where he has been witnessed holding quiet meetings and unclasping his briefcase to allow just a peek inside, here he is known as Mr. Martin Fletcher. He is in possession of many other monikers as well. But the one which no one now calls him is Jack. It is what leads us to conclude that this must be his real name. For a man with many names, the only one he won’t suffer is his own.
Friday, December 17, 2010
quick note regarding the airport in Narita
Because they didn't see the stamp on my passport that gave me permission to hang about in Japan for a few weeks after my visa expired, they made me wait. They took me to a table where a young man looked very confused for several minutes, then asked me to follow him to immigration. He began running. I can't run, I said, my bag will fall apart. We need to run. And so my bag fell apart and my camera fell out. The lens busted. And now I have an old lens from my 20 year old Nikon SLR attached. It works, but not well. I have yet to take any decent pictures. Thus the hiatus from picture posts. They will resume shortly, I imagine. They tried to get me to pay for a new visa, but I was finally able to get someone to look and see the stamp. Oh, he said. Nevermind. I walked through. Thank you very much, I said. A cultural thing: It's what you say instead of suck it.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
When I Play Uno
with the children
I choose my place in the circle carefully, if I can. I ask how many cards we each get, and no matter what number I am told, I deal seven cards. The children are astounded at the ease with which I shuffle. The speed at which I deal. I turn over the first card, and from time to time it is a wild. We are not allowed to play anything we wish, kids. This is something you will learn. I will turn over another. Regarding direction, my cards appear either benign or evil depending on my assessment of a child's emotional capacity to be told to pick up cards. When we are playing left to right, and it is Yuto who follows, I play the red seven, a green five, my wilds are simple and kind, and I will only ask for a color that he and I both have, if I can. When we are playing right to left, and it is Aili, I enjoy needling her. If I can manage to skip her turn, I will. She needs to learn patience. She can afford to lose. And I will draw cards with a feigned broken heart. They believe I am only playing.
with my brother
I cast my gaze firmly at the top of his cards. Should they dip, it is his fault and not mine that I have caught a glimpse and gained an advantage. When he has gathered a series of Draw Twos, Skips, and Reverses, he pummels me. It is because I read. Each insult is to bring back his mother. I could have done nothing to prevent her break with reality, but for him I am a symbol of what life he might have had. He does not see that I am alone. That I read because there is no one to talk to. And so as he punishes me, I gather a storm in my hand. I plot. And pretend to have only greens.
with my lover
She has placed a blue four, and I might either play a Skip or a red four. Perhaps she knows of my dilemma, and should I play the four, she will think me weak-willed. Or if I play the skip, she will judge me unkind. It is only a Skip. A momentary interruption. A very slight advantage. Perhaps if I play it and laugh she will also laugh. She will sense the fight is feigned, that I am replacing our real troubles with this false one, and then we will not have to discuss the way I spoke to her sister.
I choose my place in the circle carefully, if I can. I ask how many cards we each get, and no matter what number I am told, I deal seven cards. The children are astounded at the ease with which I shuffle. The speed at which I deal. I turn over the first card, and from time to time it is a wild. We are not allowed to play anything we wish, kids. This is something you will learn. I will turn over another. Regarding direction, my cards appear either benign or evil depending on my assessment of a child's emotional capacity to be told to pick up cards. When we are playing left to right, and it is Yuto who follows, I play the red seven, a green five, my wilds are simple and kind, and I will only ask for a color that he and I both have, if I can. When we are playing right to left, and it is Aili, I enjoy needling her. If I can manage to skip her turn, I will. She needs to learn patience. She can afford to lose. And I will draw cards with a feigned broken heart. They believe I am only playing.
with my brother
I cast my gaze firmly at the top of his cards. Should they dip, it is his fault and not mine that I have caught a glimpse and gained an advantage. When he has gathered a series of Draw Twos, Skips, and Reverses, he pummels me. It is because I read. Each insult is to bring back his mother. I could have done nothing to prevent her break with reality, but for him I am a symbol of what life he might have had. He does not see that I am alone. That I read because there is no one to talk to. And so as he punishes me, I gather a storm in my hand. I plot. And pretend to have only greens.
with my lover
She has placed a blue four, and I might either play a Skip or a red four. Perhaps she knows of my dilemma, and should I play the four, she will think me weak-willed. Or if I play the skip, she will judge me unkind. It is only a Skip. A momentary interruption. A very slight advantage. Perhaps if I play it and laugh she will also laugh. She will sense the fight is feigned, that I am replacing our real troubles with this false one, and then we will not have to discuss the way I spoke to her sister.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
as she steps lightly through the tangled recollections of winter, it occurs to her
When I saw that the paper was two-ply, I began to peel the layers and it made me think of wrinkled green Christmas streamers. And I made one into the light and the other into the difficult footpaths in Olympia. I scattered them around the room thinking that you might later, carefully in the evening, gather them again to make flowers.
what is not recalled makes veins
It is usually deep in the morning when we see the cowering circle with their hands in the mud, singing some hymn of creation. And in this breath there is fidelity. We each share some trivial recollection of the cars we traveled in when we were young. Of the figure who, remembering the days before seat-belts, would cast an arm across our shoulders at stop-lights. It seems nothing special, except for those who hold no such thought in mind.
I plucked three lemons from the bin, reasoning that vitamins might account for some part in wives tales. There is the cellular concern, the particular, and the spiritual. Which is less important than that we strain to hear something in the dawn, these voices rising, this earth beginning to clot like blood from god's veins.
I plucked three lemons from the bin, reasoning that vitamins might account for some part in wives tales. There is the cellular concern, the particular, and the spiritual. Which is less important than that we strain to hear something in the dawn, these voices rising, this earth beginning to clot like blood from god's veins.
take nothing of this
Function is the question of self: my job is to build and so when I see these forests torn down, these streets laid waste, I am a loss.
There are also too many names: they gather in pools exchanging alleles while I stir them like honey in tea. CTCC, or some such nonsense. It is that they are too clever for me to scoop up. Or that the lens I use to observe is overly intense. The casting of light too soon.
And film lacks camera in the early hints of Winter: she never found her way onto my palette. I had thought her an eternal star. She was instead a falling leaf.
When there was a ring in my pocket for three days: titanium may be scratched, rope too quickly untethers itself. What would I have tied it to? There is no self but that I build. I have no fingers of my own.
Or how else have I typed these things to you, or to the blind web, or to a forgotten lot, having exchanged only electronically aided promises. Those may be kept in the aether, but not on this unsteady earth.
(It is not for you, but for myself, and if you should look in, I hope that you'll smile that my tips make words, finally, again, and take nothing of this for yourself)
There are also too many names: they gather in pools exchanging alleles while I stir them like honey in tea. CTCC, or some such nonsense. It is that they are too clever for me to scoop up. Or that the lens I use to observe is overly intense. The casting of light too soon.
And film lacks camera in the early hints of Winter: she never found her way onto my palette. I had thought her an eternal star. She was instead a falling leaf.
When there was a ring in my pocket for three days: titanium may be scratched, rope too quickly untethers itself. What would I have tied it to? There is no self but that I build. I have no fingers of my own.
Or how else have I typed these things to you, or to the blind web, or to a forgotten lot, having exchanged only electronically aided promises. Those may be kept in the aether, but not on this unsteady earth.
(It is not for you, but for myself, and if you should look in, I hope that you'll smile that my tips make words, finally, again, and take nothing of this for yourself)
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Heisneberg didn't know how to build a battery
but they went ahead and gave him his degree, with which he was able to proffer us the most misappropriated scientific principle since (social) Darwinism. To wit, we shall now continue in that long tradition of mistaking a very specific observation about the behavior of particles for a sweeping generalization. A life lesson, if you will.
Staring at the sun will create one of two possible stars, either spinning like a carousel or rushing through the heavens like a mad stallion. Either way we will imagine a horse.
As we observe the horse, searching for clues regarding its heritage, we will find that we may either know the name of its mother or how well the father must have been endowed, but definitely not both.
And say we choose to know that the mother's name had been Regina, we will find it in a long shadow cast from the early east, from whence the sun spins willy-nilly. Very often, we will watch ourselves walking on a cool morning--long and slender, bristling with the grass as its blades poke and stick through our outlines: those thin things that separate us from the outside world, that which defines us. We are known by what we are not; there is no other way to tell--and we will sometimes confuse ourselves with the light that fails to cast itself, and forget to feel the warmth at our backs and in the creases of our jeans.
The grass is dying, we might think. And if we should stand still all day we can carve out an ovular patch in the ground upon which to lie, considering what may or may not come to pass, or should the king make some form of decree. Either concerning the killing of the grass in his fields or about the nature of his love for his subjects.
Here again, one, but not both, are possible. We may either know what vexes kings or what love they bear. Sadly, our heads might roll if we insist on knowing all the one. Perhaps we should hope for the other.
Staring at the sun will create one of two possible stars, either spinning like a carousel or rushing through the heavens like a mad stallion. Either way we will imagine a horse.
As we observe the horse, searching for clues regarding its heritage, we will find that we may either know the name of its mother or how well the father must have been endowed, but definitely not both.
And say we choose to know that the mother's name had been Regina, we will find it in a long shadow cast from the early east, from whence the sun spins willy-nilly. Very often, we will watch ourselves walking on a cool morning--long and slender, bristling with the grass as its blades poke and stick through our outlines: those thin things that separate us from the outside world, that which defines us. We are known by what we are not; there is no other way to tell--and we will sometimes confuse ourselves with the light that fails to cast itself, and forget to feel the warmth at our backs and in the creases of our jeans.
The grass is dying, we might think. And if we should stand still all day we can carve out an ovular patch in the ground upon which to lie, considering what may or may not come to pass, or should the king make some form of decree. Either concerning the killing of the grass in his fields or about the nature of his love for his subjects.
Here again, one, but not both, are possible. We may either know what vexes kings or what love they bear. Sadly, our heads might roll if we insist on knowing all the one. Perhaps we should hope for the other.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Things We Keep on Shelves
The thin collection of stories by the Argentine, the cover, blue canvas, gold lettering. It is currently in transit, on a ship no doubt in the Pacific. I am never quite at home without it and I have no notion as to when it will arrive.
A DVD I bought but have not felt moved to watch. The photo of the two lovers, an embrace, frozen in a kiss which, no matter how many times we look, has failed to materialize. And the caption, The film they were made for.
A symbol for the year of the rabbit given to me by a student.
A button. Barrack Obama, 2008.
And in a box. Old fears. A bit of fabric that can be woven into anything we like. We postpone its mending. It will gather moisture and dust from the room, its ends beginning to curl, to tatter themselves without ever having been worn.
We might feel it necessary to keep the items separate. Give each its own shelf. It is to impose an illusion of order upon things which, by their very nature, make heaps.
A DVD I bought but have not felt moved to watch. The photo of the two lovers, an embrace, frozen in a kiss which, no matter how many times we look, has failed to materialize. And the caption, The film they were made for.
A symbol for the year of the rabbit given to me by a student.
A button. Barrack Obama, 2008.
And in a box. Old fears. A bit of fabric that can be woven into anything we like. We postpone its mending. It will gather moisture and dust from the room, its ends beginning to curl, to tatter themselves without ever having been worn.
We might feel it necessary to keep the items separate. Give each its own shelf. It is to impose an illusion of order upon things which, by their very nature, make heaps.
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