resolution

my hope is to share (even) a sliver of all the beauty i've seen.

soy v. almond

last night i made the switch from soy to almond milk, on counsel of my meditation teacher. Saylor had told me to make the move months ago, but i ignored his wisdom.

this is beside the point.

the point is that (allegedly) soy milk adversely affects your boy qi by increasing estrogen levels in the bloodstream, and i need all the help i can get...

yesterday, continued

after Jache left, i ate Indian food with a meditating rabbi from Canada, and upon my return i put on Jim Croce as the Madness descended. i wrote for hours and drank decaf, but this is beside the point.

the point is that on the way to the restaurant, we were serenaded by the screaming sounds of Dolphins fans as the team edged out the Jets. my friend looked at me and asked "what's that?" i told her, "that's my pratyahara practice."

the dangers of re-gifting

Jache and his girlfriend came by this afternoon so i could re-gift her a t-shirt...

the next thing i knew i was mid-rant, talking about Stravinksy, Raskalnikov and a hotel room near the Meadowlands, New Jersey. i tried to explain the necessity of laying the proper groundwork, of building a firm foundation so that what is to come might be properly understood. Jache looked me dead in the eye and said:

"this is going to require a Venn diagram."

a change of plan

i was going to write about backgammon and the joys of Bedouin pants, but i just received a text from Saylor with pictures of the sketches for the chapbook.

they are amazing and i am excited to know that we are closing in on the final stage of the project. it was initially conceived as a conceptual art piece cum treatise on duality and romance, but has ultimately found equilibrium as a stand-alone with the potential for serialization. so long as i love the ones i cannot touch,

this poetry may never cease...

experiments, all the way down?

thirty-odd years into the Experiment, one month into the experiment, and one holiday afternoon of this experiment:

Jache and i spent the afternoon trying be Jewish, gorging on Chinese food and then going to the feel good Nazi movie of the year. the food was good, the movie was lousy, and we spent most of the night just looking back and forth at each other like two 13 years who just paid for Pez dipped in acid.

"are you feeling anything yet?"
"maybe, are you feeling it?"
"i think so."

but at the end of the night we were still just a couple of goyim on a man-date.

disgusting

i was going to write about waiting and wonkiness, but i was just informed by my host that she would be preparing cauliflower mash tonight, some sort of repugnant substitute for mashed potatoes. i told her i would be having none of it, based on my belief that the cauliflower is some sort of monstrous, disgusting alien life form.

a letter arrived yesterday

i got a letter from Mardou yesterday after a long, uncomfortable weekend of sadness. this time last year Mardou was the (apparent) source of my sadness, but yesterday's package was a blessing. inside was a picture of her, golden, blond and shining in front of a Caribbean blue wall full of words. it was taken in Jamaica during the months we spent not talking, and it brought tears to my eyes.

every thing has a purpose and place and time.

i talked to the current (apparent) source of my sadness last night and told her i was sick of not talking, not calling, not sharing - all because i was afraid of spoiling some illusory notion of us. i told her freedom was more important to me than romance, and i wasn't willing to trade one for the possibility of the other any longer.

looking for a period

yesterday morning was spent in ritual, and the appropriate parties have been informed. before the day was done, i was in receipt of job offers in Los Angeles. but this is beside the point.

the point is that for dinner i had a big plate of tempeh and sadness, noticing the cute girls noticing me and not doing a thing about it, still hung up on the last one, still in the midst of the experiment. i walked home alone and made a cup of tea and wished a happy solstice to an answering machine.

perhaps, when these days are mektoub, yesterday will be the day i finally found the punctuation i've been looking for.

trust

last night i came home after a long weekend of work, with still one more day to come. everyone else went to Dada but i thought it best to spend the night at home, alone and reflecting.

today is the solstice. the nights have grown longer every day for six months, but i never saw it so much as i have these past few weeks. i felt my skin begin to crawl a little before midnight, and i wanted to blame it on the bugs from the fresh papayas that morning, or my scabies-infected friend from two nights before - but maybe it was the itch from the year that was.

i took a shower, and when i stepped out it was after midnight. i decided to begin my new year much like the one that came before, much like those yet to come...

i wrote, i prayed, i meditated.

on 20 November 2006,

i went to a crystal singing bowl meditation with a friend of mine. the woman running the event explained to us, briefly, the seven major chakras and told us that each of the bowls was created to tune into one of those energy centers. before we began she went around the room and had each of us state what it was we wanted to manifest in our lives. i felt dubious curiosity, but when my turn came i said "discernment."

the past two years have illustrated that my ignorance was vast,
and i hope it continues to grow.

bugs

last night Jache's girlfriend came by so i could sign a belated birthday present. i did so, referencing The Document to ascertain the particularities of our peculiarities. i was pleased, but not surprised, to find circles and prime numbers in the course of my (brief) research. but this is beside the point.

the point is that Jache's girlfriend had her scabies-ridden friend with her. she recounted the events leading up to her infection, and i listened in horror as i tried to manuever her away from my bedding. she said not to worry, that it was transmitted by protracted skin-to-skin contact, and she now had Scabicide on the case.

they left, and i spent the rest of the night itching from the psychosomaticism.

some presents find you

one of those presents i was worried about just showed up in the most pleasantly unexpected way. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i slept soundly last night for the first time in more than a week. a dreamy, dreamless eight hours that left me wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. if this were last year, i would wake in the morning and go work at a soup kitchen. but, as fate would have it, my tomorrow will be spent instead with world champion ballroom dancers. weird.

consumption (not the tuberculin kind)

the deed is done. i have bought all of the holiday presents that require the service of the USPS. this year i had a theory: i decided not to buy anyone anything that required electricity. of course this required sending one of my friends a broken gift, but this is the point.

the point is that the gifts remaining can't be bought or made or found. they already exist, they're already in this room.

i just have to trust that i will recognize them when i see them.

sagiquarians

i just got back from Jache's apartment. it's his birthday and we spent the afternoon ogling digital cameras and talking about cigarettes and apples. but this is beside the point.

the point is my sister used to say that she used to try to keep a sagiquarian around at all times.

that's what Mardou and i were to her,
that's what Jache and i are to me.

ants, art and ahimsa

there is very ant insect living on my desk. it keeps showing up from time to time, scurrying about and probably leaving microscopic excrement on my workspace. i refuse to kill the ant because i am practicing ahimsa.

a time or two it has made its way onto the screen of my laptop and when it does i blow it into oblivion, as if it was art.

but it always comes back again, as if it was art.

this afternoon

i saw a red-dotted beauty looking like Ananda Moyi Ma, singing to me in quarter tones without ever saying a word. i heard the mysteries of heaven in her voice and felt the pulse of life in the tablas below.
37 years ago, Bangladesh was on the cusp of its independence, and i have been hanging out with the celebrants all day long.

but this is beside the point.

the point is that last night i was attacked by a flying clementine while reading Augusten Burroughs. in an attempt to lift my spirits i put in an Italian movie based on the writing of the Maruis de Sade and starring the Nazis. (like you do).

somehow it didn't work.

tonight!

Saylor's opening is tonight and i feel a little excited and a little headachy and a little dreadful. those words in the wrong order still haven't found their way into meaning yet, and i sat this morning ripping and taping a slicing surplus pulp again. one book is progressing nicely, the other is yet to begin. the experiment continues. but all this is beside the point.

the point is that tonight's festivities will involve delicious pies in tiny jars. i do not know which one i will eat - blueberry or pecan? allegedly blueberries are full of tasty anti-oxidents, but i have a soft spot for pecan pie, especially when i say it like my grandmother, "peekn pie."

time will tell.

at 5:11am

i danced between dream and vision with my brother Neal Cassady, hiding backstage, waiting for the play of life to end. the curtain was falling; the next act was about to begin. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i have a bunch of words stuck in my head, but they're in the wrong order and it's driving me mad(der).

it's finished

yesterday was Mardou's birthday, next week is Jache's. my life is lousy with Sagittarians, but this is beside the point.

the point is that i had hours to write at work today, and i have now read the death of the voice. it died with a September whimper in the Blue Ridge Mountains more than two years ago, and i spent years in the hospital before that, alternating euthanasias.

without her i don't know if i would have known where to look,
without him i don't know if i would have said what i saw.

the solstice is ten days away; soon the writing begins.

six-toed cats

after the discussions of fair trade coffee, lesbianism, and Machu Picchu came the arrival of a six-toed cat named Ezekiel. the doctor told me that the cat was once prone to hallucinations but has mellowed with age.

i can relate.

by day's end

it appears, by day's end, there will be only two notebooks left to read. these two notebooks span nearly four years. these two notebooks are full of empty.

soon i will read the death of the voice.

a night with Jache is like:

i just had the most amazing bowl of yogurt i have ever eaten in my life. it was made from whole milk, with cream on top, and topped with delicious blueberries and wholesome pumpkin flax seed granola. but this is beside the point.

the point is that last night a poet's mother told me that my genius bordered on disability while he read me essays in the living room, the smell of sautéed portobellos in a cast iron skillet mingling with the croon of Tom Waits.

eventually i had to leave and, on my way to where i was going, i started to wonder if i was on my way to where i was going. the bakery admonition of the voodoo priestess still rang in my ears,

"slow down,"

as i walked past an amazing drummer singing his raspy soulful blues while a legless black man laid down the bottom end.

i knew i was in the right place.

procrastination

Mardou called just before midnight to tell me about her new job and the government plates and the package that arrived for her today. i wrote on it: "open in case of birthday." but this is an ancilla to the point.

the point is that i'm blogging because i don't want to write about last night. i'm sick of writing uncomfortable yesterdays; i remember being sick of them in March, and May, and July, and August, and here i am again.

the pain isn't in the sadness, the pain is in not letting go.

i know this because there was a time when there was pain in writing of Mardou, but those days are long gone and last night her call was an oasis. i told her about [her] and the experiment and how it's not going as planned.

i woke this morning a little closer to letting go.

looking for the right word

i've been treating my sadness with Exile on Main Street and reading about the coldest winter i ever saw and the horrible spring that followed.

there are two weeks of shorter days and two months of longer nights to follow.

i pulled myself away and drove across town and the words just came. pretty words, clever words, allusive words - words i didn't even know i knew back then come easily now. but there are still things that are hard to say, things i can't quite get my tongue around.

i'm feeling the sway right now, i'm feeling the weight of this wait, making plans for a future, reminding myself that tomorrow never got here yet.

this deserves more than this... but for now it will have to do.

but who's counting?

i'm trying not to count the phases of the moon -
it's easier at night; it's easier with my eyes closed.

a new way of counting will pop into my head and i (try to) let it pass. sometimes i put on a movie, but if the movie is in French it only makes matters worse. sometimes i open up a book, but my compulsive disorder makes it hard for me to let go before the last page is read; the one i'm reading now is passing so slowly.

sometimes i open up my computer and type and type and type...

preparing for Art Basel

i spent my yesterday afternoon running around delivering art for an opening next week and listening to a proprietor of a coffee shop describe her customer base as "broke as shit" to a woman hoping to display her paintings. in the interim i stumbled into an artist whose work i enjoy very much.

of course none of these things have to do with Art Basel (per se...)

keeping warm in December

i just got a love letter from the IRS (not to be confused with I.R.S.) but this is beside the point.

the point is that it is cold today (and by cold i mean 60˚) and when i walked down the avenue i was reminded not of Atlantic but of Remsen. i've been reading journals written on endless freezing mornings a lifetime ago in New Jersey when you could see still the towers smoldering on the horizon. i dreamed of Rumsfeld and bin Laden and kept vigils at the Virgil's.

it was the harshest winter i ever saw.

sadness v. gloom

the excitement of being amazed has subsided, and there is a pink rose dying in my living room. i sit in my bedroom and move from one project to the next, hoping to find one that speaks to the spark.

the caffeine isn't working.

i stare at my ennui, listening to a girl sing about an "impossible girl."

i know how she feels.

on the bright side,

a friend of mine texted me, "how's the weather?" and i told her it was cold, rainy and sad. yesterday i spent seven hours inside my laptop hiding from the malaise, and twice i sat around with my eyes closed and allowed the mantram to take over.

sometimes we forget the overcasts are merely passing over.

there is beauty and meaning in all things, and tonight Venus and Jupiter will make love to Luna, a celestial ménage a trios, even if there's no one there to see it.

[revised]

[deleted]

if i were to type the facts of the situation it would still fall far short of the truth. last night i heard Jack whispering to me, and i had to make myself go to bed lest i fall into the delusion of believing it was 1953.

[deleted]

day 1

this is the first day of the experiment.

i've never blogged twice in one day before; i never had a reason to until now. my day has gone nothing like i planned, which is to say i'm not getting what i want, but it is amazing nonetheless. in fact, it seems even more amazing because of the not getting, and ultimately this is what connects the experiment to the Experiment.

note: the experiment will end at dusk on the day of the new moon, February 2009. the nature of the experiment, and its results, will be examined on that day.

"Wonderful prelude..."

(for Hafiz)

I felt like getting
rid of all my things
one Saturday morning;
I took a walk to clear my head

and missed her call,
looking at the Buddha
(green), impassive
stare reflection.

How many more did I miss,
distracted by Modigliani,
distracted by Botticelli,

I watched a boy so high stumble
through the art parade of life
on a Saturday morning

and met La Cienega,
smiling vision of Kali,
another fractured heart
dangling round her neck.

My mind is unable
to comprehend,
utterly, all the
beauty I see.

Why else would I write these poems?

tofu beats the stuffing out of turkey (a true holiday story)

i walked up to ring the doorbell and was struck by the buttery sick smell of semen. i stepped into the bushes, trying unsuccessfully to find the source, and when she opened the door she asked, "doesn't it smell like semen out here?" i assured her it did, and we made our way upstairs to an exceptionally controversial game of Scrabble.

and these are merely the mentionables of how i spent the third Thursday in November.

waking 1:30am Thanksgiving morning

from my journal, 1:30am, Thanksgiving morning:

i woke to the low groan of the revelers next door and the dull throb of my intestines, cold from a nightmare i can't remember and plagued by thoughts of a woman i was almost tired of waiting for.
i heard her voice in that low groan; i felt her in that dull throb.
i wondered why she hadn't answered the phone and what had kept me waiting so long.

i'm too old for these games; i do not need these insomnias.

and when i wake [tomorrow] i know that the moon will be new and missing, just like this feeling inside.

i smell Long Island!

i was minding my own business yesterday, warming up delicious nutritious gourds in an attempt to ground myself after a vision (like you do). my half-roommate came in the kitchen and i smelled Northport summer of 1997.

i was in love and not yet leaving a beautiful student of opera whose parents lived in a house overlooking the bay. we spent days going into the city and nights necking on the LIRR and the in-betweens ogling Gunther's. i played her brother's drums in the basement and her mother used magicks to make the headaches go away.

i smelled all these things in an instant, but when i took another whiff it was gone. my half-roommate had made a peanut butter sandwich, the aromas had mingled and shattered, the redolence was ruined.

weird

last night i dreamed i was in a French lesbian's class, learning to speak her language, except that she was a he and instead of teaching French he was showing films. every one was an installment in his (re)telling of the Mahabharata.

there was the same female lead in each film; she was stunning and i wondered if she was his lover. the dream was conducted half in French and half in mumbles, but it made perfect sense to me.

(i do not speak French.)

"dead [moths] and the dirty ground"

i have a poem stuck in my throat, but my oeuvre keeps getting in the way of my libido. i treat it with half-plagiarisms and allusions aborted (and otherwise) because some euphemisms are better than others;

i am not eating you mother's baklava.

(the pseudonymery has ended, Jache.)

study break

the homework is done, the writing has barely begun, and there is a woman chanting Sanskrit on my computer. i have been reading about U.S. Left film criticism for better than an hour, and now that it's time for a break but i'm not sure what i want to do. my body is still shaky from an impromptu vinyasa class this morning, and i would be well-served by sitting except that the eggplant is still holding court in my tummy. but all this is beside the point.

the point is that i have no point (again) and i woke this morning from a long unpleasant dream of Saylor and Tarah's departure. in the Dreaming reality was inverted, and she was the first to go. by the time Saylor left it was Halloween and i was left all alone, living in Raleigh, wanting to return to Chapel Hill but knowing Franklin Street was closed.

[return]

last night, in the maya, i sat next to a glass full of cherries and ate farewell mango gazpacho with Tarah, discussing Shane MacGowan's teeth and Black Mountain College. Saylor has been gone only three days, and Halloween is far, far away.

random heart bleating and the dumbstruck lament of sheep

i just watched Son of Rambow and i don't know what i think about it. it had this bizarre quirksomeness to it, intermingled with the type of hokesome (not to be confused with Hoke-some) sentimentality i usually find loathsome. it was like watching a three-legged mohawked puppy dog chasing its tail. but this is beside the point.

the point is that this is my last vacant Saturday night until next year, and the fact that i am alone at my apartment watching independent British cinema and blogging says far more about my relationship to this night than words could ever describe.

no title needed

i stopped by a (friendly) acquaintance's house last night to pick up yet another load of free books. most of them were by a Dutch-American psychoanalyst but this is beside the point.

the point is that he had that famous photograph of Tiananmen Square from June 4, 1989 on his wall. it was a black and white photo, slightly wrinkled, and he told me it was one of the first prints of the event. i am dubious of its provenance, but this too, is beside the point.

the point is i told him what an effect it had on me as a child, watching it the summer i was 12 years old. the bags the man held seemed so out of place, so comically light in contrast to the gravity of the situation. i watched him step back and forth, blocking the tank as it tried to go around him, and the absurdity of the iconography underscored his anonymous heroism. it made a profound sub-conscious impact on me; it was like watching Buster Keaton.

San Francisco 4, me 0

Saylor left this morning at 6am for California. i was at his place last night and he gifted me a whole trove of goodies ranging from blank canvases to olive oil to a back scratcher. he's spending tonight in a hostel in New Orleans, and before he left i wrote him a note to keep in his wallet: "there is more than enough money to repay student loans." and there is, but this is beside the point.

the point is that Saylor makes three, and in two weeks Tarah will follow, bringing the score to four friends fallen and Franciscan. the first to go was Mardou, followed by La Cienega and i can't help but wonder who will be the next.

i have half an eye on Berkeley myself, but my time frame is measured in years... and the greedy Golden Gate could never wait that long.

resolve/crumble

introductions were made.

the backdrop:

patch-top anarchist chatter,
comparing flashlights in the dark.

topics:

androgyny,
honky-tonk Omaha hipsters,
dreams of David Bowie.

searching
for a label
to name
thi/e/s/e
thing/s.

it seams to remain,
the stitching removed.

days keep shrinking and...

i remember when i used to thrive on the nights, waiting for the sun to rise over the streets of Atlanta or set across the mountains of Denver. i spent hours in the bath, talking to my shadow and watching for the loons. i painted bad portraits of visions and sketched my dreams from Peachtree to Colfax. i pretended i was Dorian Gray.

i slept, i slept, i slept.

(the solstice is barely a month away)

i wait, i wait, i wait.

dueling dialects and the delectable dialectic

Saylor came by with a bag full of words and a box full of art, his Franciscan departure delayed another day. i thanked him for both and listened to his instructions. but this is beside the point.

the point is that tonight i saw a peephole into a potential thesis via Queer theory which, of course, leads back to my precious Foucault. somehow the pieces are falling into place, and i am considering the most absurd experiment to amuse myself during their descent.

at this point any yogi will do

i'm staring at a fork, so i'm thinking about Yogi Berra, Yogi Bear, and Pramahansa Yogananda.

if Yogi was here, he would advise me to take it, but i'm not exactly certain what i would do with it once it was mine. for all i know it might end up in my eye, and i have a strong aversion to blindness.

if Yogi was here, he would be out looking for a pic-a-nic basket, and it is a beautiful day for a picnic. i walked across the bridge this morning just because i could, and the the cool morning air felt amazing after days of 80 degree weather and hours on top of hours spent in a dark box.

if Yogananda was here, i don't know what he would say or do.
i imagine he wouldn't say a word, but just sit quietly, and reflect back the truth i already know.

the circles keep growing

i just got back from Saylor's farewell bonfire, and one of Mardou's former lovers gave me a DVD of Russian animation. i haven't watched it yet, but in the course of our conversation he told me he had a box full of books he was getting rid of, for me to come by on Sunday if i wanted them.

and so it seems this deluge of books continues.

i have the house to myself but...

it is not my house, and i just woke from a sweaty afternoon nap asking if my self is even really myself. strange intra-ballet slumbers in a home not my own. suffering from low blood sugar and the shadows of outlines of dreams; i hear Ginsberg, i eat cookies,
i impose (and then nurse) dolors de mi estómago.

and wait for los sueños to return.

this is how the universe works (right now)

yesterday Saylor came over before the opening so we could throw some art around in my living room floor and make plans for his coming departure. after the tempeh came the metaphysics (like you do) and he asked for a book recommendation. i gave him my favorite copy of Patanjali despite his protests, telling him that the book would find its way back into my life in its own time.

this morning i was walking across campus, thinking about karma, when i came upon a wandering monk. he reached in his bag and pulled out a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and asked me if i had read it before. i told him i had and then another book followed. i called Saylor to tell him what happened.

but it wasn't over.

tonight, before class, before chocolate, before the unveiling of the shirts, even more books came into my life and i now look at seven where once lay one. this is the way the universe works (right now) and this is precisely the point.

but - if this was not the point - it would be that i watched the full moon hurtling across the sky at incredible speed from the safety (?) of a wood chip sandbox in a parking lot playground. it made it impossible to tell which was the karma i'm creating and which is the karma past and which is the karma i am yet to read in my inbox.

i'm still not sure, so...

i'm putting all these things on display for anyone who cares to see, and i dreamed many months ago that i was ripping up the lives of my friends to form a collage. and i am, but what does that mean when they read? how will the people i love and cherish and meet and lose in my life react? how can i ever expect anyone to wade through the affect and see that these words may be beautiful, these words may be true - but they can never be real.

i'm still not sure.

Howling at the moon

i woke at 6am from a dream about walking a girl back to her kayak. the kayak was her mode of transportation to and from school, but this is beside the point.

the point is that i drove home from the opening last night tired, bloated and bothered, half-dreading the morrow. i had a tummy full of chocolate milkshake and grilled cheese sandwich (with tomato). the source of the discomfort, however, was not the dairy;

i was suffering from an overload of douchebaggery.

(i talked to her while he rambled in the background.)

how is this possible? how is this possible? how is this possible?

flashbacks collide with mimicry

we fed eggplant parmesan to a feral cat climbing a palm tree,
but this is beside the point.

the point is that as we left i pointed to a man eating at a table alone and told a story. my story was that he was just off work and sad and lonely and wifeless and childless and petless and loverless and that this is a ritual for him, that he makes meaning out of these solitary meals sitting in front of Whole Foods on a Monday night.

this man's wife or partner or lover was not out of town becuase he had brought his iPod with him. this indicated, to me, a routine and normalcy. perhaps he eats occasionally elsewhere, perhaps he sometimes grabs a beer with his co-workers, perhaps every once in a while he goes to the movies alone.

but i don't think so.

my story is that this man is making meaning in his life as best he can and, in the end, am i any different?

counting primes and receiving digits

numerology seems like a pleasant option sometimes. i have looked at the time at 1:11, 2:22, 3:33, and 10:10 in the past day. every time seemed happenstance, but i am no longer foolish enough to believe in coincidences. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i moved to this town two years ago today, and i have watched two seasons cycles. i sat last night reflecting with a friend about all that has transpired during that time. it seems so fantastical and yet i touched every bit of it; i know it was real.

and then, at 1:11pm, i received a text from Mardou telling me tomorrow would have been two years with the boy she didn't leave for me.

111+222+333+1010+111=a prime number.

and

1:11+2:22+3:33+10:10+1:11=5 occurrences of "make a wish."

untitled (accidentally)

i read my sister's life with envy. i boil endless quantities of water and drink bottomless cups of tea. i watch existential films by Woody Allen and listen to bands i've never heard of from sources i do not remember. i make impromptu man-dates and abstract essays on serialization and feminine narrative forms. i read other people's journals from 1975. i have one.five roommates and wonder if this night might see the breakdown.

how many pajama bottom afternoons does it take,
how many peeking bedroom mornings,
how many open window nights?

what do you do with a dead girl's mail?

biding my time

i'm not to crazy about this night, this show, this week to come.
i hear the sound of a suture closing, but i'm still scratching,
trying to make the trying less trying.

if there were more time - and less words - pehaps i could better impart how it feels to be sitting backstage tonight with the rattling Caribbean sounds of a hundred steel drums colliding into my own stone wall of apathy. nine years ago i walked away from a career that would have sent me to Japan, to Europe, to Buenos Aires - but it would have been the same theater no matter where i went. i've spent the past two years tying up loose ends and frayed knots...

this particular karma, perhaps, is nearly complete.

bruises

i woke last night from a nightmare, mouth stuck open somewhere between gasp and sob. [she] was in the grips of the Rage and the police were coming. i was in my childhood home, up a dirt road, overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains in late summer. i did not know if the door would hold (but it did) and by the time the officers arrived [she] was catatonic on a mattress in the floor, still not knowing it was over.

i muttered an explanation across the bed and fell back asleep.

i dreamed a penitent dream of the woman i left for [her]. i was a boarder in her mother's house though her mother was (and is) dead. the occupant of the next room told me the woman i left for [her] still owned the house, and i asked if he could pass along a message.
he told me he would.

i woke hopeful.

returning princess incognito

and so this is how it ends, cowboy boots and denim, blond giving way to auburn. all the walls look like a hotel now; the records are gone. two chihuahuas scampered about where once lived a ghost. i asked questions neither of us could answer, and recognized her by the shape of her knees on the beach.

some things are better left unread

there will be no mention of last night except to say that it involved the reading of Rumi, the bedroom glow of indigo, and the gentle whine of Bessie Smith.

the blues never felt so good.

all i wanted was a kiwi

last night i was reading Tom Wolfe and was struck by a powerful mean urge for kiwi. so i took a final sip of my electric kool-aid and headed to the store. i filled my basket with honeyed lemon yellow pineapple and fresh-picked cadmium strawberries and, of course, my precious DayGlo kiwi cloaked in its deceitful muted chestnut.

i made my way to the register and there was a madman in front of me buying brownies and a case of Bud Light. he was wild-eyed and manic, institution green scrub bottoms with the drawstring red, asking the tall Haitian (black as night bag boy) to help him load up his backpack, tipping in daps and snaps, "take the cans out man, take the cans out man..."

he must have heard me watching because he turned his head, looked down at my basket, and said "i used to eat like that and someday i will again." one more soul searching for satori in the faux-autumn Florida night.

i went home and ate my kiwi and finished devouring the book;
what a trip, man.

if you can't say something nice...

suffice to say that last night's show did not meet my preference. but this is beside the point.

the point it that i woke well-rested to a beautiful sunny day. i slept soundly, and reached only twice for my glasses which weren't there. my beloved spectacles were left in another county yesterday morning during a hasty retreat from Oakland Park. the night before was magnificent, and beautiful boys were chased through the homosexual streets of Wilton with a wire hanger while i searched for the American dream and tried to avoid the bats. if i were to diagram the experiment, it would read like:

capital of Texas + 1 year = ~i~ = Faye = Joan

if i = Johnny = Hunter, solve for i.

and this, too, is a ramification of the manifesto.

trick or treat

i want the whole enchilada. i want the candy, i want the mystery, i want the wanting. i want Noam Chomsky on the armchair next to the empty cans and packs of of cigarettes, and my best friend opening the door in his underwear and playing a ukulele. we jam Lou Reed on his back deck, i'm playing a banjo for the first time and it does not sound like music. but it is.

these were merely some of the events of the last twenty-four hours, and who can know what the Hallow will hold?

"a mix CD is like making out in the parking lot"

last night i returned to the scene of the (near)crime, on the (pre)precipice of perpetrating the next.

it was not authentic; it was Situationist nostalgia.

i sat on the beach just north of Sunrise and watched the jets preparing to land on a moonless night. the whole sky was shifting overhead and i drove to the market visited on the day (12 September 2007) in question.

experiments were run regarding the conversational efficacy of Ohio-based wardrobe. the results were positive - albeit contrived - and so i walked to my car, remembering the days when the memory was newly stained.

"digging for a fire"

i'm rattled and rickety, and so i went to the beach searching for vitamin D - but all i saw was shoreline spotted with topless French-Canadians. i hadn't seen my friend in weeks and she asked me what was going on with ~i~. i told her i didn't know.

and i don't, but this is beside the point.

the point is how can we ever really know? even if every lover told every secret, even if every one was the One, even if she shared only her truest deepest self... how would we be able to understand without first knowing ourselves?

it easy to get lost in these questions, and as we walked back south with the tide coming in i told my friend: "sometimes life is so full, the only hope of not being overwhelmed is to remember we are infinite."

the Pixies never meant to me like they did today.

self-referential much?

my friend just got back from his honeymoon in Argentina. he broke his toe on the second day there and spent the remainder of the trip limping from Buenos Aires to Patagonia, hiding from the fifty year old ghosts of Nazis and devouring giant plates of steak. but this is beside the point.

the point is that the past three weeks have been more maniacal than manic: Saylor is leaving for Portland, friends are returning for season, and Mardou is visiting for the Hallow. there are many words to be written and i have an appointment with a witch doctor on Tuesday (approximately). Elliott Smith is playing in the background, promising a big decision, and the feathers are still falling.

the wee hours

my sister started a new blog last night at 1am. i was busy dreaming about La Cienega and when i woke all i could hear was i asked myself: am i any different?

these are the questions born on lonely Saturday nights, after 12 hours at work and 20 days in a row. these are the questions that come when you wake every night in a pile full of scribbles and a book half-written. these are the questions that give way to repetition and the Fear. these are the questions i used to never stop asking when i was 24... and knew everything there was to know and more.

a matter of timing

last night i dreamed of my sister in the days before we were related. we were sitting in a parked car and she was promising sex; i can think of only one possible explanation...

a year ago that i found myself dateless two days before the Cat Power concert. i had been in North Carolina tending to past karma and upon my return i contrived an experiment: rather than going on a man-date, i decided to ask the next cute girl i saw to go with me. i walked down the avenue and ran into my sister sitting on a bench in front of a coffee shop. i said, "what are you doing next Monday?"

"going to Cat Power?"

somnolist says what?

last night i dreamed of a giant line of cats, one behind the other. they were standing on their hind legs, front legs stretched out, paws resting on the shoulders of the one in front. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i woke from this dream feeling more confused and less worried than i have in days.

good, better, best

the good news is:
i got to use a Sawzall this morning at work.
manly.

the better news is:
i was bleeding within minutes of starting.
very manly.

the best news is:
i wasn't bleeding from the Sawzall.
manly and smart.

a lack of planning

i maintain, i wait, i drink teas laced with honey. i walk home in the first cool winds of October; the weather has broken. i am in receipt of songs in need of translation. my mind is less obedient than usual.

this is precisely the point.

the impending return,
the close-lipped stutter,
and the loom of the Hallow.

before class

i sat
at dusk
under a tree,
contemplating:

could palm
ever be bodhi?

i did not notice:
the sound of the passersby,
nor the smell of passion fruit,
nor the taste of Duchamp
from last summer's love.

(instead)

the wind cross my face,
the grass tween my toes,
the poem in my head.

an act of super-genius, revisted

it had been more than three months since the last time i treated my poor phone so poorly, but last night i left it languishing in a West Boca lawn, somewhere just east of where the gators take over. there was talk of blue heron and storks, and before the night was through i knew i teetered on the edge of distraction. i chose to go home early.

i blame:
endless days of Yanni,
countless cups of coffee,
and a week spent sniffling.

i woke this morning, 5am and phoneless from a dream colored by the night before. the faces were different, but the feeling remained.

the windows came open

the windows came open last night and the breeze must have whispered to me in my sleep because i woke at 4:05am and wrote:

a dream, non-circular with the window open. the place i visited was a destination, but the top went down further than i thought; i followed her into the rabbit hole.

i do not understand these things,
but no longer do i confuse naiveté
for the absence of meaning.

rediscovery

i have been rediscovering the joys of oatmeal. the past week i've been eating delicious bowls of Quakery goodness while reading Foucault. something about the mixing of post-structuralism and brown sugar on the tongue is truly divine. but this is beside the point.

the point is that these bowls of oatmeal did not go without beverage. it had been coffee - black coffee. black coffee is a well-known (to me) signifier, but what are the semiotics inside? the referent is undoubtedly the steaming hot cup of of caffeinated bliss, but - if you look a little deeper - the signified is pure unadulterated boy Qi.

and i went to great lengths explaining this to the cute blond baristas who sold me my cup...

juggling, part deux

it's been four months since the last time i tried this trick. but this time there is no traveling, there is no escape, there is no New England and not even Billy Bragg could help me find one. and so, i'm running an experiment.

the experiment is that i am doing nothing. i'm watching all the bowling pins in the air and not even bothering to count them this time. i've decided just to take notes, and i bet they turn to feathers long before they touch the ground.

i told her:

i told her: "there is nothing but signs," and pointed to the XIII on my left wrist, the date on the calendar, and the full moon in the sky. i told her Mercury was in retrograde and - if it made her feel any better - not to forget that it was a leap year. but all this is beside the point.

the point is that i got in my car to drive home and looked at the time; it was 11:11. i thought of my sister and made a wish...

a letter

i received a letter from Mardou last night detailing her weekend: the first one, the last one, and all the ones that might be the next one. but this is beside the point.

the point is that each of us is a mystery, even to our own selves, and if i listen closely i can hear a chorus of six billion people asking "who am i?" in untold languages, in countless ways.

it's beautiful.

it could have been Paris

it was 13 months ago i saw her dancing in the same bar, to the same band, with a different fella on her arm. but last night it was me, and by 1 am we were staring at pictures of Robert Johnson on the ceiling. two hours later we were listening to Billy Holiday in Oakland Park bedrooms, and this morning it could have been Paris, watching the sun rise through the blinds after a night of loud music and soft secrets, comparing mythologies in the dark.

we woke in time to feed croissants to the sparrows.

the important thing is...

i leave for the wedding in 10 minutes. a friend of mine is marrying a fetching red head with a penchant for obscure stringed instruments. it promises to be a gala affair in an Episcopalian church, with groomsmen consisting sinners, atheists, and agnostics. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i'm not the one getting married. i already fell victim to the "unfortunate predicament" once, and my exit from the institution was no less dramatic than my entrance...

but it took far longer.

cultural studies grudge match

i sat down yesterday to read my homework and found myself as the surrogate referee in a battle of epic proportions. two strains of cultural studies were pitted against one another: the culturalism (and its emphasis on the primacy of individual experience) espoused by Raymond Williams versus the pesky Franco-structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss (not to be confused with Bavarian jean maker, Levi Strauss). who won?

who won is beside the point.

the point is that i ended up sweaty and shirtless, scratching my head with a bag of sourdough pretzels. score one for the Bavarians...

12-12-2012 minus 12

i lay down to rest at 1:49pm and fell into a hypnagogic trance,
channeling the me i was on 12-12-2000.

perhaps i was 12 years too early,
perhaps the Mayans were right,
perhaps it was all a dream.

i had visions of the Prose taking shape today.

i opened my eyes at 2:01pm and wrote the above.
the visions have left me, the forms are gone, but the dream remains.

12 minutes had passed.

the balance between ease and effort

i can take, at most, two hours at a time. i try to stop just short of the Madness, but sometimes memories of the Fear shadow my dreams. these are the nights i wake at: 1:10am, 4:20am, 5:30am from dreams of [her]. i am balancing between ease and effort; the final pieces are falling into place.

i lack only one name.

the documents aren't getting any easier to read, but they are getting shorter. and i know the scope of the artifacts from the first six months far exceeds that of the next six years. tonight i wish i had someone with whom i could share it all, but i sleep alone.

"There is a wonderful Icelandic term: 'doom eager.' You are doom eager for destiny no matter what it costs you. The ordeal of isolation, the ordeal of loneliness, the ordeal of doubt, the ordeal of vulnerability - which it takes to create in any medium - is hard to face. You know when this thing is coming on you. You know when you walk the streets by the hour. When the restlessness comes, when you are sick with an idea, with something that will not come out."
- Martha Graham

i lack only one name.

paradigm, syntagm and value

This was the first time
it felt like a poem:

Fourth floor
mythologies
on a Monday
night parking
deck, a table
full of apples,
middle school
prophecies; all
teetering on
the brink of
structuralism.

I’ll be the signifier,
you can be –

(why)

Who holds the pen?

how to start your day?

i was just recovering from a night of mad looping dreams of paranoia, when i ran into a very short Irishman with the surname of a famous occultist. he returned ten days ago from months spent in Mysore, and he still had the meditation stuck in his eyes. i asked him how the transition was going, and he told me that everything seemed incredibly loud, so i talked a little softer and called up Vancouver. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i'm staring at a plate full of invitations,
tasting each one to see how they mix on my palette,
tasting each one to see how they mix on my palate.

"la cienega just smiled"

i met her in May, that's what the documents say. but i remember her before then, standing behind me in line in the coffee shop before the coincidences came clean. i remember her painting on sidewalks with children. i remember her telling me we lived in maya. i remember asking to see her and her reply: "in what capacity?"

but i don't think it ever hurt except for one Thursday night last August when i saw her walking home across the avenue. she was glowing, eyes wide, heart open. i saw that night that she would walk alone forever, breaking endless hearts... and shining all the while.

om shanti shanti shanti

déjà vu

the experiment is to observe distraction without becoming distracted. all external measures indicate the experiment is proceeded successfully: i slept soundly, i turned off my phone, i did not wake lugubriously. i am trying not to pay attention to the whispering lisp of expectation...

but i hear it.

it's after midnight

and i just got back from a vice-presidential debate party which is ironic because i don't watch television or vote. i was greeted at the door by a roommate wearing my name and a picture of Marilyn and Chanel on the refrigerator. i found the house on a hunch and on the way back i pulled up to a stop light, looked over, and saw the girl from two nights before who gave me a talisman. i had passed the talisman earlier in the evening to the party's host as a token of my appreciation. but all this is beside the point.

the point is i caught my reflection in a puddle on her way out and thought: how perfect the circle.

what difference does it make?

i dreamed last night in Prague, so light as to be unbearable. there was a old writer who witnessed the murder of his colleague by the State, and after decades of decay he was bolstered into action. the writer composed a list of forbidden words and went to his wife for a contribution. their marriage was strained by age and infidelity, and he was coming to her now, asking her to join him in the glory they let fade from their youth. she asked him:

what difference would it make?

i do not know the meaning of this, but last night it was difficult for me to fall asleep. i seemed to be stuck in the pause before we got off the phone. i wanted to linger there because i did not know what to say. i felt confused, i feel confused.

i woke this morning thinking of her.

instead of waiting

i'm listening to Brahms and trying not to know what i'm going to do. i'm trying to pause. i'm trying to breathe. i'm trying to have faith that the solution will present itself. i'm trying to avoid the subtle seduction of certainty - or maybe i'm lying to myself.

maybe i already know what i will do. maybe the die is already cast. maybe these months meant nothing. maybe the months before meant even less. maybe i'm writing just to hear the clack clack click tap of the keys so i don't pay attention to the tocks.

maybe i'm trying to remember the smell of clocks.

Volver

Such sweet insanities:
watching ghosts and counting karmas.

I see Chinatown,
I hear the Dead Russian,
I smell the sour stench of a Sunday spent retching.

I know all these things as sure as I know myself.
They loom, mysterious and inconceivable.

What did I see last night?

As the fever passed so did the day;
the Madness did not take hold.

I sipped ginger ale and read Jack.

Big Sur recollections of delirium tremens;
I dream of Himalayan ascetics and Mardou.

I smell asparagus from the night before
and spend a lifetime in hypnagogia.

Well done, Almodóvar.

bed-ridden, not flea-bitten (yet)

it all started with a sip of apple juice. i knew something was wrong within minutes. one of my uncanny abilities is a hyper-sensitivity to things i ingest. gastrointestinal distress that should take 8-10 hours to manifest impact me within a fraction of that time. i have consulted medical professionals (in a general way) and yet my metabolism maintains its mystique. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i have been in bed for hours, and there is a (lined) trash can full of vomit next to the bed. it all started with a sip of apple juice... but ended more like Beetle Juice.

uh... what's going on here?

something happened today.
i have no explanation, i have no theory.
and - even if i did - i cannot imagine a motive.

it wasn't so much the seeing that left me wobbly.
it was that when i mentioned it,
it was gone.

362 days ago

this time last year, in addition to standing in a puddle, i was preparing to go dancing in Miami with my sister. i hoped it would become a tradition, that each year the final weekend of September would be spent sweaty in the dark, using one another as surrogate lovers, never touching, telling lies to bachelorettes in Wynwood and waiting for the lights to come on.

but it didn't happen.

she left on Train 52 for Baltimore City on the last day of May.
we got to dance one last time before she was gone.

puddles

this time last year i was standing in a puddle. i didn't see it coming and the next thing i knew, i was in almost over my head. so i hung out for a while, checked it out, splashed around, took measurements, counted the pebbles...

it was deeper than i expected, and it took me longer to get out than i could have imagined. but this morning i got a picture from San Francisco and standing next to the Pacific Ocean that puddle seemed so small.

i saw another puddle coming a couple of weeks ago, and i think this time i'm just going to walk around it. i already learned how to swim.

i didn't sleep well and

i woke last night at 3:58am from a dream about Gertrude Stein. i am uncertain what she was doing there, probably making declarations about the nature of my generation or the like. there was a hard rain falling outside, and by the time i turned my light on the rest of the dream was gone. but this is besides the point.

the point is that she wasn't alone, and i would be better served if i didn't think about the other woman in bed with the lights off.

abominations

i learned today that there are giant rodents lurking in the Pacific Northwest, stalking Portland and chasing its residents to the (relative) safety of Southern Florida. it is called a nutria, and it is the most terrifying taxonomic encounter i've had since i once touched the dreaded agantha in Durham, North Carolina.

the year was 1994 and it was a different era, when the oracles of Franklin and 9th Streets foretold that Superchunk would take over the world. back then the only rodent in my life was Gopher, and it lived on the mysterious UNIX workstations in my high school's computer lab. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that today is the equinox, and it seems i've stumbled into some semblance of balance, finding the cadences between consonance and alliteration. i am appreciating the facility of fallacious reasoning, the allure of cunning linguistics, and the juvenile pursuit of double entendre.

because it's all in good pun.

so we meet again

this weekend - when i haven't been questioning the scruples of Bill Shakespeare, or sitting around with my eyes closed, or taking people to the airport at 5am, or eating meals in silence, or writing long letters in voices inflected , or Skyping Vancouver, or receiving emails about antibiotic suppositories from Colombians in France - i've been experimenting with very long sentences. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that last night i walked downtown, spacey as a cadet, and watched anomalous bickering. less subtle minds might place blame on the pumpkin spice ale, but i know it was not the ale...

it was my immortal, stalwart enemy - the pumpkin.

i have a hypothesis

there are two ways something can enter our lives:

some things we see out of the corner of our eye. we turn our heads and follow as it continues to whirl past in a giant circle, time and time again. but the wheel of karma never stops spinning, and we chase the things that can never be caught. these are the things we are destined to lose, and they enter our lives only that they may leave.

some things are so far down the road that we do not see them right away. one day we see a speck on the horizon, indistinguishable from all those other dots that coalesce into the mist we call the future. but there is no reason to dwell on this speck, no reason to stare into the mist, no reason to do anything. we keep on walking. gradually the speck grows clearer, little by little, day by day. we keep on walking. by the time it's close enough to see, we are no longer looking for some goal or meaning. we just keep on walking.

in our naivete - and hubris - we forget that we do not lead, we are led. we confuse the things that lie directly in our path for the things that are merely passing through our field of vision.

but the dharma can never be lost, no matter how many circles we chase. we keep on walking, eventually it is revealed:

the unfolding of a rose at midnight.

let the experiment begin.

my living room

my living room has turned into a language center on Thursday nights, populated by poets and anthropologists. usually i don't mind so much, but tomorrow morning i must rise at the unholy hour of 5am for the purposes of delivering tall blondes to airplanes bound for Denver. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that the last time i was at the Denver International Airport the towers still stood, and i was living downtown on a street named after a pyromaniacal Civil War general. one June afternoon, i picked up a dear friend at the terminal and we marveled at its famous fabric roof.

there was one stipulation for his staying.

two days later i dropped him off at the bus station for a bus headed west down Colfax to Salt Lake City and beyond. he told me he was going to San Francisco, but i never heard from him again.

i was just reminded by her husband

how i spent my Wednesday morning:

in bed, having coffee cross-continent with a married woman.

"like you do..."

i woke up 9 years ago

i woke up 9 years ago (today) in Washington Heights and walked to the subway station at 181st Street. it was the most beautiful morning i ever saw in Manhattan, and i heard De Niro's voice in my head, promising that "someday a real rain will come..."

the previous day a tremendous rain storm had shut down the MTA, and i left work early, maudlin, and manic. i saw the soiled, sopping mattress of a homeless man who lived on the steps leading up from the station, with only a lonely bottle of beer to serve as sentry against the pigeons, and their penchant for chlamydia. he was gone.

i never saw the man again, and i could not help but wonder if the rain had washed him away. but this is besides the point.

the point is that i walked into a hardware store that Thursday afternoon and purchased a pint of red latex semi-gloss. i spent the afternoon covering my wall in aluminum foil, and trying to paint away the premonition of Westchester infidelity. at night's end i was covered in paint, and i documented the artifact in 35 millimeter before collapsing in a sweaty mess.

but the infidelity came to pass.

[lapse]

last fall i saw a new wall created in paper and pastels. it tells a different story, and i never even knew what it said until the sun was rising, 6am Saturday morning. Mardou picked up a red Sharpie and wrote: [she] was here '99-'08. it all came crashing down, and the book i thought i was writing was really only Part 3.

in lieu of a summer romance

i'm making love to two women, cross-country and Californian, in a style worthy of 19th century Janes - Eyre, Austen, or otherwise. one Angelic; teenage lust in Durham dark rooms the year before Larry Clark jumped from Tulsa to the silver screen. the other Franciscan; untouched (if not chaste) in Florida waters, 30 years to the day after Robert Lowell died. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i have a headache, the result of too much stimulation and not enough caffeine. on the way to school i stopped at the bookstore and stumbled across a bevy of beautiful books, but as i sat in class tonight, cross-legged and taking notes on Sailor Moon, i began to worry: what if the books don't mingle? i had left Hemingway and Dostoevsky alone with Rumi and Marquez ... and i feared upon my return i would find a drunken, existential, mystical Colombian mess.

[no actual books were harmed in the process of making this blog]

a change in plans (my life as post-modernism)

i was going to write about kiwi, grapes, and the joys of a sweet tooth while watching Kar Wai Wong - but then i decided to read my homework.

i came across the term "budoir slander" in an 85 year old text on stereotypes, and my mind turned to the stunning pictures my sister sent me this morning from Baltimore. she's wearing the smile that nearly made me fall in love last July, when we ate falafel and listened to morose middle-aged Manchesterites. these were the high summer days, before we knew we ran the risk of incest, before i fell for her best friend, before she rejected me on "spiritual grounds."

i came across the term "budoir slander" in an 85 year old text on stereotypes, and my mind turned to the letter i received from Mardou this afternoon. she described 16 year old bubble gum kisses in a tone that made me fall in love last August, when we picked up my sister at the airport and sat in awkward parking garage silences. these were the late summer days, before i knew i ran the risk of distraction, before i realized how far i had fallen, before we spent the next two seasons not speaking.

i came across the term "budoir slander" in an 85 year old text on stereotypes, and my mind turned to the woman from whom i first heard of Kar Wai Wong. she had a poster of 2046 in her bedroom that makes me fall in love all over again this September night, when i watch the lush of color and the rush of women pass the author's gaze. these are the end days of summer, after the departure, after le denouement, after the need to run this experiment has come to an end.

i'm sorry i asked, part deux

just as i was beginning to recover from recent revelations about the nature of eggplant, a brand new unfortunate edible fact was brought to my attention.

i was having a delicious slice of sweet bread, compliments of Yanni. i paused to ponder: what is the source of tastiness? (it's pumpkin) what? (it's pumpkin) but i don't like pumpkin. (apparently you do) i knew he was right, and so i began retracing my steps in an attempt to learn how such a thing could have happened.

1) some months ago i began an intuitive eating experiment.
2) as a result of this experiment i began purchasing cantaloupes.
3) upon opening cantaloupes, i had to remove their guts.
4) cantaloupe guts resemble pumpkin guts.

this was the beginning of the end. i have had a strong aversion to pumpkins since childhood, when i watched my aunt prepare jack-o-lanterns. the flash point for my revulsion was how the seeds and membrane looked inside. with this obstacle overcome by my new found love of melons, it wasn't long until i found myself in Vermont, gorging on pumpkin seeds at the Quechee Gorge. after that, i never even stood a chance...

Ladri di biciclette

(re: bicycles & towers, circles & thievery)

Aren't we all?

From the instant we take birth
until our last breath,
we steal one moment

after another

calling it our own,
trying to find our way home.

Wayward minds,
waiting wives,
and children's lonely eyes.

Lonely children's eyes
as they watch their fathers
abandon them on street corners
– for bicycles.

(the dharma can never be lost,
but neither can it be found)

It simply waits while
we run the Roman streets,
channeling Goths and Gauls,
watching movies on Wednesday nights
from the comfort of air-conditioned condos,
watching the rise and fall of post-war Empires
during election years.

Writing responses
to Italian neo-realism,
reminiscing about Luigi Galleani
on recommendation of beautiful Russians,
and looking for the Buddhahood in Mario Buda
seven years (to the day) since eighty-one years
after the first Wall Street attack.

i'm sorry i asked

Wikipedia what an eggplant was. it all started at two days ago at work; i heard a rumor that eggplant was, in fact, a fruit and not a vegetable. my colleagues were right, but my distress did not come until i delved a bit deeper, and checked out the definition of fruit. apparently a fruit is a "ripened ovary," and so a delicious vegetarian delicacy could now rightly be classified in the same culinary category as other exotic, reproductive organ-based treats such as ram testicles.

"define existentialism,"

the doctor said to the student.

i told her it was the last stop on the way to absurdism, that it was a Russian killing pawn broker on St. Petersburg afternoon. i told her it was question mark missing the period, with an arrow pointing at the void and sign that reads:

"you are here"

heads are aching

from the consumption (today) of tens of thousands of words and the strain of memory, as i try to imagine a bikini last worn in Newport the year before i was born. i am expecting calls and recovering from falls, sick to death of commas and gerunds. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that Iggy is singing to me again, and earlier today i read first-hand accounts of how seductive his sound. it was hard to make out the poetry through the handwriting, but i remember the romance of the dance floor. i remember the delightful dread of anticipation and the insipid musing of masochism. i remember cold nights in Gainesville, when the full-moon madness of Kerouac mixed with portraits of Oscar Wilde. i remember -

it was hard to make out the poetry through the handwriting,
because the poetry was never there.

ramshackle Saturday nights

cloistered in my room on the eve of season, on the edge of reason, reading about the Counter-Enlightenment and mourning Giambattista Vico. plagiarizing strippers and contemplating De Sica. my night is rife with dead Italians, but this is besides the point.

the point is that i spent the morning in meditation, and when i opened my eyes i thought to myself: this is not the way i left this room.

home alone on a Friday night

and i am:

bearded. reading Bukowski. not sleeping well from last night's mares. listening to j-pop. and (re)reading Patanjali: chittvikshepah te antarayah.

trying not to scratch the wound. filing taxes. watching storms. reviewing illustrations. and (re)reading Patanjali: chittvikshepah te antarayah.

the breaking of fasts. the drinking of caffeine. the chewing of tongues in lieu of biting. and (re)reading Patanjali: chittvikshepah te antarayah.

installing software (unsuccessfully). writing (hurriedly). meditating (sporadically). and (re)reading Patanjali: chittvikshepah te antarayah.

GOP+NOAA=

i am trying to learn bad things to say about Dwight D Eisenhower. his namesake is making a beeline for South Florida, and i have a strong attachment to electricity. my work week has been divided between deciphering atmospheric reports and listening to my co-workers dissect this week's RNC. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i have been fielding questions all day from my Illustrator, and i wrote him earlier tonight:

now we are finally getting down to IT. we are getting down to the unmentionables. we are getting down to the nooks via the cranny. we are talking around the things that cannot be spoken. we are mining mythologies.

and i never really cared for Ike's doctrine.

"down in Denver I died"

this time last year, there were thunderheads to the west and omens in the shapes of the crows on the power lines. i saw a cross, left arm broken, as i sat stopped at the corner of 10th and Congress.

my muse was in Denver, and i mused of the time i spent living on Sherman in 2000. i did my best to channel Jack's doldrums but somehow never made it past Colfax. so i brushed up on my Spanish, and bought giant medical references for $2 in used bookstores on Broadway. even now i think of those as the salad days, but -

in the end?

it all reads like Bill.

grrr...

i haven't really written in weeks, there are storms bearing east, and my emergency preparedness consists primarily of wasabi almonds.

my caffeine intake has regressed from sacramental to habitual.

one cup (every morning) iced.
one cup every morning (iced).
(one cup) every morning iced.

these are the little games i play when i'm sick of the waiting for the words to come out. i channel Martha Graham and dream of Iceland. i watch each night the rise and fall of expectation, wondering when this pause will birth my next breath.

the shutters are up now, and i'm reminded of butterflies and coffins.

i'm passing notes

about Ram Dass and DMT with my sister in Baltimore. Mardou had already warned her about witchcraft and Swiss beheadings, to beware the ghost of Anna Goeldi. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i opened that mylar journal today. i spent more than hour transcribing, until i reached 24 January 2000. January 24 is the date when great men like Winston Churchill and Thurgood Marshall choose to die, and degenerate men like John Belushi and Oral Roberts are born.

"what will you be having today?"

(i turned 23 that day)
and i'll have:

a little from column A,
a little from column B.

the object in question is:

one composition book.

outside of the composition book is covered with:
silver heat-shrink mylar with which:
i once designed a set piece for:
a famous dance company.

measurements are 7 1/2 inches x 9 3/4 inches.
page count is 100, college ruled.

the first date in the composition book is 18 January 1999.
the last date in the composition book is 4 March 2000.
the paper is filled on both sides.

three pages are torn from the composition book;
i do not remember their contents,
or why they were removed.

page count is now 97.

two weeks ago

i woke up as if from a dream, but i had not slept.

i was gripped by the Hunger and so i sat, eating peanut butter crackers in the floor and thinking about the cockroaches that would come if i did not put my scraps away. i scraped peanut butter from the jar and marveled at how there would always be more to scrape out, how the jar is my mind and what an impossible task it is to ever make it clean.

i began to doubt the possibility of enlightenment.

but then i realized it was only the shape of the jar that made the task so difficult, that perhaps next time i would be born with a different container for my thoughts. and then it occurred to me:

perhaps instead of using a knife or a spoon,
maybe i could just rinse it out with water.

gonzo

what does a man do when he's left with only a shadow of what he might of been, sitting next to pile of cocaine in a house full of guns? what becomes of a Doctor of Journalism when he becomes the story, stumbling in a room full of Wild Turkeys?

where did these beasts come from?

i watched archival footage of a bald dead man run for sheriff on the precipice of his fame. he recounted the pillage of a woman famous for her Beat marriage, and constructed a monument in his back yard using nothing but hubris and rubble. he died every day for 25 years until only a suicide remained.

i drove home sad and put on Maria Callas,
mournful for all the things that might have been.

feel the sway

i walked to work today, mantra in mouth with a bottle of water in my pocket, wondering how i was going to find balance. i arrived to an empty theater and did paranayama in the back hallway.

there is more than enough time for everything.

and so i find myself at midnight again with miles to go before i sleep, knowing that nothing can be lost on a well-worn path - even if we don't know where it leads. i suppose the whole thing (life) is an experiment, but tonight it feels especially true.

i just finished a re-write, and there is still an artist statement and biography and syllabus and research outstanding. i'm missing a collage and learning a new computer and thinking (at times) of her.

the days are getting noticeably shorter now, and soon the weather will break. i feel the sway, i know it will fade... and then i will move onto the next.

it's almost midnight

and i'm walking on one leg with my tongue sticking out, trying not to taste the bitter in the bottom of my cup. i drank no coffee today, made no calls to speak of, encountered no calamity. there is no reason for this insomniatic malaise and yet...

there is a spot i'm trying to scratch, and the words aren't working.

i sat cross-legged and shoeless,

in a room full of doctors - but not the kind that help people.

we discussed the sunset moth, and the longer the night went on the more she looked like [her]. two thousand dollar tales of engine malfunction strewn amongst snippets of Kurosawa and Godard.

i ate pinto beans and cornbread, remembering my great-grandmother and discussing sign language with a beautiful woman whose island voice spoke Caribbean mysteries. jokes were made of auto-didacticism, and before the night was through i found myself texting Mardou, telling her that Woody Allen's diganosis was correct;

she is, in fact, Vicky Christina.

"last night everything broke"

and by everything, i mean the Internet. but this was only the tip of the Q, as i sit here in my room with wet underwear and socks strewn across my bed. the dryer is eating quarters, and everything is going according to plan... but the plan is messed up.

i started working on a syllabus for an imaginary class yesterday, and last night i watched Brown Bunny which was boring as well as crude. i spoke with my sister in Baltimore who informed me that the new boy is falling short of the horizontal. and, when i slept, i dreamed that i was shoveling mud amidst punditry concerning the former lovers of a friend recently referred to by Japanese authorities as "the decedent."

this is the second law of thermodynamics, and it is a beautiful thing.

hubba hubba, what an (older) woman

she had me the first day of workshops, when she said: "they've organized everything out of existence." wooden shoes and Hello Kitty, using her check registry in lieu of a calendar, always asking what time it is with a Buddha hanging round her neck. she makes speeches to oak trees in her back yard, and there was something comforting about her declaration: "technology changes so fast,
you can ignore some of it and it will just go away."

just back from the hospital

i was visiting an 84 year old who once abandoned ship to avoid being taken into custody by the MPs at the end of the World War II, or as it's sometimes called (by me) The Deuce. his time after VE Day was spent primarily in the black markets and brothels, but eventually he washed up in South Florida and ultimately escaped military justice owing to his war record and savoir faire. but this is besides the point.

the point is that leaving the hospital i ran into a friend of mine. she was there to see her cousin who is in Hospice, dying of cancer.

and getting married.

it was the most beautiful thing i heard all day.

blame

i want to blame it on the low pressure, or the sound of the rain, or my obsessing over a new computer before bed. but i think maybe it was the dream.

i woke at 2:22am from a dream of [her]. we were on speaking terms, but she didn't seem to realize that i was gone; she didn't seem to realize i wasn't ever coming back. it was almost as if it was beyond her realm of comprehension, even when i reminded her what happened during those first three weeks away. we were talking in a car in the town where we used to live, there were Japanese weeping cherries throughout the parking lot.

i do not know if i will return to sleep this night.

i like the sound of the rain, i like that everyone else is sleeping. i like that they shut down the school tomorrow, i like that school is part of my life again - i like that she isn't.

we threw banana peels

all the way to Dade County last night, making pit stops to lick blueberry pie from small jars and discuss the Mensheviks. Saylor and i debated semantics and berated semiotics, listening to Brian Eno and John Cale as Tarah drove us to North Miami.

we smelled the ketchup as it wafted across Biscayne Boulevard, making its way through the prostitutes and destitutes that litter US-1 from Key West to the Fort Kent Bridge in Maine, where johns bicker with the working girls over exchange rates. we played putt putt, and there was scattered talk of vrittis and anthroposophy until Tarah threatened to start shaking the bushes.

she tried to coax imaginary kittens from the dark, but a giant black rat kept vigil, and the kittens never came. we returned to all night diners feline free and drank milkshakes that never came, talking about how one December night with Stravinsky changed my whole life.

when Saylor asked why i run my experiments, i told him it was for nights like these.

Mardou called from Frisco today;

we spoke of karma, and our romance that wasn't. this time last year i didn't know her. this time two days from now i was in love; it can happen that quickly.

but it wasn't meant to be.

it took me months to see, but i still remember that night in May when i saw her and it was gone. the repartee was still there - and she was still beautiful - but whatever once was... wasn't. i felt free that night; it can happen that slowly.

later that week i wrote a poem; it was a prelude to a goodbye to a beautiful woman with pale blue eyes. with her i am still waiting to see; i am still not seeing that it isn't meant to be.

this is the dance:

i want to love without exception or expectation.

(i'm not there yet)

remember

words are sweet, but a man cannot live on words alone.

it's 11:21pm

and i just got back from picking up my friends from the airport. they had a successful trip to Vancouver and reported that - had i been there - would have fallen in love with two of the beauties they met there. but this is besides the point.

the point it that they encountered a field full of bunnies while in Canadia. i asked, with equal parts curiosity and terror, precisely what day did they encounter these bunnies?

Wednesday.

and so then the freak out began, as i related to them the dream i had last Wednesday night.

there is something bigger going on here.

"beautiful sorta"

i am cheating.

i feel like writing, but i have nothing to say so i am resorting to Ryan Adams and hoping - DEAR GOD! there's been a change in plans.

i just went to Ryan Adams website to cut/paste the URL to link his name and discovered it much altered from the last time i was there. Ram Dass, the Humane Society, Amnesty, and the UFC?!? it appears that my favorite degenerate (and fellow native North Carolinian) has completely lost his mind. and i suspect a girl is to blame.

i know how he feels.

"what you had, what you lost"

Ryan Adams is singing Fleetwood Mac in my bedroom. i am typing with the computer unplugged, wishing for lightning just a little bit closer, wishing for more time and less hours. wishing for none of these things and laughing all the while at the futility of grasping the things that were never mine to begin with.

nine years ago today i flew to North Carolina to visit a girl i loved.

one year ago today i mailed that woman a letter she never read.

today i flew back from Charlotte... knowing the difference.

hotel+airport=

i am not going to write anything i want to write. i'm not going to write about the one i didn't see yesterday, or the one i'm staying with tonight, or the one who turns 29 tomorrow.

i am not going to write anything i want to write. i'm not going to write about the one picking me up tomorrow, or the one with the same name i live with, or the one with the same name debating sex fests and Bob Dylan in Baltimore.

i'm not going to write anything i want to write because i do not feel comfortable. i am in a hotel near the airport, the air conditioner keeps cycling stale, and there is something to be said for beds on the floor. if this trip had been punctuated, it would have been all commas, but what i really need is a period

i'm not going to write anything i want to write, [text deleted].

the Trial (transcribed 1:41am)

the house is full of Amish children, all locks and hats. [she] arrives and i lose my bearings, along with my lawyer and family in the process. there is a Rabbit (talking as Sparrow) telling me that there was no missing link, that he had looked over the case and the pattern that almost wasn't there - wasn't.

he told me that he saw the emergence of pride and hubris,
and a fall to match.

i tell the Rabbit (talking as Sparrow) that he is right, that i have come to accept my fate, that whatever is supposed to be will be.
he tells me one more thing, but i cannot make out the words through the rattling of his cage.

court is coming in session, and as i walk away it begins to dawn on me that the Rabbit (talking as Sparrow) is the Judge.

some circles are bigger than others

i leave in less than 4 hours.

yesterday morning i ate breakfast with a practicing witch and spent my night changing light bulbs with hammers. i woke up shortly after midnight with the taste of dry in my mouth and the wound still weeping, waiting for the sutures to hold and thinking of Rimbaud. when i came home (pre-dawn) there was a stray cat awaiting my return. these are all auspicious signs, but this is besides the point.

the point is that somethings cannot be put into words, and:

"some girl's circles are bigger than other girl's circles." [approximately]

(re)reading Bukowski

a dear friend of mine introduced me to Charles Bukowski in the late Nineties. he was at school in Gainesville, i was in Chapel Hill. our temperaments were complimentary; he wore the mask of the artiste while i chose that of consumate poseur. i visited from time to time, but was quick to dismiss my friend's literary interest as the result of a local band being named after one of Bukowski's novels.

on my last trip to visit, i stumbled across an autobiography of John Holmes in a local bookstore and bartered it for a collection of Hank's short stories. i found the stories boring and needlessly grotesque.

i reread South of No North this weekend, and something had changed. perhaps it was the documentary i watched on its author, perhaps it was my own experiences in the intervening years, perhaps it was losing the book in a complicated departure from my ex-wife, perhaps it was learning that Porn King went out of print shortly after i bought it and currently commands nearly $400 on Amazon.

i reread South of No North this weekend, and it touched me in a way i wasn't capable of imagining when i was 23.

it's 6am

and i just got back from taking two friends to the airport. they are going to Vancouver, and - if my recollection of time zones and the international dateline are correct - they should arrive in Canadia sometime two Tuesdays ago, 5 hours from now. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i came home in a driving rain, listening to sad songs after an exceptionally poor night's sleep. i woke up (the first time) thinking that she lured me in with lollipops, and i tasted razors in the sound of the revelers outside my window at 1am, after dreaming of her, narrating my own nightmare.

when i pulled into my parking lot Wilco's "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" was playing. i thought to myself: so true, so true...

attachment v. expectation

i love what i wrote yesterday, and that makes it hard to write today. i feel the desire for that to be the page people see (should you happen to read). this is the subtle madness of attachment; this is the cruelty of memory.

i love what i wrote yesterday, and that makes it hard to write today. i feel the desire for this to be better than that (should you happen to read). this is the creeping insanity of expectation; this is the tyranny of projection.

but all this is besides the point.

the point is that if one of those giant dancing monkeys flipped a metaphysical coin, you could call it in the air: expectation or attachment?

and one of the meanest lies we tell ourselves is that there is something better than what is.

nine years ago today

i was en route from North Carolina to Washington Heights. i was 22 years old, and i knew everything. i was in love (obsessed) with a beautiful dancer from Sarah Lawrence College i had met that summer in Durham.

i fell in love with Manhattan the first time i saw it. i was 18 years old, and i knew some things. i was in love (not obsessed) with a beautiful opera singer from Duke University i had met that autumn in Durham.

i decided to move to New York on February 10, 1998. i was 21 years old, and i knew i was going to become a lighting designer. it was in love (at first sight) with modern dance after a performance by Parsons Dance Company in Chapel Hill.

moving there changed everything, but:

it wasn't the beautiful dancer.
it wasn't the designing.
it wasn't Manhattan.

moving there changed everything, because:

if i hadn't moved there, i couldn't have left the beautiful dancer.
if i hadn't moved there, i couldn't have left the designing.
if i hadn't moved there, i couldn't have left Manhattan.

and

if i hadn't left, there would be no Part 2.

to be continued...

dancing monkeys

i read this morning how W.S. Burroughs once remarked to a student at Naropa that "[he couldn't] see what the government would want with a bunch of international homos sitting around hatching cancers of the prostate." i think he had an excellent point, but that's besides the point.

the point is that i had a vision last night before i went to sleep. i reached a stopping point in my book and closed my eyes for a moment. i was overcome by a vision of giant monkeys.
it was beautiful.

i watched as these behemoth Old World monkeys danced their timeless dance on the top of the world, playing in snow-capped mountain tops until -

i started named things, and the monkeys became Hanuman, and the icy peaks became Kailash, and my beautiful vision came collapsing back into this flat reality my mind was able to comprehend.

chocolate cake before bed =

i woke up with my ears ringing from a dream about a circle. James was in the passenger seat and responded "French Aquarian" to questions unasked. i was looking for sushi on the winter solstice, and there were children in the gift store demonstrating their ESP while an ice cream truck drove by playing "Fur Elise." but all this is besides the point.

the point is that a beautiful, wise woman i've never known once asked me: "does your soul cast about like an old paper bag?"

and i didn't know what to say.