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.