31 December 2010
24 December 2010
20 December 2010
here's me in midtown
happy holy days from 57th street...where women actually wear fur....happy holidays LP and Adrienne, Adrian and Leo...in a fire-warmed living room on College Court. The couches are scratched, the music is on, the white wine is out. Leo plays with the cats, especially the one who's cross eyed; she feels like velvet. LP makes food as if she knew (she does), Adrian shares a sound bite. Adrienne is happy to be there. They want to call me collectively. LP is perturbed - she doesn't know if it's ok out here, it = me....It's fine, Ma...The Barrett-Mills' in various expanses of Northern California, California Northern...Karlene with her lovely, decent smell and black lashes driving around Tully, and College, and Sylvan, through 99, maybe 580 ; everything is wrapped perfectly and attributed with perfect handwriting. Everything is showered and thoughtful. Everyone is taken care of. She whispers to Ricky if he is still sleeping - in the room with the matching beds we used to sleep in when Gramps was still up...the whole affair is tied together by one sparse, strong Christmas tree...Pili, Mina, and P.I.O. - they walk over a muted grey-green, flat pallet of bite-sized-rocks rendered soft by ancient waves somewhere in the southeast of that haughty island - boxing day means things come to you in boxes? Pili and Mina look at photos from 7 years ago and this is already history. Mina tells me she's lost teeth and I lose my shit. PIO with the tight jaw when he drops the babies off. If he were holding an acorn in his mouth when he showed up at her house it'd be a paste before the goodbye. Too proper, everything is too proper; everything's in a bottle, written down on pages, or burned onto celluloid, isn't it?...Pablo, Sabina, Ana Paula, Paula Catalina / Catalina Lao, the cemetery with Luis, Beto, and Marina; Nelson's shadow...tropical sun beats - no christmas trees...no doubt pablito wants a drum set or tennies or music - he needs to be heard goddamnit. i lost touch as always and thinking about them every day is useless and brings no one anything. anyone anything / anyone nothing / no one anything / no one nothing... la fabi / la flaca, ana lucia / hermana, berengena / pero no asi, with her new, cocoa infant who sounds like france but dreams about popayan, the valley, san antonio church...it's always the same, with different names.happy holidays from midtown, wherever that is.
ardor of the hardest order
tonight, there will be a lunar eclipse that shatters much and rattles many...or at least that's what susan miller has said. i'm not sure i could rattle much more than i've already rattled. and carved. i've carved shapes out of myself and placed them over a fire - as a light snack, a post-dinner bite, a morning boost. all of that was unnecessary and still i have no idea how to be any other way. i rarely learn from my own mistakes even if the taste of my own foot in my own mouth is by now familiar - masochistically so...regardless, it happens that most of the the time i am more in love with my own love letters than any words i've ever received back. i read my own words go out and i dwell on them, their shape, their tone, how they match, any misspellings or the actual ways that i misspell...i find them wholesome, honest, satisfying...the conversations i have in my head have far eclipsed those that have actually happened and i guess, as such, the words i get back will always be disappointing if you've already made a guest appearance in my head (by the way - you played yourself very, very well)...i've long wanted this fluffy rug...it's always been like that, feels odd to say - i want something, and i fixate on it until it's purged. in wanting it, i imagine how it could flatter or help me, how much i would love it, how it would look on, what it feels like, how it compliments my legs, if the color is for me or if it's not about color, how long it would take until i no longer care?
outside my window plays a sad christmas song that squeaks over and over and again and again on loop; it seems to come from the neighbors' bush, decorated with mini-lights of blue and green and white. on the train home i read a joan didion essay about finding meaning through narrative (there may be none) - if we can't find meaning in our stories then we have had nothing. and if we can't make stories or string together coincidences we feel like there has been nothing and nothing makes sense as a stand alone event. inside i drown out the sad christmas music with bob dylan. he asks about sweet marie, and where she is tonight? he's at her house, but can't unlock it. i will be asleep when the moon eclipses the earth. most likely i will awake when the sun moves me, or when the tiger mauls me...
here is the beautiful mauler and his magnificent paws - (with an old classmate of mine).
19 December 2010
Vanitas Vanitatum Omnia Vanitas
Two nights ago I dreamed about a huge python that everyone wanted me to talk to. He bit my finger and it felt like human teeth. He spoke two little phrases to me but neither was overwhelming or profound. In the dream I had to stand in front of him. He moved very slowly, but there was no escaping him. If a snake sheds its skin - this snake was glossy, fresh from a river. If a snake means rebirth - this snake was very familiar. If a snake signifies facing your fears - this snake was void of malice. If a snake offers temptation - this one held nothing for me.
17 December 2010
Things I Remember
...while the photos assist in that memory. i remember the patio, i remember the poodles. i remember my aunt, i remember the rain. i remember the yellow shorts my grandmother sewed for me. i remember the park that seemed impossibly smaller when i saw it in the fall of 2006. i remember the pool, i remember the air. i remember feeling closer to having been there than not. i remember summers. i remember identity. i remember the split. i remember spanish. i remember whatever it is that the mind thinks (the-mind-thinks) i should remember. the camera remembers us as if we had no memory.
Fulton Street
It's December - so I guess a bit of nostalgie tropicaux is expected. This slingshot - along with its sister - rests (sans rubber band and leather-marble-holder) on my mantel over the fireplace that no longer makes fire.
ariel, gato
...these were from another time. a year ago i chose the neighboring frame, tonight i choose this one. i can only imagine what ariel is up to now. the dream that was brooklyn is different for both of us. i have several legs up and i too was working at a restaurant. do people dream about brooklyn if they're from here?
16 December 2010
04 December 2010
susanna de mantova en la playa, outer brooklyn
in the third frame that shape her mouth makes is saying "what you doooing?" te digo mamá, just taking a picture of utter exquisiteness.this was a good day, 19+ miles of august biking, against wind, on sidewalks, to the choppy atlantic, with a luna bar, a grapefruit, and almonds. those gold-rimmed glasses and soul-mate-shoes, sand hair and red bikini tops that don't go well with helmets. listening to susy talk on the telephone to her nona is close to heaven. she wants for me exactly what i want for me. she's a mind reader. she dismisses fame. and tells the heartbreaker just what kind of amazing he is.
auuuuuuugurrrri honey pot, feliz dia, te quiero - 2 dec.
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