ever lifting, up and away

Maira Kalman on how we all got to America and what it means.

[pursuit of happiness via ms. mae]

kcs, take pictures from behind my eyes already

Dead dark night.

The fog year.

And then?

Long beams stretching high into the sky, but the sun so bright that we cannot tell how tall they are. What is this strange place? The outlines of a house. Or else, an installation art piece in the middle of a plain, and nothing at all.

Is it day out, or is that just the color of the haze?

this means nothing to no one

1.
Minibar menu for 25 August 2009. We ran up an unspeakable bill. An unspeakable Bill. Get it?

2.

Killin' me, K.

I'M THE DEAD ONE.

a chinese sherlock holmes

If we were to bump into each other again, where would you rather it be:

A: In a sauna.
B: On an oil rig.
C: In a morgue.
D: I love you.

Please, I'm begging you: fig crumbs.

[xshares]

i know this'll be the third tk thing i've posted in 10 hours, but i can't help it really

"That was the point of Kennedy’s career: he treated his legislative service not as a way to keep getting re-elected, but as a chance to do things that would improve people’s lives. That attitude seems fairly radical today."
--George Packer. Interesting Times blog, New Yorker.

This is clearly turning into a weird obsession thing, but I'm not really sure what to do about it.

reading kennedy tributes 'til my eyes bleed

this is just to sackboy

all of the babies, they can feel the world: that's why they cry

"I got dressed up like a ghost and went all the way down the road. I didn't scare because you said not to scare anyone because they may have a weak heart."

Teddy Kennedy, age 7, Halloween 1970.

[Boston]

like so many more shoes

I, the Survivor


I know of course: it’s simply luck
That I’ve survived so many friends. But last night in a dream
I heard those friends say of me: ‘Survival of the fittest’
And I hated myself.


Bertolt Brecht. Poems: 1913–1956.

different ways of ham

ECN: Tell him I say hi. Me and Bryan had a good time with him on Easter.

AAA: Wait what did we do on Easter? Oh, right, I remember. [Four-person ham supper] Will do.

ECN: I'll never forget Easter because Bryan and I fought before and I threw the ham on 125th street. ..Anyway, laterrrrrr!

lakes of ice, oscars mike

Heaving, sighing, and, finally -- unexpectedly -- meaning.

Things mussed, things put back together.

Hair parted this way, hair parted this other way.

You, here, hearing, which means so much without saying.

At last, the skylit shower stall. At last, the broken couch.

If I am always tails, then you are what?


*

Imagine me.

The way it is sung late at night on a Sunday hangs over the bed like a map of this place. Not "this place," but you know what I mean.

A voice finds its audience after four years of searching, but having never seen the shape of ears before, fails to recognize it until it is almost too late.

Not "the shape of ears," but you know what I mean.

*

"How long is a day?"

I don't know anymore.

*

I am saying it.

internet informations

For Becca, who cares.

[personas online data profiles via swissmiss]

more thoughts on how babies become human beings

Purple Gatorade and Uger

The Brief: Purple Gatorade [The Tiny Art Director's Fish] The Critique: Why did you draw Uger? [Her sister's fish] I hate Uger! Why is his eyes like that? It looks like he's mad. What are you writing down? Grownups never lie, right Daddy? Dad, that doesn't look like Purple Gatorade. Only mine looks like Purple Gatorade. You're going to scan it, and then when you're done with it, it's going to be scrappled up and thrown in the garbage. And then mine will be our final picture. Job Status: Rejected Our Final Picture: at right

[tiny art director via x]

filed under "friendship"

WL: What if it were, "We hate all the same vegetables"? Pretty sure if I met someone who hated all the same vegetables as me I would find them unbearable.
AAA: Really? Why?
WL: I dunno. I don't think I like people who steal my unique characteristics. Or.. I abhor myself.

[via twin]

perfect ways of meaning

It will not always be summer; build barns. - Hesiod

Colrain, Massachusetts. 1 August 2009.

and other metaphorical places

"So let me put it another way... If The Hurt Locker is not the best action movie of the summer, I’ll blow up my car." - A. O. Scott.


What a terrible, stupid, misleading thing to say.

Hearing that (quoted second-hand), I thought I was in store for a bang-'em-up, big 'splosions, comic-relief side-kick, Bruce Willis movie. I was not. Don't go see this movie if you are feeling generally stressed in your life. But do go see it otherwise. (Scott said it infinitely better with "the best nondocumentary American feature made yet about the war in Iraq.")

Bring extra set of legs for standing on, and don't say I didn't tell you so.

don't be dollars and cents, just be regular

"Just go get the thing from the next room. The exercise will be good for you."
"I’d lose half a calorie from that."
"Well, baby steps. It all adds up in the end."
"No, that’s like when people say, 'If you saved a penny every day...' Well, you know what? If you did that, after a year you’d only have $365, which is not a lot at all."
"I think you mean 365 cents."
"Oh well there you go! That’s not even a dollar!"
"I believe it is three dollars, actually. And 65 cents."

alice, maggie, jme, hinges

Looking through the peephole, what do I see?

The mind painting another metaphor, the mind drawing another apple in India ink on cream-colored canvas, the mind stirring, the mind shouting, the mind lost, and, in the mind's wheelhouse, mirrors, everywhere.

The mind moving swiftly. The mind an arctic icebreaker. The mind with its eyes closed.

The mind a cartographer.

The mind a map of itself.

The mind running aground.

And then what?

The mind looking through its own peephole, seeing itself in the mirror, roadside and gorgeous, and self-satisfied with having remembered.

The mind, so indiscreet, stirring, shouting, lost.

that's called a call-back

Sometimes when he loses his mind, he really loses his mind.

this and other perfect highs

this and other things to have and hold

The Pentecost Castle


It is terrible to desire and not possess, and terrible to possess and not desire.
W.B. Yeats

What we love in other human beings is the hoped-for satisfaction of our desire. We do not love their desire. If what we loved in them was their desire, then we should love them as ourself.
Simone Weil


1

They slew by night
upon the road
Medina's pride
Olmedo's flower

Shadows warned him
not to go
not to go
along that road

weep for your lord
Medina's pride
Olmedo's flower
there in the road


2

Down in the orchard
I met my death
under the briar rose
I lie slain

I was going
to gather flowers
my love waited
among the trees

down in the orchard
I met my death
under the briar rose
I lie slain


3

You watchers on the wall
grown old with care
I too looked from the wall
I shall look no more

tell us what you saw
the lord I sought to serve
caught in the thorn grove
his blood on his brow

you keepers of the wall
what friend or enemy
sets free the cry
of the bell


4

At dawn the mass
burgeons from stone
a Jesse tree
of resurrection

budding with candle
flames the gold
and the white wafers
of the feast

and ghosts for love
void a few tears
of wax upon
forlorn altars


5

Goldfinch and hawk
and the grey aspen tree
I have run to the river
mother call me home

the leaves glint in the wind
turning their quiet song
the wings flash and are still
I sleep in the shade

when I cried out you
made no reply
tonight I shall pass by
without a sound


6

Slowly my heron flies
pierced by the blade
mounting in slow pain
strikes the air with its cries

goes seeking the high rocks
where no man can climb
where the wild balsam stirs
by the little stream

the rocks the high rocks
are brimming with flowers
there love grows and there love
rests and is saved


7

I went out early
to the far field
ermine and lily
and yet a child

Love stood before me
in that place
prayers could not lure me
to Christ's house

Christ the deceiver
took all I had
his darkness ever
my fair reward


8

And you my spent heart's treasure
my yet unspent desire
measurer past all measure
cold paradox of fire

as seeker so forsaken
consentingly denied
your solitude a token
the sentries at your side

fulfilment to my sorrow
indulgence of your prey
the sparrowhawk the sparrow
the nothing that you say


9

This love will see me dead
he has the place in mind
where I am free to die
be true at last true love

my love meet me half-way
I bear no sword of fear
where you dwell I
dwell also says my lord

dealing his five wounds
so cunning and so true
of love to rouse this death
I die to sleep in love



10

St James and St John
bless the road she has gone
St John and St James
a rosary of names

child-beads of fingered bread
never-depleted heart's food
the nominal the real
subsistence past recall

bread we shall never break
love-runes we cannot speak
scrolled effigy of a cry
our passion it's display


11

If the night is dark
and the way is short
why do you hold back
dearest heart

though I may never
see you again
touch me I will shiver
at the unseen

the night is so dark
the way so short
why do you not break
o my heart


12

Married and not for love
you of all women
you of all women
my soul's darling my love

faithful to my desire
lost in the dream's grasp where
shall I find you everywhere
unmatched in my desire

each of us dispossessed
so richly in my sleep
I rise out of my sleep
crying like one possessed


13

Splendidly-shining darkness
proud citadel of meekness
likening us our unlikeness
majesty of our distress

emptiness ever thronging
untenable belonging
how long until this longing end
in unending song

and soul for soul discover
no strangeness to dissever
and lover keep with lover
a moment and forever


14

As he is wounded
I am hurt
he bleeds from pride
I from my heart

as he is dying
I shall live
in grief desiring
still to grieve

as he is living
I shall die
sick of forgiving
such honesty


15

I shall go down
to the lover's well
and wash this wound
that will not heal

beloved soul
what shall you see
nothing at all
yet eye to eye

depths of non-being
perhaps too clear
my desire dying
as I desire


Geoffrey Hill, Tenebrae.
(1978)

somewhere in america it's pizza night

It's 4:30pm.
You're starving.

What you really crave is Thanksgiving dinner, a huge golden-brown bird stuffed with thyme and lemon, complete with gravy boat, cranberry sauce, velvety potatoes, green beans, yams with burnt marshmallows on top, thick bready stuffing.

But, seriously, it's a little early to be thinking of dinner (who are you, Abby's grandpa?). All your friends seem happy to nosh or wait it out until a more reasonable hour.

You happen upon a table.

There's a chocolate bar. But not just any chocolate bar -- your platonic ideal of a chocolate bar: milk chocolate, almonds, salt, toffee. Your mouth waters. Come to think of it, you could really go for a chocolate bar right now.

But there's also a pot roast dinner not so unlike the turkey meal you were daydreaming of. Roasted potatoes, not mashed; asparagus, not beans; whipped yams, no marshmallows. It looks damn good, though you were really hoping for some fruit condiment.


You can't have both or you'll be sick. [Ed.: Well, not quite. But the pot roast has made certain stipulations about certain chocolate bars. And you take this pot roast pretty seriously.]

But maybe if you had the chocolate bar now you could stave off hunger until a more reasonable hour? It's exactly your favorite kind of snack, and 4:30pm seems like a perfectly fine snack time, leaving you plenty of time in the rest of the evening for a healthy dinner. But, then again, who knows when you'll be able to find a proper Thanksgiving meal -- it is the middle of August after all. November's not far off, but it's not tomorrow, either. Maybe you should just have the pot roast and call it a day; it's pretty damn close to what you've been craving.

Or is it?

Discuss.

it's like this

13 DE FEBRERO

¿Qué hay detrás de la ventana?Una estrella.



14 DE FEBRERO

¿Qué hay detrás de la ventana?Una sábana extendida.



15 DE FEBRERO

¿Qué hay detrás de la ventana?

[Fin.]

Los detectives salvajes, Roberto Bolaño.

old things become new things and it plays out like a tragicomedy, but the jokes aren't funny

Kelpies, et al.


Shira says it's the moon
and Max has teeth
and Henry wants to be
a ghost for Halloween
and I can't stop drowning,
so we go somewhere called
Horseneck but there's nothing
there cantering against the wind,
but we can't forget it, either,
so that every time we touch
the tops of lovers' spines we still
think of the things that are not
real and each other.
The moon is real but you
understand what I'm saying anyway.

(2007)

*

Mouth


She lives inside your mouth
when it’s closed:

a girl who swallowed
a fish skeleton whole, ribs
stinging at the union of other ribs,

so hungry she became
a death wish

and small enough to fit anywhere.




Tell me how it happened.

Where were you? What year was it?
Was a brackish tide
pulling out, raking itself clean
on the sieve of a shore?

Yes. Go back there. Back
to the first time
you were afraid of the sea.




But she is just a thing
your lonesomeness made.

You can set her free by believing

she lives inside your mouth
when it’s closed.




Say something.

No one even has to hear it.

(2007)

not even the rain

If we sat out on the fire escape, if we looked out over the garden, you could tell me about where you are moving to and when you will leave me and about the war and I could tell you about dirt.

I could tell you how not even eight weeks of rainfall, not even the most delicate tiny deaths could save the nasturtium. How it arrived in this city with the broadest leaves in the wettest earth carried by the smallest hands, but brought memories of unspeakable violence enough to make a difference. How I lost months trying to spare the flimsy, girlish flowers. But only the amputation of so many limbs reaching downward and backward mattered at last. How I worked slowly and carefully with my fingers and thumbs.

We are small things, but able. We are hardier than we look. We make rhymes in our sleep to help us make sense of love and the negative space.

Come see our handiwork and how everything has changed. I could tell you how the basil hasn't stopped blooming since it began in spring, but that's a long story.

Dark-skinned summer fruits remind me of you these days. Violets, deep blues, reds so endless they look like 2am. The reason is less full of meaning than I could have hoped for, but I guess that's the point.

what is going on?

No, seriously.

this is not my beautiful house

He asked how a life so compartmentalized could seem suddenly, uniformly, this tempestuous; wasn’t the whole idea that so many walls and closed doors and shut windows and convoluted hallways could together prevent any spilling over of elements? A downpour in this room would not have to betray the early dew of this other room. There could be noon light and deep dusk under one roof, undisturbed. That was the plan: we would make sense of the seasons by compressing time, every day at once. We could build a home, after all.

On the top of the mountain, at the edge of the cliff, inside the tallest volcano.

But then what happened? The slow spiral of a small storm brewing in this corner of the house. And then, another in the attic. And then, in this grand hall and this lofted space and this room where I sometimes sleep. Now we are asking ourselves, How strong have we made these walls? Did we winter-proof the windows? It’s hard to remember, anymore; there was so much building so quickly – surely we must have cut corners we thought would never need exact sharpness, no time for thinking of perfect 90 degree angles. Yes, a hundred or more separate storms in every cubbyhole and closet shaking the foundation of the place.

Or else, a door was left ajar somewhere, a window unlatched. Maybe there was a hairline crack in the spackle from the aftermath of the last natural disaster. Maybe this is not a collection of so many small griefs, but a single, gaining maelstrom in fluid air.

Either way, this building quakes. Imagine me.

Maybe I am being dramatic, but I am tired. And, anyway, it’s the truth.

the trechery of images, or, ce n'est pas une typo

I'm going to go bury myself in fresh garden mud; if you need me ask the worms.

This isn't about you. It's about everyone of you. This is about so many pots and pans, and about things that were stolen without permission and, worse, things that were given back without permission. This is about you so so accidentals and about what it means to be an anchor or not. This is about "The Fog Year" and about "Dead Dark Night" and about different ways of haunting a heart. This is about Sometimes when I'm gone I'm really gone and understanding what that means. This is about summer and the other seasons, dusk and the other times of day. And, though it's obvious enough without saying so, this is about hurt dogs.

This is an exercise in silent screaming because when you're underground no one can hear the hounds baying. This is not a love song. This is not a pipe dream. This is not what I thought it was.

*

"Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means/ we're inconsolable./ Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us./ These, our bodies, possessed by light./ Tell me we'll never get used to it."

*


Well, I cannot let go so I thank the lord and I thank his sword, though it be mincing up the morning, slightly bored. Morning without warning like a hole. And I watch you go.

There are some mornings when the sky looks like a road. There are some dragons who were built to have and hold. And some machines are dropped from great heights lovingly and some great bellies ache with many bumblebees and they sting so terribly.

I do as I please. Now I'm on my knees.

Your skin is something that I stir into my tea. And I am watching you and you are starry, starry, starry, and I'm tumbling down and I check a frown. Well, just look around: that's why I love this town. Just see me serenaded hourly, celebrated sourly, dedicated dourly, waltzing with the open sea.

though i'm not a homeless man, for the time being

"The First Thing People Notice About Me:
I could probably fit inside a U.S. Post Office mailbox."


[TYRAW]

yeah right

You want me to keep this 2" x 3" piece of paper for how long?

More on this later.

this stupid fairy tale and others like it

High-top Nike Dunk SBs, Ms. Piggy, 2009. (I laced mine in black.)