talking to you

you - the oceanic monstrous myth that lives
inside me, stirring panic and unyielding
bouts of sudden spasms that wrack the body
until i'm wrung out, wailing
bare bones exposed in the rolling receptacle
coasting along the highway until i'm sure they'll
pull me over and commit me.
it doesn't matter - i understand less
of what i fill my days with than what i know
from three minutes at your side;
the old songs fill my ears
with dilated silences

we're all contortionists,
i'm afraid the sunlight blazing
in your room that day might
revisit me, and i - by some cosmic fluke -
will combust and disintegrate,
a star bursting into dust
at your feet. i know
people don't keep well, all
angles of light and skin
stretched across bones,
face and eyes yellowing
i know you don't want mourning
but i don't have any other word

first encountered this poem in a translation class. read aloud it makes one of the most beautiful soundscapes i've ever heard and etched into my heart are many recitations to myself and others, especially mary, one in particular while waiting for the bus in front of the rockies on a warm spring day when allofasudden baptised by a sunshower, smiles all over. it was perfect. belongs in the infamous category of poetry i mumble to myself at night, perhaps in place of prayer

MAÇÃ

Por um lado te vejo como um seio murcho

Por outro como um ventre

Cujo umbigo pende ainda o cordão placentário

És vermelha como o amor divino

Dentro de ti em pequenas pevides

palpita a vida prodigiosa

Infinitamente...

E quedas tão simples

Ao lado de um talher

Num quarto pobre de hotel.

truth and snark

this in from V, who's becoming quite the loquacious and debonair little dilettante http://www.salon.com/feb97/loveslave970210.html

in fact i'd venture that almost everything on http://redwoolenshirts.blogspot.com/ is worth a read

oh wait, i forgot

reading is dead

non?

how i was raised

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

From The Velveteen Rabbit

love

ahhhhhhhhh east coast zinho

i am wondering how i ever passed the time here and

how soon i scrape up the money to peace

chicago's vibe grips me like a tractor beam, but without a car i'm stranded in the land beyond... surrounded by slow people with necks red from fieldwork and old-style breath that leaks coon jokes through sparse teeth. drinking was my dumbo's feather to make the rest of the crap seem worthwhile, but it has lost its charm. all would be more exciting if i had a dog to play with. instead i surrender myself to the moon and follow its beams to points east and west

to you.

i tried to register for a conversational spanish class but they only teach them while i work, so instead i'm fiendishly raiding my bros high-school spanish books for some sort of understanding. 'Sabado Gigante' and 'Cristina' make little sense to me as yet, but i'll let you know. i'm thinking now would be a very good time to thumb a ride to mexico and learn for real, but i have to wait until later when the weather cools and the truckers begin to wear more clothes and behave themselves.

i'm going to go play in the sun now and grow some freckles. all the better to kiss me with.

voices

this has been a favorite for a long time ... neruda knows

"Walking Around"

Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.
Sucede que entro en las sastrerías y en los cines
marchito, impenetrable, como un cisne de fieltro
Navegando en un agua de origen y ceniza.
El olor de las peluquerías me hace llorar a gritos.
Sólo quiero un descanso de piedras o de lana,
sólo quiero no ver establecimientos ni jardines,
ni mercaderías, ni anteojos, ni ascensores.
Sucede que me canso de mis pies y mis uñas
y mi pelo y mi sombra.
Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.
Sin embargo sería delicioso
asustar a un notario con un lirio cortado
o dar muerte a una monja con un golpe de oreja.
Sería belloir por las calles con un cuchillo verde
y dando gritos hasta morir de frío
No quiero seguir siendo raíz en las tinieblas,
vacilante, extendido, tiritando de sueño,
hacia abajo, en las tapias mojadas de la tierra,
absorbiendo y pensando, comiendo cada día.
No quiero para mí tantas desgracias.
No quiero continuar de raíz y de tumba,
de subterráneo solo, de bodega con muertos
ateridos, muriéndome de pena.
Por eso el día lunes arde como el petróleo
cuando me ve llegar con mi cara de cárcel,
y aúlla en su transcurso como una rueda herida,
y da pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche.
Y me empuja a ciertos rincones, a ciertas casas húmedas,
a hospitales donde los huesos salen por la ventana,
a ciertas zapaterías con olor a vinagre,a calles espantosas como grietas.
Hay pájaros de color de azufre y horribles intestinos
colgando de las puertas de las casas que odio,
hay dentaduras olvidadas en una cafetera,
hay espejosque debieran haber llorado de vergüenza y espanto,
hay paraguas en todas partes, y venenos, y ombligos.
Yo paseo con calma, con ojos, con zapatos,
con furia, con olvido,
paso, cruzo oficinas y tiendas de ortopedia,
y patios donde hay ropas colgadas de un alambre:
calzoncillos, toallas y camisas que lloran
lentas lágrimas sucias.

where i'm coming from

the poem her belly marched through me as
one army. From her nostrils to her feet

she smelled of silence. The inspired cleat

of her glad leg pulled into a sole mass
my separate lusts

her hair was like a gas
evil to feel. Unwieldy….

the bloodbeat

in her fierce laziness tried to repeat
a trick of syncopation Europe has

—. One day i felt a mountain touch me where
I stood (maybe nine miles off). It was spring

sun-stirring. sweetly to the mangling air
muchness of buds mattered. a valley spilled
its tickling river in my eyes,
the killed

world wriggled like a twitched string.

-- ee cummings

corresponding

damn girl i miss you. what are you doing? what could you possibly be filling your time up with now that i am gone? crap in comparison, i'm sure. dude i am trying to figure out whether i should send you this letter that V sent me that is like the most amazing, sweetest thing anyone has ever written to me, but i feel like that may be wrong, BUT we are m.d. styles together and we are only right ... so maybe i will. i keep f you and you are not there and it makes me sad. good news is i am coming down at the end of june to pride march in the village and i totally want to see you maybe you can join us, me and V, we will see i guess. i am just chillin' at my house helping my mom pack and shit, it really sucks. i have no friends and no car here, well really i don't drive but who cares! your plan is high larry us honestly, oh shit were you in nyc when you saw that i keep forgetting, are you in your new place yet? how is it? how are the mens and the womens? good i hope. so are you and love styles through for good? it's weird but i am pretty sure i won't ever see m again, bizzare. anyway my phone is dead but dude i would love to see you some day some how. oh! maybe july4th? you are probably like "riiiiiight", i don't mean to force my presence in your life, but for real b i am not going anywhere, so maybe then we could chill in nyc and run around all love styles and shit. ok so tell mewhere you at youngin', what life is like, and perhaps i will send you the most beautiful love letter ever written. ok mad crazy love styles,
-- a