Revival, Reunion, waiting by the train
A prose poem
I drop down fifty flights of stairs and the moon beckons me no where except
where a sight-seeing tourist from the inside is exploiting my garnered limp.
His gullet is adorned with crumpled skin and mole colored jewels.
Inside my nose is stinging and I take it as a sign that the
scorpion has just crawled inside. My tongue will speak words
of models drawing out my past vision of vernacular suicide.
I crawl to the coffee shop and order shots of espresso until my chest explodes.
I wait for you by the front window but you're no where to be seen.
I assume it's because I gained weight again and I feel fat again
Since I quit mind surfing I don't ride as smooth anymore.
Limping and leaving, my heart stops and I am clutched to a street light.
The fat gullet trumpet vine has wrapped around my bronchial tubes again.
Manipulation is a tired tactic and I prefer pure fucking instead.
I will wait for you half past five next weekend if I am not dead by then.
I will merge into you but not frighten you.
I will sing to you gently but there will be no song even if you ask for one.
I will leave you one foot to find in the garbage. Most importantly
I don't know how to love. It's your crumbled clutch, displacement
with wine and roses sentiment. Yeah, it's that role I play.
Inside I know that flash you want of that woman standing sprawled
dripping clean with wet and glitter all over your mommy's blanket.
What a coward you've become. God, all gracious, the women,
the women just want to screw you all over, mister vision
of a Robert Plant Fantasy. Go on, bro, grunt and give them your disease.
My skin is still smooth and I still flutter like a pixie
all over your jewels, stealing them. The yawn of the guitar still runs down my leg
and as the new moon raises the energy depletes from your
soul merging with mine accordingly.
Most likely you will have a nightmare about me tonight.
A hallway will rise up in magenta and run like a trumpet vine,
run from your toes to your abdomen to down your trachea
where then you will blossom orange, finally spreading
something half beautiful, even if you're still a weed.
---
Written a year ago, edited in a class and hated by the New Letters editor. All of the editing I removed and am now working from a fresh slate, which is why I posted it. I don't previously edit anything I post on this blog. I could change that to my biography: "Always edited in class and hated by the editor."
9.30.2009
not the hell it used to be
I think that the one lesson I can gather from my daily experiences since well, I was born, is that the Universe doesn't give a shit about you. It doesn't care about love. It doesn't care about lingering dreams. It doesn't care about what you want. It doesn't care, it doesn't have the ability to care, or know who you are in the muck of working human ants that we are. So, my advice to myself would be to get off of my ass and do something about it because not doing so is just about as bad as staying in your frat house after college eating ramen at twenty-nine.
So what is happening now? Well, I am waking up slowly. This has been happening since the end of the summer when I rode back on the bus from Columbia and my intestines were in knots. I felt like I was going to throw up for an entire week. Then it occurred to me that it was either fight the demons off or spend the rest of my life feeling compelled to be pulled to the past no matter what the cost. Ultimately, I'd have to throw away any progress I have made. Which I never knew what that was, I still don't, and if asked what is different now I would say, "Well, I have more drawings in my portfolio and am a few months off from being done with school. My rent is higher and so is my cost of living and I am not getting paid any more. I am just waking up to see this after a long sleep. I have illegal things scattered throughout my home but none of the guts to take any of them. People are really fucking broke and a ton more depressed. I have a boyfriend who can stand my internal dialogue and conversations with myself for longer than a drunken lay. Oh and I have two Siamese cats that destroy my house nightly, catching bugs and such, but not the important ones that are killing my herbs."
Whatever happened when I was asleep -- every insane story that I gauge I will not forget -- is something that still seems like a nightmare, but not of the worst kind, somehow I got away with none of that. I mean, once you're out you're not sure if it is as bad as you thought it was, or as it could be, no matter how close to death you were at a time. I'm also not even sure how I even handled as much on my own as I did. How I kept so much of it a secret and still am. But now I am awake and it was just a dream, that's what I tell myself. I recall it like a dream as well. So much of it was embedded deep enough that I may never be able to remember a thing.
Anyway, so here I am, waking up from something unexplainable. I can't say that I think it'll get any prettier, maybe in my own head. There I still have room for aliens with spirals in their head that are visible through a glass skull and zombies eating my chest. I still have room for a real capacity of love. I am still everything I know of myself to be. Somehow it's just not the hell it used to be.
So what is happening now? Well, I am waking up slowly. This has been happening since the end of the summer when I rode back on the bus from Columbia and my intestines were in knots. I felt like I was going to throw up for an entire week. Then it occurred to me that it was either fight the demons off or spend the rest of my life feeling compelled to be pulled to the past no matter what the cost. Ultimately, I'd have to throw away any progress I have made. Which I never knew what that was, I still don't, and if asked what is different now I would say, "Well, I have more drawings in my portfolio and am a few months off from being done with school. My rent is higher and so is my cost of living and I am not getting paid any more. I am just waking up to see this after a long sleep. I have illegal things scattered throughout my home but none of the guts to take any of them. People are really fucking broke and a ton more depressed. I have a boyfriend who can stand my internal dialogue and conversations with myself for longer than a drunken lay. Oh and I have two Siamese cats that destroy my house nightly, catching bugs and such, but not the important ones that are killing my herbs."
Whatever happened when I was asleep -- every insane story that I gauge I will not forget -- is something that still seems like a nightmare, but not of the worst kind, somehow I got away with none of that. I mean, once you're out you're not sure if it is as bad as you thought it was, or as it could be, no matter how close to death you were at a time. I'm also not even sure how I even handled as much on my own as I did. How I kept so much of it a secret and still am. But now I am awake and it was just a dream, that's what I tell myself. I recall it like a dream as well. So much of it was embedded deep enough that I may never be able to remember a thing.
Anyway, so here I am, waking up from something unexplainable. I can't say that I think it'll get any prettier, maybe in my own head. There I still have room for aliens with spirals in their head that are visible through a glass skull and zombies eating my chest. I still have room for a real capacity of love. I am still everything I know of myself to be. Somehow it's just not the hell it used to be.
9.28.2009
.
A rejection letter, sealed
To be frank,
my sexual wavelength
is confused.
It's anywhere but here. Maybe
tomorrow, in space
or laying flat in Icelandic tundra
after a sneeze. Or maybe we can
do it in New York or while feeding
ducks. Or maybe never. Somewhere else,
not in this flesh next to you
or anyone in this bed, red sheets
or not.
My own history leads
me to examine my
sexual prowess; my selfish performance
like a predator. I am who Cosmo
says a woman should be: hard to get,
playing mysterious. I didn't ask for this.
I am real. Instead, I am a lioness
who already ate. There is nothing there,
no mystery, no embedded story.
Cosmo has exploited my character.
Yet, there were still men who believed
that one day I would come back to Earth
for their big dicks and pancakes in the morning.
I am just bold enough to say
that spreading my disease like pollen
is about as American as leaving your flag
swaying town. Maybe one day
I'll send it off in rocket ships,
in the streets of India, in a painting;
everywhere I have never been. But,
if you ask me now I can't say that in this time
and space I would care or want to create
anything but these words.
To be frank,
my sexual wavelength
is confused.
It's anywhere but here. Maybe
tomorrow, in space
or laying flat in Icelandic tundra
after a sneeze. Or maybe we can
do it in New York or while feeding
ducks. Or maybe never. Somewhere else,
not in this flesh next to you
or anyone in this bed, red sheets
or not.
My own history leads
me to examine my
sexual prowess; my selfish performance
like a predator. I am who Cosmo
says a woman should be: hard to get,
playing mysterious. I didn't ask for this.
I am real. Instead, I am a lioness
who already ate. There is nothing there,
no mystery, no embedded story.
Cosmo has exploited my character.
Yet, there were still men who believed
that one day I would come back to Earth
for their big dicks and pancakes in the morning.
I am just bold enough to say
that spreading my disease like pollen
is about as American as leaving your flag
swaying town. Maybe one day
I'll send it off in rocket ships,
in the streets of India, in a painting;
everywhere I have never been. But,
if you ask me now I can't say that in this time
and space I would care or want to create
anything but these words.
9.27.2009
.
I'm hoping to be able to post something I have written lately but that has been zilch the past few days.
Instead, this
Instead, this
9.26.2009
9.24.2009
I, I and wow
You know, it's fabulous that I am writing this paper questioning how writing is taught and all, but I think that it proves that due to my streak of being a mild-mannered hoodlum most of the time (asking questions), it's going to be at least twenty years before I actually buck up and excel at anything.
Reality check
Last night while in the midst of self-consuming, intoxicating, egoist depressive thoughts I realized that 99.9% of humans I have encountered in my life have had little to no real interest in me as another human being and thank god that made me feel so much better.
.
Past
That's right! Past, we must make amends.
If I were to lose you, what would my muse become?
Past, I must say it to your face.
You must reveal your fiction
that is now lost somewhere between couples
playing house, couples after breeding, couples eating
mashed potatoes after dark, couples doing things
that have a point. I don't want a point.
Like a shark I'd rather devour a school of fish
and pronounce fear and mystery upon the land's humans.
I'd watch my name scroll on the tv screen like a comic book villain,
and leave those who are trained to play house to never attend
the outdoors again.
That's right! Past, we must make amends.
If I were to lose you, what would my muse become?
Past, I must say it to your face.
You must reveal your fiction
that is now lost somewhere between couples
playing house, couples after breeding, couples eating
mashed potatoes after dark, couples doing things
that have a point. I don't want a point.
Like a shark I'd rather devour a school of fish
and pronounce fear and mystery upon the land's humans.
I'd watch my name scroll on the tv screen like a comic book villain,
and leave those who are trained to play house to never attend
the outdoors again.
9.21.2009
9.20.2009
.
Voices on 39th street
sounds of voices echo through
39th street's corridors.
they warp like thoughts racking
in Van Gogh's head,
like the endless stream
of college freshman's gossip
five years ago,
the mix of image and sound
in a fleeting glance before i passed out
drunk once on a heat vent
and played Medusa.
voices on 39th street
are from a nightmare,
a trip through space, a gathering in a room
of multilingual Europeans
practicing their vocabularies
and schizophrenia. each voice saying the same
nuance, each taking me where
i wish i were still, where i wish i weren't,
and what i'd like to forge
as a list of "concerns" for a therapist
reminding me of what a genius actress
i can become.
the voices say if only i could really write.
they're like A sharp
and like my mind the time i stared at a white ceiling
in a blue room
after my loss of virginity was reported online
by a spiky- haired new found glory teenager.
whatever they say, the nightmare
is probably just sitting around the dinner table
selling crack and yelling down the street.
sounds of voices echo through
39th street's corridors.
they warp like thoughts racking
in Van Gogh's head,
like the endless stream
of college freshman's gossip
five years ago,
the mix of image and sound
in a fleeting glance before i passed out
drunk once on a heat vent
and played Medusa.
voices on 39th street
are from a nightmare,
a trip through space, a gathering in a room
of multilingual Europeans
practicing their vocabularies
and schizophrenia. each voice saying the same
nuance, each taking me where
i wish i were still, where i wish i weren't,
and what i'd like to forge
as a list of "concerns" for a therapist
reminding me of what a genius actress
i can become.
the voices say if only i could really write.
they're like A sharp
and like my mind the time i stared at a white ceiling
in a blue room
after my loss of virginity was reported online
by a spiky- haired new found glory teenager.
whatever they say, the nightmare
is probably just sitting around the dinner table
selling crack and yelling down the street.
9.16.2009
.
A summation of two years time
walking out of ash
and a golden atheist steeple
an ear tickle guides me
to a series of fickle fascinations
with pathology.
and in all serious ruminations
a ghostly figure stands stagnant
underneath my rib cage waiting for dinner.
this is god awful, i think! the horror!
feed me, feed me, it demands
attention until i zap it out
like a cheap bulb of yellowed light
cracked from its own
overheating
consume no more, i tell myself
as i gravel on, one foot after another
a smile from ear to earring,
without cheap and feeble remarks
of another apology shooting
out from another steeple
like ribbons,
i am a step closer to the freedom
of range dust-angels.
hey you, the march still seems a joke!
but i did not crack, not ask for pity
and as time still does not hurrah for me,
i am young. i am too young.
walking out of ash
and a golden atheist steeple
an ear tickle guides me
to a series of fickle fascinations
with pathology.
and in all serious ruminations
a ghostly figure stands stagnant
underneath my rib cage waiting for dinner.
this is god awful, i think! the horror!
feed me, feed me, it demands
attention until i zap it out
like a cheap bulb of yellowed light
cracked from its own
overheating
consume no more, i tell myself
as i gravel on, one foot after another
a smile from ear to earring,
without cheap and feeble remarks
of another apology shooting
out from another steeple
like ribbons,
i am a step closer to the freedom
of range dust-angels.
hey you, the march still seems a joke!
but i did not crack, not ask for pity
and as time still does not hurrah for me,
i am young. i am too young.
9.14.2009
.
39th Street, Kansas City
The tattoo guys next door are playing
Ella Fitzgerald
And those who wait for nightfall
to sell crack
are swaying in the street.
Suddenly
there is silence
no cicadas
no automobiles
Just Ella and the swaying
How romantic.
The tattoo guys next door are playing
Ella Fitzgerald
And those who wait for nightfall
to sell crack
are swaying in the street.
Suddenly
there is silence
no cicadas
no automobiles
Just Ella and the swaying
How romantic.
.
Morning dead thoughts, Sept 1
this morning I step out onto my balcony,
sirens rage in the distance.
the musicians next door wake up with hangovers.
I stand watering yellowed parsley.
this morning I miss the deadline for the day,
so I slip on high waist long johns and roll a cigarette
while the ambulance comes barreling down my block
and my cats turn my curtains into dinner noodles.
robots on wheels carry human beings to the office
all while I miss the deadline for the day.
I stand in the trees, I stare at September.
Now that summer is over, I'm back
and I'm tired of red and orange before it's here.
I'd rather watch love water
sunflowers in the afternoon.
this morning I step out onto my balcony,
sirens rage in the distance.
the musicians next door wake up with hangovers.
I stand watering yellowed parsley.
this morning I miss the deadline for the day,
so I slip on high waist long johns and roll a cigarette
while the ambulance comes barreling down my block
and my cats turn my curtains into dinner noodles.
robots on wheels carry human beings to the office
all while I miss the deadline for the day.
I stand in the trees, I stare at September.
Now that summer is over, I'm back
and I'm tired of red and orange before it's here.
I'd rather watch love water
sunflowers in the afternoon.
.
About the redefinition of the word "bitch"
Here we go, an ego bloated spark
full of hot pink spandex rags
and bleached hair.
Oh, another long haired sag who they all assume
to be the All Knowing Bitch of the Midwest.
Plowing down trellises of men, mocking
presence of emotion, touch,
looking for selfish satisfaction and walls to plunder,
and assumed to be an example for the rest of us sullen
sedentary, little ladies sprawled out
underneath their throne
as "the strong woman we dare
to become."
ah
dear,
that
is no
bitch.
Here we go, an ego bloated spark
full of hot pink spandex rags
and bleached hair.
Oh, another long haired sag who they all assume
to be the All Knowing Bitch of the Midwest.
Plowing down trellises of men, mocking
presence of emotion, touch,
looking for selfish satisfaction and walls to plunder,
and assumed to be an example for the rest of us sullen
sedentary, little ladies sprawled out
underneath their throne
as "the strong woman we dare
to become."
ah
dear,
that
is no
bitch.
9.13.2009
A lesson in check
Today I wandered out of my cave to walk three blocks to Broadway and avoid eighteen year old shank stares and thrones of judgment to pick up an iced Americano (not a toddy because more than one toddy a week heightens my caffeine dependence so terribly that getting rid of a headache is almost impossible). At the table towards the right of the cash register sat a blond woman and someone who looked like her dad or uncle.
So the blond lady was at a table talking about her roommate. I had to write about this story because it's something that I think is important for me to remember. Everyone else can remember it or not, that's not my business. Anyway, her words disturbed me because the way that she talked about her roommate reminded me of the situation I was in just a year ago. The only thing I could think was... well, that's going to turn out really terrible. "Oh, she's just really nice but doesn't make any right choices." Her dad said, "Mmm Mmmm, yes yes," in such a way where his satisfaction for raising a smart, normal and goal driven young lady was blatantly obvious. I wanted to ask the blond lady what the right choices were but it is not my business to ask a stranger a difficult question. I don't know the whole story, obviously, but I can only imagine. Her roommate is having a difficult time in her life and has not made this clear to blond lady because she wants her privacy and to get through it on her own. She may be in the midst of a transition. Blond lady is certain that she knows all of the answers to the external factors in roommate's life but has no insight into roommate because she's certain that she knows all of the answers. Blond lady butts in way too far, eventually causing a whirlwind of foggy misconceptions leading roommate to feel worse about herself. Why does blond lady hate the way I am? Why can't blond lady leave me alone? Why isn't blond lady concerned with herself? What is wrong with me here?
A short amount of eavesdropping brought me back to the perplexing time of last year and the certainty in saying that if things got any worse I would have been close to death (or someone close to me). That is no exaggeration. Looking back I know of all of the ways I could have stopped everything going the direction that it did. I guess naivete took over, per usual. So when I hear a blond woman stand on her soapbox and use an individual's life as her own scapegoat... well, it just makes me stand back for a moment and think. Sometimes, it's good to put yourself in check and keep in mind that taking shit about your character is never a good idea and giving unwarranted shit may even be worse because then you're just fucking with someone's (possibly fragile) self-esteem. And frankly, that person's self esteem and how "you can fix it" is none of your business. But, tell that to a controlling snake like blond lady may be. That world is a different one. It's not mine. Ya'hear?
So the blond lady was at a table talking about her roommate. I had to write about this story because it's something that I think is important for me to remember. Everyone else can remember it or not, that's not my business. Anyway, her words disturbed me because the way that she talked about her roommate reminded me of the situation I was in just a year ago. The only thing I could think was... well, that's going to turn out really terrible. "Oh, she's just really nice but doesn't make any right choices." Her dad said, "Mmm Mmmm, yes yes," in such a way where his satisfaction for raising a smart, normal and goal driven young lady was blatantly obvious. I wanted to ask the blond lady what the right choices were but it is not my business to ask a stranger a difficult question. I don't know the whole story, obviously, but I can only imagine. Her roommate is having a difficult time in her life and has not made this clear to blond lady because she wants her privacy and to get through it on her own. She may be in the midst of a transition. Blond lady is certain that she knows all of the answers to the external factors in roommate's life but has no insight into roommate because she's certain that she knows all of the answers. Blond lady butts in way too far, eventually causing a whirlwind of foggy misconceptions leading roommate to feel worse about herself. Why does blond lady hate the way I am? Why can't blond lady leave me alone? Why isn't blond lady concerned with herself? What is wrong with me here?
A short amount of eavesdropping brought me back to the perplexing time of last year and the certainty in saying that if things got any worse I would have been close to death (or someone close to me). That is no exaggeration. Looking back I know of all of the ways I could have stopped everything going the direction that it did. I guess naivete took over, per usual. So when I hear a blond woman stand on her soapbox and use an individual's life as her own scapegoat... well, it just makes me stand back for a moment and think. Sometimes, it's good to put yourself in check and keep in mind that taking shit about your character is never a good idea and giving unwarranted shit may even be worse because then you're just fucking with someone's (possibly fragile) self-esteem. And frankly, that person's self esteem and how "you can fix it" is none of your business. But, tell that to a controlling snake like blond lady may be. That world is a different one. It's not mine. Ya'hear?
9.12.2009
Inglorious basterds
Last night I had a dream where I was a Nazi stuck inside of the cinema when the owner blew it up. It was vivid enough to jolt me in real life and I hit my arm on my wall. In the dream I was dead but thought, "Wow, it's strange dying in a dream, everything just goes blank. Now I am dead. What do do? Wake up?"
I don't know, but thank you Inglorious Basterds for the recreation of a dream sequence in my own dysfunctional life.
I don't know, but thank you Inglorious Basterds for the recreation of a dream sequence in my own dysfunctional life.
9.10.2009
Kathleen Rooney & Elisa Gabbert
here.
And this favorite, I would like to wrap it up in an envelope and send it away to the worthy recipient himself:
QUATORZAIN 6
I received your evasive non-response.
Nice work using the invisible ink.
But if you think a rat-faced rat-haired rat-fink
like me has time for words ensconced
in double-talk group-think, you, my friend, have got
an appointment with the blunt side of my fist.
I wear earmuffs during fisticuffs & I've never missed
an eye, my knuckle makes a beeline for the black dot
iris-spot blotting the window-to-the-soul—
kiss your soul goodbye, it's going down the hole
so quit acting all holier-than-thou.
I'm top dog here, & you're puppy chow.
This call is being recorded for evidence
in the court of evidence? Schmevidence.
---
I like those ladies.
And this favorite, I would like to wrap it up in an envelope and send it away to the worthy recipient himself:
QUATORZAIN 6
I received your evasive non-response.
Nice work using the invisible ink.
But if you think a rat-faced rat-haired rat-fink
like me has time for words ensconced
in double-talk group-think, you, my friend, have got
an appointment with the blunt side of my fist.
I wear earmuffs during fisticuffs & I've never missed
an eye, my knuckle makes a beeline for the black dot
iris-spot blotting the window-to-the-soul—
kiss your soul goodbye, it's going down the hole
so quit acting all holier-than-thou.
I'm top dog here, & you're puppy chow.
This call is being recorded for evidence
in the court of evidence? Schmevidence.
---
I like those ladies.
9.09.2009
.
Response to Force
The rain falls formless in this world.
With this same form
of man-eating assumptions
about how and where to set your brain on a bookshelf
and how to create your sentences
to be intelligent,
to articulate emptiness
we will win the prize
an IQ prize
the prize of money despite the lack
We will be rewarded for our vapid identity
with nothing but running mouths attacking the sunset
ruining all that is art
It is said again
as battlestar dementia double takes
a star-studded mouth of diamond
articulates.
After all, we must die in the guts of these people
die with the colorful thoughts that bring us out
of sleep.
The rain falls formless in this world.
With this same form
of man-eating assumptions
about how and where to set your brain on a bookshelf
and how to create your sentences
to be intelligent,
to articulate emptiness
we will win the prize
an IQ prize
the prize of money despite the lack
We will be rewarded for our vapid identity
with nothing but running mouths attacking the sunset
ruining all that is art
It is said again
as battlestar dementia double takes
a star-studded mouth of diamond
articulates.
After all, we must die in the guts of these people
die with the colorful thoughts that bring us out
of sleep.
.
For the Thought that is not Human
The rain falls in a pattern of musical composition driving me fluidly
away from gargantuan thoughts of rash decisions
and leprosy of my immediate reality.
My life is a stream of non-encounters substituting song for fear.
Coffee leaps in octopus wings to wring wishes after dark
Black ink blocks out the image of you and your clean bedroom
sparkled just for me after a midnight showing of beer in your fridge.
I long to drink total shit with you
but now it's a joke, an entirely too difficult and realistic one to take,
as adults must despise their passion for the significant bits of a soulless life.
All of those wild horses I thought I would avoid for you are plastic figurines.
The rain falls in a pattern of musical composition driving me fluidly
away from gargantuan thoughts of rash decisions
and leprosy of my immediate reality.
My life is a stream of non-encounters substituting song for fear.
Coffee leaps in octopus wings to wring wishes after dark
Black ink blocks out the image of you and your clean bedroom
sparkled just for me after a midnight showing of beer in your fridge.
I long to drink total shit with you
but now it's a joke, an entirely too difficult and realistic one to take,
as adults must despise their passion for the significant bits of a soulless life.
All of those wild horses I thought I would avoid for you are plastic figurines.
sad samples
At times, writing and I must take a break. This is not writing's fault, however. Instead, it's me sitting back and reevaluating my numerous beliefs about writing I have created for myself over the span of eight years or so. For my short life so far, that is quite a bit. Many of my beliefs have come about to protect my freedom within' what I must say for myself.
Sitting through college studying writing has in some ways, hindered further growth in my own voice and this bothers me. Despite all that I have learned the only time anything good comes around is when it is ready. Nothing more, nothing less. Learning forms has ruined me and above all else, I do not believe that "rules can only be broken" after you learn the form. Form is constructed and is illusory.
I guess that's why, upon all of the muddled personal business that came out of moving to Kansas City, I have found myself rejecting any instance of anyone expressing a kind of form they think I should adopt whether it be my life or through writing. Writing for me is a place that is formless and not worth explaining. Sadly, I am stuck "studying" it and receiving "advice" from those who have adopted the typical English character who seems more focused on form than spirit. Unfortunately, my writing has been reflecting this oppression on my voice and I just simply don't know what else to do about it. Part of me wonders if I will ever get it back again or if I should just accept the inevitable death upon it. I mean, having a voice requires some bit of construction, but not this much. Not so much that one doesn't have one.
My poor voice, quivering in bed sucking on a cherry popsicle. My poor voice would kill for a shower, for a vacation. Ah, my voice. I am a mess, I bury myself under messy riffs and vague lyrics flopping like a rainbow guppy on empty ground.
I'd rather do without questions.
Sitting through college studying writing has in some ways, hindered further growth in my own voice and this bothers me. Despite all that I have learned the only time anything good comes around is when it is ready. Nothing more, nothing less. Learning forms has ruined me and above all else, I do not believe that "rules can only be broken" after you learn the form. Form is constructed and is illusory.
I guess that's why, upon all of the muddled personal business that came out of moving to Kansas City, I have found myself rejecting any instance of anyone expressing a kind of form they think I should adopt whether it be my life or through writing. Writing for me is a place that is formless and not worth explaining. Sadly, I am stuck "studying" it and receiving "advice" from those who have adopted the typical English character who seems more focused on form than spirit. Unfortunately, my writing has been reflecting this oppression on my voice and I just simply don't know what else to do about it. Part of me wonders if I will ever get it back again or if I should just accept the inevitable death upon it. I mean, having a voice requires some bit of construction, but not this much. Not so much that one doesn't have one.
My poor voice, quivering in bed sucking on a cherry popsicle. My poor voice would kill for a shower, for a vacation. Ah, my voice. I am a mess, I bury myself under messy riffs and vague lyrics flopping like a rainbow guppy on empty ground.
I'd rather do without questions.
9.07.2009
9.06.2009
9.05.2009
Dada Manifesto - Hugo Ball
Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. It is terribly simple. In French it means "hobby horse". In German it means "good-bye", "Get off my back", "Be seeing you sometime". In Romanian: "Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely, right". And so forth.
An International word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada psychology, dada Germany cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada literature, dada bourgeoisie, and yourselves, honoured poets, who are always writing with words but never writing the word itself, who are always writing around the actual point. Dada world war without end, dada revolution without beginning, dada, you friends and also-poets, esteemed sirs, manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada Huelsenbeck, dada m'dada, dada m'dada dada mhm, dada dera dada, dada Hue, dada Tza.
How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world's best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr Rubiner, dada Mr Korrodi. Dada Mr Anastasius Lilienstein. In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is something to be profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics the key is quality.
I shall be reading poems that are meant to dispense with conventional language, no less, and to have done with it. Dada Johann Fuchsgang Goethe. Dada Stendhal. Dada Dalai Lama, Buddha, Bible, and Nietzsche. Dada m'dada. Dada mhm dada da. It's a question of connections, and of loosening them up a bit to start with. I don't want words that other people have invented. All the words are other people's inventions. I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too, matching the rhythm and all my own. If this pulsation is seven yards long, I want words for it that are seven yards long. Mr Schulz's words are only two and a half centimetres long.
It will serve to show how articulated language comes into being. I let the vowels fool around. I let the vowels quite simply occur, as a cat miaows . . . Words emerge, shoulders of words, legs, arms, hands of words. Au, oi, uh. One shouldn't let too many words out. A line of poetry is a chance to get rid of all the filth that clings to this accursed language, as if put there by stockbrokers' hands, hands worn smooth by coins. I want the word where it ends and begins. Dada is the heart of words.
Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why shouldn't I find it? Why can't a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first importance.
keep recording
"Yeah, everyone else is inside. They just took some Ambiens and drank a bit. It should be interesting."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, last night one of them said, 'Dude, why do you have three heads?' trippin' and stuff. People create shit while trippin'. Yeah, when you're trippin' you see three heads. It's like someone created the bicycle while trippin' and now we have the bicycle. Maybe we'll get three heads."
"I don't know dude, maybe."
- Alex's conversation with one of my neighbors
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, last night one of them said, 'Dude, why do you have three heads?' trippin' and stuff. People create shit while trippin'. Yeah, when you're trippin' you see three heads. It's like someone created the bicycle while trippin' and now we have the bicycle. Maybe we'll get three heads."
"I don't know dude, maybe."
- Alex's conversation with one of my neighbors
.
Life at the moment:
dead bug carcasses
braindead whiskey shot(s) morning
(audrey sized shots, that is)
dead text messaging conversations reminding me why I hated them in the first place
a sink full of dirty dishes
classes I am behind in after two weeks
terrorism
recession
starvation
emails from scam artists
the street person out front who told me I looked pretty today. i look like shit but his standards with women are non existent i only assume
i shouldn't generalize but i am
human shit down the block
panels ruling against john ashcroft
remnants of a memory with john ashcroft singing a song that sounds like all the rest,
a song with "eagles flying"
married men feeling like shit in ways i cannot comprehend
i am just a
child
march 21 birthdays
the angry bra
bad habits dying hard, hard
day old coffee
too many images of johnny cash, kitty wells and loretta lynn records
too many cardboard plastic smiles
arthur making a kitty fort
a list of business i have been putting off for two weeks
New York and my internal excitement since everyone else has been there but me
the thought of doing what i want for once
everything normalized
sort of
i am thinking i emerged out of the darkness and forgot what the beginnings of a dawn look like
too hungover to write shit.
dead bug carcasses
braindead whiskey shot(s) morning
(audrey sized shots, that is)
dead text messaging conversations reminding me why I hated them in the first place
a sink full of dirty dishes
classes I am behind in after two weeks
terrorism
recession
starvation
emails from scam artists
the street person out front who told me I looked pretty today. i look like shit but his standards with women are non existent i only assume
i shouldn't generalize but i am
human shit down the block
panels ruling against john ashcroft
remnants of a memory with john ashcroft singing a song that sounds like all the rest,
a song with "eagles flying"
married men feeling like shit in ways i cannot comprehend
i am just a
child
march 21 birthdays
the angry bra
bad habits dying hard, hard
day old coffee
too many images of johnny cash, kitty wells and loretta lynn records
too many cardboard plastic smiles
arthur making a kitty fort
a list of business i have been putting off for two weeks
New York and my internal excitement since everyone else has been there but me
the thought of doing what i want for once
everything normalized
sort of
i am thinking i emerged out of the darkness and forgot what the beginnings of a dawn look like
too hungover to write shit.
9.04.2009
.
A building for psychologists
Walking in a plastic igloo
not used for security,
closure,
a place to sleep.
This is where they choose your needs.
psychological needs,
maybe waste trees,
paper
bleach
ink
for the sake of your mental
health.
come inside,
we stare at you with block board eyes.
a white bury within' dust snow
in mid winter.
a white bury
in fumes of white out
or old chalk erasers,
with plastic brushes on the end,
scraping your tongue,
waiting for the words to announce
presence
of racking demons
eating eating,
as if they were never supposed to have fun
in the cold
or dinner at the table in the first place.
Walking in a plastic igloo
not used for security,
closure,
a place to sleep.
This is where they choose your needs.
psychological needs,
maybe waste trees,
paper
bleach
ink
for the sake of your mental
health.
come inside,
we stare at you with block board eyes.
a white bury within' dust snow
in mid winter.
a white bury
in fumes of white out
or old chalk erasers,
with plastic brushes on the end,
scraping your tongue,
waiting for the words to announce
presence
of racking demons
eating eating,
as if they were never supposed to have fun
in the cold
or dinner at the table in the first place.
9.03.2009
Real life dreams
It's funny when I wake up from travel dreams because as soon as I do I realize that they are just a reflection of a life, not so long lived, all within' 20 minutes of a dream sequence. It's just a metaphor in a dream for my entire life and its absurdities and I find it to be quite humorous how everything can be chalked up in such a way:
I get friends together to plan out a trip somewhere. We chose Athens, Greece and get ready to go. But, somehow in the dream we never end up in Athens and end up traveling the Southwest in a really strange train mobile.
Halfway through the dream my friend who came with me and the people who did not know me disengaged me from their contact because I was not in line waiting for a ticket when the line was moving and was instead searching for a bathroom to change my clothes.
Throughout the rest of the dream if I did find these people, who I started considering old friends, they just showed their hatred and disappointment in me, wondering how I could be so absent-minded in times of seriousness within' a line to get tickets.
The entire time I was uncomfortable in my clothes. I never got to change my clothes because the bathroom kept on being stared into. A little girl was looking into my stall, "STOP LOOKING IN HERE CAN I NOT GET ANY PRIVACY?!" "Well, I am sorry ma'am but we're just so packed in here."
The majority of the "trip" was spent without my friend(s) around so I kept on meeting new people. One was a man in army attire that refused to get his hands off of me. I was stuck sitting next to this creature for quite a bit of the trip.
Traveling the Southwest and its dry lakes (dream lakes by the way) was beautiful and all but when the fuck was I taking off to Athens?
I find out I have been duped into a trip I did not ask for as a result of me playing the trip by ear. I had to pay a separate amount for the train ride around the Southwest and I have no idea how I even got on it, other than just simply following the line of people where they were supposed to go. They all seemed to understand it, except me. I just paid it and went on because when you're trapped, you're trapped. And I needed to get away from the military man who was fixated on me.
Then, I woke up.
I get friends together to plan out a trip somewhere. We chose Athens, Greece and get ready to go. But, somehow in the dream we never end up in Athens and end up traveling the Southwest in a really strange train mobile.
Halfway through the dream my friend who came with me and the people who did not know me disengaged me from their contact because I was not in line waiting for a ticket when the line was moving and was instead searching for a bathroom to change my clothes.
Throughout the rest of the dream if I did find these people, who I started considering old friends, they just showed their hatred and disappointment in me, wondering how I could be so absent-minded in times of seriousness within' a line to get tickets.
The entire time I was uncomfortable in my clothes. I never got to change my clothes because the bathroom kept on being stared into. A little girl was looking into my stall, "STOP LOOKING IN HERE CAN I NOT GET ANY PRIVACY?!" "Well, I am sorry ma'am but we're just so packed in here."
The majority of the "trip" was spent without my friend(s) around so I kept on meeting new people. One was a man in army attire that refused to get his hands off of me. I was stuck sitting next to this creature for quite a bit of the trip.
Traveling the Southwest and its dry lakes (dream lakes by the way) was beautiful and all but when the fuck was I taking off to Athens?
I find out I have been duped into a trip I did not ask for as a result of me playing the trip by ear. I had to pay a separate amount for the train ride around the Southwest and I have no idea how I even got on it, other than just simply following the line of people where they were supposed to go. They all seemed to understand it, except me. I just paid it and went on because when you're trapped, you're trapped. And I needed to get away from the military man who was fixated on me.
Then, I woke up.
9.01.2009
.
In Review
A fire has taken plank in the old side of my brain.
I step out onto the board and review
the past year
while sucking on ginger root.
If only last gasp confidence
was a rat trap, if only
the scarf you handed to me was mine.
Yet the subtle puncture wound
which took over while my own
canine chewed
still felt the entirety of nonsense,
the remedial identity I
have been turned into:
A woman that feeds
your hungry imagination
the one desperate not to be buried
underneath more piss beer.
Let me out! I am trapped in a cast.
I slyly rumble out of sinister
misgivings, coffee, cigarettes
swollen lymph nodes
I stare at the rusty robots
painted orange, white, black
and they move on wheels
while you sit, stand,
lay and screw another
drunk, drunk, screwy drunk girl
who just bought a new designer
scarf
A fire has taken plank in the old side of my brain.
I step out onto the board and review
the past year
while sucking on ginger root.
If only last gasp confidence
was a rat trap, if only
the scarf you handed to me was mine.
Yet the subtle puncture wound
which took over while my own
canine chewed
still felt the entirety of nonsense,
the remedial identity I
have been turned into:
A woman that feeds
your hungry imagination
the one desperate not to be buried
underneath more piss beer.
Let me out! I am trapped in a cast.
I slyly rumble out of sinister
misgivings, coffee, cigarettes
swollen lymph nodes
I stare at the rusty robots
painted orange, white, black
and they move on wheels
while you sit, stand,
lay and screw another
drunk, drunk, screwy drunk girl
who just bought a new designer
scarf
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