This is not a Blog

2012-02-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

It is not a matter of variation.

It is my life that I am speaking of here.

Each thing perfectly specific.

Even the same chair

at a different time of the same day

receives me

anew

brand new.

I couldn't look back

through images

brandished of every moment

by some new light and say

"this chair, then"

and be right.

but

that one

then

That was the truth of it.

that was my life

- every single moment of it

a visible, propagating

mystery.

interrupting my scribbles about my funky pics

2012-02-02T00:42:00.000-08:00

another great one (that needs a keen eye) from my almost-boss, George, in Montclair. cool guy. great niche!

Fortune

2012-01-31T08:44:00.000-08:00

You can touch it,
hold it in your hand

bending plane of fate

How does it feel?
Ask yourself that.

Or ask yourself
whatever you like.

You can see through it,
sometimes.

Sometimes the miracle
is just that you can touch

touch anything
and ask yourself

whatever you like.

2012-01-30T11:04:00.000-08:00

It is six in the morning

The blue-winged warblers have been singing

since long before

the holding darkness

began to give way,

leaf by leaf,

to sweet and sweeter color.

The mist rises

as it does

as does hope

as do the bodies

living

housing hope

rising to see

whatever comes next.

2012-01-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

Even then you were there
as sentinel
essence
unattainable idea

Still, as only the dead can be,
with the world
crashing down around

Dead?
Or, not yet born?
Perhaps neither

Just the idea
pure

Undisturbed by the hard reversal
of fortunes

Needing no ground below
Nor sky with stars above

Idea
Not homeless
without a home

Glowing
Rich

Impossible model

dancing shadow
of origination

2012-01-18T23:54:00.000-08:00

life ....

2012-01-16T10:45:00.001-08:00

... she is full of surprises!

2012-01-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

you don't want to do it
- take a white hot brand to your heart -

different initials
it hardly matters

you know how it will feel
that this won't be the last time either

when you're ready
go for the center
in one movement

press in, hold
cry out

and drag away
to singe-close
as many paths to the heart
as you can bear

different initials
it hardly matters

by Spring
you won't feel a thing

Dreamland Comin On...

2012-01-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

Not that I wasn't dreaming, but lately ... Holy moly! A bit overwhelming. Too much to write down though I hate to lose them. Visitations and Lessons. Empires and Waterways. Love and Psychological Stresses. Car Wrecks, Alcohol, Innocence Lost and Fragile Memorabilia Found. Andrea there more than usual -witnessing Em (on the stairs), our mutual lost weekend, the hotel next to the old house where _____ has been vacationing with various women. Feelings of jealousy and betrayal. Fire next to the bed. Ice on the road. That damn guy who is always in front of the studio staring at me, a neighbor in last nights dream. Go aWAY already! Kirk and his terrible wedge-shaped studio in which he was spray-painting and puncturing flammable cans. Me telling Andrea she looked like Kate Moss now. I find beer cans, empty them as she surfaces. She grabs one and I realize she's not sober as I thought she was. The police are coming again. I had forgotten they had come just the night before when we were all partying like mad. Hmm. A lot of nightmares, I guess. It's okay. I'm liking the brain activity but find myself swimming through it much of the day. Just locked my keys in the car after someone asked me for money. "I don't have any!" slam. fuck.

tomorrow will be a better day.
generally all is well.

now night class.

words from a different Emily (and all I've got today)

2012-01-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

well well

2012-01-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

Indulging in one last holiday night - this one for myself. Starting the log too late. Gotta change my clock back to more regular hours now. The tree is so pretty. Might just leave it for the epiphany date. Dunno. Anyway, a sweet set.

Now, here with tea, trying to muster a wee review. Have been off work for 45 days. Needed it.

I see though that what overwhelms - all on its own, before the addition of the workweek - is just running the damn household. Tried to shop and clean and cook and get organized for life ahead today and it's 11 and I just finished. I am trying to cook (vegetable items) in advance of the week. I don't know if there is anyway really to minimize the chore of it all, to reclaim the time.

I haven't done shit for art or really even thinking about it since I got back. All Gary, Em, Christmas, some friends, some attentions. All nice. Plus the usual Christmas shoppingcookingeatingcleaning slam. All nice. Now though, how to line back up?

I do go back to my title in Banff: "Self-Directed" Artist-in-Residence. This was the thing there: to direct myself well - as i hope I did - and it must be the same again. Gotta hop back on the horse before she runs off completely.

I did just do a review of the unpublished Banff Blog. Was it a mistake to read it backwards? I dunno. I know how the inquiry unfolded. I remember every day a new tendril of questioning. Some dropped before leading anywhere. Or some leading nowhere.

Here is one: The John this was called when I was really thinking of digging into the possible identities of the ghosts. I don't like it much - too much weirdness at left. I just recollect it as I'm musing also over last night's movie "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."
The book apparently had the original Swedish title, "Men Who Hate Women." .... The rape scene(s) in the movie were .... Well. I'll leave that for now. And the thoughts that I hereby self-direct myself to not explore at this time. Sexuality and its power plays. Those men and their shiny shoes. The good, the bad and the ugly about just having to poke somebody. A whole nother can o' worms...

uhoh. getting past me bedtime. not the least bit sleepy.
okay. maybe a little bit.

here is another john shot.

and a sarah with a tree of tuberculosis as if there had been a sarah. poor thing.

I don't want to write about these but I do want to get back to writing about some of the others. Will try to self-direct myself into a discipline of sorts.

Must remember where I was in my head. It's not too far off, I don't think. Nor was it so well-developed then anyway.

Whistling now for that horse, grabbing it by the mane.
Got a little bareback galloping over the dark open landscape thing going on.

Maybe ... sleep.

Goodbye holidays. Goodbye vacation. Goodbye Banff. Goodnight Moon.

a sweetie pie little Christmas

2011-12-30T11:32:00.000-08:00

Emily has been a doll. Really sweet times doin just nothin'. Rhino and she darling on Christmas Day eve. Like old times, kinda. The Wellington was not utterly fabulous, the onion soup a bit too cheesy, the moose cookies fragile and fattening and yet it's been great to cook in the new kitchen. Next up - feeding the ducks. I feel like I've been on vacation forever. just nice.

Gary Watkins - a dearest friend of mine

2011-12-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

In the hospital, in the last hours.

Me: "Gary, are we boring you?"

Gary (through his ventilator): "A little bit."

Also: "Gary, they found the God Particle!"

The hand that hadn't moved all day raises and waves in tired joy.

I loved Gary all along but was taken a bit by surprise by the depth of it, by the utterly profound depth of him. I can't imagine I will ever know a more brave human being. Just grace and humor, such utter absence of bitterness or self-pity in the wicked progression of ALS (and, of course, losing his husband). The rooms where they both died in Kaiser were separated by the exact same wall. And one year. Theirs - the greatest relationship I've ever known. I will miss him/ both of them - so. I will strive all my life to be courageous like Gary was every day. A huge loss. A beloved book closes.

Anna Log

2011-12-22T00:43:00.000-08:00

My new art name.
My new great desire: unplug from everything. no. -- from everything plugged.
Digital is soulless and that's Our Age.

Finding it a bit tough to feel real connections; have to find a way to live differently, connect with what I can, perhaps dial expectations way down.

Can't wait to get back to the studio.

(I will miss Gary so very much. What a surprise to find him my hero).

Perp Walk

2011-12-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

--my furtive, illegal shot of being escorted back through Canadian customs and out of the building.
note little contraband green bag of oil paint in second officer's hand. This after a "Level 5" screening - me viewing the bag search remotely on a monitor: "It's a hit!" Sudden security everywhere!

"Can I tell you what I think it is?"
"We really don't want you to speak right now."

3 full body scans. Through US customs, Canadian customs, back through US customs, back through Canadian customs. Shoots and Ladders all of it. Gothic. ... Back to the start. This morning, back through US customs - after being made to wait 50 minutes for a security "talking to". In between: Drag ski bag full of skis and heavy canvas about three miles (along with other heavy tumbling bags hahaha) - at least here they are carrying the other bags. Jesus. It's oil paint! Fine to travel out of the states with but not out of Canada with apparently.

They were going to throw the 'suspicious material" (paints) away. But I got them to escort me out to the sidewalk where I could then find a way to ship them home. Did. Chaching. Had to spend the night at my expense in Calgary. Chaching. BofA froze my card after so much weird activity (much more: too dull to list)

Anyway.
Get me home!
I wanna come home!

et voila! c'est fini . . .c'était bon. et froid.

2011-12-16T04:57:00.000-08:00

okay in a month I've done

2011-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

Paintings:

2 @ 96 x 60"

5 @ 60 x 60" - some of which I quite like.

4 @ 30 x 20"

8 @ 5 x 5"

8 @ 10 x 12"

Photos: a bazillion: aboot 30/day - some of which I quite like.

Poems aboot photos: six

3 wee videos (more when I have a proper computer)

30 or so alternate process prints - more today? (love being in the darkroom!)
10 digital prints - 16 x 20
15 digital prints - 5 x 7
Revisions on poetry manuscripts (not too much)
One collaborative piece
One installation piece
Group show today.

Okay? Good enough?

the back bowls of Lake Louise

2011-12-12T09:21:00.000-08:00

um.

... what does the other side look like....?

2011-12-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

The tunnel isn't even a metaphor.

The tunnel is a tunnel.

The black hole is a hole.

And, of course, passing through is passing through

Or not passing through is

What interests me:

what forms a tunnel?

what pressures keep it?

what compels the matter through?

lines of equilibrium

phase boundaries

phase transitions

the heat or entropy of the solvent

the condition - why?

the crystal lattice breaks

and we lose her

following

as we are compelled to

as time could be a tunnel,

the fragility of matter: a kind of tunnel

following

as we are compelled to

how long will our constituent parts hold?

what are they

- interesting? unassembled?

and what will they become after?

There is a coldness in the air.

Change is fine with indifference.

It is hard for us

who travel so.

Or, maybe,

it isn't.

nice ski day!

2011-12-09T15:46:00.000-08:00

no pics.
no wind either: stopped when we started, started when we stopped.

okay. found a pic online. Lake Minnewanka. Nice skiing on t'other side.
the Canadian Rockies kick ASS!

2011-12-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

Somewhere near there is new life

a hum that will become a concerto

time for a stretch of time, unmarked

the could-be of love

the whole box of matches

can burst into flame

the aurora leaps green off the ice.

It is not too late

for everything.

Look for

surprise

and find it.

The Washing Machine Blues

2011-12-07T09:07:00.000-08:00

just for memory's sake: here I am playin' junk at Bruno's in Banff. PERFECT bar.

great time.

random upload of photo to write about.

2011-12-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

There are no unsacred places;
There are only sacred places
And desecrated places.

-Wendell Berry

Italian Dream

A good thing

- in Italy -

that most houses stay

with their foundations

with, perhaps, their Umbria and its bells

and can be walked past by the old man

who remembers stealing a loose rock from the stone fence

decades earlier, perhaps throwing it and

unfortunately

hitting his target.

The world is there.

Largely the same.

And the bend in the road

Down from the heart-shaped town

through the sunflowers

the olive orchards

down until the road flattens for awhile

then winds up.

We show them

how to make life transparent

and its moorings

susceptible to the wind

how the ground below you

can become something else

that never had anything to do

with you.

You can see through one house

to another. They are all the same.

And our histories are all the same.

We want what they want.

They want what we want.

We'll get it. Want something else

or look through our window

and not want that

meet someone

and not want them

Context is an embarassment.

Subtext is worse.

Ours is a two-dimensional life

suspended in corn-syrup.

Sweet, clear.

You will be happy.

A calendar will tell you when to be a bit happier

for a day.

Entire lives drift past you.

Houses, lovers, thoughts that never took root

drift like another sourceless mood.

This is okay.

There is no meaning to it.

Any history is bullshit.

And the air

or the fluid that we turn in

is not sacred either.

Place is something

we can do without.

catching up as if Day 4/December 4

2011-12-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

To The Whaling Captain

Is it so different

This standing on the prow

staring towards the lack of clear

delineation

between sky and sea

between up and down

now and then

How to categorize the mysteries that compel us.

Stay up late in the rocking cabin

and index what you can.

We obsess over the giant that is out there

or has turned and moves right underneath

inevitable opponent

with as much need of us

as these distances themselves

And yet we are here

It is our eyes that are open

now

Mine open yours again

And the vessel that takes us

gathers speed

the sound of the wet ropes

pulling the canvas taut.

random upload of photo to write about.

2011-12-04T09:27:00.000-08:00

Though it is late

Hold the house up to the light

See there -

it is a rainy day.

The tree stands

thin in the wind

as it always has.

And the house

though small enough to fit

now

in my hand

appears to have windows, still

that could be looked out of

and one imagines

a table that could be set

smaller now

and further back in time.

Begin with the rain

2011-12-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

Begin with the rain
as it begins with the rain
and ends with the rain

The path is hidden.
The well is hidden.

The road to and away
is hidden.

The rain slants down.
Obliterating
where there would have been windows.
The weeds grow
where the last words fell
where fire after fire
eventually went out.

The world, though whispering,
is
(almost),
again,

new.

zzz

2011-11-29T07:58:00.000-08:00

been falling behind, catching up, falling behind.
Just two more days of this - if I bother to catch up.
Then, I imagine, I'll try to write for a month about my odd photos of late.
Not quite sure what i'm getting done up here. I sure seem to be doing stuff but the result is .... well. we'll see. Artist talk tonight in which I get to present my PROcess, as they say here.

So far, it's all aboot PROcess, eh? ... Seems I have a different idea a day. Not bad but, do any have legs?
Hard to say.

Have had some supply problems and so am painting in colors I normally wouldn't maybe. (Haven't hardly been painting. just shooting, mostly). But I'll just burn through all I have here and then have a month or two to pull stuff together for the show. (is that still happening?)

Alright.
Am I awake yet?

I don't think so.

25

2011-11-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

guess we got a holiday for 24. Thanksgiving.

I wonder if I should go on with this. Near the end but feeling bored with it.

For today’s prompt, please write a consumption poem. There are any number of things we consume as people, and even more if you think outside the human experience. Some are good, some not so much. But there’s so much consumption going on every single day that it’s a great topic for poeming.

Nope. Just going to have a creepy cup of tea. Thinking outside human experience I guess.

And another one:

23 - Also... just ghastly, but you know what. who really cares?

2011-11-24T20:56:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write a travel poem. Yes, I knew I’d be on the road today, so it was a no-brainer for me to decide on what today’s prompt should cover. You can come at traveling from any angle you wish, just be safe out on the roads.

Today is Thanksgiving. I am in a country
that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.

I could be bumping along a small and smaller
and smaller now road
in the back of a Datsun pickup truck
slamming into potholes that make me
eat my liver

Live chickens with me there.
Banana trees flying past.
The radio on - always -
full blast.

But no.
Where I am is very civilized.
The freeways are paved and dusted in salt.
The lettuce is fresh, the sodas, cold.
The natives are bundled and smiling.

But there is no pie today.

And so I find them
savages.

absolutely dreadful!!

2011-11-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Whenever (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write your poem. Example titles could be: “Whenever I write a poem,” “Whenever something good happens,” “Whenever never,” etc.

Whenever it is snowing and I am drinking coffee
I am happy

Whenever I am at a stop sign and I can feel
the bass pulse of the driver's bass next to me
I am not happy.

Whenever I am kissing
I am happy

Whenever not kissing
not not happy but

Reading/hair wet/happy
Untangling wires/unhappy

Looking at sheep/ happy
Looking at cows/ happy, a bit less
At bankers/unhappy
At lawyers/worse

Crisp sheets heavy blankets
body/cool/warm/good
First escaped, unauthorized thought

the whole moon
comes right up near my eye
obliterates my planet, my world, my bed, my sense

bodiless
body there
without edges at all

happy

22

2011-11-22T08:36:00.000-08:00

Today is a Tuesday (but not the last one of November), which means there are two prompt. They are:

Pick a fruit, make it the title of your poem, and write the poem. Example titles include: “Banana,” “Kiwi,” “Lemon,” etc.
Pick a vegetable, make it the title of your poem, and write the poem. Example titles include “Pickle,” “Potato,” “Asparagus,” etc.

Really? ah geez. okay. well I've been doing a poor job on this anyway - falling behind and jamming to catch up.

Not feelin this one, but here goes...

Not Rich

I still remember the two limes

and a bunch of cilantro I bought on

on a corner food boutique on

the Upper East Side

Madison Avenue

between the Whitney and the Met

back when I was in that neighborhood

most of the time, being served,

for free, venison and Beef Wellington

and Jean Jacques' soufflés on a regular basis.

Twelve dollars and seventeen cents!

Eight cilantro leaves - arching up and out like a tiny bouquet

held together by a ninth, in a bow,

assembled, no doubt, by a rail thin miss,

lovely and pleasant,

and two limes that looked like, like limes.

Who lives like this?

Twelve dollars and seventeen cents!

I'll never get over it.

20

2011-11-20T17:12:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write a best ever poem. Now, don’t stress out. I don’t expect everyone to write the best poem ever written–however, you’re allowed to aim for that if you wish. No, I’m asking you to write a poem about the best ever something. For instance, the best ever kiss, best ever dance, best ever party, best ever comeback, best ever moment, etc. Think about your personal “bests” and then write one (or three).

Lake Louise 11 • 20 • 11

Bit by bit

I lose sensation

but keep walking

around a bend

away from all sound

all movement

My eyes still move

And my legs

And my eyes

Why must everything be

so beautiful?

On a frozen waterfall

in the distance

magnificent and dripping ice blue

I spy a little figure

half way up, armed

with just an ax

and his crampons

and no one looking

he would think

but me there

not making a sound

in awe of all that has will

and all that needs none

19

2011-11-20T09:10:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write a “suspicious minds” poem. When I assembled these prompts more than a month ago, I considered this one of my more unusual (and more creative) prompts. Click here to see Elvis Presley perform this song. Anyway, I’m thinking there are a few ways to go with this prompt. One, write a poem in which the narrator is either suspicious of someone or is the actual one under suspicion. Two, write a poem that plays with repetition–as this song does. Three, write a poem that is a performance poem spectacular (as this song is here). Of course, you can always bend and blend the prompt as you see fit.

Free

Where I am now
There is a treadmill
on a level above a pool.
Glass makes the pool visible and in it
a woman who smiles and smiles
and her boy balances on a floating pad and falls off
and they laugh and smile.

She gazes to the end of the pool where
a man plays with his boy.

I think they are not married.
They are traveling together - the two couples
and their children.
And she is smiling and looking.
And a man comes behind her.
And she turns away from him.
Plays with the child.
Looks to the end of the pool.

The man is serious, follows her gaze
wants to touch her but
he doesn't even try. She dives away.

She emerges, smiling
at everything, but him.
She delights in the boy.
She looks to the end of the pool
for the other. Her husband
gets out of the pool, unnoticed.

I run
and run

and run
from that.

18

2011-11-20T07:13:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write an “it’s too late” poem. Nobody likes a quitter, but sometimes you have to “know when to hold them, know when to fold them…” There are times when it’s just too late, and today is the day to write that poem–before it’s too late, of course.

Evil Spirit

The winds of Hell have sucked back into their caverns.
That cellar door is locked.
There is a bolder rolled over it
and a sea risen around it.

He snatched what he snatched
for this time
and it is too late now

to live in a world that had been
without him
or even to live in a world with him
anymore.

At the end, the neighbors would say,
"There she is!
Get inside!"
But it wasn't She. It was He.
Wandering the surface of the world
for a time
feeling the edges of form
and the walls of the apartment hallway
and the turning points of the story
(in which there were children)
the life in the shared trembling body
- made impossibly thin -
again, on its little knees
and the defeat of the loving
drink-strangled heart.

Too late to sing.
Too late even to cry.
Too late to write anything after
the barely legible:
"Dear Faithful Friends."

He takes the pen
out of the weakened, determined hand
and calls that - the last word.

The winds suck back.
Water fills the lungs.
The boulder slides into place,
The sea rises.

The spirit retreats
to digest

all sweet promise
and

possibility.

17

2011-11-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write a poem that reveals something. Maybe it’s something physical (like light revealing an intruder or pulling back a sheet to reveal a new car). Or maybe it’s something psychological, emotional, or spiritual. Today’s the day to reveal.

Cathedra

lt has become something to me
little chair

little
little

too small to sit in
too small to pull up to a table
- if there is one, I don't know.

The little chair floats in my head somewhere
recognizable thing that I suppose says

you have lived and have a place
or
there is time to sit
or
you say 'chair'
- is this what you mean?

Here it is.
Little chair
The word derived from cathedra
Like to sit down
and rest before the divine
and see what one sees
within
and without.

16

2011-11-16T22:57:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Once Upon a (Blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Example titles could include: “Once Upon a Time,” “Once Upon a Moon,” or “Once Upon a Stage Accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature.” Hey, a poet can dream, right?

god. these are lame this time around.

Once Upon a Time

There was a house that split in half
in the middle of its floor
and the middle of its tree

It hovered like that
for awhile
as if made from imagination
as if past could disconnect
right in the middle like that
from present
as if waiting for someone
who knew
how to pull the ceiling
back down
how to match up the walls
how to live
like normal people do
on Tuesdays and Sundays
in the dark and in the light,
their world around them
like all that is safe
and ordinary
and right.

Day 14

2011-11-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write a deadly and dangerous poem. Or you could write just a deadly poem. Or you could write a just dangerous poem. Feel free to poem on the wild side today!

too tired to catch up well, but trying. knockin em out. hopefully i'll be able to focus more on the second half of these.

Turbulence

I remember her saying she would like to drown.
I remember me saying I would like to freeze to death.
I remember this at 30,000 feet above the Canadian Alps.
as the plane bucks and dips and my drink flies upward.
I clutch onto material things. I find Gods to pray to.
Everywhere. All of them.
I see her face float past me by the window, her blonde hair
curling, drifting.

I see them finding me.
The forest behind me burns and makes the snow orange.
My lips are purple, translucent.
I am beautiful.
My eyes, iridescent, stare ahead as if
at the black raven that lifts
from a winter-laden branch
and glides
like eternity
through the snowscape
in the morning
that has come
again.

Day 9 - way out of order. ah well. what are ya gonna do?

2011-11-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) or (blank),” replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Example titles could be: “This or that,” “Dogs or cats,” “Go my way or the highway,” “To poem or not to poem,” etc.

Sooner or Later

The pomegranate will break open
on its own or shrivel
Seed by red and juicy bleeding seed
will dry, dim
be not worth bothering with
Winter will come
and the blood will course blue
through veins transparent
whispering
a name
or what might sound like
a name
or what might sound like
a sound
or what might sound like
more than just
blood
thinning
slowing

It will be alright.
You've been alone

forever.

Not every seed
gets tasted.

Day 12 - dreadful

2011-11-15T20:22:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write an excess poem. In today’s culture, there seems to be an excess of excess–even with the state of economy. From an excess of advertisements and political posturing to an excess of electronic gadgets and debt, there’s an excessive number of ways to attack today’s prompt.

Neo Baroque

I begin to see
the architecture of the script
like a fractal
feeding back into itself
all parts of the self
a variation of one's theme
how we like it now
the excess of the self
in a world flown to fantasy
subdivided into world's
within worlds
and all the collassal self
all like the self
each level of the psyche
heightened lights and darks
tuned
pure
embellish
make tense
but echo
be
another me

and another
as long as you
are I

moving
and hopefully
rising
from a darkness
swirling like a tempest
of self

15

2011-11-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, you have two options:

Write a love poem.
Write an anti-love poem.

[not feeling very thrilled with these prompts. nothing interesting results]
String

I learned the Circle of 5ths.

I didn't learn the Circle of 4ths.

I thought there would be time for that.
For music, cooking. To know what to say about
him in a poem,
him of the muddy feet
in a now green picture
leaping the Oregon Dunes
and my heart
for a day.

No.
Stay stranger then.
Blend into everyone.
I forget
how I felt as how I felt
could not yet
breathe on its own.

listened to
actually
listened to

a perfect conversation
stays as type and fades
like one single photo
from a perfect day
left out
to bleach and curl
and mean: then. gone

We interrupt this faltering Poetry Challenge...

2011-11-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

my view during breakfast:

where my studio will be. ... will see inside my space in 53 minutes. (c'mon, c'mon!) I feel like I'm about to meet my spouse (for the next month). Maybe I did die in that terrifying flight here. I appear to be in Artist's Heaven.

Day 13

2011-11-13T22:01:00.000-08:00

Good morning! Today is World Kindness Day. As a result…

The prompt for today is to write a kind poem. My interpretation of this prompt is that the poem should either be kind or somehow involve kindness in it–one way or the other. I suppose the poem could also involve cruelty–as long as there is some form of kindness somewhere. But if you feel the need to stretch the prompt, go for it.

Kindness, was it
to be so brave, to answer, even now:
"I'm good."

Kindness it seems
to be so brave.

To have lost everything

even the use of the curled hand

and that hand's love and lover

and the legs that would bend and stand

and kneel before the water garden

you - beautiful long-haired man

with your beautiful long-haired man

in your wild world

the delta breeze once forever stirring.

He gone now

and the work, the working,

the plants, the planting,

the spinning, and spooling

the wine, the french,

the speaking, the saying

who is in this picture,

who in that

who is beautiful

who is kind

who is not

who can cook

The brain though fine

Though words won't form, a bit,

enough, "I'm good!"

Yes, you are.

Your every breath, kind.

And how you think of each,

A kindness to me

to teach me, to show me

the rare and sterling core

of courage.

Day 11

2011-11-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

-5

Today is 11/11/11, so today’s prompt is to write a poem involving math and/or numbers (I realize the higher you go in math the more abstract it gets). Anyway, have fun poeming today, because we won’t get to all meet up here again on 11/11/11 for another 100 years.

Day 1 of 33

Pretty damn fancy!

I'll try to catch up on this stuff soon. tomorrow. I see my studio tomorrow. I hope it's nice... My roommate is from Auckland, sweet as a button. So far, so good.

I'm so far behind. I'm just going to publish this week's anticipated temperatures for now in c's and f's.

-2° -9°

-6° -13° -

-6° -13°

-2° -9°

pool 72°

steam room 104°

it's snowing most beautifully now.

(there is an 11 in beautifu11y)

voila!

Day 10.

2011-11-13T13:10:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write a different perspective poem. There are a few ways a poet can tackle this one. First, write a poem from a different physical perspective–like from the top of a building or at the bottom of a hole or in the trunk of a car. Another possibility is to write from a different person’s (or animal’s or object’s) perspective–a tactic that has interesting results in fiction (think Grendel or Wicked). If you have an even different perspective on this than me, feel free to roll with it.

"The body is both transcendent and immanent. It is the "third term" between subject and object. I know that transcendent things exist because I can touch them, see them, hear them. But most importantly, I never know things in their totality, but always from an embodied perspective. Because I am a body, I can only see things from a certain perspective, and yet, because I am a body, I can also experience the thing as being more than that partial perspective. The thing exists "in itself" because it resists my knowing it with total certainty." Merleau-Ponty.

A fascination with "house."
Four walls are enough
because four walls are too many.

I can't run around it fast enough.
I see one side (and maybe or maybe not the life inside,
and what dimension there is that - into past and breadth of self
a person there, perhaps, sitting?)

Or I see two sides,
and am on my way
one way or the other.
Not fast enough.
I can see three if I am already
lifted, lifted so I can see more.

Even so, seeing hundreds of houses, stretching
the length of the delta
(and then, no, not the lives inside -
and what dimension there, of multitudes
of wants and habits, sweaters and tables,
apples and bottles and butter and tears,
backs of drawers where secrets are hidden?)
I cannot see the fourth surfaces even then,
nor the fifth,
nor the sixth.

Not fast enough.
I can not get around the house, simple house,
small, fast enough to swallow it,
in my perception, whole, as it is.

Only light is that fast.
And space there before light
and where there is no light.

You are allowed to see
- see the house that stands there, real -
but never all, never the side you just left
or go to now or leave to the haze of atmosphere.

In this denial are things. All things.

Picasso tried to help us see all dimensions at once.
But he lied.
And he knew it.

We still look at one side of a painting
and its important falsehood.
But it is the back of the painting
that makes it real,
that makes it hard to get,
a work of genius,
hard to understand.

Day 7

2011-11-08T23:16:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write a “what won’t wait” poem. Only you know what won’t wait. Maybe it’s falling in love or work–or death (one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems is about this topic). Something else that won’t wait is today’s prompt.

What Won't Wait

I don't know if it is just the circuitry of veins
I know I feel I am, minute by minute,
more made of rivers, rivulets, joining

I feel my hands pool
their surfaces widen some
a little, into lakes
small still
but still
mountain lakes
and an animal moves,
breaking a fallen twig
as it goes wherever it goes.

My hands are lakes.
And my legs now: I don't know.
My mind surrounds with bark, maybe
Or moss or just numb
something thickening and
glowing just some
like a dark path
in a dark wood
that leads to what is here now

just almost
the sleep that won't wait

that turns me into a
joins me at
water here and

i am the lake
I am adrift on

sleep

Day 8

2011-11-08T22:52:00.000-08:00

It’s time for our second Tuesday of the month, which happens to be Election Day here in the States. Hope everyone has fun casting ballots today.

Here are the options for today’s “Two for Tuesday” prompt:

Write a paranormal poem. In case you’re unsure, click here for a thorough definition of the term “paranormal.”
Write a normal poem. I’m not sure what a normal poem is, but if you do (and you want to write one), go for it!

Still Night. Still, Night

There were the usual things: the sudden

drops of temperature,

the hangers

swinging on their own

in the closet in the Green Room.

Always on a windless day.

Everyone had a story.

We were all outside. All of us. All there.

He looked up from his paper

as someone passed the window

-inside.

Deep in the night, of course,

in the Green Room, of course,

I was alone, of course,

and the grasp sliding up my leg

woke me - it turned and pulled!

I screamed and ran and jumped

into my sister's bed, we laughed

but .. they just were there.

Even if we didn't believe in them.

A cousin said: whispering.

Even in the afternoon.

Another, later, after our loss, lost in grief,

felt a possession and, thrown back

on the bed as if pushed, let out a cry that was not his.

It was multiple, he said

More than his own.

How could he explain it?

No one liked the hallway.

Even those who didn't acknowledge the activity.

Especially, no one

liked the Green Room.

But on that night, alone with the oldest, newly motherless child.

there were three thumps - the exact sound: body dropping to the floor -

What was that?

Don't move!

Later. How much later. I had lost her in the house.

Thump! (two) Where are you?

Where are you?

There in the parlor in the dark, just sitting.

- upstairs, now!

We slept in the girl's room. Refuge sought in the last

echo of childhood innocence

- the tiny bed, covered in stuffed animals.

The bed outgrown, too small, too small for two and innocence:

- no.

My sister's room was actually less haunted.

It was safe in there somehow. At least from them.

But she had just died at it was too much.

The girls room was next to that, their parent's room, a door

between them, the bed we were in now next to the door.

We huddled together there.

She had no idea how frightened I was.
All I could do to be strong was not
scream, not cry, not let on. Then, soon, I was alone,
the girl fluttering to dreams,

needing no one

flutterflutterflutterflutter

The door didn't flutter it banged against the bed

in dark on dark i could see it knocking

wood against wood

shuttering hard
moving and knocking
most actually

look outside then: bright moonlight. bright.

leaves. not not a breath of wind

outside there look

not a breath of wind

breath oh, or breath for the ghosts whose house

this has always had been

what did they want from me?

if they knew me they would know I would know

this house has always been theirs

since the john dropped dead in the Green Room

right inside one of the girls

in the Green Room

at the end of the hall

and, who then?,

carried him to his carriage

dressed again like a good man, but dead

forever now

and slapped his horse's ass

and the clop echoes down the way

maybe there had been more

deaths. surely there had been.

the attic ached with history

and knew, and muttered to us,
how brief we ourselves

would be

the door banged against the bed

againandagainandagain

and the stuffed animal

unwound

made its noises and lit up

singing

and a third body - thump

it was not my sister's ghost

nor my sister's body

no.

they were there

that night wild as the wind I wished was outside

not one leaf turned

did they want me afraid?

whose bodies were there then dropping?

no one was there.

it was just me and the girl

and the still dark night

and the still dark pool at the end of the lawn

and empty beds in every, many room

never again to fill.

did they know?

what could they want me to awaken to?

what could they want me to do?

to realize I could not protect

this child? or myself even?

No. It was about them.

the last time they would

have a home

a place to observe

- one guesses -

the living

and the dying

those who have bodies

that can scream

and can cry

who will hear until they themselves die

the untranslatable need

flutterflutterflutterflutter

a need that will be

denied.

Yes. I'm behind. In the meantime, can we get some damn water over here...?

2011-11-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=EVwlMVYqMu4&vq=3Dmedium#t=125

Day 6

2011-11-06T08:31:00.000-08:00

For today’s prompt, write an addict poem. There are lots of possible addictions out there–some of them serious and some of them not so much. For instance, there are times when I think I’m addicted to work and pop (“pop” is what we call soda or cola in Ohio, where I was raised). Anyway, I realize today’s prompt might stir up some skeletons for some folks. For instance, I doubt I would’ve ever written my poem today without this prompt to prompt me.

[geez. i try to be positive (as I'm certainly feeling positive!) but these prompts. . . 'S'okay. Still anyway wanting to finish the Lifeguard book although the skeletons need to keep dancing some for that to happen].

Black Thing

It was so obvious to us.

It was so simple.

Just don't - don't do it

and all the petals will stay on their flowers.

This thing you do, how your elbow bends.

Don't do that and we can stay and laugh

and never grow old.

And that, how your mouth opens that way.

If only you would just not do that,

we will not begin to die like this.

Nor you. More important: nor you.

Please. It's simple.

Isn't it so simple?

Just don't don't do it.

That. Just don't do that.

How your mouth opens

and your head tilts back

and you close your eyes

in ecstasy of oblivion

while we tug at your hem

and say, "We're here.

We're still here. Please!

Just don't do that thing."

And in the bloodstream

the spirit stirs awake. We tug

at your hem, say, "Please.

It's so simple. Just don't."

And when you open your eyes

they are black:

the whites are dimmed, the iris: black,

the pupils widened, widened, widened and black.

The eyes look down on us.

And the twisting mouth opens, differently.

And the Black Thing snarls. It says,

"I hate being a mother."

And - that fast -

there is no trace of you in you.

Day 5

2011-11-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

For today’s prompt, write a broken poem. The poem can be specifically about something breaking or just include something (or someone for that matter) that’s broken. Get as creative as you want about interpreting what’s broken: cars, hearts, toys, spirits, codes, etc. Heck, I guess–unless we’re writing prose poems–we’ll automatically be breaking lines.

Broken Poem

It is wrong to assume
nothing else can be broken.
But dust cannot break,
nor mold, nor ash.

The art broke
The dishes one at a time
The spoken words broke
and the trust underneath them.
The floors, the stairs, the sidewalks
broke. Tables. Toddler's tables.
Pool tables. Inside tables. Out.

The ease broke
The dreams
The evenings, the lights
out, broke
The stars falling, broken.
Bottles, of course, broke.
The night's peace, broke
The morning's peace, broken
The afternoons vanished into
into a darkness unbroken.

The pride broke
The will broke and broke
The will broke and it broke
The will broken
The money gone,
broke and broken
even the stretching beach
cut right to its edge
the waves breaking
without a spread to peace
That peace, broken.

It is wrong to assume

nothing else can be broken

even when nearly nothing

is left to break.

Day 4

2011-11-04T23:52:00.000-07:00

For today’s prompt, write a poem about finding something unexpected. Maybe it’s a note from a friend or a bag filled with money (or guns). Maybe it’s finding a lover with someone who’s not you. Or finding a secluded place to sit in the middle of the forest and think.

Before Canada

I'm surprised how quickly it happens:
There is a black bear now
big in his world but small in mine
alone, of course working his way
over my down comforter
that is white like a too-early snowfall
and is cold between his relaxed
black claws, the cold
telling him to hurry

He stops for a moment to test time
the end time of seasons
and the tilting wind
where the blankets fold down
slope
into the valley of broad, open sheets

It will take him an hour or so to reach the pillows,
piled high - fantastic mountains
but there, somewhere in there,
he will enter the dark crevasse
find the cave
that is near where I will lay my head
where my head
(through tunnels of darkness) later,
past him there curled, will widen
just enough
on the other side into a glow
we share

dreams

animal dreams

Already there is a bear afoot in my world
I will stay up for a bit
and give him time
to find a place that is right
for his long slumbering winter.

Day 3 dumb

2011-11-04T23:26:00.000-07:00

For today’s prompt, I want you to take the phrase “Sort of (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem. Example titles could be: “Sort of cool,” “Sort of strange,” “Sort of not into getting out of bed in the morning,” or whatever! It should be sort of fun to read all the poems today!

Sort of late. geez.. four days in, two days behind. Well. a lot on my mind. Happier though.

Okay. Let's crank one...

Sort of
a side
tossed off
bit of
a piece of
a little
later bit of
a day of
peace.

.

There you go. Cut print. Next. (It was a stupid prompt anyway).

We interrupt this poetry challenge for the real thing

2011-11-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Cannot believe I'm actually going!

Nice title too: Banff Artist-in-Residence.

well god damn! gonna sing that Alberta, Alberta song again. - and gonna work my ass off up there!

Me, Winsor Newton, the Canadian Rockies and Lord knows what else?

-- Fuckin' A! - Good job Me!!!

2011 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 2

2011-11-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

For today’s prompt, use an epigraph to kickstart your poem. That is, use a quotation. You can use a favorite of your own, or if you’re having trouble thinking of one, I’ve provided a few below. To format an epigraph poem, a poet places the quotation between the title and the body of the poem, while also giving credit to the source of the quotation.

Wedded

My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. ― Tom Waits

My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket

like lips need other lips like

the creek needs its burbling and how that sound has nothing

and everything to do with the moon and the cold, first cold

My reality needs imagination

like a pan needs hunger

a lookout, heartache

a table, the soft rain of convesation

a wall, its own impermanence

demolition or slow folding, impending

My reality needs imagination

like a body needs a context to float in

- sweet, clear -

suspended between what worlds

in whatever time is

My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane

like the ranting desperate needs the morning songbird

and the sound of cars going by

and how that sound has nothing to do with liquored insight (connections and symbols too big yet wound too tight - constricting as the thought of a black hole, hungering) but exists because under it is a road that joins

another, always.
There are stop signs and that is good.

The sun shines on these roads, not as a simile, but as a golden ribbon

of how we get from here to there.

There is a here.

And a there.

My imagination needs that.

Without it it is a blotch and a smear

a frantic or quiet shimmering that needs

the crystal corner of a cup to land on and shine out

in a diamond shaped thrill of light so I can say,

"I see," and know that I mean much more

by that

than that.

2011 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 1

2011-11-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

It’s time for another challenge! Arrrreeeee yyyyyoooouuuu reeeeeaaaddddyyyyyy to pooooooeeeeemmmm?

I know I am! And today just happens to be a Tuesday, which means two prompts! For those new to the PAD challenge, you can pick one of the two prompts or do both–if that’s how you roll. So here are today’s prompts:

Write a procrastination poem, or as I like to call it a “I’ll get to it tomorrow” poem. Or…
Write a proactive poem, or the old “I’ll get to it today” poem.

Today

Today
I won't mortify my flesh
Won't take a brick to my head
Won't look in the mirror disappointed to not see there
someone, anyone else.

Today

The numbers are auspicious, auspicious enough

Already I see books back in their shelves

and tasks sorted like seeds by size and their likelihood

of growing.

Quercus lobata, smooth in my hand.

And perfectly ready.

What greater mystery than potential

And - given the right conditions -

the likelihood for the roots to search and tap

the seed to tree

the artist to see

Today

The doves outside I see

are out of seeds

The little seed house above them empty

bobbing in the first November wind

I will fill it

And provide

And spill seeds generously

For them and see the seeds fall

like golden tears

of a maiden

in a tale

that turns now - today -

today now,

- as I will it -

towards light

and her unexpected sweet luck.

Halloween Again - Finally going sexy this time???

2011-10-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

Slutty Stewardess??

Nope. Well, there's always next year...

Alberta, Alberta.

2011-10-28T00:22:00.000-07:00

oh my. oh my. could it be?

hard to type with fingers crossed....

2011-10-21T23:19:00.001-07:00

shakespeare is wrong

2011-10-21T01:32:00.000-07:00

can't sleep: wired as a Van Halen reunion tour amp.

thinking.

To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

I realized laying my head down to sleep that I've never felt disappointment in dreams. I find that interesting.

If I could be dead, and dream... bring on the undiscovered country! [rereading this later... no. no. not NOW]. still, what I worry about is not 'what dreams may come' but just nothing. better to wake to disappointments than nothing, eh. coffee helps.
but to die and dream.... maybe not so bad.

hope somehow to sleep tonight. (did someone slip me amphetamines?)
hope to get the TGV to The Unidiscovered Country. Second Class preferred.

2011-10-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

2011-10-14T14:25:00.001-07:00

little pink houses for you and me

2011-10-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

this redesign feels like a bad haircut

2011-10-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

I only like this in Date view, but can't seem to get it to stick.
Steve Jobs would have made that possible.
Now I guess we're doomed to live in a world without perfect functional design.

Well, a perfectly lovely day otherwise. Thunder, (snow up high! - a ton!!), rain down below, friends, friendly communiqués, hot tub. Peace and a lot of it. No hurry.

A nice little revolution brewing.
You know, why don't they call THIS "Citizen's United"?? - or - My other name for it that I'm not getting paid for: "The Green Tea Party". non?

And, also, today - I'm not dead. Good stuff.

Okay, okay. Gawd!

2011-10-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

from Erin

2011-10-03T22:25:00.001-07:00

you can't be a good egg all your life. you have to either hatch or go bad.

1111

2011-10-02T18:58:00.001-07:00

new product idea

2011-09-27T12:14:00.000-07:00

on my run around the park just now I saw a mom pushing a jogging-stroller in which was a perhaps three-year old working on a laptop, 100% oblivious to the world around him. and then it came to me - what about a DVD player suspended above a crib that trips on Anything Disney every time the baby cries or that you can spark up remotely from the living room.

i'll make a phat fortune!

notice your breath

2011-09-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

had a tiny, sweet little moment right now... checking emails, getting a map to a friend's house to celebrate her 50th birthday... someone I've known since her 5th birthday... amazing that!

so - nothing to this really - i just noticed, as you might notice someone quiet and not threatening in the room with you, my chest rising and falling, my very calm and very steady breath. -- and I felt an incredible, amazed love of it, the same sweetness as when you see a little baby with their onesy on and their little chest rising and falling and put your hand to your mouth and just stare in awe. Weird to feel that about oneself, but, I noticed it.

just kind-of dear.

still is.

guess my caffeine o.d. is finally wearing off.
now.. champagne and oldernow old friends....

Stanley Clarke!

2011-09-23T00:38:00.000-07:00

just going to plop this pic here to jog the memory later.

Last night one of the single most mind-boggling musical performances ever. That man OWNS the bass. Period. Still reeling. More later maybe.

why you should never have cereal at 4 in the morning.

2011-09-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

Don't know if I feel like writing this down, but I'm waiting here for someone to come pick up my old fridge so, well.... (I'm not sure I like Craigslist sales - or perhaps other internet connections : kinda like "talk to twenty people who have to have something and are coming right over. and wait and wait and wait for them and then finally one person arrives, three hours late, who says, "meh, eh. hm.... i'll think about it."

Okay. So what's with the rodents?
Since I'm going to bother, I guess I'll write down the first of the rodent series - the one that stuck the most. Briefly.

I had taken a rat out of the oven. A big one. Alive. He hadn't been in there long. I looked down on him and noticed him noticing something moving to the left of him. Then I notice him beginning to feel the burning - like happens when you are really hurt: no sensation for a small spell and then an overwhelming presence of pain. It is clearly horrible, horrible for him and he cries out, cries, like a person. I have to decide whether or not to beat him to death (which clearly will be clumsy and hard to do -- he's BIG) or put him back in the oven. [yes, another light-hearted entry from whimsical ol' me...].

Anyway - perhaps that in regards to recent grim readings on factory farming.
And that someone I know recently had to experiment with/ or learn of all the horrible varieties of rat-killers. oof. don't want to go there.

but my dream did.
seems I was in my mom's kitchen. I had taken a long-deep nap and woke and she was gone, out of the house. Some giant pot of turkey or turkey soup or something had boiled over on the stove. I was deep in the kitchen when I noticed the broth everywhere and sensed there was more to it. And in it then a big, drowned rat, and two bats, and then, as I looked closer, mice, many- all drowned, save one or two that were on their way out. Then more and more little teeny little fetal mice - each perfect and tiny/tiny with a wee tail in its little golden orb. Hundreds of them. They had been drawn to the big, spilled feast. An animal choice. Not a good one. Everywhere - there lives over before they even started.

I knew I should clean the kitchen for my mom but I couldn't manage it.

I left. There was some thing about trying to walk Zoe home four or so miles to New Jersey. Many many trucks and lanes and a possibility of getting through, a possibility of not, or of her collar and leash pulling off and then having no control. New York there in the background. The question of should I go back?

Later, I'm home in Sacramento, D. is visiting, talking about the remodeling. I look out the window. (this is all one of those hyper-realistic dreams) and about two blocks away is a GIANT twister. We're dead in its path. No way it's not going to hit in seconds. I try to climb under something or into the coat closet but can't get my head in. D. is out in the open, it seems, but has some experience with such things, being from the midwest, so I just hope he's okay. There is no time for a word. Everything is flying around. The wind force is incredible and loud. Too loud for shouting. It lasts for a spell, a blur of color and mad sound, then its gone. I am amazed the sky is totally blue. Not a cloud in sight. Of course, I have no roof anymore so I can see that. We're all fine. My mother visits. We talk about how insanely fast and strong and literally out of the blue it was - how they happen like that now - we decide, as I gently pick a hundred tiny pieces of glass out of my face.

Nice dreams.
Nice set!
Gosh, I'm fun.

And, of course, no one came for the refrigerator....

2011-09-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't. -T. Roethke

This is a quote I love. It's one I could live my life by, for.

I think it's true.

On another note - a Sept 17th note - I couldn't keep my hands out of the dirt today. Everything was covered in dirt today. Mostly me. I guess. I thought it was planting day. Wondered at my mood, realized later why I was so dark. It's burial day and, for awhile, the last of the dark anniversaries. Not doing so well today, for a few reasons. That is one. "The only thing that matters, the only thing that lasts." (quote out of context, but echoing.) Nothing was ever harder: the 6th to the 17th. That searing, grim, endless, morbid suspension. A wait to get her buried. Em's birthday needed to be celebrated -did, in between. Necklace with a world on it from her mommy. Poor girl. and Poor girl. and Poor girls. Then another week. So long. Too, too, too long above ground, like that. I'm still in Central Park, clutching the fence at her resevoir, looking at that hard white indifferent truth of a moon, feeling like the whole of it was trying to pass out of my chest.

Or the big, wooden screw above my heart, tightening. Feel it still tonight. Will I never, ever heal?

Mom called the other day, no anniversary, just in searing sobs and I tried so hard to not understand, though our comraderie on this is complete. We both know everything. Went through everything, or almost, together. She, in fact, had it worse. And yet earlier in New York: the Second Chapter. In Hell's Kitchen. Well...

Another quote then, from Wendell Berry: “I don't believe that grief passes away. It has its time and place forever. More time is added to it; it becomes a story within a story. But grief and griever alike endure.”

Enduring then.

And then, well, ... some disappointment. Bummin' me.

And then still just reeling from the most outrageous bill of all time.

So okay.

Worked my ass of today. I suppose that's good. Quiet as a mouse. Blistered hands. Will go sit in my little hot tub and bob for a bit. Now, of course, I need that moon.

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste... I'll think about that a bit more instead of all this, without apology for redirecting seriousness to seriousness. It's just that kind of day.

Hopefully, true things matter.

Just learned that,

2011-09-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

"Some Japanese [don't see a man in the moon but] a rice-cake-making rabbit." ... ??

de Vinder Viper

2011-09-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

okay. so who the hell has been raking outside my door for the past half an hour? I'm kinda scared to look. It's ten thirty at night. Reminds me of the ghost story that went on for ever and EVER when we were little in which Devinderviper would call on the phone and say slowly, menacingly, "I am Devin Derviper.. Scary pause. I am half a mile away", ""I am DevinderVI-per. - silence - breathing - I am at the end of your block." Two houses away. At the house next door. I can s e e you. Breathing. Then, at our peak of little girl terror, -- a pounding at the door and we'd clutch one another and scream and screw up our courage and bravely jerk open the door to face our murderer and some little boy would be there saying in a dumb/scary German accent: I am der Vinder Viper and I've come to vipe der vinders.

anyway. who the hell is raking? raking closer? raking my steps? raking my porch?
I can't think of a super-dumb possibility so I'll just stay inside and get freaked out.

A day of minor freaking out, but nothing happening. Running on the railroad trestle. Three people telling me - two on the way in, one on the way out.: oh no no don't go/ you shouldn't have gone back there, oh. There are homeless people back there. oh. You'll get hit by a train. (train did come by. very cool. loud and bitchin' and industrial - not too close. un peu. just fun). Anyway. as soon as I was back in 'civilized' 'safe-ville' with people with homes and pets, some 8" 'dog" went after my ankles like my socks were cats sleeping on its dog dish. ~~Jesus! Little Savage!!

Later - post Chiropractor head snapping (he: don't move your head unnecessarily for a few hours) the SUV right next to me squealed on its brakes, skidding and squealing and Christ it was close, but I looked straight ahead, not wanting to see whatever was clearly going to take me out or, if I survived, make my neck worse.

okay. nutthin'

other cute things today: the darling little boy (8ish) with mad-crazy curly brown wiggly-all-over hair alone in the chiropractor's office, his mom next door. I wasn't supposed to move and other patients were resting next door, so I whispered, "You have great hair" without looking at him. Silence. Tick. Tick. . . . little whisper: "I like your dress."

Just cute.

An otherwise forgettable day. The raking has stopped. If someone knocks on the door, I'll scream!

oh my.

2011-09-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

an actual photo of Saturn in front of the sun. how gorgeous.

want to write

2011-09-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

but what about?
have six minutes to kill.

my colleague the punk rocker putting on a show, thank goodness, in front of the green screen in the video department? Kill it, Moustrap! (very cool) Taking my Perspective class to Cap Park out and D y i n g in the heat/weird humidity. Some thoughts about learning perspective in, not Assisi, what the hell - the other one. Anyway, drawing and erasing as I walked and drew - getting it, totally, on the spot. Thrilled with what the concept could do.

No. The masking tape that fell off the mic stand that rolled and settled and as it settled, before it settled, knowing exactly how it would look when it did, because of the simple rules of shape and perspective. Was thinking, this is how déja vu feels. Thought then that déja vu might be just then a inkling of an understanding of how things simply work. What must happen next. What is happening now. How that is connected inevitably, in some rule-based fluidity of dimension, to what happens next.

Anyway. Those are my fast thoughts.

Fennochio.
no
Ferrari.
no.
Perugia! ah!
no F involved.

Perugia. gelato. cafes. the cocker spaniel. god we were young. later then. the outdoor cafe. Roberto.
such a crush. but more, a real love: Perspective and the fourth dimension. Not four point perspective. Just. erasing. walking. understanding. Wish I could get anyone to get so excited about it. will keep trying. time's up.

the sixth 6th

2011-09-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

Wax on / Wax off • Art on / Art off

2011-09-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

had a good time this weekend at Chalk it Up. I'd been asked by my old gallery dealer to do a memorial 'whatever you want' in honor of Betty Mast, my previous art dealer. I was happy to do it because she really was always very good to me and it helped me to try to ignore the meaning of the rest of this blasted weekend.

I didn't know at all what I was doing. Haven't spent much time with chalks and sidewalks beyond scratching out the hopscotch perimeters and a few large-scale tick tack toe victories. Why not learn with three hundred people watching?

Had a really super sweet girl next to me with a memory disorder who worked at a morgue. It doesn't get much better than that.

The medium is not too too tough. Not too too easy either. You could tell the professionals who were laying down a gesso base, expertly making colored paste mixes in spectrum-arranged cups, painting, not drawing, protecting their work in plastic overnight. I didn't and it looked like somebody had been practicing their rollerblading stops on mine or like a small windstorm had hit my square alone. Mine was all just directly applied to the sidewalk. I'd blow on it. Oops, sorry to the girl next to me, my dust settling visibly on the giant portrait of her son (lost in a custody battle because of her brain surgery, I guess). Everyone thought it was a girl, but loved it. "Ooooh, this one's awesome," they'd say. If I didn't look up, I didn't have to know they weren't looking at mine. "Thanks, that's my son," she'd say.

The second day I was introverted, not affable, not available. I waited forever to come out. The shadows were long when I got there. I tipped my Van Gogh hat low enough to say for me, "Don't talk to me. I'm ignoring you. Move along." Of course it was packed. It was fine, fun, but I really needed more time. The light changed on it every twenty minutes - which is more the challenge than any before you when you are painting outside.

Anyway. Good bands. Good fun. Good to be oot and aboot.

I was reminded kneeling there (thank goodness for the kneepads!) and covered in colored dust from one end of myself to the next how much I had admired these guys when I was falling in love with art in Florence at 14:

You'd never know what they felt about there lives; they were just working, making the eyes look wet and the lips. Astonishing. The street sweepers would wash the drawings off every night and the chalkers would be back in the morning laying out the grid.

I loved being covered in dust. Walking home like Michelangelo, (not making art like him - just walking home like him) some filthy tools over my shoulder, some aches in the back, pigment ground deep under all fingernails.

Well, thank you, Betty Mast, for my first shows - for letting me have the whole damn gallery to control like nobody does anymore, for being so supportive and a little fearsome - but in a good way. I'm sorry you smoked so much. This town still needs you. Thanks to Alan for the opportunity. And to the girl next to me for being so sweet. And for all the people who didn't ask, "What IS that??"

Upper Level Business Ethics

2011-08-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

very fast. things to do.

turns out my Ethics class (hilarious enough on it's own) , second time around was going to be Business Ethics - though I was never told that detail - , in Room 129 at the far end of a huge open aired mall. Of course, I have one minute to make it to class, have never seen the room, don't know where it is. I am utterly unprepared. I grab some stack of unrelated papers to look like I have something. I am distracted along my way by a free giant cookie and coffee which I leave behind directly. I run into an overly friendly, returning student who I have been calling "Biteme"; she corrects: "Miteme!" Whatever. It is at this point, actually, that I learn - from her - I'll be teaching Business Ethics and not plain ol' Ethics. Oh shit. I try to get as much information about what it's supposed to be about as possible. I find out it will be the same group I've just had but who are now signed up to study an advanced, specialized type of practical ethics.

Soon I am behind a girl who jumps from a platform about thirty feet down onto an escalator, falls: boomboomboom.. not good. I think I will have to do the same but find the start of the escalator that goes higher and higher. It's windy as hell and I hold on for dear life, dreading mostly that this will be part of my regular commute to class. I walk/drive/fly (I dunno) through a tunnel in which, leaned up against the wall are all the students' snowboards. The tunnel winds around and it's impossible to see ahead but those boards are a real hazard. Outside the tunnel, I see some of my regular students playing hackey-sack outside, waiting for me. Because Miteme has told me it's my same group, I walk up (late but) looking like I knew where I was going. Okay, so there is more about Susan Mitchell, my poetry teacher who had dropped me off in a kind-of closed up neighborhood earlier and told me to contact her at 3:30 when her class ended so she wouldn't worry about me but I never did because I was so lost and befuddled in so many ways; her worry was another background pressure to this whole thing. (trans: quit dicking around and work on your book, dummy!) Something later about Patrick, my ex, who is now seeing Megan, my 18 year old student, which surprises no one.

In class - I am to be found kind-of fussing at the white board and writing inscrutable points (kind-of like my current class: ambitious in scope, kinda sorta somewhat interesting, very under-construction). We consider leaving early but I buck up and tell them to move their boards, safely - have someone in the front of the road and someone behind on lookout so they don't get run over, then move their boards at least to one area at the beginning that is out of the way, or remove them altogether, etc. I am impressed with my focus, leadership and clear directives.

A few of them move their stuff. Often they leave things in a worse place - right in the middle of the road. Suitcases open, etc. Disordered things spilling out. What are they thinking??

I ask them if they can understand a word I'm saying. I had given them really specific directions to help them get rid of their .... I see now.... their ..boreds....which are really in the way and making it hard to get through the dark tunnel safely and without getting completely squished.

---teachmares on the weekend. notfairnotfair.

more positivity from the universe

2011-08-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

August 23

2011-08-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

Oh brother. Just useless this eve. Too hot a run today? Did manage to reconfigure back studio. Finally able to reclaim that space. The mad laboratory is largely good to go. Hoped to throw the switches and get things going (things I think I wont do in the studio downtown). My mind poplates with projects but my body will not get vertical. Anyway, I think I'm just trying to stay awake until some reasonable hour. I think I've stayed in dreamscape all day. Dreamt for the first time in a loooooong time of Vati. So very clearly. Him right there. Talked to my mum in the morning about it and the dream. "You know it's his birthday.". I know the date but have recently, significantly, lost track of time. Lost August pretty much. Well ... Happy Birthday,Vati. How I would have loved to see your incredible face as sn old man's face. To hear that voice.

Well at least I heard it in my dream. In the dream I had found just the right place for thanksgiving. I told you in detail about it, because it was splendid- outside and ivy-covered. I knew you would like it but I didn't invite you.

I feel bad about that.

Come to see me again, anyway - would you? There is just so much to talk about.
I wont be so inconsiderate, so 'of the living' next time.
Yes. Come to see me again soon. Too brief. Still ... kind of amazing. How clear and true.

who I am today

2011-08-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

toutrimon

2011-08-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

okay, this is stupid. Just spent a half an hour looking for the image that was in my dream: the snowy, superstormy hillside that we (who?: me and Andrea, I think, but I'm not sure) were descending and a bit lost on. We were on an early early morning hike, still dark, and no one would know where we were. We had no shoes and as dawn came on we could see we were turning very blue (why do I never have shoes or boots when I dream of snow?). We are little girls. Then about twelve. Anyway, just as it is getting serious, we find ourselves at the base of the mountain where there is a lodge/hotel. We find a room vacant just behind the wall behind the cashier's desk. On the bed is a form signed by a man so we think the last tenant has checked out and we will have until 11 to warm up. We make some note of this - that one can easily occupy a room after the person has checked out and before the cleaning women come. [more about death, I guess] We expect this will be how we will get by generally. And no one will know. We rest and later the cleaning women come in and don't seem to know we have just crashed there without paying. They clean all around us. We take our many stuffed animals (I have a soft, big grey elephant that did help some when we were out on the mountain). [the elephant in the room?] We go out into the lobby where we think we've gotten away with it and won't have to pay. We want to call up the hill where people should be sick with worry at our absence, but when we get through, no one even knows we'd left. (how pathetic) (and yes, we get caught, must pay)

(this is all quite dull in the retelling but was so specific in the scale of the mountain the cold of the storm and the frumpy, fussy personalities of the people in the resort - details I'm too lazy to put in). soo groggy. had some weird chinese diet tea before bed that seems to clearly work by tying ones intestines in a firm sheepshank then shaking them out like a nasty, old rug. geez.

anyway, since i'm bothering. later back at the wee chalet or wherever it is we're staying (emphasis on the wee) (and also on the we: my mom, my brother, my sister's three girls). there are others there too. Everyone is starting to hike up the very steep and very snowy mountain - ten feet straight up to start, sinking into one's knees at every step.. Naturally, I have no boots and no gloves and have to go back to search for them while the others are already advancing up the hill. They come back for me until I have my gloves and someone writes in skywriting that quickly fades "Toutrimon!" That is the mountain we're all suddenly so excited about, so driven to get to (though my mom keeps wanting to go to Utah; In the dream Andrea has driven mom to see some place she was nostalgic for three days running. - weird, because - I think - Andrea has been with me).

I climb behind the two little girls and tell them to 'catch that one!' They pass her by and I reach out and barely get her slippery hand. I think it is one of ours but I see a red-headed man come round a snowy tree looking terrified then relieved that I have his little daughter at the end of my reach.

Tout tri mon.
or Tou tri mon.
I love the puns in dreams and feel this is one but the internet and french/english translators don't help.
I can think of is all. three.mine.
Perhaps something of the responsibility (and adventure) of taking care of her girls.
Maybe something altogether different.

aha! just tried fr/eng translation of 'trimons' v. to slave away, drudge.
all slaving away and drudgery. uh, yeah. could be
all uphill now... I'm the last to get going.
hoping for a nice vista in the future - that it's worth all the effort.
hoping to maybe save a baby or two along the way.

- and now where did my boots go?