The following two poems were written after I went to see John M. Bennett give a reading in Minneapolis this afternoon. For years I had tried to write in Spanish and in English, especially back when my Spanish was a little bit fresher, but it always came out too forced. When I heard John read this afternoon, for some reason it occurred to me to use Spanish and French language source texts for my cut up poems, so here are a couple. I was really impressed at the way they came out more or less grammatically accurate with what was going on in the English part of the poems!
Enjoy.
Transperences (Fr)
Too bright. Outspoken. A community
of women. En realidad, el director.
Political despair, 13 spins, the massacre
donde los hombres, musical and
programming the relation between
the appearance of des orages se
troublent the rose garden. Strike
of people on dit in bookstores, shooting
the innovative: a window, a phone, a
wheelchair, doorway of humanity.
Imperative
Early and often did the lord,
Greatly relieved to hear,
Bound to end by shaking hands,
Durant toute la semaine, after
Several thousand years of oppression,
Declare I am becoming.
En cualquier parte parezca que dominating
Even in the long shot,
Civilian casualties are inevitable.
So it began.
On est arrive, carrying the cross
Himself, the posturing that sometimes fulfills the
Conditions, willing to face himself. Me parece
Que the ideal ripens within our spirit
In the bathtub.
The lines were clearly drawn.
Surrealist Doodle
This was used as the cover of Karawane in 2006 and I have included it in on a number of bags and postcards over the years. Someone on the subway asked me if it was a Miro. I was very flattered!
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
The Mind[less] Muse: A Poem by Laura Winton
This is a blog/ezine called the Mind(less) Muse which published experimental and avant-garde poetry. They recently published a poem of mine named "Dustbowl."
The Mind[less] Muse: A Poem by Laura Winton
The Mind[less] Muse: A Poem by Laura Winton
Jellyfish Whispers: A Poem by Laura Winton
This is a poem that I had published on a writer's blog other than my own! The poem is called "Autumn." The blog is Jellyfish Whispers.
Jellyfish Whispers: A Poem by Laura Winton
Jellyfish Whispers: A Poem by Laura Winton
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Stealing Souls
I would really rather when you take pictures that you not look directly into the camera.
I can feel you stealing my soul.
I mean
I can feel you staring at me
And I am naked in front of you
I like to sit naked at the computer.
In front of the window.
But that’s different. The neighbors are not looking right at me.
And if they are, serves them right.
Close your blinds, mind your own business.
Mrs. Kravitz.
This is not supposed to be a poem.
It’s supposed to be clipped dialogue
I almost typed lipped
Clipped lipped.
Conversation.
Streamofconsciousnessonlymywordsonlyruntogethersometimesandi’vebeentypingforsomanyyearsit’sreallyhardformenottohitthespacebarbutthis
Isn’t my stream of consciousness anyway.
This is.
This is my consciousness.
Sentence after sentence. Each sentence a paragraph of its own.
Independent thoughts like a ladder dependent on what came before.
You know, steps.
Where were we?
Rapunzel, the steps to my window!
Rapunzel! Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.
Through your pictures.
Stop stealing my soul and climb down here instead and look me in the face.
Stop gazing at me through your camera. Every photo is a webcam until itself.
And the men and women merely players.
It’s silly but I have a page full of pictures all staring at me and none of them ever says anything or answers.
I feel judged.
Their Mona Lisas are equally enigmatic.
You seem to be smiling . . .
But.
I feel you stealing my soul.
I can feel you stealing my soul.
I mean
I can feel you staring at me
And I am naked in front of you
I like to sit naked at the computer.
In front of the window.
But that’s different. The neighbors are not looking right at me.
And if they are, serves them right.
Close your blinds, mind your own business.
Mrs. Kravitz.
This is not supposed to be a poem.
It’s supposed to be clipped dialogue
I almost typed lipped
Clipped lipped.
Conversation.
Streamofconsciousnessonlymywordsonlyruntogethersometimesandi’vebeentypingforsomanyyearsit’sreallyhardformenottohitthespacebarbutthis
Isn’t my stream of consciousness anyway.
This is.
This is my consciousness.
Sentence after sentence. Each sentence a paragraph of its own.
Independent thoughts like a ladder dependent on what came before.
You know, steps.
Where were we?
Rapunzel, the steps to my window!
Rapunzel! Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.
Through your pictures.
Stop stealing my soul and climb down here instead and look me in the face.
Stop gazing at me through your camera. Every photo is a webcam until itself.
And the men and women merely players.
It’s silly but I have a page full of pictures all staring at me and none of them ever says anything or answers.
I feel judged.
Their Mona Lisas are equally enigmatic.
You seem to be smiling . . .
But.
I feel you stealing my soul.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
I felt briefly sad this morning, set aside my anger as I imagined you afraid. Remembered when you called every minute, we couldn’t get enough of each other. It’s sad not to love you anymore.
You said I said you did you said you said you would you didn’t i did not i never you said.
I wish I knew how to leave without pronouncements.
When I think of you I want to go to New York
Paris
Chicago
somewhere large and exotic and far away
You do not listen and you do not speak
I cannot know you nor become known
When I’m lonely I got to public places to call you
(empty house)
To be angry with you is to be mad at the world.
I dreamed of a widow with five beds.
I dreamed of a woman with 5 beds.
I dreamed of a woman with two heads.
(spinster)
I dreamed of a widow with five
In love with the light brown boys
I wait for fate to take me away from him. The though of giving him up hurts too much. I lack
time
distance
the will
to walk away. I don’t want to walk away. I can’t make it better and I can’t walk away. I will say something that I cannot take back.
It’s not like a gunshot or a disease. Always we try to pinpoint “the thing” that hurts us the most, but unlike physical death, it’s a lot of different causes, indications.
After a fight, the need to connect with someone else, the desperate need to prove that someone can still love you. That you are still worthy., The fear of losing others, of losing everyone. I want to break up with the whole world at once.
She wandered the streets wondering if she had more crying to do.
She went to the movies every day for nine days. Permission to cry without having to know why, without summoning logic and analyzing feelings and understanding and explaining herself.
To lose what sustains you is to lose everything.
She sat alone, seeing a strong man walk by who might be menacing, who might look safe but prove otherwise, lurching toward her. Sometimes she wondered if she would resist the rape. The murder. She could look at a man and feel his thumbs at her voice box, his big fingers straddling her throat and in her wondering, closed her eyes to surrender like a drowning, flailing her arms involuntarily but sinking into the earth accepting her body as a grave being dug a coffin being built, to surrender and be quiet.
We’re all afraid that our detractors are right about us. We want to be worthy of our eulogies but we fear it will be our enemies critics who will have the last word instead.
I need to go where there is no music.
Maybe we need love because we need god. We see the divinity in other people and desire communion, transmission.
All the great mystics were epileptic. Is god a disease? Or are we pre-wired, hotwired with the commission?
Love is radioactive. It dies in half-lives and never fully extinguishes.
You said I said you did you said you said you would you didn’t i did not i never you said.
I wish I knew how to leave without pronouncements.
When I think of you I want to go to New York
Paris
Chicago
somewhere large and exotic and far away
You do not listen and you do not speak
I cannot know you nor become known
When I’m lonely I got to public places to call you
(empty house)
To be angry with you is to be mad at the world.
I dreamed of a widow with five beds.
I dreamed of a woman with 5 beds.
I dreamed of a woman with two heads.
(spinster)
I dreamed of a widow with five
In love with the light brown boys
I wait for fate to take me away from him. The though of giving him up hurts too much. I lack
time
distance
the will
to walk away. I don’t want to walk away. I can’t make it better and I can’t walk away. I will say something that I cannot take back.
It’s not like a gunshot or a disease. Always we try to pinpoint “the thing” that hurts us the most, but unlike physical death, it’s a lot of different causes, indications.
After a fight, the need to connect with someone else, the desperate need to prove that someone can still love you. That you are still worthy., The fear of losing others, of losing everyone. I want to break up with the whole world at once.
She wandered the streets wondering if she had more crying to do.
She went to the movies every day for nine days. Permission to cry without having to know why, without summoning logic and analyzing feelings and understanding and explaining herself.
To lose what sustains you is to lose everything.
She sat alone, seeing a strong man walk by who might be menacing, who might look safe but prove otherwise, lurching toward her. Sometimes she wondered if she would resist the rape. The murder. She could look at a man and feel his thumbs at her voice box, his big fingers straddling her throat and in her wondering, closed her eyes to surrender like a drowning, flailing her arms involuntarily but sinking into the earth accepting her body as a grave being dug a coffin being built, to surrender and be quiet.
We’re all afraid that our detractors are right about us. We want to be worthy of our eulogies but we fear it will be our enemies critics who will have the last word instead.
I need to go where there is no music.
Maybe we need love because we need god. We see the divinity in other people and desire communion, transmission.
All the great mystics were epileptic. Is god a disease? Or are we pre-wired, hotwired with the commission?
Love is radioactive. It dies in half-lives and never fully extinguishes.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Forgetting
When a building breaks open, a weighty air rushes out, settles like soot on the living bodies around it, perhaps small bits left behind of every other spirit that walked entered passed through traversed, bits of each one of us undusted fingerprints left behind, suddenly shaken from the surface.
Downtown silent downward faces. Quick glances away from eye contact, the silent bus ride getting there. When the bustle of the farmer's market at noon gets quiet you can hear the helicopters in the dances one short city mile away. All the cliches rush out -- heavy hert, the brick on the chest. My insides are full of cement limestone seeming to harden and weigh down my steps. I feel my legs move disconnected from my torso in some kind of cast.
No one mentions the people who lived under the bridge. They were not supposed to exist, so their disappearance is just another wish fulfillment self-fulfilling prophecy. You were never here (anyway). I pray too that you never existed in that moment that you (re) appear now Houdini of the under/overpass, uncensused neighbors.
Street preacher shouting "thou shalts" adds to my headache, piercing through several blocks of sound barrier. At least say something consoling I shout to him in a footstep, in a breath(er). At least put your arms around someone, move away some stones, show yourself (to be) a miracle not a menacing voice another layer of soot settling in an aftermath.
To forget even a moment seems a sin.
How long is the right amount of time for forgetting?
Downtown silent downward faces. Quick glances away from eye contact, the silent bus ride getting there. When the bustle of the farmer's market at noon gets quiet you can hear the helicopters in the dances one short city mile away. All the cliches rush out -- heavy hert, the brick on the chest. My insides are full of cement limestone seeming to harden and weigh down my steps. I feel my legs move disconnected from my torso in some kind of cast.
No one mentions the people who lived under the bridge. They were not supposed to exist, so their disappearance is just another wish fulfillment self-fulfilling prophecy. You were never here (anyway). I pray too that you never existed in that moment that you (re) appear now Houdini of the under/overpass, uncensused neighbors.
Street preacher shouting "thou shalts" adds to my headache, piercing through several blocks of sound barrier. At least say something consoling I shout to him in a footstep, in a breath(er). At least put your arms around someone, move away some stones, show yourself (to be) a miracle not a menacing voice another layer of soot settling in an aftermath.
To forget even a moment seems a sin.
How long is the right amount of time for forgetting?
Friday, July 06, 2012
The dark side of love (a journal entry)
He never forgave me for falling in love with him.
I exist [am allowed] in his domain to adore him. But not too much. And I when I fail to adore him, he becomes angry with me. And when I look at him too closely, smile too much, he says things to put me in my place, to make sure I know that I will never be enough for him, that I do not deserve his attention. He is never not angry with me. Not really.
When he hurts me I want to be raped.
To be pushed into a corner, grabbed, bent over a wall.
I know all of the psychobabble and all of the different explanations about helplessness, about the external manifestation of how I feel inside. To analyze it, reduce it to a talk show or cosmo cover would turn it into a cliche. I could pay someone by the hour to ask me the right questions to extract the exact reasons so I can get better but it won’t make him stop. The releases, the feel of rough hands, focused only on the moment, out of my control, pushed farther into dark feelings than I can take myself.
I exist [am allowed] in his domain to adore him. But not too much. And I when I fail to adore him, he becomes angry with me. And when I look at him too closely, smile too much, he says things to put me in my place, to make sure I know that I will never be enough for him, that I do not deserve his attention. He is never not angry with me. Not really.
When he hurts me I want to be raped.
To be pushed into a corner, grabbed, bent over a wall.
I know all of the psychobabble and all of the different explanations about helplessness, about the external manifestation of how I feel inside. To analyze it, reduce it to a talk show or cosmo cover would turn it into a cliche. I could pay someone by the hour to ask me the right questions to extract the exact reasons so I can get better but it won’t make him stop. The releases, the feel of rough hands, focused only on the moment, out of my control, pushed farther into dark feelings than I can take myself.
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Ecstasism
What do people want to be?
I wonder as a I look at them walk down the street in their clothes, women mannish preppy frumpy. What are they putting on? What does it make them?
Me, I want to be quiet, still. But I still want to be heard. Want to shut down the to-do lists and shoulds and tv shows and news and bombings and mother’s voice, lover’s voice. I want to be heard from the silence without speaking or even having to think a single word. To radiate meaning.
That I may seek not so much to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, to be consoled as to console.
Words and moments linger, an afterburn, a sunspot. Desire & regret; self-satisfaction & replay. It’s never really that we want to live forever or remain in a single moment of former glory, but for every moment forward to be like our best, for every minute to be worthy of a replay, so splendid and full of affirmation that it pushes us forward and forward until looking back, remembering, remains an act reserved for our eulogizers.
I’m getting overstimulated again, when it’s quiet that I said I wanted, isn’t it?
You’ll have to excuse me. I’m prone to ecstasy. Ecstacism. Outbursts. Exuberance. Protuberance. Tubers. Goobers. Gompers. (Samuel. Union leader.) I get giddy.
The bus is so jarring I can’t read my own writing. Where are the socialists now when we need public works. Who will step forward with their uncashed taxed refunds and say this pothole is mine! Stand back while I fill it in!
An old woman with a shopping cart.
A young woman, vibrant on the outside, secretly afraid of everything. Afraid of the phone. Afraid of men. Afraid of ridicule.
A bodacious middle aged woman. Young face. Varicose veins. Learning self-possession. Unlearning fear.
So many things to become. So many clothes to put on.
As I write this under white puffy clouds, fathers in Iraq are stocking up on nerve gas antidotes.
Such things will never touch me unless I dwell on it. Remind myself. I need to be reminded.
I don’t want to put on camouflage and a long face. Everywhere it should be sunny and even dark clouds in the distance should mean only rain and not fear.
Annunciation.
Glad tidings.
Does every story need a point?
A plot? A moral? A narrative arc? What is the thread of our lives so that we know that we are ourselves? Through operations and changed and removed organs, through people forgotten and dead and cut off from us, lives we may never return to, yet something holds us in, keeps everything from falling out in a big mess on the floor in front of us. But what was the moral of the story?
I ramble. I rage. I wonder. I cry. And so I should be still. And radiate. So you can understand me.
Lunge. Lurch.
Perch. Porch. Scorch. Scrounge. Scourge.
Scourge.
Scour. Scowl. Scourge.
With thorns.
Make yourself quiet. So you don’t feel it. Make yourself quiet so your body forgets you. So you forget to feel.
Annunciation.
Announce. Pronounce. Denounce. Renounce. Renown. Redoubt.
All of these things that come spilling out of my head when I’m trying to figure out what to be. When I’m trying to radiate
meaning.
Ruts & ruts & ruts & synapes & moats and potholes & veins & interstates & things that travel the same path forever. Only the river can change its course. I can(not) be silent. Can(not) quiet the cacophonies symphonies tympanies that accompany me. I am not what I am trying to be.
What do people want to be?
I wonder as a I look at them walk down the street in their clothes, women mannish preppy frumpy. What are they putting on? What does it make them?
Me, I want to be quiet, still. But I still want to be heard. Want to shut down the to-do lists and shoulds and tv shows and news and bombings and mother’s voice, lover’s voice. I want to be heard from the silence without speaking or even having to think a single word. To radiate meaning.
That I may seek not so much to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, to be consoled as to console.
Words and moments linger, an afterburn, a sunspot. Desire & regret; self-satisfaction & replay. It’s never really that we want to live forever or remain in a single moment of former glory, but for every moment forward to be like our best, for every minute to be worthy of a replay, so splendid and full of affirmation that it pushes us forward and forward until looking back, remembering, remains an act reserved for our eulogizers.
I’m getting overstimulated again, when it’s quiet that I said I wanted, isn’t it?
You’ll have to excuse me. I’m prone to ecstasy. Ecstacism. Outbursts. Exuberance. Protuberance. Tubers. Goobers. Gompers. (Samuel. Union leader.) I get giddy.
The bus is so jarring I can’t read my own writing. Where are the socialists now when we need public works. Who will step forward with their uncashed taxed refunds and say this pothole is mine! Stand back while I fill it in!
An old woman with a shopping cart.
A young woman, vibrant on the outside, secretly afraid of everything. Afraid of the phone. Afraid of men. Afraid of ridicule.
A bodacious middle aged woman. Young face. Varicose veins. Learning self-possession. Unlearning fear.
So many things to become. So many clothes to put on.
As I write this under white puffy clouds, fathers in Iraq are stocking up on nerve gas antidotes.
Such things will never touch me unless I dwell on it. Remind myself. I need to be reminded.
I don’t want to put on camouflage and a long face. Everywhere it should be sunny and even dark clouds in the distance should mean only rain and not fear.
Annunciation.
Glad tidings.
Does every story need a point?
A plot? A moral? A narrative arc? What is the thread of our lives so that we know that we are ourselves? Through operations and changed and removed organs, through people forgotten and dead and cut off from us, lives we may never return to, yet something holds us in, keeps everything from falling out in a big mess on the floor in front of us. But what was the moral of the story?
I ramble. I rage. I wonder. I cry. And so I should be still. And radiate. So you can understand me.
Lunge. Lurch.
Perch. Porch. Scorch. Scrounge. Scourge.
Scourge.
Scour. Scowl. Scourge.
With thorns.
Make yourself quiet. So you don’t feel it. Make yourself quiet so your body forgets you. So you forget to feel.
Annunciation.
Announce. Pronounce. Denounce. Renounce. Renown. Redoubt.
All of these things that come spilling out of my head when I’m trying to figure out what to be. When I’m trying to radiate
meaning.
Ruts & ruts & ruts & synapes & moats and potholes & veins & interstates & things that travel the same path forever. Only the river can change its course. I can(not) be silent. Can(not) quiet the cacophonies symphonies tympanies that accompany me. I am not what I am trying to be.
What do people want to be?
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Draft of a poem for my mother on her deathbed.
This is a poem that I found on my computer. It was written during the last days of her life, 2 1/2 years ago, while she was unable to communicate with us--at least in the way we were used to communicating with her. It's not finished. It's just a little something I dashed off.
Strange to think of you now
lying between present and past tense
between now and then, not knowing where you are
not alive and not dead, not being able to talk to you
body pumped full of morphine and
unconscious nurses full of
caring and
bad advice telling
my poor father not to talk to you
Don’t be silly telling me
I can’t talk to you I can’t help you
pass through the door I can’t say
goodbye to you and I see grandma
and your grandma and you when you were 30 and me
when I was eight a living photograph now
opening their arms to you I see you standing with them
without me and I see you in so many memories
laughing sardonically and appreciatively
sharing the joke inside.
The only way to laugh.
Strange to think of you now
lying between present and past tense
between now and then, not knowing where you are
not alive and not dead, not being able to talk to you
body pumped full of morphine and
unconscious nurses full of
caring and
bad advice telling
my poor father not to talk to you
Don’t be silly telling me
I can’t talk to you I can’t help you
pass through the door I can’t say
goodbye to you and I see grandma
and your grandma and you when you were 30 and me
when I was eight a living photograph now
opening their arms to you I see you standing with them
without me and I see you in so many memories
laughing sardonically and appreciatively
sharing the joke inside.
The only way to laugh.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Life, Only Better
This was something I found in a journal that I had written a few years ago and found recently. This will be my last post for a while. I would love to know what you think.
Life, Only Better
(Tentative title for now)
Sometimes I need to just look out the window and think.
Sometimes I need to write something down and not develop it with examples, anecdotes, lists in 3s, with a thesis and a conclusion.
The thing about writers is that they can’t just have a thought. Everything has to become something. Thought is pressure to write. Not writing is guilt. Blasphemy. Squandered. What if the words (The Word) never comes back? What if in the course of remembering and recording you lose the beautiful phrase? Does the composer lose the melody sitting at the piano thye way I drop words at the keyboard? Is it not enough to have one thought? one beautiful moment? Must every note lead to a symphony, an opus? Each word the voice of a single angel raised to a cacophony?
“The problem with being a genius is that you spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing.” --Gertrude Stein
A year ago I was looking for you.
I don’t want to write a whole book about you. My life is not a book. Too disjointed and unruly and the ending is unclear and I never seem to figure out the plot.
My mind is not a book.
No one lives in a book. Books are not “life only better”. Only anal retentives think that.
I want to write and live movie trailers, with all the good stuff pulled into split-second cutaways, glimpses of the beautiful, explosions, and a great soundtrack.
And here you are.
I was wandering the streets in the snow wondering your name.
Every day I wait for you to leave.
I wanted you to make me feel better. To love you . . . was going to make me better.
Curving back on itself . . . what is the term? Concave? Elliptical? In the story it always curves back on itself, ties everything together even when it looked like nothing fit.
Novels imply there’s a grand design to life, a plan, a plot, a logic, an author.
A reason.
I am more random than that.
Switching from story to living (life) changes the words the cadence the way you live them the experience of your palate. Do you write to live on your mind or do you write to say things outloud?
Do you want to be read or to be heard? Do you write to say everything at once, or do you write to focus?
I thought of you as a reader.
The cafe is an oasis from life. Here is the desert island you are stranded on with only 3 possessions, only the items in your purse . . . a desert island with music and tv and sofas and lattes. But only a bit of yourself.
People resent artists for wanting what they themselves are not allowed to have either.
I envy the mad addicts, so lost in themselves that they have no room for the details of daily life, have faith that their muse will provide and someone will look out for them. I with no siblings, no dowry, no spouse, must fend for myself, straddling, required to feed myself, keep a roof over my own head in a world that is increasingly harsh, that gives no quarter to those who are different, those who desire anything more than the creature comforts craved by those who resent me. My wants are not so different--a roof over my head, money for going out, a doctor when I am sick, the occasional trip to see friends or family, to be be inspired by a new city. But the audacity of expecting such things in return for my mere art, my innermost, without sanction for my labor, a CEO to sign my check, an incorporation to keep the books . . .
Nothing in my home is fixed until it affects someone else.
When the war comes I will be free of responsibility, when the creditor/landlord/collector finally has other concerns.
Is there an understanding that never fades? Even Dresden was rebuilt. The shadows of Nagasaki are monuments now. Art. Memory. Museum. All knowledge becomes memory eventually.
How will I become a stranger for 40 days?
On Tuesdays the Somalian women go to English class. They get on the bus bringing with them the smell of Sandalwood.
On Tuesday I get on the bus with my hair wild, disoriented after a night of poetry and war reports.
You make me want to write
you make me want to write
you down.
I could never write on the bus. Not because of motion sickness, but because I cannot stop looking out the window, watching moments pass and time pass in marvels. Once I was [there] and now I am [here], minutes across a city, hours across a state/country/continent.
It’s sad when you can’t [don’t][don’t want to] love someone anymore. When you feel sorry to remember. Now that the daydream is over, this is not your story anymore. It’s just something I’ve written
remembered
lived
and I watch for you at the window mechanically, without desire
Miss you with annoyance
One year later, like always, I sit in the cafe watching for you outside the window. I have your phone number committed to memory [permission to speak] have seen your house walked your dog hugged your lover. I try to remember your mysteries. What it was to want you.
Anticipation.
Familiar.
Like always I watch for you.
I forget what it was to be strange
etranger
(e)strange(d)
What is the shelf-life of grief?
Anniversaries give us permission.
You are a conversation with myself.
I wrote you a letter by committee.
Is God a narcissist? to require us to love him?
Maybe god’s infinity comes from us. If god is love, and that love is unrequited, does god become finite, diminish? in existentialism, maybe god is not really dead, just burning himself up like the sun. Love is finite only when nothing comes back to you in return. It makes you stingy.
Unrequited love’s a bore--Jack Kerouac
At one I time I wanted to give you things. Take you places. Show you.
At one time.
Which is to say, not anymore.
Life, Only Better
(Tentative title for now)
Sometimes I need to just look out the window and think.
Sometimes I need to write something down and not develop it with examples, anecdotes, lists in 3s, with a thesis and a conclusion.
The thing about writers is that they can’t just have a thought. Everything has to become something. Thought is pressure to write. Not writing is guilt. Blasphemy. Squandered. What if the words (The Word) never comes back? What if in the course of remembering and recording you lose the beautiful phrase? Does the composer lose the melody sitting at the piano thye way I drop words at the keyboard? Is it not enough to have one thought? one beautiful moment? Must every note lead to a symphony, an opus? Each word the voice of a single angel raised to a cacophony?
“The problem with being a genius is that you spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing.” --Gertrude Stein
A year ago I was looking for you.
I don’t want to write a whole book about you. My life is not a book. Too disjointed and unruly and the ending is unclear and I never seem to figure out the plot.
My mind is not a book.
No one lives in a book. Books are not “life only better”. Only anal retentives think that.
I want to write and live movie trailers, with all the good stuff pulled into split-second cutaways, glimpses of the beautiful, explosions, and a great soundtrack.
And here you are.
I was wandering the streets in the snow wondering your name.
Every day I wait for you to leave.
I wanted you to make me feel better. To love you . . . was going to make me better.
Curving back on itself . . . what is the term? Concave? Elliptical? In the story it always curves back on itself, ties everything together even when it looked like nothing fit.
Novels imply there’s a grand design to life, a plan, a plot, a logic, an author.
A reason.
I am more random than that.
Switching from story to living (life) changes the words the cadence the way you live them the experience of your palate. Do you write to live on your mind or do you write to say things outloud?
Do you want to be read or to be heard? Do you write to say everything at once, or do you write to focus?
I thought of you as a reader.
The cafe is an oasis from life. Here is the desert island you are stranded on with only 3 possessions, only the items in your purse . . . a desert island with music and tv and sofas and lattes. But only a bit of yourself.
People resent artists for wanting what they themselves are not allowed to have either.
I envy the mad addicts, so lost in themselves that they have no room for the details of daily life, have faith that their muse will provide and someone will look out for them. I with no siblings, no dowry, no spouse, must fend for myself, straddling, required to feed myself, keep a roof over my own head in a world that is increasingly harsh, that gives no quarter to those who are different, those who desire anything more than the creature comforts craved by those who resent me. My wants are not so different--a roof over my head, money for going out, a doctor when I am sick, the occasional trip to see friends or family, to be be inspired by a new city. But the audacity of expecting such things in return for my mere art, my innermost, without sanction for my labor, a CEO to sign my check, an incorporation to keep the books . . .
Nothing in my home is fixed until it affects someone else.
When the war comes I will be free of responsibility, when the creditor/landlord/collector finally has other concerns.
Is there an understanding that never fades? Even Dresden was rebuilt. The shadows of Nagasaki are monuments now. Art. Memory. Museum. All knowledge becomes memory eventually.
How will I become a stranger for 40 days?
On Tuesdays the Somalian women go to English class. They get on the bus bringing with them the smell of Sandalwood.
On Tuesday I get on the bus with my hair wild, disoriented after a night of poetry and war reports.
You make me want to write
you make me want to write
you down.
I could never write on the bus. Not because of motion sickness, but because I cannot stop looking out the window, watching moments pass and time pass in marvels. Once I was [there] and now I am [here], minutes across a city, hours across a state/country/continent.
It’s sad when you can’t [don’t][don’t want to] love someone anymore. When you feel sorry to remember. Now that the daydream is over, this is not your story anymore. It’s just something I’ve written
remembered
lived
and I watch for you at the window mechanically, without desire
Miss you with annoyance
One year later, like always, I sit in the cafe watching for you outside the window. I have your phone number committed to memory [permission to speak] have seen your house walked your dog hugged your lover. I try to remember your mysteries. What it was to want you.
Anticipation.
Familiar.
Like always I watch for you.
I forget what it was to be strange
etranger
(e)strange(d)
What is the shelf-life of grief?
Anniversaries give us permission.
You are a conversation with myself.
I wrote you a letter by committee.
Is God a narcissist? to require us to love him?
Maybe god’s infinity comes from us. If god is love, and that love is unrequited, does god become finite, diminish? in existentialism, maybe god is not really dead, just burning himself up like the sun. Love is finite only when nothing comes back to you in return. It makes you stingy.
Unrequited love’s a bore--Jack Kerouac
At one I time I wanted to give you things. Take you places. Show you.
At one time.
Which is to say, not anymore.
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