What does REALNESS mean?
In the 80s when shit was on fire everywhere
and people wrenched tv sets out of windows
like the screens were extinguishers, and their fists
the hammers chained to breakable glass,
the whole body an axe handle --
it was to camouflage in combat --
when Paris is burning what's fiercer
than to become a flame?
But I'm not sure now.
My upturned face in the sprinkler
because I don't have a bikini,
or money for the community pool
means something,
suddenly --
it's 2012 and the fire's out in the bronx,
cos rich people ice everything
nearby with the coolness of empire.
a white woman raises her arm
to capture me in her hands
forcing me to perform for her
suddenly, and surprised.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
i shake off what little fear remains like fish scales
from a flaying knife.
"yo, you a real gangster,
I give you props!"
A man salutes me as I bike by.
maybe he's right, and courage does
stream down my legs like sweat.
I'm biking half-naked
through Red Hook,
my hair a wet rope down my back
in a black lace bra and silver helmet
gleaming like a dirigible above the empire
state building
of my neck.
from a flaying knife.
"yo, you a real gangster,
I give you props!"
A man salutes me as I bike by.
maybe he's right, and courage does
stream down my legs like sweat.
I'm biking half-naked
through Red Hook,
my hair a wet rope down my back
in a black lace bra and silver helmet
gleaming like a dirigible above the empire
state building
of my neck.
gowanus sketch lll
guppies pooling by rocks fish for garbage and rat carcasses to nibble in the dark. my shadow raises its hand above the surface of the canal and they scatter faster than roaches on the basement floor. there is no way they can see my waving arms. there is no way they can know i am sitting her above them, watching their line brace the tide, opening to the force of waves inside their guts. but they respond to every shift my hide makes
closer for being afraid.
closer for being afraid.
gowanus sketch ll
groupers pulling the tide along
behind them, laminated
between layers of green dust
narrowly escape the crawl
of a plastic bag mottled by algae.
it lurks like a predator,
a lamprey made from the myths of cities.
behind them, laminated
between layers of green dust
narrowly escape the crawl
of a plastic bag mottled by algae.
it lurks like a predator,
a lamprey made from the myths of cities.
gowanus sketch l
watching mourning doves mating
i'm reminded of us; i flutter along
behind you confused by what my heart says is lust
although not for your body, just to be close.
our crying says it is much more complex.
Perpetual remembrance -- the chase and everything else
driven on by what used to be love,
by what is now birds
winging away into the dusk.
i'm reminded of us; i flutter along
behind you confused by what my heart says is lust
although not for your body, just to be close.
our crying says it is much more complex.
Perpetual remembrance -- the chase and everything else
driven on by what used to be love,
by what is now birds
winging away into the dusk.
response
Drawing flesh
out from between my eyes and yours
the Owl hangs still
in the air, unblinking.
We are corpses together,
hung from the fishing line of electricity
to bob and dangle like living things.
But only elementary particles can truly be called animating.
Everything else disappears
with enough time
entropy is so alluring
that long tunnels have been built by scientists in Sweden
to attempt disintegrating that which the light
of oblivion is never supposed to touch.
Yet there is something ineluctable about ourselves.
It's the fate of bodies.
If being has Become, it has been.
Its fact is infinite
and Being becomes contact eventually. the whole world
is swelling out. Wind
wrapping around a rock polishes it smooth,
and air drives in currents like the sea.
Everything does, and is
brought weightlessly to everything else.
The weight of your flesh could rest
in the palm of my hand like lead.
And then we would be meeting,
electricity confusing the lines that once suspended us,
the day's catch,
still as plumbobs depicting gravity.
out from between my eyes and yours
the Owl hangs still
in the air, unblinking.
We are corpses together,
hung from the fishing line of electricity
to bob and dangle like living things.
But only elementary particles can truly be called animating.
Everything else disappears
with enough time
entropy is so alluring
that long tunnels have been built by scientists in Sweden
to attempt disintegrating that which the light
of oblivion is never supposed to touch.
Yet there is something ineluctable about ourselves.
It's the fate of bodies.
If being has Become, it has been.
Its fact is infinite
and Being becomes contact eventually. the whole world
is swelling out. Wind
wrapping around a rock polishes it smooth,
and air drives in currents like the sea.
Everything does, and is
brought weightlessly to everything else.
The weight of your flesh could rest
in the palm of my hand like lead.
And then we would be meeting,
electricity confusing the lines that once suspended us,
the day's catch,
still as plumbobs depicting gravity.
Rows of subdivision
rectangles enclosed to face waning light
shrouded in the radiance of the evening,
place-marking the end of a day in a frame.
A shrill scream:
"I'm like a devil, flying through the night air!"
accompanies the quiet oscillations of a swing,
a small boy sailing ever higher
away from the moment of his conception
and turning to his sister, he speaks:
"let go of everything."
rectangles enclosed to face waning light
shrouded in the radiance of the evening,
place-marking the end of a day in a frame.
A shrill scream:
"I'm like a devil, flying through the night air!"
accompanies the quiet oscillations of a swing,
a small boy sailing ever higher
away from the moment of his conception
and turning to his sister, he speaks:
"let go of everything."
early july
The character of spending a summer day
alone in Portland is so different
from solitude in Brooklyn
that I can't feel I'm doing
what I would anywhere; that still I am myself.
A long leisurely walk to think in,
plenty of water shy funny glances
from the children on the swings
and sitting under a tree
watching the light fade over some roofs, hungry
for the geometric certainties it leaves
behind there is wind, always more swirling
around me and i'm in a field of clover.
It's all impossibly soft and i don't know what to do but to touch it.
I've been here before. every time it's still
the same place in me and in the air;
the rustling a reminder that it's not emptiness
i seek, but grace.
alone in Portland is so different
from solitude in Brooklyn
that I can't feel I'm doing
what I would anywhere; that still I am myself.
A long leisurely walk to think in,
plenty of water shy funny glances
from the children on the swings
and sitting under a tree
watching the light fade over some roofs, hungry
for the geometric certainties it leaves
behind there is wind, always more swirling
around me and i'm in a field of clover.
It's all impossibly soft and i don't know what to do but to touch it.
I've been here before. every time it's still
the same place in me and in the air;
the rustling a reminder that it's not emptiness
i seek, but grace.
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