If you come to find me affable
And build a replica for me
Would the idea to you be laughable
Of a pale facsimile
I don't want a replica. And, I surely don't want an effigy. If you come to find me affable, I am not even sure it's memories I am after. No, if you come to find me affable, then let's not think about it. Let's not reflect about what it means or why you do so. If we come to find ourselves mutually affable, well, let's let it be--let's let the affability carry on unnoticed and untheorized. What do you say? If you find me affable, don't think about it, just stay in it with me and don't worry about the rest.
So when you come to burn an effigy
It should keep the flies away
When you learn to burn this effigy
It should be
For the hours that slip away
I'm serious. No effigies and no hours. Let the flies gather, and don't even think twice. I am sure the memories will be good, and the pictures will make you cry from time to time, and there will be days where you remember. But, please no effigies. The flies are your last worry. I want to love you in a way that means you'll never have to worry about keeping flies away from me. I want to love you in a way that you are able to care about other things. Okay?
It could be you, it could be me
Working the door, drinking for free
Carrying on with your conspiracies
Filling the room with a sense of unease
Fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone
Like the words of a man who's spent a little too much time alone
When one has spent too much time alone...
I know, it could be either of us. I know it could be either of us. But, I'm telling you, the last thing I want is an effigy, and that includes a non-existent telephone that reaches nowhere. Don't spend the time caring for someone who isn't at the end of a receiver that doesn't exist. Unease is one thing--one good thing--but not when it is about longing and wishing. Unease is the good thing when it is about actively surrendering to the onslaught of moments that wound, but never exist.
I'm going to love you in a way that there is no effigy, understand? I'm going to love you in a way that there is no way you can be represented now or ever, okay? I am going to accept that it isn't possible, and isn't worthwhile. I'm going to love you in a way that means I don't know you, and don't want to.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Monday, March 22, 2010
Episodes in the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop: Sacred Stakes
I think what scared me the most was being dead. I mean, dying while still breathing, maybe like being buried alive or something. I was so scared of making a decision that would last forever—one that would mean that I can never, ever change.
I was so scared that nothing more would be at stake. I mean, I complain a lot about us not having the same stakes—the same things at stake, but if I am honest, it was more than that. It felt like that if she was the One—if I chose One again—made another one the One—began to believe and hope and believe in a One—well, nothing at all would be at stake. I mean what is at stake when the decision has been made? What is at stake when everything is settled—when the most important, intimate things have been paid up? What can possibly still be at stake when the question of who I am and how I will be and if I am loved and if I loved is decided? It feels like death. It feels like dying.
I couldn't handle the idea that I would never arrive again, at least not for a new person. I know that I would, could arrive for her a million different times. I know that she would see me show up—see me arrive—be born on top of her again and again—and then disappear, again and again. I know each time, or most times, or some times, it would reaffirm our oath to one another; it would revitalize our connection; it would re-sign our contract.
But, that was the problem. How do you re-sign time and time again without resigning? How do you re-sign without resigning?
I want to resign—want to be able to commit time and time—to give myself—lose myself—over and over. I want to sign that signature and then keeping signing it in every moment, every hour, every day.
However, I don't know how to do that without resigning myself to death. I don't know how that works without resigning myself to being a dead person—a person for whom nothing more is at stake.I feel like re-signing the oath over and over . . . even in the ecstatic moments of the little death . . . at the height of frenzy . . . it feels like resigning myself to pounding my stakes into something—into a surface and a ground—a foundation and a place—that is permanently fixed.
When your stakes are forever—when they aren't at risk—when they don't move—when they are decided; when your stakes are buried and covered over—when they don't get looked at or thought of—when you don't have to think about moving them, mulling, pulling, pounding, sounding, or resounding them—they aren't stakes anymore. They are boards—floor boards—foundation boards—building boards. When you bore something—when you participate in the act of boring—twisting, turning, and fixing in order to harness for good—well you are on the road to boredom. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to die by having my stakes—her stakes--bored through me so that I was so bored I was dead. I didn't want to die while still living.
I mean, you realize that about love, don't you? It is supposed to be forever.
That is a huge difference between anything else we do. We all have something at stake. All day every day we are involved, committed, thrown, into situations, and circumstances, and places where we have something at stake. We don't get to choose to have something at stake—every time you take a fucking breath something is already at stake—you just have to deal with that fact, sorry.
And, so, we have to figure out what is worth it—who, or what, or how, is worth pounding your stake into something in order to erect at tent—a temporary dwelling where you make life, make love, make people happy, or make the world better. Some people use tents to hide from other people; some use tents to hide from themselves; some make tents—pound their stakes over and over and over—in hopes that just once someone else might notice and join them in the tent. But, when we pound stakes it is always temporary—even the stakes we pound for survival's sake are temporary—they aren't meant to last forever; they are meant to last long enough for one or more than one to survive the night or the winter or the storm.
You see, the only stakes meant to built permanent dwellings—ones that last forever—ones that last beyond the personal forever into eternity—into the Infinite—are Holy Places: churches, temples, pyramids, mosques, and so on. The only stakes used forever are the ones that build places of worship.
What about one's home? What about the need to create shelter for a family or a pack or a tribe being thrown about by nature's cruel, fickle feelings? I tell you what, creating a hut or a teepee or a fucking track home with a view of a golf course is never about forever—at its most rudimentary and bare levels, it is about survival.
Homes are for living; churches are for dealing with both death and the dead.
Love has never, ever been about survival—not one time.
Love has always—from forever—for forever—been about death. It is a matter of a very human need to somehow die while remaining alive. What do we say about love? “She takes my breath away . . . With her, I am lost . . . I am blind in love . . . I was lost in love . . . I couldn't see—I was blind—for love's power . . . I didn't know what I was doing because of love . . .”
Don't talk to me about surviving with love. Don't talk to me about needing love to go on—we all can get up in the morning and find some food in the forest, in the desert, or the cupboard. Survival never depended on love.
No. Love is about pounding stakes that turn into relics. Love is about pounding stakes somewhere where once they are in the ground they are sacred—they are sanctificed—holy--and thus, not to be touched. Love is about pounding stakes that become altars, idols, minorets, and minorahs. Love is about killing its builders so the spirits can live. We pound stakes all day everyday because we have to. But the only time we pound stakes that kill us are when love is involved.
I didn't want to die. I didn't want to sanctify the building of another One—I hadn't believe in Ones for a long time, and honestly, the thought of it scared me to death.
I was so scared that nothing more would be at stake. I mean, I complain a lot about us not having the same stakes—the same things at stake, but if I am honest, it was more than that. It felt like that if she was the One—if I chose One again—made another one the One—began to believe and hope and believe in a One—well, nothing at all would be at stake. I mean what is at stake when the decision has been made? What is at stake when everything is settled—when the most important, intimate things have been paid up? What can possibly still be at stake when the question of who I am and how I will be and if I am loved and if I loved is decided? It feels like death. It feels like dying.
I couldn't handle the idea that I would never arrive again, at least not for a new person. I know that I would, could arrive for her a million different times. I know that she would see me show up—see me arrive—be born on top of her again and again—and then disappear, again and again. I know each time, or most times, or some times, it would reaffirm our oath to one another; it would revitalize our connection; it would re-sign our contract.
But, that was the problem. How do you re-sign time and time again without resigning? How do you re-sign without resigning?
I want to resign—want to be able to commit time and time—to give myself—lose myself—over and over. I want to sign that signature and then keeping signing it in every moment, every hour, every day.
However, I don't know how to do that without resigning myself to death. I don't know how that works without resigning myself to being a dead person—a person for whom nothing more is at stake.I feel like re-signing the oath over and over . . . even in the ecstatic moments of the little death . . . at the height of frenzy . . . it feels like resigning myself to pounding my stakes into something—into a surface and a ground—a foundation and a place—that is permanently fixed.
When your stakes are forever—when they aren't at risk—when they don't move—when they are decided; when your stakes are buried and covered over—when they don't get looked at or thought of—when you don't have to think about moving them, mulling, pulling, pounding, sounding, or resounding them—they aren't stakes anymore. They are boards—floor boards—foundation boards—building boards. When you bore something—when you participate in the act of boring—twisting, turning, and fixing in order to harness for good—well you are on the road to boredom. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to die by having my stakes—her stakes--bored through me so that I was so bored I was dead. I didn't want to die while still living.
I mean, you realize that about love, don't you? It is supposed to be forever.
That is a huge difference between anything else we do. We all have something at stake. All day every day we are involved, committed, thrown, into situations, and circumstances, and places where we have something at stake. We don't get to choose to have something at stake—every time you take a fucking breath something is already at stake—you just have to deal with that fact, sorry.
And, so, we have to figure out what is worth it—who, or what, or how, is worth pounding your stake into something in order to erect at tent—a temporary dwelling where you make life, make love, make people happy, or make the world better. Some people use tents to hide from other people; some use tents to hide from themselves; some make tents—pound their stakes over and over and over—in hopes that just once someone else might notice and join them in the tent. But, when we pound stakes it is always temporary—even the stakes we pound for survival's sake are temporary—they aren't meant to last forever; they are meant to last long enough for one or more than one to survive the night or the winter or the storm.
You see, the only stakes meant to built permanent dwellings—ones that last forever—ones that last beyond the personal forever into eternity—into the Infinite—are Holy Places: churches, temples, pyramids, mosques, and so on. The only stakes used forever are the ones that build places of worship.
What about one's home? What about the need to create shelter for a family or a pack or a tribe being thrown about by nature's cruel, fickle feelings? I tell you what, creating a hut or a teepee or a fucking track home with a view of a golf course is never about forever—at its most rudimentary and bare levels, it is about survival.
Homes are for living; churches are for dealing with both death and the dead.
Love has never, ever been about survival—not one time.
Love has always—from forever—for forever—been about death. It is a matter of a very human need to somehow die while remaining alive. What do we say about love? “She takes my breath away . . . With her, I am lost . . . I am blind in love . . . I was lost in love . . . I couldn't see—I was blind—for love's power . . . I didn't know what I was doing because of love . . .”
Don't talk to me about surviving with love. Don't talk to me about needing love to go on—we all can get up in the morning and find some food in the forest, in the desert, or the cupboard. Survival never depended on love.
No. Love is about pounding stakes that turn into relics. Love is about pounding stakes somewhere where once they are in the ground they are sacred—they are sanctificed—holy--and thus, not to be touched. Love is about pounding stakes that become altars, idols, minorets, and minorahs. Love is about killing its builders so the spirits can live. We pound stakes all day everyday because we have to. But the only time we pound stakes that kill us are when love is involved.
I didn't want to die. I didn't want to sanctify the building of another One—I hadn't believe in Ones for a long time, and honestly, the thought of it scared me to death.
Encounters (redux)
At the bottom of all our hopes lies a yearning for encounter. -Ivan Klima
What depressed me were certainly not doubts about the rightness of my choice, but the knowledge that I'd made a decision once and for all. I suspected that for me the most blissful prospect was not so much having the person I loved permanently by my side as a need, from time to time, to reach out to emptiness, to let longing intensify within me to the point of agony, to alternate the pain of separation with the relief of renewed coming together, the chance of escape and return, of glimpsing before me a will-o'-the-wisp, the hope that the real encounter was still awaiting me. -Ivan Klima
At the bottom of all hope--that endless circle, the one like all circles--without beginning and without end--is the desire for an encounter. It is the desire to know an-Other, and more importantly, to be known by an-Other. What is strange about this desire is its whence--its originless origin. We fight, scratch, claw, paradoxically, even to the death, to be recognized as an irreplaceable, singular one. Without one's irreplaceability, they are as good as dead--a subhuman entity incapable of true living. Without one's singluarity we are just a machine carrying out meaningless functions within a mechanical world. "NO!" Even the non-believing souls cry this--bellow it from a hidden place--"I am more."
This desire--the one for an encounter--is born out of this fierce defense of singularity and irreplaceability. It is that singular, non-replaceable infinity that longs to be found. It is like an egg waiting to be pierced by that one--one in a million--one of trillions--swimming head--to be punctured so as to give birth to life. We believe--in a place so secret not even we have access to it, from a past we were not privileged with experiencing, in a present we did not choose, in a future we will never see--that if we can have one encounter--if even one eternal moment --that life will be born; life will be experienced; we will become what we supposed to be all along.
But, what is paradoxical, excruciatingly paradoxical, about this desire--this circle--is that it is its spinning that makes life possible. If the circle doesn't spin there is no desire for encounter simply because there is no "is". If the circle stops moving the conditions for any encounter are vanquished. Yet, as long as the circle spins--as long as that desire burns within one's soul--searing scabs and scars along the outer membrane of the secret space--the place where an encounter might take place--it will long to be understood, to express, to try to explain the secret that has no words.
Escape and return. Longing and fulfillment. Yearning and rest. This is the circle. This is the pendulum in which desire swings.
To choose once and for all? To claim I've had an encounter? What kind of fool would I be to make such a claim?
A greater fool for never trying? A greater loss for never trying to somehow lead another down the winding, impossibly hidden, spaceless space of the infinity in which I reside?
I can't answer that. Can you?
Thus, it is no coincidence that eros and revelation are two sides of the same coin. Revelation--the Word being communicated. Eros--communicating something so secret--so precious--so vulnerably personal--without words. Both involve the uncovering of the Infinite. Both claim to lead to an encounter--to a meeting that couldn't, wouldn't otherwise be possible. Revealing the Word with special words, and revealing one's self with no words. Revealing--physically and not. All of it is in hope for an encounter. And, both spawn words--writing. Which is itself the only way to life--the immortal kind, that is.
When I can't write anymore I'll die. But I'll die loving. -Ivan Klima
What depressed me were certainly not doubts about the rightness of my choice, but the knowledge that I'd made a decision once and for all. I suspected that for me the most blissful prospect was not so much having the person I loved permanently by my side as a need, from time to time, to reach out to emptiness, to let longing intensify within me to the point of agony, to alternate the pain of separation with the relief of renewed coming together, the chance of escape and return, of glimpsing before me a will-o'-the-wisp, the hope that the real encounter was still awaiting me. -Ivan Klima
At the bottom of all hope--that endless circle, the one like all circles--without beginning and without end--is the desire for an encounter. It is the desire to know an-Other, and more importantly, to be known by an-Other. What is strange about this desire is its whence--its originless origin. We fight, scratch, claw, paradoxically, even to the death, to be recognized as an irreplaceable, singular one. Without one's irreplaceability, they are as good as dead--a subhuman entity incapable of true living. Without one's singluarity we are just a machine carrying out meaningless functions within a mechanical world. "NO!" Even the non-believing souls cry this--bellow it from a hidden place--"I am more."
This desire--the one for an encounter--is born out of this fierce defense of singularity and irreplaceability. It is that singular, non-replaceable infinity that longs to be found. It is like an egg waiting to be pierced by that one--one in a million--one of trillions--swimming head--to be punctured so as to give birth to life. We believe--in a place so secret not even we have access to it, from a past we were not privileged with experiencing, in a present we did not choose, in a future we will never see--that if we can have one encounter--if even one eternal moment --that life will be born; life will be experienced; we will become what we supposed to be all along.
But, what is paradoxical, excruciatingly paradoxical, about this desire--this circle--is that it is its spinning that makes life possible. If the circle doesn't spin there is no desire for encounter simply because there is no "is". If the circle stops moving the conditions for any encounter are vanquished. Yet, as long as the circle spins--as long as that desire burns within one's soul--searing scabs and scars along the outer membrane of the secret space--the place where an encounter might take place--it will long to be understood, to express, to try to explain the secret that has no words.
Escape and return. Longing and fulfillment. Yearning and rest. This is the circle. This is the pendulum in which desire swings.
To choose once and for all? To claim I've had an encounter? What kind of fool would I be to make such a claim?
A greater fool for never trying? A greater loss for never trying to somehow lead another down the winding, impossibly hidden, spaceless space of the infinity in which I reside?
I can't answer that. Can you?
Thus, it is no coincidence that eros and revelation are two sides of the same coin. Revelation--the Word being communicated. Eros--communicating something so secret--so precious--so vulnerably personal--without words. Both involve the uncovering of the Infinite. Both claim to lead to an encounter--to a meeting that couldn't, wouldn't otherwise be possible. Revealing the Word with special words, and revealing one's self with no words. Revealing--physically and not. All of it is in hope for an encounter. And, both spawn words--writing. Which is itself the only way to life--the immortal kind, that is.
When I can't write anymore I'll die. But I'll die loving. -Ivan Klima
Lately
Lately, i don’t think you of you at all
Or wonder what you’re up to or how you’re getting on
I never think of calling you or how things could have been
Or wonder where you sleep at night or whose arms you wake in
I mean, this is pretty true. I don't. I haven't, not for a while now. I mean, I don't really care. I am sure you are fine, sure you are more than fine. But, yes, if I am honest, it isn't all true. You probably knew that; others probably knew that, too. I'd say it was mostly true, and kind of not true.
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Lately,
I mean, this isn't really true. I don't feel like I am living alone. There is plenty of love, of all sorts, in my life. There are plenty of people, of all sorts, in my world. I don't need you; I never needed you. That is all true--all true.
I don’t get lost in daydreams
I never lay awake at night staring in my bed
And i don’t think about your face or anything you’ve said
And i don’t think twice when someone says your name
I mean, I don't anymore. I did a while ago, about this time . . . on numerous occasions . . . well, yeah, I did. I did for various reasons, too. I would lay awake quite often, sometimes with you next to me, and most times with you not. But, lately, I don't--I don't lie, don't lie awake, don't think of your face, or even your name.
Or wonder when the day will break or when the tides will turn
And i don’t break down when someone says your name
Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame
I mean, the day broke a long time ago. And, then it broke again. The day keeps breaking, over and over. The day turns to night, and then to day again. You know? I don't love the dark as much as some people think.
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore.
Lately, i don’t think you of you at all.
Lately, lately, oh lately.
Lately . . . for the first time in a while, I have thought of you . . if I am honest. I thought of you and what it would be like to meet again, not for any reason or expectation beyond a meeting. But, I have wondered. I wondered enough to think old thoughts, ones I had fooled myself into thinking were no longer inside my head. I have thought long enough to even read old words--yes, word I truly thought were no longer there--ones I had erased, but not erased good enough. And, man oh man, . . . lately, oh lately . . . those words stung once again. I found words there I am not sure I even registered the first time I was supposed to have read them. "I'm his." Man, a night after . . . hours after . . . the pain . . . the hurt . . .
Now? Now, all the intrigue--the rosy feelings--the ideas of steadily meeting for an encounter--the vague, undeveloped, unacknowledged thoughts of friendship . . . well, I think the lately will now turn to . . . too late? Too late?
Now that is the question, right? If we are going to bring thoughts and wonders and cares . . .
Well, who was too late? It was always supposed to be me, but in reality . . . man, the revelations, the remembrances, the admissions, the guilt . . . all too late.
Man, oh man . . . lately, oh lately . . . I have stayed up wondering about if it is too late to even see--meet--shake--one more time, just for fun or to close or to leave it warmer than the last time--and now, oh now, it is too much.
Or wonder what you’re up to or how you’re getting on
I never think of calling you or how things could have been
Or wonder where you sleep at night or whose arms you wake in
I mean, this is pretty true. I don't. I haven't, not for a while now. I mean, I don't really care. I am sure you are fine, sure you are more than fine. But, yes, if I am honest, it isn't all true. You probably knew that; others probably knew that, too. I'd say it was mostly true, and kind of not true.
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Lately,
I mean, this isn't really true. I don't feel like I am living alone. There is plenty of love, of all sorts, in my life. There are plenty of people, of all sorts, in my world. I don't need you; I never needed you. That is all true--all true.
I don’t get lost in daydreams
I never lay awake at night staring in my bed
And i don’t think about your face or anything you’ve said
And i don’t think twice when someone says your name
I mean, I don't anymore. I did a while ago, about this time . . . on numerous occasions . . . well, yeah, I did. I did for various reasons, too. I would lay awake quite often, sometimes with you next to me, and most times with you not. But, lately, I don't--I don't lie, don't lie awake, don't think of your face, or even your name.
Or wonder when the day will break or when the tides will turn
And i don’t break down when someone says your name
Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame
I mean, the day broke a long time ago. And, then it broke again. The day keeps breaking, over and over. The day turns to night, and then to day again. You know? I don't love the dark as much as some people think.
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore.
Lately, i don’t think you of you at all.
Lately, lately, oh lately.
Lately . . . for the first time in a while, I have thought of you . . if I am honest. I thought of you and what it would be like to meet again, not for any reason or expectation beyond a meeting. But, I have wondered. I wondered enough to think old thoughts, ones I had fooled myself into thinking were no longer inside my head. I have thought long enough to even read old words--yes, word I truly thought were no longer there--ones I had erased, but not erased good enough. And, man oh man, . . . lately, oh lately . . . those words stung once again. I found words there I am not sure I even registered the first time I was supposed to have read them. "I'm his." Man, a night after . . . hours after . . . the pain . . . the hurt . . .
Now? Now, all the intrigue--the rosy feelings--the ideas of steadily meeting for an encounter--the vague, undeveloped, unacknowledged thoughts of friendship . . . well, I think the lately will now turn to . . . too late? Too late?
Now that is the question, right? If we are going to bring thoughts and wonders and cares . . .
Well, who was too late? It was always supposed to be me, but in reality . . . man, the revelations, the remembrances, the admissions, the guilt . . . all too late.
Man, oh man . . . lately, oh lately . . . I have stayed up wondering about if it is too late to even see--meet--shake--one more time, just for fun or to close or to leave it warmer than the last time--and now, oh now, it is too much.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Rally
Hook up with me, meet at the rally
Follow the shouting, I am longing for you Hook up with me, meet at the rally I waited so long, I couldn't find a cause Tired or wasted I think you're decent I waited so long, there'll be no decency no
Meet? Shall we meet? Come on, tonight--let's meet. I waited--have waited--am waited--weighted--waiting. I waited for the decency to disappear--for the decency to evaporate so we could meet--encounter one another. Come on, tonight?
(don't you give me those)
Shifty eyes pay attention
Dirty talk talk talk quiet
Just as long as you're gone
It won't happen at all
No, not those. Don't look at me. Don't shift yourself back in forth in front of me. Come and meet me--let the dirty talk transpose us into a silence wherein neither of us speaks and neither of us listens. Let's go somewhere me and you don't exist, so we can meet. I know it won't happen . . . but, tonight? Come on, tonight?
Remember the time we talked about everlastings?
Don't you know we'll both fall to pieces too?
April 22nd at the Avalon, you teased me
Hook up with me, meet at the rally
Yes, always the talk about everlastings--about infinite and it all. Yes, after a couple of bottles and a nice long look at the stars or the ocean . . . talking about the everlasting . . . You want everlasting without falling to pieces? I don't know about any of that. I've tried it before, with an embarrassing amount of success. Come on, no more of this--of this everlasting business--just meet me. Come on, tonight? You and I into a we? Where? Shall we rally?
Don't go away we're so near
Look around, you see
There is nothing to say but the things I know I got nothing to say but the things I know
Look, there is nothing else? Nowhere else to be? Nowhere else to take you to the nowhere. There is nothing to say--I don't want to talk anymore, clarify anymore, ruminate anymore, try anymmore--I know there is nothing to say but nothing. All I can say is what I know and I know nothing.
Standing in line, I think you're pretty
Lying on your bed, I think you're pretty too Young girl curl your hair at night Hook up with me, meet at the rally
Standing in line . . . always standing in line . . . one of us is always in line . . . waiting . . . waiting for our turn . . . waiting for the time . . . waiting for the time to come when we meet . . . standing in line, still, you are so pretty--so majestically pretty--come on, tonight? Curl your hair, put on your shoes, and a grab a hat for the cold--let's rally--let's meet.
Follow the shouting, I am longing for you Hook up with me, meet at the rally I waited so long, I couldn't find a cause Tired or wasted I think you're decent I waited so long, there'll be no decency no
Meet? Shall we meet? Come on, tonight--let's meet. I waited--have waited--am waited--weighted--waiting. I waited for the decency to disappear--for the decency to evaporate so we could meet--encounter one another. Come on, tonight?
(don't you give me those)
Shifty eyes pay attention
Dirty talk talk talk quiet
Just as long as you're gone
It won't happen at all
No, not those. Don't look at me. Don't shift yourself back in forth in front of me. Come and meet me--let the dirty talk transpose us into a silence wherein neither of us speaks and neither of us listens. Let's go somewhere me and you don't exist, so we can meet. I know it won't happen . . . but, tonight? Come on, tonight?
Remember the time we talked about everlastings?
Don't you know we'll both fall to pieces too?
April 22nd at the Avalon, you teased me
Hook up with me, meet at the rally
Yes, always the talk about everlastings--about infinite and it all. Yes, after a couple of bottles and a nice long look at the stars or the ocean . . . talking about the everlasting . . . You want everlasting without falling to pieces? I don't know about any of that. I've tried it before, with an embarrassing amount of success. Come on, no more of this--of this everlasting business--just meet me. Come on, tonight? You and I into a we? Where? Shall we rally?
Don't go away we're so near
Look around, you see
There is nothing to say but the things I know I got nothing to say but the things I know
Look, there is nothing else? Nowhere else to be? Nowhere else to take you to the nowhere. There is nothing to say--I don't want to talk anymore, clarify anymore, ruminate anymore, try anymmore--I know there is nothing to say but nothing. All I can say is what I know and I know nothing.
Standing in line, I think you're pretty
Lying on your bed, I think you're pretty too Young girl curl your hair at night Hook up with me, meet at the rally
Standing in line . . . always standing in line . . . one of us is always in line . . . waiting . . . waiting for our turn . . . waiting for the time . . . waiting for the time to come when we meet . . . standing in line, still, you are so pretty--so majestically pretty--come on, tonight? Curl your hair, put on your shoes, and a grab a hat for the cold--let's rally--let's meet.
Moments; always moments; only moments
Stopping and listening to both of us breathe, I wish this moment wasn't a moment. I feel it—so do you—I know you do—that point where we are indistinguishable—where I am mixed with you and you with me—where neither of us knows where the other begins and where the “me” stops. There is no “me” here; there is only a both of us. Feeling that space where the indiscretion of us both equals an infinity unstrapped by the dimensions of time; where the infinite shatters the temporal inside our convulsing bodies--where the infinite melds somewhere into the nowhere. Stopping, feeling the moment pass—feeling the blanket of eros that hid us from the world evaporate into the ceiling above us—and sighing in the intimacy and loneliness of time.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Changing Inside
Through my window you can see a patch of green
In between the gaps in the blocks of flats
Sitting here thinking to myself
It’s funny what you notice when you start to relax
So many days I’ve been on the floor
Since the light of my life turned me from your door
Where all that happened was about as clever
As missing something that’s gone forever
Yes, I see a patch of green. I see green amidst the gray--the jagged concrete--the hard, hurtful floor. I see green in the laughter of friends, and the camaraderie of a dance circle, and the smile of an-other on the occasion of a good joke. I see green in the words, the sea, and the art. I see green in the beautiful, the mundane, the sacred, and the profane. It is funny what happens--when you relax into something new--something from the perspective of light shone all the way to the floor--where I was left.
Down the stairway on the floor below
Madame Valerie hits the bottle when things take a dive
Still it’s reassuring for me to know
She’s been living here for years and she’s still alive
I talk to her when lost in memory
Her story’s one of faded glory but she still has some clout
Woke up this morning with this melody
And the realization that we can all help each other out
Oh the Madame, or the Madame's. They are present, too, I suppose. The Madames beckon laughter, as well as screams. They are full of surprises--at least before they take a dive. I like talking to them, though. I like it when memories get intertwined into balls of forgetfulness late at night, amidst bottles and cold beverages, and open, bellowing laughter. The Madames--of course.
These days I’m walking the road alone
Returning once again to my only real home
Waking up early, staying up late
Reading a book I borrowed from my friend the heavy weight
Finding a new way to begin
Living without but living within
My eyes are opening to what might appear
As waking up to the simple fact that I’m here
It's good--the road. I like it. Staying up late--of course. The momentous only happens when you've stayed up later than is useful--when the expenditure exceeds the usefulness of day, and is wasted in the antics of the night. Waking up early--of course. I have to deal with the words before the sun steals them--before the sun makes me temporarily think it is isn't worth it--before the sun silences the words with its piercing rays and ubiquitous giving.
Living without? That is an interesting one, isn't it? I like living without--living without why and without a thought. I like living on the outside--external--with laughter and charm--with libations and encounters. Living without? Of course--I don't need you--don't want you. Living without? Of course--it's nice to see the things I see when you aren't in my way.
Further down on the street below
I rise above my state of inner sorrow
The fishmonger’s wife she knows about life
Says if you can’t pay today you can pay tomorrow
Think I’d be alright if I could see you tonight
But I’m wondering if that’s really me that’s talking
Lovers or friends it all depends
Think I better let my feet just keep on walking
Further down on the street--the one below me--I walk. It is nice to make headway on this path--to progress somewhere. Seeing you tonight? The thought has crossed my mind, I won't fib. But, it isn't me talking. I know it isn't. Lovers or friends? How about neither? I'd rather be friends with the road--with my feet--with the without. You know? Lovers or friends? No thanks. I'd rather see the patch of green--see the things I see between the gray and the questions; the aches and the bellows. I will walk--continue to walk--and well . . .
Changing inside letting go of the past
Don’t worry
Sometimes we all have to see the light
Yep, the without has changed the withing. It is a good thing. Don't worry--not about me--I'm that one--the one among many ones--but one nonetheless whom it is hard to forget--hard to replace--hard to explain. I try to see the light--everyday, I do. But, not in the rays--no, in the green that absorbs them--in the green that turns them into something different.
In between the gaps in the blocks of flats
Sitting here thinking to myself
It’s funny what you notice when you start to relax
So many days I’ve been on the floor
Since the light of my life turned me from your door
Where all that happened was about as clever
As missing something that’s gone forever
Yes, I see a patch of green. I see green amidst the gray--the jagged concrete--the hard, hurtful floor. I see green in the laughter of friends, and the camaraderie of a dance circle, and the smile of an-other on the occasion of a good joke. I see green in the words, the sea, and the art. I see green in the beautiful, the mundane, the sacred, and the profane. It is funny what happens--when you relax into something new--something from the perspective of light shone all the way to the floor--where I was left.
Down the stairway on the floor below
Madame Valerie hits the bottle when things take a dive
Still it’s reassuring for me to know
She’s been living here for years and she’s still alive
I talk to her when lost in memory
Her story’s one of faded glory but she still has some clout
Woke up this morning with this melody
And the realization that we can all help each other out
Oh the Madame, or the Madame's. They are present, too, I suppose. The Madames beckon laughter, as well as screams. They are full of surprises--at least before they take a dive. I like talking to them, though. I like it when memories get intertwined into balls of forgetfulness late at night, amidst bottles and cold beverages, and open, bellowing laughter. The Madames--of course.
These days I’m walking the road alone
Returning once again to my only real home
Waking up early, staying up late
Reading a book I borrowed from my friend the heavy weight
Finding a new way to begin
Living without but living within
My eyes are opening to what might appear
As waking up to the simple fact that I’m here
It's good--the road. I like it. Staying up late--of course. The momentous only happens when you've stayed up later than is useful--when the expenditure exceeds the usefulness of day, and is wasted in the antics of the night. Waking up early--of course. I have to deal with the words before the sun steals them--before the sun makes me temporarily think it is isn't worth it--before the sun silences the words with its piercing rays and ubiquitous giving.
Living without? That is an interesting one, isn't it? I like living without--living without why and without a thought. I like living on the outside--external--with laughter and charm--with libations and encounters. Living without? Of course--I don't need you--don't want you. Living without? Of course--it's nice to see the things I see when you aren't in my way.
Further down on the street below
I rise above my state of inner sorrow
The fishmonger’s wife she knows about life
Says if you can’t pay today you can pay tomorrow
Think I’d be alright if I could see you tonight
But I’m wondering if that’s really me that’s talking
Lovers or friends it all depends
Think I better let my feet just keep on walking
Further down on the street--the one below me--I walk. It is nice to make headway on this path--to progress somewhere. Seeing you tonight? The thought has crossed my mind, I won't fib. But, it isn't me talking. I know it isn't. Lovers or friends? How about neither? I'd rather be friends with the road--with my feet--with the without. You know? Lovers or friends? No thanks. I'd rather see the patch of green--see the things I see between the gray and the questions; the aches and the bellows. I will walk--continue to walk--and well . . .
Changing inside letting go of the past
Don’t worry
Sometimes we all have to see the light
Yep, the without has changed the withing. It is a good thing. Don't worry--not about me--I'm that one--the one among many ones--but one nonetheless whom it is hard to forget--hard to replace--hard to explain. I try to see the light--everyday, I do. But, not in the rays--no, in the green that absorbs them--in the green that turns them into something different.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Crazy
When the crazy hits the page, it is cathartic. It feels like all the swirling--all the chaos--the muddled ooze of atoms and breached barriers--torn jetties--fragmented souls--all the fucked, fecal remains of sweat, adrenaline, and cum--all the battered levys and harried canals--are somehow organized into semi-coherent sentences, complete with colons, semi-colons, commas, and periods. It feels like the crazy is forced to confess itself in an organized manner--to testify to its existence--to tell the world that it exists--to witness to what I have been saying this whole time.
When the crazy hits the page, it is cathartic somehow. It doesn't make it worth it. I don't really know if that is possible. I don't think even God could do that--justify the breaching required for the crazy to tear up the little pink cepallic enter of my self--the virgin space criss-crossed by the lines--tears--violations--of breaching.
No, when the crazy hits the page it isn't about making it worth it. Making it worth it is a tired cause--it is a non-issue that doesn't even deserve a response at this point. It is never about making it worth it. No, when the crazy hits the pages the cathartic part is that I can see it--read it--and force it into grammatical servitude. At that point, the crazy is spewed forth--vomited--into categories, syntax, and grammar. At that point, it is real. It exists. It is an entity; a being.
It's real. That's the cathartic part. I don't have to persuade any longer--I don't have to cajole. No. When the crazy hits the page, I might be dead--but the swirling dervish of pain, trying, hope, idiocracy, and meaninglessness is immortal--it is its own at that point.
When the crazy hits the page I smile a wide smile--I grin from ear to ear--and laugh. When the crazy hits the page, I grab my belly and shrill from the inside out. When the crazy hits the page, I know it won't stop--but I at least know I know it is out--real--for everyone to see. When the crazy hits the page, I know that the criss-crossed lines of my pink center are born out--laid bare--and singular--no one has my lines--no one has my ridges--my canals--my marks--I might be dead, but my breaches--the breaches that make me possible--testify to the crazy that made me possible.
When the crazy hits the page, it is cathartic somehow. It doesn't make it worth it. I don't really know if that is possible. I don't think even God could do that--justify the breaching required for the crazy to tear up the little pink cepallic enter of my self--the virgin space criss-crossed by the lines--tears--violations--of breaching.
No, when the crazy hits the page it isn't about making it worth it. Making it worth it is a tired cause--it is a non-issue that doesn't even deserve a response at this point. It is never about making it worth it. No, when the crazy hits the pages the cathartic part is that I can see it--read it--and force it into grammatical servitude. At that point, the crazy is spewed forth--vomited--into categories, syntax, and grammar. At that point, it is real. It exists. It is an entity; a being.
It's real. That's the cathartic part. I don't have to persuade any longer--I don't have to cajole. No. When the crazy hits the page, I might be dead--but the swirling dervish of pain, trying, hope, idiocracy, and meaninglessness is immortal--it is its own at that point.
When the crazy hits the page I smile a wide smile--I grin from ear to ear--and laugh. When the crazy hits the page, I grab my belly and shrill from the inside out. When the crazy hits the page, I know it won't stop--but I at least know I know it is out--real--for everyone to see. When the crazy hits the page, I know that the criss-crossed lines of my pink center are born out--laid bare--and singular--no one has my lines--no one has my ridges--my canals--my marks--I might be dead, but my breaches--the breaches that make me possible--testify to the crazy that made me possible.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Remembering to Forget
Trying to forget is remembering, and that is the bastard of it. I guess I'll forget when I stop remembering, and I'll stop remembering when I forget. Until then, you'll be in my psyche--in places I like to think are evaporating--in places I don't really like to go. The pictures are gone, and the words too.
I guess you could be smug about it--smug that you are still there. I guess you could be hurt--hurt that I am trying to excise that set of rooms from my brain. I don't really care. At least I tell myself that anyway. I probably do--I probably care in the same places the memories are hidden--maybe the caring is what keeps them from evaporating.
It is funny how it all works out in the end. You told me a story the first time we talked and then repeated that story, and that is the thing we spoke of the last time we talked. Now we will never talk again. I know my stories--one of them, or many--got stuck in there too--in between--but, that one story--the pattern on that old shirt you wore the first time we kissed--well, it was the one, wasn't it? The one that stood at the beginning and the end. Oh well, I should have known better--about me, and about you. I should have trusted the doubts instead of the laughter. I should have remembered then--instead of consciously forgetting--the story--the story you told me at the beginning. If I had, maybe the end would have been different.
I guess you could be smug about it--smug that you are still there. I guess you could be hurt--hurt that I am trying to excise that set of rooms from my brain. I don't really care. At least I tell myself that anyway. I probably do--I probably care in the same places the memories are hidden--maybe the caring is what keeps them from evaporating.
It is funny how it all works out in the end. You told me a story the first time we talked and then repeated that story, and that is the thing we spoke of the last time we talked. Now we will never talk again. I know my stories--one of them, or many--got stuck in there too--in between--but, that one story--the pattern on that old shirt you wore the first time we kissed--well, it was the one, wasn't it? The one that stood at the beginning and the end. Oh well, I should have known better--about me, and about you. I should have trusted the doubts instead of the laughter. I should have remembered then--instead of consciously forgetting--the story--the story you told me at the beginning. If I had, maybe the end would have been different.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Episodes in the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop
That encounter--that very embarrassing encounter--well, it made me realize something. It was the first time I wasn't in . . . I was just someone. It was the first time I was a one, and not the One. I guess that may not be strictly true. I guess that had probably happened before--I am sure there had been rejections and semi-rejections and what not. I don't know. But for some reason, that encounter stuck out.
It stuck to me--or maybe pierced me--like a stake. Yes, amidst all of the investing and divesting of stakes that were happening at that point--this was one was definitive somehow. Somehow it lit up a bubble in my brain. Somehow, it made sense of some of the stakes.
Life is about stakes. It is about piercing things--places--souls--in order to erect something--make something. God pierced the Bride in the Song of Songs thousands of years ago--God--the Bridegroom in this story--pierced her with his wounding, seducing arrow. God, the Divine Seducer, drew her into a movement--a dance of presence and absence--that included separate and simultaneous instances of anguish and ecstasy. God held that soul captive with the promise of fulfillment--of a penetration--that would fill so deeply, so unnervingly, so interior within her--that she herself would dissolve in a moment of ecstatic disappearance.
Life is about stakes. About digging under layers in order to make a home out of wounds--welcome wounds--risky wounds--desirable wounds.
Yes, we make tents all day everyday--professionally, politically, religiously, and erotically. In love, in living, we erect places to make temporary spaces in order to clear a temporary tent in the forest--the dark, but beautiful forest of breathing--of smoke--of tears--of hunger--mortality--and desire.
That event was a shattering stake--an illuminating stake.
That event showed me that my tent was based on stakes--a perpetually moving, shifting, contingent set of stakes. That event showed me that my tent was always moving in different directions and different ways in order to make space for everyone. I wanted to be able to pierce and be pierced--to be God and the Bride--the object and subject--the Seducer and the wounded, captive Lover--all at once. I wanted to convince that I could erect spaces.
But, it meant my stakes--my personal stakes--my attempt at congealing the chaos of my little world--of forming a coherent mass in my little psyche--the day by day, moment by moment job of running a motor rather than a firework in my head; of running good set of irrigation pipes throughout the flowing circuits in my pink, cephallic center--of letting the water of desire and voices keep within the banks of the canals I had dug--were heavily dependent upon the refracted pieces that were returned to me in the desire--the compliments--the appreciation of those--the others--the ones.
I realized the tents I was making were based on an empty center. I realized that I had been running on the basis of an absence--one that I would fill at a moment's notic in order to receive and dispense with piercing, convincing stakes--ones that would result in melting and liquified insides.
My center--the empty, absent center--the space that was only a space because nothing was there--was not only the site where those stakes were dispensed from, but also the place wherein a new tent could be erected in a matter of moments, days, encounters.
I could construct an open space out of the returned, refracted fragements returned to me from the other.
My tent was nothing. My tent was contingent.
My tent was dependent upon me knowing that I had pierced--that I had crossed--in ways that are and were liquifying.
Without the liquid, I would spill no liquid. Without the crossing, I wouldn't and couldn't be crossed.
I miss that Old Man. I miss his grumpiness. I miss his moods. I miss the questions he would ask me about his crossword puzzles and how he never thought I was right. I miss how he would try to flirt with Sage and the other semi-hippy women at the shop; how his swagger carried him through even the most awkward moments. But, mostly I missed his otherness. I missed him sitting across from me--outside of me--without a care in the world as to my stakes and what I was trying to accomplish. He didn't care about being pierced. He didn't care about melting. He just sat there--and let the tent build itself. He just sat there and let the tent between us--between he and whomever he encountered--built itself each time they met. He was always happy to see you--any you--and you always knew it. How did he do that?
I still talk to him most days. I still talk to him when I walk in the Shop, or go for a walk on the boardwalk. I tell him about my day, or the girl I am seeing, or what I am reading about. I don't know where he is--I don't know how he exists in my psyche still--within the circuits that are always threatening to become jumbled and the overflowing canals--but he is. He is there. And he is still other--still foreign. It somehow reminds me--or gives me hope at least--that someday I will figure out how to not let my tent be so contingent; so wrapped up in other peoples returns.
It stuck to me--or maybe pierced me--like a stake. Yes, amidst all of the investing and divesting of stakes that were happening at that point--this was one was definitive somehow. Somehow it lit up a bubble in my brain. Somehow, it made sense of some of the stakes.
Life is about stakes. It is about piercing things--places--souls--in order to erect something--make something. God pierced the Bride in the Song of Songs thousands of years ago--God--the Bridegroom in this story--pierced her with his wounding, seducing arrow. God, the Divine Seducer, drew her into a movement--a dance of presence and absence--that included separate and simultaneous instances of anguish and ecstasy. God held that soul captive with the promise of fulfillment--of a penetration--that would fill so deeply, so unnervingly, so interior within her--that she herself would dissolve in a moment of ecstatic disappearance.
Life is about stakes. About digging under layers in order to make a home out of wounds--welcome wounds--risky wounds--desirable wounds.
Yes, we make tents all day everyday--professionally, politically, religiously, and erotically. In love, in living, we erect places to make temporary spaces in order to clear a temporary tent in the forest--the dark, but beautiful forest of breathing--of smoke--of tears--of hunger--mortality--and desire.
That event was a shattering stake--an illuminating stake.
That event showed me that my tent was based on stakes--a perpetually moving, shifting, contingent set of stakes. That event showed me that my tent was always moving in different directions and different ways in order to make space for everyone. I wanted to be able to pierce and be pierced--to be God and the Bride--the object and subject--the Seducer and the wounded, captive Lover--all at once. I wanted to convince that I could erect spaces.
But, it meant my stakes--my personal stakes--my attempt at congealing the chaos of my little world--of forming a coherent mass in my little psyche--the day by day, moment by moment job of running a motor rather than a firework in my head; of running good set of irrigation pipes throughout the flowing circuits in my pink, cephallic center--of letting the water of desire and voices keep within the banks of the canals I had dug--were heavily dependent upon the refracted pieces that were returned to me in the desire--the compliments--the appreciation of those--the others--the ones.
I realized the tents I was making were based on an empty center. I realized that I had been running on the basis of an absence--one that I would fill at a moment's notic in order to receive and dispense with piercing, convincing stakes--ones that would result in melting and liquified insides.
My center--the empty, absent center--the space that was only a space because nothing was there--was not only the site where those stakes were dispensed from, but also the place wherein a new tent could be erected in a matter of moments, days, encounters.
I could construct an open space out of the returned, refracted fragements returned to me from the other.
My tent was nothing. My tent was contingent.
My tent was dependent upon me knowing that I had pierced--that I had crossed--in ways that are and were liquifying.
Without the liquid, I would spill no liquid. Without the crossing, I wouldn't and couldn't be crossed.
I miss that Old Man. I miss his grumpiness. I miss his moods. I miss the questions he would ask me about his crossword puzzles and how he never thought I was right. I miss how he would try to flirt with Sage and the other semi-hippy women at the shop; how his swagger carried him through even the most awkward moments. But, mostly I missed his otherness. I missed him sitting across from me--outside of me--without a care in the world as to my stakes and what I was trying to accomplish. He didn't care about being pierced. He didn't care about melting. He just sat there--and let the tent build itself. He just sat there and let the tent between us--between he and whomever he encountered--built itself each time they met. He was always happy to see you--any you--and you always knew it. How did he do that?
I still talk to him most days. I still talk to him when I walk in the Shop, or go for a walk on the boardwalk. I tell him about my day, or the girl I am seeing, or what I am reading about. I don't know where he is--I don't know how he exists in my psyche still--within the circuits that are always threatening to become jumbled and the overflowing canals--but he is. He is there. And he is still other--still foreign. It somehow reminds me--or gives me hope at least--that someday I will figure out how to not let my tent be so contingent; so wrapped up in other peoples returns.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
The Best Book Ever Written in the English Language
So, Louise (mainly), Kevin, and Brad wrote this book. You can order it on Amazon and wait until they get it in stock, or get it here http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1589797488&searchurl=an%3Dlouise%2Bnelstrop%26sts%3Dt%26x%3D0%26y%3D0
.
If you buy a copy, I will wash your car. If you buy two, I will wash your car with my shirt off.
.
If you buy a copy, I will wash your car. If you buy two, I will wash your car with my shirt off.
A Song for You
So today I wrote a song for you
Cause a day can get so long
And I know its hard to make it through
When you say there's something wrong
So, today I wrote down some words for you. I wrote them in my brain. I wrote some of them on a page, too (but not all of them). I wrote because a day can get very long--you can forget who you are, what you are, and what you are doing, all in a day. Yes, a day can get long and life can too. Life treads on--always in the interim--in the in-between--but the poles on one side get longer and longer, and the inexpressible one on the other remains there--measureless. You would think this squishing of life between these two would make it short--at least one day. But, for whatever reason, it does not.
So Im trying to put it right
Cause I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made me tight
And I dont know even where to start
Maybe thats a start
The words that I wrote--that I am constantly writing--I want them to be right. How do you make write right? How do you press words into disciplined, rigorous service? It does make me tight. I don't even know where to start with you--really. I guess you could say that, in that way, you make me speechless? I don't know. But, yes, I don't know where to start. Is that a start? I don't know. I have started before and ended too. I have begun and not finished. I want to finish this song--this poem--this story--this narrative. I want to insert the definitive plot line that will lead to the climax and the finish. You know? But, I'm tight. I'm tight trying to get the write right.
Cause you know its a simple game
That you play filling up your head with rain
And you know you are hiding from your pain
In the way, in the way you say your name
It is a simple game. We have played alot of games, you and I. They have not all had simple rules--but they all have had a simple purpose. Why do they end with rain--with heads full of rain precipitating coiled up words? Rain isn't bad. I like the rain. But, rain isn't good if it means denial or running.
And you're so tired you don't sleep at night
As your heart is trying to mend
You keep it quiet but you think you might
Disappear before the end
I know you sleep. I know you mend. I know you sleep in different places for different reasons. I know you sometimes keep it incredibly quiet--but not always. I know you won't disappear before the end--not you. But, I don't know how to mend the two ends. I don't know how to mend your end with mine. Oh well. In the interim, int the perpetual in-between, I'll keep writing songs for you. People like that, don't they?
Cause a day can get so long
And I know its hard to make it through
When you say there's something wrong
So, today I wrote down some words for you. I wrote them in my brain. I wrote some of them on a page, too (but not all of them). I wrote because a day can get very long--you can forget who you are, what you are, and what you are doing, all in a day. Yes, a day can get long and life can too. Life treads on--always in the interim--in the in-between--but the poles on one side get longer and longer, and the inexpressible one on the other remains there--measureless. You would think this squishing of life between these two would make it short--at least one day. But, for whatever reason, it does not.
So Im trying to put it right
Cause I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made me tight
And I dont know even where to start
Maybe thats a start
The words that I wrote--that I am constantly writing--I want them to be right. How do you make write right? How do you press words into disciplined, rigorous service? It does make me tight. I don't even know where to start with you--really. I guess you could say that, in that way, you make me speechless? I don't know. But, yes, I don't know where to start. Is that a start? I don't know. I have started before and ended too. I have begun and not finished. I want to finish this song--this poem--this story--this narrative. I want to insert the definitive plot line that will lead to the climax and the finish. You know? But, I'm tight. I'm tight trying to get the write right.
Cause you know its a simple game
That you play filling up your head with rain
And you know you are hiding from your pain
In the way, in the way you say your name
It is a simple game. We have played alot of games, you and I. They have not all had simple rules--but they all have had a simple purpose. Why do they end with rain--with heads full of rain precipitating coiled up words? Rain isn't bad. I like the rain. But, rain isn't good if it means denial or running.
And you're so tired you don't sleep at night
As your heart is trying to mend
You keep it quiet but you think you might
Disappear before the end
I know you sleep. I know you mend. I know you sleep in different places for different reasons. I know you sometimes keep it incredibly quiet--but not always. I know you won't disappear before the end--not you. But, I don't know how to mend the two ends. I don't know how to mend your end with mine. Oh well. In the interim, int the perpetual in-between, I'll keep writing songs for you. People like that, don't they?
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
I talked to an old, ex-friend today. She said, "Thanks for writing about me, I am flattered."
"What?"
"You know, your story and your electronic diary. You wrote about me. I am the character in your little story. I means some of it is confusing, but I am flattered to be written about."
I was dumbfounded.
"I think you missed the point of the story and stories in general. I also think you missed the point of the flickering ones and zeroes. Neither of them, the story or the numbers, were ever about identification. If you look for you in them--look to identify fully and wholeheartedly--well, you missed the point of fiction. Yes, fiction. Yes, stories--with narrators--are fiction. If you want to be--be--a character in a story, you will only be frustrated. Stories are not about being something. Stories about pieces and fragments and thoughts and events that happen in and through us. Some of them in the far past; some of them in the near past--but all of them portray an amalgamation that can never be explained through identification. You are not here. I am not here. Do you understand?"
By the time my rant was over, she had turned her attention to another friend. Oh well.
"What?"
"You know, your story and your electronic diary. You wrote about me. I am the character in your little story. I means some of it is confusing, but I am flattered to be written about."
I was dumbfounded.
"I think you missed the point of the story and stories in general. I also think you missed the point of the flickering ones and zeroes. Neither of them, the story or the numbers, were ever about identification. If you look for you in them--look to identify fully and wholeheartedly--well, you missed the point of fiction. Yes, fiction. Yes, stories--with narrators--are fiction. If you want to be--be--a character in a story, you will only be frustrated. Stories are not about being something. Stories about pieces and fragments and thoughts and events that happen in and through us. Some of them in the far past; some of them in the near past--but all of them portray an amalgamation that can never be explained through identification. You are not here. I am not here. Do you understand?"
By the time my rant was over, she had turned her attention to another friend. Oh well.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
She said, "What's next?" I was feeling lyrical: "Darlin, I am going to take a stinging toke, rustle in the restless smoke, and hopefully deliver the punch line to my psychic joke."
Writing is breaching. --Derrida
Writing is breaching--a crossing inside that is not only unplanned, but unable to be remedied. It is an explosion beyond the border of safety that leaves one paralyzed with trauma. Life is about breaching--about the moments of crossing--where there is something inside of you that leaves you helpless. Life is about breaching--about one--another--something--crossing a border and leaving you traumatized in a speechless paralysis.
When it is love--we call it beautiful. When it is a lover, we call it by screaming its name. When it is not--we call it death--or something like it. We call it worse than death because it traumatized in a way that means we are still here to experience it.
Yes, life is breaching--about moments of decision that scare the shit out of us because it means letting something pass beyond the border where we are able to defend ourselves. Life begins with a breach and never stops being constituted by them. Life is about the space--the decision-between who and what can breach the borders of our personal sacred space.
Breaching--eruption--can result in anger.
Writing is anger.
Writing is the being-sick of the trauma of a breaching that is not love, but death. Writing is spewing-forth something that appears to be a congealed, coherent substance of sick resulting from the trauma of an unexpected breach.
Writing is anger congealed--the fabrication of chaos congealed--the chaos of death congealed.
Writing is life. Breaching is life.
Writing is breaching. --Derrida
Writing is breaching--a crossing inside that is not only unplanned, but unable to be remedied. It is an explosion beyond the border of safety that leaves one paralyzed with trauma. Life is about breaching--about the moments of crossing--where there is something inside of you that leaves you helpless. Life is about breaching--about one--another--something--crossing a border and leaving you traumatized in a speechless paralysis.
When it is love--we call it beautiful. When it is a lover, we call it by screaming its name. When it is not--we call it death--or something like it. We call it worse than death because it traumatized in a way that means we are still here to experience it.
Yes, life is breaching--about moments of decision that scare the shit out of us because it means letting something pass beyond the border where we are able to defend ourselves. Life begins with a breach and never stops being constituted by them. Life is about the space--the decision-between who and what can breach the borders of our personal sacred space.
Breaching--eruption--can result in anger.
Writing is anger.
Writing is the being-sick of the trauma of a breaching that is not love, but death. Writing is spewing-forth something that appears to be a congealed, coherent substance of sick resulting from the trauma of an unexpected breach.
Writing is anger congealed--the fabrication of chaos congealed--the chaos of death congealed.
Writing is life. Breaching is life.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Flake
All flakes are different, right? Snow flakes are never the same. I suppose dandruff flakes are unique, too. Flakes come in different--and sometimes alluring--sizes.
I know she said it's alright
But you can make it up next time
I know she knows it's not right
There ain't no use in lying
Maybe she thinks I know something
Maybe maybe she thinks its fine
Maybe she knows something I don't
I'm so, I'm so tired, I'm so tired of trying
It's alright? Actually, it is not. It is not alright, it is not right, and it shall never be again. She knows--kind of. She knows only because she was reminded--probed--investigated. She knows, but not really. She knows, but she isn't willing to know too deeply. She knows something I don't? Actually, no. She doesn't even know the things she should know, much less what I do. Yes, now, at this point, I am tired. I am tired of trying--trying to forget; of trying to stop trying to exert energy forgetting. Why is it so easy to remember and so impossible to consciously--intentionally--forget?
I know she loves the sunrise
No longer sees it with her sleeping eyes
And I know that when she said she's gonna try
Well it might not work because of other ties and
I know she usually has some other ties
And I wouldn't want to break 'em, nah, I wouldn't want to break 'em
Maybe she'll help me to untie this but
Until then well, I'm gonna have to lie to you.
She loves the sunrise, the sunset . . . well, the sun in general. Under that sun--the sun being maybe the only one who knows all the things we are speaking of here--she had/has a few ties. I kind of knew this. I was kind of in the same boat. And, actually, I did want to break them. I wanted to break the ties--to be the only tie there was. I thought untying both of our respective knots might result in a story--a line--that led somewhere down the road--somewhere new--somewhere where we knew without lying. But, the knots were more tangled than we knew. The new could not emerge because, among other things, she knew not what she should have. What a flake.
It seems to me that maybe
It pretty much always means no
So don't tell me you might just let it go
And often times we're lazy
It seems to stand in my way
Cause no one no not no one
Likes to be let down
It seems to me that maybe
It pretty much always means no
So don't tell me you might just let it go
It may not always mean no, but most times--overwhelmingly so--it does mean disappointment. No one likes to be let down. Her ties and her unwillingngess to know herself--these let me down. Her knots--and her inability to realize her knottiness--are disappointing. You are not a memory. You are a an attempted-forgotten. See the difference? So, don't tell me to let it go. Don't tell me to let it go so we can be friends. Don't tell me to let it go so we can be nice. It's useless. You don't even have the capacity to know--to try to know--so what's the point? Disappointing; altogether disappointing. You are an attempted-forgotten disappointment flake--one melting into the landscape at the hands of the sunrise. When the sun gets high enough, you shall blend back into nothing--into a nothing of which I know nothing.
I know she said it's alright
But you can make it up next time
I know she knows it's not right
There ain't no use in lying
Maybe she thinks I know something
Maybe maybe she thinks its fine
Maybe she knows something I don't
I'm so, I'm so tired, I'm so tired of trying
It's alright? Actually, it is not. It is not alright, it is not right, and it shall never be again. She knows--kind of. She knows only because she was reminded--probed--investigated. She knows, but not really. She knows, but she isn't willing to know too deeply. She knows something I don't? Actually, no. She doesn't even know the things she should know, much less what I do. Yes, now, at this point, I am tired. I am tired of trying--trying to forget; of trying to stop trying to exert energy forgetting. Why is it so easy to remember and so impossible to consciously--intentionally--forget?
I know she loves the sunrise
No longer sees it with her sleeping eyes
And I know that when she said she's gonna try
Well it might not work because of other ties and
I know she usually has some other ties
And I wouldn't want to break 'em, nah, I wouldn't want to break 'em
Maybe she'll help me to untie this but
Until then well, I'm gonna have to lie to you.
She loves the sunrise, the sunset . . . well, the sun in general. Under that sun--the sun being maybe the only one who knows all the things we are speaking of here--she had/has a few ties. I kind of knew this. I was kind of in the same boat. And, actually, I did want to break them. I wanted to break the ties--to be the only tie there was. I thought untying both of our respective knots might result in a story--a line--that led somewhere down the road--somewhere new--somewhere where we knew without lying. But, the knots were more tangled than we knew. The new could not emerge because, among other things, she knew not what she should have. What a flake.
It seems to me that maybe
It pretty much always means no
So don't tell me you might just let it go
And often times we're lazy
It seems to stand in my way
Cause no one no not no one
Likes to be let down
It seems to me that maybe
It pretty much always means no
So don't tell me you might just let it go
It may not always mean no, but most times--overwhelmingly so--it does mean disappointment. No one likes to be let down. Her ties and her unwillingngess to know herself--these let me down. Her knots--and her inability to realize her knottiness--are disappointing. You are not a memory. You are a an attempted-forgotten. See the difference? So, don't tell me to let it go. Don't tell me to let it go so we can be friends. Don't tell me to let it go so we can be nice. It's useless. You don't even have the capacity to know--to try to know--so what's the point? Disappointing; altogether disappointing. You are an attempted-forgotten disappointment flake--one melting into the landscape at the hands of the sunrise. When the sun gets high enough, you shall blend back into nothing--into a nothing of which I know nothing.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Episodes in the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop: Your Stake was not Worth It
Yes, life is about stakes. The problem? Stakes are made to pierce--to open--to violently cross erected boundaries. We pound stakes into the ground in order to setup a temporary dwellings--to make homes, always temporary, in order to work, sleep, and rest.
Stakes open.
Stakes violate one border in order to make it possible for there to be a place--a temporary home. We make tents all day everyday.
Life is about this--this piercing, wounding, transgressing opening--crossing borders in order to erect the kinds of places--spaces--in which we want to dwell.
Yes, life is about stakes. Life is about deciding where and when to hammer--to break a boundary in order to try to make a home; to destroy a border in order to make a space; to try--through violence--to make something new, special, unique, different.
How could it not hurt when the stakes are divested--when the home collapses--the space evaporates--the trying is no more?
Of course it hurts. Piercing is one thing, but dealing with the trauma of a breached boundary--with the fact that someone's stake has crossed your border and then for one reason or another been taken out again--this hurts. This stings.
Life is about stakes. Most times, at least it seems for now, the borders we cross--the places we dig and let dig into us--are not worth it. Most times, they are overwhelmingly disappointing. The soil, the foundation, the consistency of the place you stake--the dull, indescribable pain of a stake being pulled from layer after layer of the space beneath your breached border--well, it hurts. It hurts because you are closing a wound. It hurts worse if the wound involves disappointment--not being rejected, but realizing the place you staked--the place you stuck yourself--was never worth it in the beginning.
Stakes open.
Stakes violate one border in order to make it possible for there to be a place--a temporary home. We make tents all day everyday.
Life is about this--this piercing, wounding, transgressing opening--crossing borders in order to erect the kinds of places--spaces--in which we want to dwell.
Yes, life is about stakes. Life is about deciding where and when to hammer--to break a boundary in order to try to make a home; to destroy a border in order to make a space; to try--through violence--to make something new, special, unique, different.
How could it not hurt when the stakes are divested--when the home collapses--the space evaporates--the trying is no more?
Of course it hurts. Piercing is one thing, but dealing with the trauma of a breached boundary--with the fact that someone's stake has crossed your border and then for one reason or another been taken out again--this hurts. This stings.
Life is about stakes. Most times, at least it seems for now, the borders we cross--the places we dig and let dig into us--are not worth it. Most times, they are overwhelmingly disappointing. The soil, the foundation, the consistency of the place you stake--the dull, indescribable pain of a stake being pulled from layer after layer of the space beneath your breached border--well, it hurts. It hurts because you are closing a wound. It hurts worse if the wound involves disappointment--not being rejected, but realizing the place you staked--the place you stuck yourself--was never worth it in the beginning.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Episodes in the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop: Words and their Stakes
Life is about stakes. What is at stake? There is always something at stake. Always. No matter how hard we try, everyone of us is always already committed--entrenched--circulating--within a world of significations, meanings, and networks. On top of that, we are always responsible for our stakes--our stake.
A man Heidegger taught me that. He was a Nazi.
Disappointment comes from staking in something that didn't want your stake, or wasn't worth it. Sometimes we are sad because the one--the thing--the something--doesn't want us. Other times, we are sad because what we thought was worth our stake is actually not worth our stake.
The Old Man was shaking his head and looking out the window. I don't know what was on his mind, but something was on his mind. His crossword puzzle was on his lap in front of him, but it was just a poor disguise for his pensive involvements.
I think stakes were the problem between myself and the semi-hippy woman. I don't know where her stakes were--or are. I don't think she thinks of that too consciously.
The Old Man got up to take a piss. He almost walked into the women's bathroom despite having been in the shop everyday for months.
Nothing changes when there is nothing at stake. For her, fucking held no stakes. It was fun. It was amazing. She loved it—I know she did. But, she wasn't looking for anything there—those encounters weren't a place where she expected to find something, discover something, hear something. Those times weren't a place she expected to dig deep at the limits of our possibilities—to fucking defy all our bodily limits in order to stretch into some other realm; to be taken elsewhere somehow.
I guess I can't blame her. I guess for most people fucking is fucking—some people love it, some people love it and are horrible at it, some people think it is nice once in a while, or a good way to feel close to someone, or nice way to show someone they love them. That all sounds great. That all sounds ordinary. It is ordinary—it accepts the fact that fucking is nothing more—nothing beyond—nothing extraordinary; like our bodies don't have secrets pent up in hidden, seemingly inaccessible places that can't be unlocked by words. It accepts that fucking is controlled by words just like every other aspect of life. We talk while we wait for the bus. We text each other at every goddamn minute of the day. We update our personal pages to tell everyone when we are eating dinner, changing clothes, and taking a shit. We talk during dinner. We talk at work.
Even those times we don't speak—when we listen—the words are in charge. Films talk to us. Music speaks to us.
Words. Words. Words. Words. Words.
The words are ubiquitous.
Words. Words. Words. Words. Words.
Always words.
Even silence is just a momentary ignoring of words—it doesn't cancel them, surpass them, or provide anythig more than the opposite (and thus the same) as the words. It is a band-aid, not an elixir.
We are born into words. We are born into a situation in which words have been developed into a languge that has labeled the vast network of things we encounter in the world—from trees to traffic signs to the moon—with a signficance. The network is already mapped out—we just jump into it—or are thrown into it. The world already exists, and each and every fucker here showed up without a choice in the matter. If we are to manuever the crossing, complex networks of the human world—well, we have to use the fucking words. Words are the lifeblood. Words are the only way you can think. You can't think without words—you don't have the means. Words are us. We are words. floating—moving--changing--being pushed and pulled perpetually by the flows of words—signifiers—meanings--apellations--nominations--accusations. You are not, apart from words.
I have always felt them following me. I have always loved words and hated them. I know life is meaningless. I know life is a random grouping molecules thrown into fucking deep fryer. I know life is a balmy, unforgiving trek through time's hell. And, the words are time's foreman—the SS Officer standing at the top of the tower watching over the camp.
I know that politics, or good deeds, or humanitarian acts are all useful. But, they are also all meaningless. Most of the time, I accept it. I don't want to sit around thinking about this bullshit. Do you? Nietzsche did and he ended up fucking a horse in the street and going mad (at least, that's what someone told me). That sounds terrible. I don't want to cut my ear off, or commit suicide, or even worse, start a revolution. No, I don't. I like people. I enjoy things at times. But I have no grand illusions. They all collapsed long ago in a heap of adolescence and optimism.
She just didn't get it. Fucking is a chance to escape the words--even for seconds, or a second. Fucking is one of the few realms where there is a chance that for a minute the words will disappear—the world will disappear—time will stop. There aren't many chances in this world to experience something—sometime--when your stream of consciousness is literally halted by a wave of overwhelming darts to your self. There are not many times when you literally cannot think because your body won't let you. There are not many times when the world—when the context of all of it—the bed, and the nightstand, and the house, and the sweat, the tits, the legs, ass, feet, toes, fingers, forearms, shoulders, quadriceps, hamstrings, eyebrows; when the breathing, the glancing, the uttering, the showing, the trying, the performing; the wondering, hating, worrying; when the time and the space disappear into an abyss of nothingness and you exist nowhwere. There are not many times you can be nowhere. It is like trying to forget something, it just doesn't work. There are not many times, you see, when you can be dead without dying.
I'm not a freak. I know there are times you fuck before bed, enjoy it, and then say goodnight. I know there are times you fool around a little on a Saturday morning and then go make breakfast. I don't want to spend my life at swinger parties or sex clubs. I'm just saying, there is more at stake in fucking than a hobby. Fucking is a more existential phenomenon than darts, gin rummy, knitting, flying kites, kayaking, or your local book club.
There is a chance to communicate with another—to communicate in a way that doesn't require words. There is a chance to strip down to nothing—to bodies—to sensations—to let the secret part of yourself—the part you are most embarrassed about because you don't know it—haven't dealt with it—be seen, touched, and explored. There is a chance to let the forbidden space that you don't know how to access be revealed to another person. There is a chance to explore the concealed depths of mortality. There is a chance to surpass the words in order to communicate in a way that is not normal.
And, yes, that is what I want. I want to communicate. Yes, I want to communicate so well that I do not exist, and you do not either. I want to communicate so well that there is an in-distinguish-ability that renders our normal way of being mute. I want to communicate so well that you and I are mute. That is my goal. That is what my desire hinges upon.
How to do that? Well, it seems not with the words. The words can't help us here. Words are for this world. Words denote the everyday. We need the words, but here, we need something different. The way I want to communicate won't work with the words.
Yes, I want to communicate apart from the words--with means--in channels--via pathways--and inacessible secrets--in places unseen and unmentioned--spaces surrounded by fear and taboo--rings of filth mixed with a pain that is pleasurable--where the cut of time has incised unforgettably, but not ineluctably--where I don't know, but you can find--where you won't go, but will let me explore--where there are no words . . . where there is a deep, insatiable reach for continuity--for union--for the ability to transform, tweak, and distort bodies and words and thoughts and feelings and perceptions and images. I want to disappear from the world into a place that does not exist. I want to leave the world for a non-place untouched by space and time.
Of course, of course--this requires risk. It requires vulnerability. And most of all, it requires obscenity.
If we are communicate ourselves into silence, there will have to be some discomfort and some risk. Stripping naked can be a bit tenuous. For some, it is no big deal; they want to speak the silent words we are speaking of here. I don't know if they know the secrets pent up in the criss-crossed channels that lead from their pores to the endless space that makes up the little room where the words come from in the first place. I know, I know. Not all nakedness is about this quest to find the silent words. I know that it is not always about communicating without speaking; I know we can't always render the words mute through a meeting--an encounter--that dispossesses us. But, shouldn't it be most of the time? Sometimes? Is it unreasonable to search for the sacred in the obscene? To find something--something extraordinary--in the terror and vulnerability of nakedness? Or have we given up on that idea, amidst the plethora of stretched, augmented, and displayed bodies in our space and cyberspace? Have we let that go in lieu of the commodified ease of voyerurism? Have we given up on obscenity--sacred obscenity--in order to feed ourselves a constant diet of spectacle, shine, technique, gossip, and mechanics?
Dancing is easier than this. Dancing is safer than nakedness. You can fuck and dance at the same time. You can fuck and dance with your clothes on and off. Yes, back to the dancing. There is always dancing in these instances--it is an easy way to try halfheartedly. Let's move. Let's shake. But, no, let's not dare strip naked--let's not dare show ourselves into the ugly, awful, nauseating, limitless soup of atoms that constitute the space behind the words--the place that is untouched--the place where separation gives way to the rupture of the nameless disquiet.
We are one flesh--for moments or seconds or hours or days--but, I know, I know . . . . . . . I am naive . . . endlessly naive . . . always stars--always separate--always discontinuous.
I know. You don't have to tell me. I know the quest--this one of communication, silence, and nakedness--is impossible--I know it leads nowhere but to a frustrating, fatal cliff--I know it ends in the world re-appearing--with us re-appearing in the palce where we are visible, temporal, and slaves to the words. But, it's worth a try. Sometimes at least. It's not even that she didn't want to try. She didn't have the capacity to understand any of this in order to try.
The Old Man returned from the bathroom with a small, but noticeable wetspot on his cotton, cream-colored old man shorts.
"What you lookin at?"
"Nothing, nothing at all. You okay?"
A man Heidegger taught me that. He was a Nazi.
Disappointment comes from staking in something that didn't want your stake, or wasn't worth it. Sometimes we are sad because the one--the thing--the something--doesn't want us. Other times, we are sad because what we thought was worth our stake is actually not worth our stake.
The Old Man was shaking his head and looking out the window. I don't know what was on his mind, but something was on his mind. His crossword puzzle was on his lap in front of him, but it was just a poor disguise for his pensive involvements.
I think stakes were the problem between myself and the semi-hippy woman. I don't know where her stakes were--or are. I don't think she thinks of that too consciously.
The Old Man got up to take a piss. He almost walked into the women's bathroom despite having been in the shop everyday for months.
Nothing changes when there is nothing at stake. For her, fucking held no stakes. It was fun. It was amazing. She loved it—I know she did. But, she wasn't looking for anything there—those encounters weren't a place where she expected to find something, discover something, hear something. Those times weren't a place she expected to dig deep at the limits of our possibilities—to fucking defy all our bodily limits in order to stretch into some other realm; to be taken elsewhere somehow.
I guess I can't blame her. I guess for most people fucking is fucking—some people love it, some people love it and are horrible at it, some people think it is nice once in a while, or a good way to feel close to someone, or nice way to show someone they love them. That all sounds great. That all sounds ordinary. It is ordinary—it accepts the fact that fucking is nothing more—nothing beyond—nothing extraordinary; like our bodies don't have secrets pent up in hidden, seemingly inaccessible places that can't be unlocked by words. It accepts that fucking is controlled by words just like every other aspect of life. We talk while we wait for the bus. We text each other at every goddamn minute of the day. We update our personal pages to tell everyone when we are eating dinner, changing clothes, and taking a shit. We talk during dinner. We talk at work.
Even those times we don't speak—when we listen—the words are in charge. Films talk to us. Music speaks to us.
Words. Words. Words. Words. Words.
The words are ubiquitous.
Words. Words. Words. Words. Words.
Always words.
Even silence is just a momentary ignoring of words—it doesn't cancel them, surpass them, or provide anythig more than the opposite (and thus the same) as the words. It is a band-aid, not an elixir.
We are born into words. We are born into a situation in which words have been developed into a languge that has labeled the vast network of things we encounter in the world—from trees to traffic signs to the moon—with a signficance. The network is already mapped out—we just jump into it—or are thrown into it. The world already exists, and each and every fucker here showed up without a choice in the matter. If we are to manuever the crossing, complex networks of the human world—well, we have to use the fucking words. Words are the lifeblood. Words are the only way you can think. You can't think without words—you don't have the means. Words are us. We are words. floating—moving--changing--being pushed and pulled perpetually by the flows of words—signifiers—meanings--apellations--nominations--accusations. You are not, apart from words.
I have always felt them following me. I have always loved words and hated them. I know life is meaningless. I know life is a random grouping molecules thrown into fucking deep fryer. I know life is a balmy, unforgiving trek through time's hell. And, the words are time's foreman—the SS Officer standing at the top of the tower watching over the camp.
I know that politics, or good deeds, or humanitarian acts are all useful. But, they are also all meaningless. Most of the time, I accept it. I don't want to sit around thinking about this bullshit. Do you? Nietzsche did and he ended up fucking a horse in the street and going mad (at least, that's what someone told me). That sounds terrible. I don't want to cut my ear off, or commit suicide, or even worse, start a revolution. No, I don't. I like people. I enjoy things at times. But I have no grand illusions. They all collapsed long ago in a heap of adolescence and optimism.
She just didn't get it. Fucking is a chance to escape the words--even for seconds, or a second. Fucking is one of the few realms where there is a chance that for a minute the words will disappear—the world will disappear—time will stop. There aren't many chances in this world to experience something—sometime--when your stream of consciousness is literally halted by a wave of overwhelming darts to your self. There are not many times when you literally cannot think because your body won't let you. There are not many times when the world—when the context of all of it—the bed, and the nightstand, and the house, and the sweat, the tits, the legs, ass, feet, toes, fingers, forearms, shoulders, quadriceps, hamstrings, eyebrows; when the breathing, the glancing, the uttering, the showing, the trying, the performing; the wondering, hating, worrying; when the time and the space disappear into an abyss of nothingness and you exist nowhwere. There are not many times you can be nowhere. It is like trying to forget something, it just doesn't work. There are not many times, you see, when you can be dead without dying.
I'm not a freak. I know there are times you fuck before bed, enjoy it, and then say goodnight. I know there are times you fool around a little on a Saturday morning and then go make breakfast. I don't want to spend my life at swinger parties or sex clubs. I'm just saying, there is more at stake in fucking than a hobby. Fucking is a more existential phenomenon than darts, gin rummy, knitting, flying kites, kayaking, or your local book club.
There is a chance to communicate with another—to communicate in a way that doesn't require words. There is a chance to strip down to nothing—to bodies—to sensations—to let the secret part of yourself—the part you are most embarrassed about because you don't know it—haven't dealt with it—be seen, touched, and explored. There is a chance to let the forbidden space that you don't know how to access be revealed to another person. There is a chance to explore the concealed depths of mortality. There is a chance to surpass the words in order to communicate in a way that is not normal.
And, yes, that is what I want. I want to communicate. Yes, I want to communicate so well that I do not exist, and you do not either. I want to communicate so well that there is an in-distinguish-ability that renders our normal way of being mute. I want to communicate so well that you and I are mute. That is my goal. That is what my desire hinges upon.
How to do that? Well, it seems not with the words. The words can't help us here. Words are for this world. Words denote the everyday. We need the words, but here, we need something different. The way I want to communicate won't work with the words.
Yes, I want to communicate apart from the words--with means--in channels--via pathways--and inacessible secrets--in places unseen and unmentioned--spaces surrounded by fear and taboo--rings of filth mixed with a pain that is pleasurable--where the cut of time has incised unforgettably, but not ineluctably--where I don't know, but you can find--where you won't go, but will let me explore--where there are no words . . . where there is a deep, insatiable reach for continuity--for union--for the ability to transform, tweak, and distort bodies and words and thoughts and feelings and perceptions and images. I want to disappear from the world into a place that does not exist. I want to leave the world for a non-place untouched by space and time.
Of course, of course--this requires risk. It requires vulnerability. And most of all, it requires obscenity.
If we are communicate ourselves into silence, there will have to be some discomfort and some risk. Stripping naked can be a bit tenuous. For some, it is no big deal; they want to speak the silent words we are speaking of here. I don't know if they know the secrets pent up in the criss-crossed channels that lead from their pores to the endless space that makes up the little room where the words come from in the first place. I know, I know. Not all nakedness is about this quest to find the silent words. I know that it is not always about communicating without speaking; I know we can't always render the words mute through a meeting--an encounter--that dispossesses us. But, shouldn't it be most of the time? Sometimes? Is it unreasonable to search for the sacred in the obscene? To find something--something extraordinary--in the terror and vulnerability of nakedness? Or have we given up on that idea, amidst the plethora of stretched, augmented, and displayed bodies in our space and cyberspace? Have we let that go in lieu of the commodified ease of voyerurism? Have we given up on obscenity--sacred obscenity--in order to feed ourselves a constant diet of spectacle, shine, technique, gossip, and mechanics?
Dancing is easier than this. Dancing is safer than nakedness. You can fuck and dance at the same time. You can fuck and dance with your clothes on and off. Yes, back to the dancing. There is always dancing in these instances--it is an easy way to try halfheartedly. Let's move. Let's shake. But, no, let's not dare strip naked--let's not dare show ourselves into the ugly, awful, nauseating, limitless soup of atoms that constitute the space behind the words--the place that is untouched--the place where separation gives way to the rupture of the nameless disquiet.
We are one flesh--for moments or seconds or hours or days--but, I know, I know . . . . . . . I am naive . . . endlessly naive . . . always stars--always separate--always discontinuous.
I know. You don't have to tell me. I know the quest--this one of communication, silence, and nakedness--is impossible--I know it leads nowhere but to a frustrating, fatal cliff--I know it ends in the world re-appearing--with us re-appearing in the palce where we are visible, temporal, and slaves to the words. But, it's worth a try. Sometimes at least. It's not even that she didn't want to try. She didn't have the capacity to understand any of this in order to try.
The Old Man returned from the bathroom with a small, but noticeable wetspot on his cotton, cream-colored old man shorts.
"What you lookin at?"
"Nothing, nothing at all. You okay?"
Evenings on the Porch with the Ohana
Smoke fills the cold air from the cigar in the left hand. As the port is sipped gently in a singular movement of the right hand to the mouth and then down the throat, distant thoughts are lured to the foreground--thoughts lodged somewhere between sub-consciousness, recognized consciousness and the chaos of existence.
The thoughts filter out through the comfortable breath of exhale as the left hand brings the cigar to the mouth resulting in a surplus of breath, mixing with the mystical smoke, which then evaporates into the darkness of night. Within seconds, the strange conglomerate of smoke and breath are gone--not only to never be seen again, but also never to exist in the unique combination of flow, movement and ease in which they were excreted. The seconds of their existence wisped away without meaning or signficance. No crowd is present on the porch, in the void of the night to see the hybrid of elements disappear into the air. No recording takes record of their existence. No one applauds. No one cares.
But, for a moment the awe and wonder of the weightless gas, the combination of thought, reflection, interaction, absurdity and meaninglessness which pervade the exhaled breath are suspended in mid-stream. Weightless, bodiless, and formless the suspended moment of exhale remains long enough for the eye to catch the mystery which they contain.
And, this is why we sit on porches, sipping port and smoking cigars. This is why we breath each day--breathe in the no's, the chaos, the hurt, the tears--because we have caught a glimpse before--a glimpse of the mystery within the evaporating exhale and it is just enough to keep us breathing in each moment. The moments which seem impossible--the marriage of breath and smoke hanging in front of nothing--contain the glimpses of creativity and wonder which somehow constitute the breath of life.
It's all in Genesis 1 . . .
The thoughts filter out through the comfortable breath of exhale as the left hand brings the cigar to the mouth resulting in a surplus of breath, mixing with the mystical smoke, which then evaporates into the darkness of night. Within seconds, the strange conglomerate of smoke and breath are gone--not only to never be seen again, but also never to exist in the unique combination of flow, movement and ease in which they were excreted. The seconds of their existence wisped away without meaning or signficance. No crowd is present on the porch, in the void of the night to see the hybrid of elements disappear into the air. No recording takes record of their existence. No one applauds. No one cares.
But, for a moment the awe and wonder of the weightless gas, the combination of thought, reflection, interaction, absurdity and meaninglessness which pervade the exhaled breath are suspended in mid-stream. Weightless, bodiless, and formless the suspended moment of exhale remains long enough for the eye to catch the mystery which they contain.
And, this is why we sit on porches, sipping port and smoking cigars. This is why we breath each day--breathe in the no's, the chaos, the hurt, the tears--because we have caught a glimpse before--a glimpse of the mystery within the evaporating exhale and it is just enough to keep us breathing in each moment. The moments which seem impossible--the marriage of breath and smoke hanging in front of nothing--contain the glimpses of creativity and wonder which somehow constitute the breath of life.
It's all in Genesis 1 . . .
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Episodes in the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop
She said, "What is all this about the words?"
The semi-hippy woman wanted to know about my nonsense. She wanted to figure out my little misfiring brain and all its idiocracy.
"I don't know. The way I see it, the words are anger and chaos congealed. They are anger and chaos formed into a fabricated ball of incoherent coherence. The words are anger and chaos mortally immortalized--made immortal by a mortal who is already dead. They are a hopeless chance to live forever--to form a life that is immortal out of chaotic events and stinging anger. Writing is anger. Writing is fabricating chaos."
"Huh."
"Let's get another beer and listen to the music. This shit is depressing."
The semi-hippy woman wanted to know about my nonsense. She wanted to figure out my little misfiring brain and all its idiocracy.
"I don't know. The way I see it, the words are anger and chaos congealed. They are anger and chaos formed into a fabricated ball of incoherent coherence. The words are anger and chaos mortally immortalized--made immortal by a mortal who is already dead. They are a hopeless chance to live forever--to form a life that is immortal out of chaotic events and stinging anger. Writing is anger. Writing is fabricating chaos."
"Huh."
"Let's get another beer and listen to the music. This shit is depressing."
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
You and Me and Words (more words)
Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen but not to me
Oh things are gonna happen naturally
Oh taking your advice I'm looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing
But often times those words get tangled up in lines
And the bright lights turn to night
Until the dawn it brings
Another day to sing about the magic that was you and me
Things will happen. Things are happening. And, yes, naturally--they have to happen this way. What's natural about the situation? I don't know. I don't know. Looking on the bright side? Yes. I think so. At the moment, the bright side is that there are words--lots of them. The words spew forth, yes, naturally. It's like there is no creating involved anymore; it is a matter of emanation, not trying. They are there, always. Dawn? I don't think the words will bring the dawn--I think the words keep the hope of dawn alive. There is a difference, an important difference.
Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just read of
Others only read of the love, the love that I love.
Yes, we loved--both of us. But, we didn't speak of it. We didn't speak of it and that's the reason that we can't read about it, just like everyone else. Others try to read the words--the natural ones--that flow from what we both loved--from the non-thing that gives rise to all these words. They try to read about it because the words try to describe it. If we had spoken about it, it woudln't exist. If we had spoken of it, others wouldn't have to try read about it; but more importantly, it wouldn't be ours--it would be something altogether different. It wouldn't be love--it would be something worldly; something wordy.
See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards
More words then I had ever heard and I feel so alive
Yes, the words are unencumbered. They come without burden or restriction. In fact, the words are the burden. The words are the burden of every day, every second. The words plague me. I have to work to crack myself open--to puncture every hidden space to bring those words to light--to let them breathe--to make them earn their existence. The words are coming, and the words are the burden. Almost out? No. Not even close. The words seem endless. And, thus, so does the burden.
You and I, you and I
Not so little you and I anymore
And with this silence brings a moral story
More importantly evolving is the glory of a boy
The silence? Don't get it confused. There are words. There will always be words. The silence doesn't signify the absence of words. No, the silence signifies the inability--my inability--despite the endless burden--to speak of what we loved. In this way, the silence is the reason for the words. The words are the silence.
Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just dream of
And if you could see me now
Well I'm almost finally out of
I'm finally out of
Finally deedeedeedee
Well I'm almost finally, finally
Well I'm free, oh, I'm free
Others dream of it, but I am not so sure I don't either. But, don't worry, make no mistake, I'm not free. The words are free. The words come with ease. But, if the words are free, I am the opposite. Freedom isn't a matter of power--freedom is a matter of having a space in which to describe the love--the non-thing--that can't be described. In that sense, I am free. In that sense, the burden is a free one.
And it's okay if you have go away
Oh just remember the telephone works both ways
And if I never ever hear them ring
If nothing else I'll think the bells inside
Have finally found you someone else and that's okay
Cause I'll remember everything you sang
I know, it has to happen naturally. I know. I know that the silence--even if it doesn't mean the absence of words--might mean the absence of ringing, and even singing. I know the bells will sound for you again--you know how to sing too well, to call too well, and to play all too well. But, that doesn't mean the words will stop. It doesn't mean a double silence. No, the words will always come--keep coming--gush forth onto the page. With those words--with every letter--comes the hope of inseminating the page--the hope that someday the page will give birth to what we sang of--what we loved. Couldn't it, just once? Couldn't the unspeakable come to fore on the page? The revelation of love reveal itself on pages, in time, and, yes, in words? It is why the words exist, isn't it? I know, I know, it is admittedly a hope against hope. But, like I have explained, even if the words are free, I am the opposite. The words have me--possess me--so they'll keep coming, into a dawn that is nowhere--no how--in sight. And, if we aren't willing to hope against hope--at least once in a while--occasionally--well, is life--the breathing that makes both the speakable words and the unspeakable love--worth it?
Oh things are gonna happen naturally
Oh taking your advice I'm looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing
But often times those words get tangled up in lines
And the bright lights turn to night
Until the dawn it brings
Another day to sing about the magic that was you and me
Things will happen. Things are happening. And, yes, naturally--they have to happen this way. What's natural about the situation? I don't know. I don't know. Looking on the bright side? Yes. I think so. At the moment, the bright side is that there are words--lots of them. The words spew forth, yes, naturally. It's like there is no creating involved anymore; it is a matter of emanation, not trying. They are there, always. Dawn? I don't think the words will bring the dawn--I think the words keep the hope of dawn alive. There is a difference, an important difference.
Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just read of
Others only read of the love, the love that I love.
Yes, we loved--both of us. But, we didn't speak of it. We didn't speak of it and that's the reason that we can't read about it, just like everyone else. Others try to read the words--the natural ones--that flow from what we both loved--from the non-thing that gives rise to all these words. They try to read about it because the words try to describe it. If we had spoken about it, it woudln't exist. If we had spoken of it, others wouldn't have to try read about it; but more importantly, it wouldn't be ours--it would be something altogether different. It wouldn't be love--it would be something worldly; something wordy.
See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards
More words then I had ever heard and I feel so alive
Yes, the words are unencumbered. They come without burden or restriction. In fact, the words are the burden. The words are the burden of every day, every second. The words plague me. I have to work to crack myself open--to puncture every hidden space to bring those words to light--to let them breathe--to make them earn their existence. The words are coming, and the words are the burden. Almost out? No. Not even close. The words seem endless. And, thus, so does the burden.
You and I, you and I
Not so little you and I anymore
And with this silence brings a moral story
More importantly evolving is the glory of a boy
The silence? Don't get it confused. There are words. There will always be words. The silence doesn't signify the absence of words. No, the silence signifies the inability--my inability--despite the endless burden--to speak of what we loved. In this way, the silence is the reason for the words. The words are the silence.
Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just dream of
And if you could see me now
Well I'm almost finally out of
I'm finally out of
Finally deedeedeedee
Well I'm almost finally, finally
Well I'm free, oh, I'm free
Others dream of it, but I am not so sure I don't either. But, don't worry, make no mistake, I'm not free. The words are free. The words come with ease. But, if the words are free, I am the opposite. Freedom isn't a matter of power--freedom is a matter of having a space in which to describe the love--the non-thing--that can't be described. In that sense, I am free. In that sense, the burden is a free one.
And it's okay if you have go away
Oh just remember the telephone works both ways
And if I never ever hear them ring
If nothing else I'll think the bells inside
Have finally found you someone else and that's okay
Cause I'll remember everything you sang
I know, it has to happen naturally. I know. I know that the silence--even if it doesn't mean the absence of words--might mean the absence of ringing, and even singing. I know the bells will sound for you again--you know how to sing too well, to call too well, and to play all too well. But, that doesn't mean the words will stop. It doesn't mean a double silence. No, the words will always come--keep coming--gush forth onto the page. With those words--with every letter--comes the hope of inseminating the page--the hope that someday the page will give birth to what we sang of--what we loved. Couldn't it, just once? Couldn't the unspeakable come to fore on the page? The revelation of love reveal itself on pages, in time, and, yes, in words? It is why the words exist, isn't it? I know, I know, it is admittedly a hope against hope. But, like I have explained, even if the words are free, I am the opposite. The words have me--possess me--so they'll keep coming, into a dawn that is nowhere--no how--in sight. And, if we aren't willing to hope against hope--at least once in a while--occasionally--well, is life--the breathing that makes both the speakable words and the unspeakable love--worth it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)