i'm terrified to ruin the tagging system

the world is full of discarded things

(this is not the title of the following)

she defined herself by the things she had lost, the parts of her strewn about the world, no longer hers. the great diasphora of her materialism. she wondered of the people who had taken her goods, misappropriated them as their own. she wondered if two girls, a missing earring each, would ever meet. she wondered if she would ever find herself at a thrift store, own herself again, and never know it. she wondered who would give her away in the first place. she'd lost mechanical pencils, some with semi-functioning erasers, and wondered if they had done more, accurately, in someone else's hands. she'd lost a book of stamps and worried that they may have gone to better uses, more exotic places. she thought about the tickets she lost to the concert and wondered if they:d ever gotten stamped. wondered if paying twice the price for one experience was worth it. if she would have had a better time, gaining admittance to the venue 30 minutes earlier. she may very well then may not have met.....

(you, rare, non-existent reader/future self should know that i didn't intend her to meet anyone, it was my way of realizing a cliche, my "in" for if i ever wanted to write about romance (i don't), but really. we can't always rely on character studies, can we?)

and then success, succession! something about how the speaker is always different from the author. always. don't let anyone tell you differently. always. but then really, are we ever expressive?

i'm dehydrated and it's my fault; i want joose.

dear dann, this is a proper use of "always,"--sit shafted.

i will post in droves, not pages! i need to move my lj to my blogspot, tag my writings, but it's daunting to think of everything i've ever written in one place, available for scrutiny by way of hyperlink. it's still daunting to think of all the edits i will never enact, the drafting never done, the crafting i am incapable of. my best poetry has always been on the back of legal pads, so promising that i had to get them out whilst taking notes of another kind, so permanent for two months, then wasted and now landfilled. i hope they were turned to Fluff, and now grow vegetables--waste less (ink).

i could always write more, i could have overwhelmed livejournal, if you could fathom it, rare reader. but i stop at the first universal thought, always.

it's hard to think of a poem about brushing the newyorkparty lifestyle from your hair, when you compare yourself.

Braiding

1 We two sit on our bed, you between my legs, your back to me, your head slightly bowed, that I may brush and braid your hair. My father did this for my mother, just as I do for you. One hand holds the hem of you hair, the other works the brush. Both hands climb as the strokes grow longer, until I use not only my wrists, but my arms, then my shoulders, my whole body rocking in a rower's rhythm, a lover's even time, as the tangles are undone, and brush and bare hand run the thick, fluent length of your hair, whose wintry scent comes, a faint, human musk. 2 Last night the room was so cold I dreamed we were in Pittsburgh again, where winter persisted and we fell asleep in the last seat of the 71 Negley, dark mornings going to work. How I wish we didn't hate those years while we lived them. Those were days of books, days of silences stacked high as the ceiling of that great, dim hall where we studied. I remember the thick, oak tabletops, how cool they felt against my face when I lay my head down and slept. 3 How long your hair has grown. Gradually, December. 4 There will come a day one of us will have to imagine this: you, after your bath, crosslegged on the bed, sleepy, patient, while I braid your hair. 5 Here, what's made, these braids, unmakes itself in time, and must be made again, within and against time. So I braid your hair each day. My fingers gather, measure hair, hook, pull and twist hair and hair. Deft, quick, they plait, weave, articulate lock and lock, to make and make these braids, which point the direction of my going, of all our continuous going. And though what's made does not abide, my making is steadfast, and, besides, there is a making of which this making-in-time is just a part, a making which abides beyond the hands which rise in the combing, the hands which fall in the braiding, trailing hair in each stage of its unbraiding. 6 Love, how the hours accumulate. Uncountable. The trees grow tall, some people walk away and diminish forever. The damp pewter days slip around without warning and we cross over one year and one year. Li-Young Lee

poe.org deceives!

5 & 1/2 Minute Hallway

(Lyrics: Poe — Music: Poe, Josh Clayton Felt - 2003)

I live at the end of a 5 and 1/2 minute hallway

But as far as I can see you are still miles from me

In your doorway

And oh by the way

When the landlord came today

He measured everything

I knew he'd get it wrong

But I just played along

Cause I was hoping that would fix it all

But there's only so far I can go

When you're living in a hallway that keeps growing

I think to myself

5 more minutes and I'll be there

Inside your door

But there's more to this story

Than I've been letting on

There are words made of letters

Unwritten

And yes I forgive you

For leading me on

You can think of it like this

When you can't resist

I'm in your hallway standing on a cliff

And just when I think I've found the trick

I'm tumbling

Like an echo

'Cause there's only so far I can go

When you're living in a hallway that keeps growing

I think to myself

30 seconds and I'll be there

Daughter:
You never listen to me

Father:
We cannot really experiment with love as freely as we wish
It is really a much more complicated topic

It blows my mind that people are okay with most poetry. It blows my mind that in a workshop, people treat it as "pass/fail," like "I like this poem. I can relate to this line. success! don't change a thing!" or "I mean, it's not like, for me, having no punctuation at all "breaks" the poem. I mean, punctuation is a headache. It doesn't make or break a poem." "A poem is where you can be you!" or "I like the ambiguity." No you don't. It wasn't intentional. It was not crafted. It cannot be liked just because you, personally, inserted yourself there. Not in a workshop. Not with hope for improvement. In a reading? Pass/fail. On paper, improve. {says I}

destitutional manifesto

i hear every day that people want to die

sleeping as if they were

practicing as if each night

they increased the odds of death

in general and decreased the odds

of death that night

as if to sleep then

wasn't practically an attempt

at suicide and like their diary

wasn't a perpetual dénouement

but i'll try anything

once and i've slept before

and woken up always and

i've breathed to do it

so i want my last breath to

be blood--choke on it

because i've swallowed gore

before, successfully, and now it's my

turn to chew the cud. i've breathed

before, but never mustard

gas, never vapor enough

to drown in (slowly, heavily, heavenly),

never shards that pierced the alveoli

so they exploded and seemed

more open and fit for exchange

of air to carbon: my lungs diamonds

bleeding graphite to dust the world;

i've been in but not of-sound

body panting for aboulia

to expirate, di,oxide.

the future of poetry is gestalt

i'm trying for the first time in my life to craft (three) poems. it is not my method (though really, it is the only method), and i am failing. i realize i write to express mood, not scene. a scene. any narrative. i also realize that i don't write to express anything. sometimes i just write. i don't know why i still do. i don't know why i ever did. i think i've made it this far because my work is "ineditable," but really, that just means confusing and perceived as esoteric. it means that no one knew what to do with Quiche. it means that the first poem i wrote rhymed and the second was a sestina and who the fuck edits those in high school? who wants anything more from high school poetry than for the endlines to make sense? (oh, i just realized that i guess i once (twice) crafted!) i don't feel any urge in me to write, but i am assumed to be someone who does. i meet blank stares and disbelief when i tell people that want to bond over literature and expression, that really, they are just more into than i am. that i just am, and no other effort is exuded from me. i don't retain. i don't seek. i don't write.

i have no interest in calling myself a writer. i can't imagine ever being dubbed a poet. there is something pretentious (though precious) about trying to make it in this world starving. and i can't muster that ambition. but still, i will take advanced poetry. i will continue to try and advance in poetry. and one day, i will read it. and after that, it will enthuse me.

i rediscovered the strokes. i'm productive, and free. it's spring/summer. it feels like summer. summer will be school. school's cool. i'll be better at french then. i'll be better. imma be.

new live:

writing (experiment/exercise is underway), reading (success!), french (1.5/9ths done!), comprehending, organizing, tanning, fixing, listening, driving, working, planning (doing!)