the dangling conversation

wasted things

2011-11-24T17:34:00.002-06:00

your mind, i am told
is a finite place

(that is to say, not yours precisely)

and there are only so many things
which can fit inside

so words, you see, are a tricky business

if you use them up
all at once,
as they come to you

there is a very real danger
that they will not be used properly.

footnotes

2010-04-02T11:03:00.004-05:00

what will we have been
when this our postmodern era is at an end?

the number of unexpected endings has
slowly dwindled down to none-at-all
and the future is not what it used to be
(for one, it's shorter)

when you're young,
you dream of becoming a giant
but we stopped growing years ago
and i rather fear that
if we are to be remembered at all
it will be only in the footnotes

forgetfulness

2010-03-30T11:01:00.002-05:00

these days,
i find it's rather nice
to be able to forget
(not forever-dwell in embellished memory)

these days, i can hardly
remember your face
and really that's okay

it's strange to think
that this forgetfulness
is what we were always afraid of
(isn't it nice to be older?)

occupants of empty rooms

2010-03-26T10:58:00.001-05:00

what is she
to you, to me?
and what are we
to us to be?

the occupants of empty rooms
or passers-by in unmarked lanes

our roots are loose
the soil thin
and all we have
are these entangled branches

and i, for one, do not know what it means
or how to untie the knots.

ode v2.0

2009-12-25T01:52:00.004-06:00

i want to spend my summers somewhere hot
where slow music filters the never-quite-dark
from twilit roadside stalls

but mostly,
where we (those of
us with bad timing)
can't hide what we are
under the layers of scarves
and mufflers and complaints about the snow

o chicago!
one thing i can say for you
when at a loss for conversation
we always get by
by complaining about the weather.

end of cascade

2009-11-17T23:04:00.003-06:00

three-words-to-the-world:
1. here i am
2. what is this?
3. stop shouting, please.

six-word-novel:
1. What's that? A man? Never mind.
2. Pigs might fly. We are waiting.
3. Some words. Some rain. Run dry.
4. Please be careful. People are delicate.

attention

2009-11-15T01:58:00.000-06:00

for one thing,
we are not the automata we appear to be
please take notice.

and stop walking backwards. i'm trying to talk to you.

reconciliation

2009-11-02T01:56:00.001-06:00

i am a tea-drinker
this coffee thing:
it was a fling
(it was never meant to be)

my love affair with wide-eyed
wakefulness; that
had a sunset, always

you know, my mother always
told me not to burn the candle
at both ends

(i choose sleep)

from the front lines (instead of the head lines, see?)

2009-10-28T17:27:00.002-05:00

pirates; modern-day pirates
don't steal your heart anymore
just your wallet

this is serious business

after all, he was sorry for stealing the plums
(your sister was another matter)

portrait of the artist as a teenager

2009-10-10T21:36:00.003-05:00

it's funny how your perspectives change as you get older -- it doesn't even really take that much time. i remember writing a poem called "sunrise" around the time i graduated from high school--so with all the wisdom of my sixteen-year-old self. the final stanza was rather reflective of my (not so charitable) views on sex/relationships, and people who thought they were "in love." (of course, i suppose the irony was, at the time, i rather thought i'd been burned pretty badly).

they had decided simply a long time ago that
caffeine was for lovers and others
who considered the day worth staying awake for

there was something a bit confused here, of course. "they" were obviously lovers, in some sense of the word--but i think they were the subjective "me" of the poem. that is, the protagonist you write about who really wish you were a bit more like (or the you that lives inside your head and that makes you wonder why she never is expressed quite right, until one day you realize you never were her at all--she's just part of you), the who-i-would-be-if-only. at any rate, i thought they were right, and so even in going back to bed--to sleep? to love? who knows?--they were self-defined as "not-lovers," as no cheap acceptors of that stupid word that teenagers use and think means something--or, that certain other teenagers think they're above the use of.

i submitted the poem for a contest of some kind, and had a former english teacher of mine read it. the part of the comment that really got me thinking about this accused me of mocking the "they" and then redeeming them with the end of the poem, which, at the time (since it seemed like praise, i found it gratifying, of course) somewhat confused me.

but he was so, so right. not that, as he pointed out, someone my age would have been able to write about parents going back to bed--and it certainly wasn't about that--but there was definitely the edge that mocked a certain kind of someone, and then somehow made it clear that it was okay. the point is, now, four years and some months later, i finally understand why you would watch the sunrise and then crawl back to bed, and i think maybe i even begin to realize what's actually superfluous about "them." it's true--caffeine is for lovers and others who consider the day worth staying awake for (but it's worth it for a lot of reasons that i wasn't thinking about back then)--and in any case, i evidently didn't know what i meant at the time.

don't get me wrong--i still haven't bought into that whole "love" thing. it's just a word, and a confused one, and i don't have a use for words without clear meanings. and that's naive in its own way, but i think i'm okay with that. i'll let you know in four years. but i'm learning to go back to bed at 7 or 8 am, instead of running at the first sign of conversation, and that has to stand for something. who'd have known?--apparently i can grow up, too.

filters

2009-07-05T23:00:00.003-05:00

Nobody (i feel like)
no body
(doesn't listen to brain)

filters
filters
filters

instead
if i just
pretty happy bad no

or, more directly
tell (you) what (i) think
even when it's impolite
or better yet, when it's too polite
(too much
didn't
want
to
say)

not yet

nobody (i feel like)
no body
just
very
tired
(existentially)

this has a lot of formatting that (in my opinion) makes a difference. sorry. someday i will learn how to format on this thing. probably written around 6/8/09.

planning

2009-06-27T21:00:00.000-05:00

as they say,
i have enough regrets to sink a battleship
and this is not the least of them
but one thing i have learned
from knowing you,
i can't choreograph conversation

and another,
people will be what they are
despite all my attempts to imagine them otherwise
(your stubbornness is beautiful)

quatsch

2009-06-25T20:51:00.001-05:00

how lovely it is
that there is so much nonsense
in the world

your drawers are full of it
and that
is what i love about you

death

2009-06-24T20:57:00.000-05:00

my grandfather gave up living
when he retired from the army
moved into a blue house
with a large garden
and reduced his lot
to eating, sleeping
and walking the dog

i always thought it sad;
evidence of the slow decay
or perhaps
a living statement of the fact
that we have nothing to live for;
that is, we live for nothing

years later,
i remember his last meals
the singleminded determination
the quiet pleasure
and the quieter confessions of anxiety

and i wonder
if it is not for the sake of dying gracefully
that we live at all

words

2009-06-24T20:54:00.000-05:00

sticks and stones, my dear
are all very well;
but come now, darling,
we all know
if you want to break a man
it's talk you use

words, after all, are what he lives on
eats, breathes, and skins
his pretty knees on
and when it pours?
why, he talks about that, too, love.

familiarity

2009-06-23T20:53:00.000-05:00

sometimes i worry
that i am too accustomed to you

specifically,
that when you die
i will be so used to your answers
that you will simply move inside my head

and i don't really want you in there.

(wo)man

2009-06-20T20:46:00.000-05:00

we blossom slowly
it is hard
to open up petals
grow
and to expose the soft secret center
to the sky;
now, that is almost impossible

o mother
open up your arms and
(if you dare)
conceive a man

ode

2009-06-19T20:16:00.001-05:00

i want to spend my summers somewhere hot
where they play slow music at night
filtering out into the never-quite-dark
from twilit roadside cafes

but mostly,
somewhere where you and i
(and all those others who weren't
in the right place at the right time)
can't hide what we are
under the layers of scarves
and mufflers and complaints about the snow

o chicago!
one thing i can say for you
when at a loss for conversation
we can always get by
by complaining about the weather.

(this has formatting, but you can't tell. sorry)

paris

2009-06-18T20:39:00.000-05:00

is the city of love, they tell me
joie de vivre

you'd think it would be easy to write poetry here
wouldn't you?
but it isn't; i find it rather difficult
perhaps i'm not a romantic
--that's why i never loved you

but paris, i find
instead is a city
full of things to look at
but only once (they never change)
and so every time we come here
i imagine it is the first time, and
have to pretend
that i do

but what
what what is tourism (a lot like colonialism, thematically
speaking)

a tourist
is a pair of eyes, and perhaps a camera
that learns nothing new from having conquered
each one
takes up a little more space

for every tourist on the streets above
forces one more native underground
to ride the streets below
and come a little closer
to melting back to dust

thoughts

2009-06-14T20:13:00.001-05:00

when we speak, do we invent new worlds?
the many-worlds hypothesis
is rather a lovely thing
don't you agree?

in some other universe, you see
you and i are still speaking

i have Opinions about everything
and i often feel
that this is not attractive in a
(not-yet)
woman
(too often, really)

*formatting lost in the second one

emerald city

2009-06-09T20:11:00.000-05:00

dorothy dorothy it's all green out there
we got eco-friendly down pat
(but you're not a fan)

dorothy dorothy click your heels
we promise
it'll be better in the next world

aging

2009-06-04T20:48:00.000-05:00

i don't yet feel old enough to write poetry about sex
your hands on my thighs;
that's a word i don't yet know
and maybe when i learn it
we'll both be in the room at the same time

and that thrill i feel
when i remember
your-hands-on-my-thighs
will happen when your hands
are really there.

aprons and other signifiers

2009-06-03T21:51:00.002-05:00

--by way of preface, this was written as a letter to the Chicago Maroon, the U of C school newspaper, after an event titled "Gender and the Media" hosted by the newly-formed and already-infamous student organization "Men in Power." It's too long for the paper, but as luck would have it, the final publication for the school year had been printed the morning of the event, so i never got to submit it, and I never edited this down. -- 11/19/09

I attended the recent panel discussion hosted by Men in Power as one of the “demonstrators.” It was certainly kind of Mr. Saltarelli to provide the audience with that label for us, and even kinder of him to attempt to clarify our intentions in the event of confusion, as we so thoughtlessly neglected to do. Regrettably, however, although I must confess, not surprisingly, he failed to grasp what may have been a subtle point.

As I heard their panelist say after the event, Men in Power fully understands the historical/social structures, attitudes, and institutions that its name indexes. According to him, at least part of the reason for the name is that they hope to debunk those references with the mission and content of the group. While I might question why this dissociation is a good thing, I will (for now) accept at face-value the simplistic answer that I got on Monday night: it would be nice if a man in a position of power was not automatically assumed to be “bad.” What Men in Power is saying, then, seems to be that we should look beyond the socially-indexed stereotype to the actual content underneath. I wish they could have done the same for my apron; it indexes the same complicated set of conditions as “Men in Power,” and I wore it, not to point to those stereotypes, but to the problems with them. Underneath the apron, I was a person with a much more complicated opinion than “this is how Men in Power wants women to be.” I’d like to thank Mr. Saltarelli, however, for trying.

I’d also like to thank Men in Power for organizing a discussion about “Gender and the Media.” Unfortunately, none of us got to hear much about this, because Men in Power very literally monopolized the conversation. Some of this was unavoidable, simply because of the questions asked by the audience, but it was evident even before the floor (so to speak) was opened. The panelist from Men in Power spoke more, possibly, than the rest of the panel put together. He took on a highly aggressive role in the conversation, often interrupting other panelists, and displaying obvious irritation on the two occasions when he was himself interrupted. On one occasion, when the interruption was made in order to note that the panel’s usage of a gender binary marginalizes alternative gender-identities in the same way that the mainstream media does, this irritation caused him to completely sideline (marginalize?) the comment. Based Monday’s hypertextual performance, which was, frankly, far more telling than anything actually expressed, I find myself less than sanguine about (not their purpose, not their name!) the role that Men in Power will play in the broader performance of social analysis, knowledge-production, and emancipation that we like to believe is taking place around us. The group’s creation has already instigated a safety-zone for the unashamed expression of latent sexist, anti-feminist, and anti-queer attitudes. While it may not have been the intention of the group to do this, it is certainly incumbent upon them to address it as an issue.

Less surprising, but still disappointing, was the fact that Men in Power exerted a topical monopoly as well. Aside from a strange preoccupation with gang violence (strange, insofar as it seems strange for an advocacy group on campus to be concerned with gang violence, which is unlikely to affect any of their demographic except possibly as collateral damage), the group has identified a number of intriguing issues. However, it seems questionable whether they will ever actually manage to engage with the important issues they mention, given the amount of time that they have so far spent defending their group relative to its name. It might behoove them to change, if only in the interests of their stated mission (I suggest “Students for Ideological Stubbornness”).

All this aside, however, I have to admit that I found my apron to be surprisingly comfortable, not to mention utilitarian, and may take to wearing it more often. Unfortunately, cozy though they are, both apron and the academic/intellectual veneer applied to real-life discussion at this university share a fundamental flaw: neither offers sufficient protection, much less emancipation, from the bigoted and oppressive social conditions that produce and underlie them both.

familiarity

2009-05-19T23:40:00.003-05:00

the trouble with beautiful strangers is that they're not strangers anymore once you say hello. sometimes they stop being beautiful after that, too. (usually if it gets much past hello)

isolation

2009-05-17T02:37:00.002-05:00

Why are we all so "alone"? Technology. The internet, mainly, but we'll just refer to it as technology.

Now, this isn't a very interesting observation. In fact, it's been made many times before, and a lot of people don't agree. And both sides make sense--we probably do interact face-to-face less than we used to, but communications technology also makes things easier. If you don't know someone very well, it's certainly easier to send them a text message than to call. And who's to say that didn't create an interaction where you wouldn't have had one otherwise? (Try going a month or two without a telephone. It's weird, I promise.)

But it also increases our ability to avoid making the gesture that leads to bonds between people. Sending a text message is easier, but maybe you'll never get beyond that. And maybe because we don't have to, we become less and less capable of managing those first awkward interactions, and a few decades down the road it'll be considered impolite to introduce yourself to someone you meet on the bus.

Ok, I don't think that's likely. But I think it is possible that communications technology has made us lazy/out-of-practice/incapable of dealing head-on with people in the way that we're "supposed" to.

Anyway, what brought this on was that I've often heard people complain about how they don't know anyone's phone number anymore since they got cell phones, and it's true. It's also convenient, and horrendously inconvenient when something happens to your phone--which is why I have a document on my computer with all my phone numbers in it. Or at least I did, until my hard drive crashed in March. (See?) But I was sending an email this afternoon, and I realized the terrible thing that gmail has done to me. I don't even have to enter contacts anymore--gmail stores them for me, so at this point, I can simply type in someone's name, and select them.

Now, think about this for a second. I don't even know anyone's email address anymore. Do you? If gmail goes under/stops being free/available, the only people I will be able to email are my parents.

Well, at least that's something. (And I do know my home phone number). I guess there are some "ties that bind."

punctuation

2009-05-14T08:05:00.002-05:00

how easy it is to forget that we do not live in increments, of sleeping and waking, but rather one long continuous drawl of existence. the events by which we mark time are hardly boundaries and borders, but instead commas and semicolons, punctuating (ungrammatically) the long breathless sentence of our lives.

but maybe we are not so wrong to forget this. night, indeed, seems a different universe.

dear mr. collins

2009-04-24T21:10:00.003-05:00

you have claimed
that the trouble with poetry
is that it begets more poetry

but i beg to disagree;
i am inclined to think
that the trouble with poetry
is that it tries to say so much
when there are such little things to be said

(http://www.edutopia.org/trouble-poetry)

after midnight

2009-04-13T00:06:00.003-05:00

how late it was,
how late

and how far we have come from
tin cans
strung on a wire

(there's more to this. but i haven't figured out how to make it sound nice yet.)

she says

2009-04-05T23:45:00.002-05:00

she says,
mama never taught me how to kiss
she says, she says,
never taught me when to tilt my head,
hitch my step,
she says,

she says,
mama never taught me when to look away
she says, she says,
never taught me about saying what I feel
she says,
now, that's no way to talk to a lady,
she says, she says,
but it's okay, because I'm no lady:
mama went and raised me wrong.

reticence

2009-04-02T02:29:00.004-05:00

in our imagined conversations
(that is, those which I imagine us to have;
not those which we compose together)
I am much more eloquent

certainly I am much better at telling you
precisely what it is I means.

(Not a typo.)

motivation

2009-03-31T16:13:00.003-05:00

i have once again
lost my sense
of what's important

(do you think it matters?)

p.s.

2009-03-31T09:18:00.001-05:00

I often wish I had something more (or more interesting) to say. Unfortunately, I don't, but I really want to say it, anyway.

dreams

2009-03-31T09:13:00.002-05:00

I've been having strange dreams recently, all put together with the pieces of the last few and the next few days, but synthesized in ways that, in perfect dream fashion, don't make any sense. My anxieties, in my dreams, are transmuted into actual physical mistakes--what a relief!--but they're nevertheless there, and even asleep, I know no better what to do about them.

Sometimes you have a dream in which you solve the problem, social or emotional or academic (less often!) which is plaguing you, and the dream, and the moment in the dream when you realize that you did it! it worked! it's okay! is so good, so very good, that when you wake up and realize that, not only have you not taken care of it, but you really can't do it the way you did it in the dream, if you can even remember all the bits of it, well, you end up wandering around in a miserable daze for the next few days, until the remembered euphoria fades and you're able to tackle reality again.

Luckily, this isn't one of those times.

Ode

2009-03-20T04:24:00.001-05:00

WE are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,	5
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,	10
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure	15
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;	20
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth. -- Arthur O'Shaughnessy

myth

2009-03-11T16:02:00.003-05:00

Apparently it has now been proven that the last two Romanov children were killed with the rest of the family.

So one more modern-day fairytale bites the dust.

fortitude

2009-03-08T15:45:00.002-05:00

given the extent to which i hate sundays
i find it astounding that they occur every week

apres moi, la deluge

2009-03-08T13:34:00.002-05:00

it has been raining for three days
and so it is possible
that there are thirty-seven remaining

but the view from my window
contains a dumpster and a lot of mud
and so it is hard to get excited
about the prospect of building an ark

globalization

2009-03-05T10:38:00.001-06:00

w(h)ither the state?

rationality

2009-02-18T21:59:00.002-06:00

in fact
i would rather not
be always thinking of you

(that is to say;
there are many people
i would prefer to think about)

but that's the funny thing;
we don't get to choose.

singularity

2009-02-17T00:47:00.004-06:00

my great-uncle gave my father a book
and it sits on the shelf at home
proclaiming "we are not alone,"
to the world
and to those who might nurse
the self-important belief
that we are the only intelligent life in
this vast universe

but i think
that what it's really saying
is "we don't want to be alone,"
to think that this experience
is unshared
because even with the other 6 billion
he's wrong

we are all very much alone.

(and it's not all bad;
there are many things better done in private)

lines in green added 2.21.09 to mitigate the angst-y aspect of this.

little things

2009-02-17T00:32:00.001-06:00

why does poetry try to say so much
when there is so little (little things) to be said?

found ii

2009-02-10T20:31:00.001-06:00

on a scrap of paper on a table in the library:

sorry, my heart belongs to another anonymous stranger.

secrets

2009-02-06T15:01:00.001-06:00

it is safe to say
that i am glad
you don't like poetry

(you'll never know i told)

on sanity

2009-02-06T14:50:00.003-06:00

I talk to myself fairly often; maybe this is a function of having, historically speaking, spent a lot of time alone, but I'm inclined to think that everyone does it and some just don't admit it. Sometimes I practice conversations that I know will be difficult. Does this make me socially awkward? Maybe. Sometime I practice conversations that I'm not sure will actually happen.

At any rate, I was talking to myself while on the way to the library this afternoon. I noticed someone giving me a strange look, which was when I realized that my lips were actually moving. This by itself is fine; however, having observed that I was talking to myself, I then proceeded to have a conversation with myself regarding the fact that I was talking to myself and that I don't think it's that odd. I then realized that I would probably tell someone about this, and then proceeded to have my half of that conversation with myself. At this point I observed that this was getting excessively meta, and that I was at the library.

I then got lost briefly in the bookstacks.

I'm not sure what this says about the status of my mind, but you are free to draw your own conclusions.

apathy

2009-02-03T22:15:00.001-06:00

if this is the question,
then what is the answer?

creativity

2009-02-01T02:22:00.002-06:00

there are a lot of songs about things that make me sad, and this makes me feel unoriginal.

amelioration

2009-01-31T15:44:00.002-06:00

What is our interaction with others mediated through? Our own inhibitions? That seems like the obvious answer, but it does not explain why we are suddenly comfortable with some people, but not with others. What is it that makes someone a friendly face, instead of one more face?

I had more eloquent thoughts about this, but they got confused with the very muddled dream I had this morning, in which the front steps to my building had been stolen, and this, naturally, left me incoherent and confused.

courage

2009-01-28T23:09:00.003-06:00

i hadn't had
enough to drink
and so i was too scared
to talk to you;

but i wanted you to know
that i wanted to
(oh! i wanted to)

practicality

2009-01-27T21:30:00.002-06:00

Note to self: What happens if you apply Kant to society (not in a moralistic sense)? I think you get something not very interesting, and possibly something that everyone actually already knows and that it's useless to think about when determining how to function/what to do, but it's something to think about more when I am not pretending to write a paper.

introductions

2009-01-25T23:04:00.002-06:00

Also, I found this. It feels like it belongs to asofterworld, where the last line is actually the text you get when you run your mouse over the picture. Probably from '04, with the last line added more recently.

this is not a suicide poem
it would hardly be polite;
we haven't yet been introduced

(but now we have)

godot

2009-01-25T23:00:00.001-06:00

they are playing simon and garfunkel
in the cafe while i wait
for you

and it pleases me

and also
it tells me
that i am waiting for nothing

every time

2009-01-24T20:57:00.002-06:00

I remember how fragile people are.

these are some words

2009-01-18T17:58:00.002-06:00

so we speak of things that matter
with words that must be said
can analysis be worthwhile?
is the theatre really dead?

I sincerely hope that Simon and Garfunkel intended irony when they wrote those lines ...

Anyway, the relevance is that for some reason the question 'Is activism dead?' has been percolating around in my brain all week, honestly just as a phrase (i.e. conglomeration of words), and not as a question which has some content that I'm curious about. It seems to me like a silly question on the face of things, but if that's the case, why won't it go away? Is activism dead?

It's worrying me that perhaps the question is not so silly as it sounds. What does it even mean?

ode to technology

2009-01-17T18:38:00.001-06:00

conventional wisdom is
plug it in and cross your fingers

the world only gets more complicated
and we only get older
and less able to adapt.

(get it?)

after fall after all

2009-01-15T22:39:00.002-06:00

there is oh so much snow
but fourteen years of hard winters
(and every winter is a hard winter)
have dulled the faerie edge

there is oh so much snow
and it is not poetic anymore

comma v2

2009-01-12T07:51:00.002-06:00

there is a lot of poetry
about sex
(and drugs and rocknroll)
and these are the things
that we know about,
that we are to know about:
oh, generation x, write-what-you-know!
(to teach is to command)

she called you a beat poet
and you will be of the times, a comma
on the page of history
that we are all writing together

but there is
a willow tree
drooping down into a swamp
just there behind you
and no one is writing
about that

solutions v2

2009-01-12T07:50:00.000-06:00

we build our straw Men grotesque
out of scavenges and flies
throw them up against the wall
(and we don't really think about it)

but when it is our turn to face the firing squad;
what then, mother?
what then?

temporary

2009-01-12T02:06:00.001-06:00

when we were young

i. on fog
sometimes
when it rains
steam rises from the pavement
and I wonder
if there be dragons
beneath our city sidewalks

ii. infinity
it is very hard to believe
that the universe
contains all this emptiness
(how does it fit?)

iii. clockwork
I can hear you ticking
it is good to know
that we didn’t break anything vital

iv. holes
there is a scar between her breasts
and she said
when she was younger, she had surgery
because there was a hole in her heart
and now that I know her better
I wonder if that is why
she doesn’t understand about love

self-selection

2009-01-08T22:09:00.002-06:00

additionally, I find the more I want/attempt to educate myself, the more I find that I keep trying to learn the things I already know. This strikes me as a personal flaw.

our postmodern era

2009-01-08T16:35:00.003-06:00

the words that we are now forced (compelled?) (pleased?--that's more likely) to use in our daily conversations are so bizarre: try transgenerational.

I feel like we're engaged in some sort of effort to make English increasingly more like German (i.e. multisyllabic and often obscure, but able to express a large number of ideas with one word at a time); or, as if somehow the proliferation of words and concepts will help us to understand an increasingly complex network of relationships and structures that we otherwise find ourselves unable to comprehend and cope with, as if having words for things we do not understand will help us to manage them.

2009-01-06T18:08:00.002-06:00

this is sickening

war crimes

2009-01-05T10:37:00.003-06:00

It is completely baffling to me that the United States continues to blindly support Israel and her interests in the conflict in the Middle East. Even the attempts of our media, which, it must be admitted, is well-skilled in the art of hiding some of the key facts in order to support one position or another, are becoming increasingly absurd: they are forced to make more and more ludicrous statements in the attempt to prop up an indefensible position.

The reported death toll in the Gaza strip has passed 500, many (if not most) of whom are civilian casualties. Even the NY Times was forced to admit this morning that the vast majority of entries into Gaza hospitals appear to be civilians--at the same time, attempting to mitigate this fact by citing Israeli cabinet secretary Yehezkel's claim that "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

There is no understanding of the words in that sentence which can render that claim remotely true.

Moreover, there is not even a pretense by Israel at this point that they are looking for a "diplomatic" solution. Israel has claimed that they not only wish to push the situation to the point at which Hamas is no longer firing rockets, but no longer has even the ability to do so. The point at which this happens is a) when there are no longer any active members of Hamas in Gaza, which is a bit of a Zeno's paradox, as Israel's military assault is as good a recruiting tool as any for her enemies, or b) when there is no longer ANYONE in Gaza able to fire rockets-i.e. when there is no one in Gaza left alive and uninjured. Israel's refusal to enter into diplomatic talks or to negotiate a ceasefire seems to undeniably indicate a desire to eradicate the ability of Palestinians to exist in the Gaza strip (or, indeed, anywhere). This is in keeping with the blockade of supplies to Gaza that initially sparked off the current crisis.

Although the claim that the United States is the world's peacekeeper is even more ludicrous than it is presumptuous, continued support of Israel cannot help but make it an even more baldfaced lie. It completely confounds me--and, I hope, many others--that this country pretends to believe that Israel is not engaged in a long-term campaign of mass genocide and ethnic cleansing reminiscent of the reason that many claim the state was (and should have been) created in the first place.

Is there anyone out there paying attention to what is actually going on? There must be. If so, is our government just so accustomed to brutality and mass murder that we simply prop it up because it is in our economic interest to do so? Is it not even relevant that we cannot in this case, as in the cases of our own war crimes, even pretend that there is some sort of humanitarian/righteous purpose in this?

I guess I forgot that those things don't matter anymore.

in medias res

2009-01-01T13:04:00.001-06:00

I guess it is a new year, and that is usually considered worth saying something about. But all I can think is that I didn't quite read everything I wanted to over break; once again, my attempt to educate myself is thwarted by the resumption of the academic term.

deficit

2008-12-31T01:17:00.003-06:00

I wonder, if you sat down and calculated all the debt in all the countries in the world and compared this to the amount of money currently in existence, which side the balance would be on?

2008-12-31T00:20:00.002-06:00

story idea: a village, doesn't know about eclipses.

don't know about money?

the birth of the prison

2008-12-30T23:38:00.002-06:00

I have finished reading 'Discipline and Punish.' I got very bored about halfway through, but there is some odd hangup I have that does not allow me to leave a book unfinished without feeling very, very guilty about it. It's just as well that this is the case, since the only part that made the time I spent reading this book mildly worthwhile was in the last thirty pages or so.

I think Msr. Foucault and I will now be ending our association for a while.

2008-12-30T09:22:00.002-06:00

neighbor, hamas, developing story, star trib headline

(ignore this, they're just notes to remind myself of something that i wanted to write down later)

on fog

2008-12-29T16:50:00.001-06:00

sometimes
when it rains
steam rises from the pavement
and I wonder
if there be dragons
beneath our city sidewalks

worries

2008-12-23T10:14:00.003-06:00

the very rare: an actual post

What really frightens me about the current state of the economy is that it seems like there is no one who understands how this happened, or how bad it will be possible for it to get. From everything I'm hearing, it seems to me quite feasible that there could be a global depression.

Now, that doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be possible for everyone to not have enough money all at once; if someone doesn't have it, then someone else should, right? But apparently it doesn't work like that.

My question is: how did we let people who didn't know what they were doing do this?

choice

2008-12-21T22:53:00.002-06:00

choosing words is a
tricky business

you have to remember
someone else might
have used them
first

the business of love is cruelty

2008-12-20T10:21:00.002-06:00

I don't like love
very much

leastways;
there is a lot to be said
about it

and I do not want
to say any of it.

busy

2008-12-20T00:47:00.002-06:00

hello, operator?
can you help me?
this banality is killing me

(please hang up and try again)

solutions

2008-12-20T00:45:00.001-06:00

up against the wall
back's on the ropes
(and we don't really think about it)

but when it is our turn to face the firing squad;
what then, mother?
what then?

comma

2008-12-18T16:16:00.003-06:00

there is a lot of poetry
about sex
(and drugs and rocknroll)
and these are the things
that we know about
generation x, write-what-you-know
(to teach is to command)
(are you x?)
beat poet, they'll call you
the times
you will be of the times, a comma
on the page of history
that we are all writing together

but there is
a willow tree
drooping down into the swamp
just there
behind him
and no one
is writing
about that.

my fair lady

2008-12-17T23:44:00.001-06:00

words words words
i'm so sick of words
i get words all day through
first from him; now from you
is that all you blighters can do?
--eliza doolittle

(ouch)

geography

2008-12-15T23:33:00.002-06:00

initially,
he was so concerned
with the dimensions
he observed in those similar
(simian?--and oh! aren't they
lifelike?)
beings that people
--if they could be said to do so--
the space surrounding
that he failed to observe
the space within broadening
and lengthening
and generally subjecting itself
to the tectonics of man's
ingenuity

secondarily,
he became so worried
about the state
observed in the earth
(dearth?--and oh! isn't it a
shame?)
on which variously running, walking
he was standing
--if his many motions could be contained in passivity--
that he dedicated the rest of his time
to measuring the minimal form
of impact

finally,
he became so preoccupied
with the precipitous expansion
(expression?--and oh! isn't it
ugly?)
that was taking place internally
--if it could be said so literally--
that he failed to notice
the space without sinking
and emptying
and generally being subjected
to the tectonics of man's
creativity.

I think most of this was written in '06, but in pencil, on a piece of notebook paper that has since been smudged and battered and subjected (unintentionally) to all manner of indignities. I played with it a little over the summer, but couldn't finish the first or third stanzas; and then finally I got really annoyed with having it sit around for this long, and just finished them.
I don't really like it, but now it's out of my system and I can move on to (bigger and better?) things.

fortune

2008-12-10T16:52:00.002-06:00

It's no particularly profound statement that the fortunes one gets in fortune cookies generally aren't fortunes. One my favourites is this: "Only those willing to attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible." Another is "Minimize expectations to avoid being disappointed," (although I probably shouldn't have listed it as a favourite on my application to Princeton four years ago ...)

The point is, however, that while these are great, they just aren't fortunes. They're maxims, or advice, or just observations in general, but they certainly don't tell me what's going to happen to me. Occasionally they tell me things about myself: "You have a keen sense of humour and love a good time." (I do? Really? Why didn't I know before?), and even more occasionally they compliment me: "Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together as they do in you," (quite undeservedly, I might add). Sometimes they're unfathomable: "You tend to have deeper thoughts than you are able to express to others." Well. Okay. Thanks. I'll try to express that. And sometimes they're just arrant nonsense: "Conceptualize. Organize. Sell. Then Do." Wait ... what?

This is the way of things, and is perfectly acceptable. So you will understand why I find myself disturbed by a trend I've noticed of late for my fortunes to ... well, actually be fortunes.

This is generally uninformative: "You will travel far and wide," but sometimes they concatenate in mysterious (and creepy) ways. For example, consider the following series:

"Your natural charm will attract someone special." "Someone is interested in you. Keep your eyes open." (Because you want to make sure they stay away?) "You will soon receive an unusual gift." "He who loves you will follow you," and, finally, "You will soon be in a land of sunshine and happiness."

Okay. So. I'm going to be stalked ... and killed. That's what I'm getting from this. I spent a little while looking over my shoulder (for the sunshine and happiness, obviously), and then I got this: "Better signs are approaching," which seemed to be a sort of meta-statement about how I was going to get better fortunes than before.

This turned out to be true. That was followed by "Wake up. You are under the lucky star now," which, if completely practically useless, at least does seem to be a "better sign." Although, apparently, I have only one lucky star, as opposed to most people, who have lucky stars (note the plural).

Alas. It was not to be. This was followed by the oblique: "You're doomed to a life with a green thumb and an [sic] Midas touch." Which sounds very poetic, I'm sure, but doesn't actually make any sense: a green thumb doesn't mean you like plants, it means you're good with them. And I don't happen to consider turning plants to gold being good with them.

However, I think they're really beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel. And I'd really rather they stuck to advice and sayings (such bits of wisdom as "It is much easier to be critical than to create"), rather than trying to predict my future.

Mostly, I was very amused by the recent: "You will have gold pieces by the bushel." Well, that will certainly be useful in the 21st century. And where, pray, am I going to get these gold pieces? An unexpected windfall? A pirate great-great-great-great-great-great-great-uncle that no one knew about?

Perhaps I'd be better off listening to my most recent fortune: "Free advice is usually worth what you paid for it."

do not go gentle into that good night

2008-12-08T20:04:00.001-06:00

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

--dylan thomas

this is why

2008-11-27T17:13:00.001-06:00

i want to save the world.

I try to define man

2008-11-09T15:37:00.000-06:00

and am by nature dissatisfied

luftwaffe ii

2008-11-06T01:41:00.001-06:00

to continue briefly with that thought ... it seems to me that, these days, we build our castles in the air in order to use them as weapons.

luftwaffe

2008-11-02T19:27:00.002-06:00

we live our lives in spirals, and cliched though it may seem ... sometimes it has to all break down so that we can build it up again.

So I don't worry when I'm self-destructive (or maybe I should) because I've seen it before, and I know why and where it's going ... but what I want to know is this: is it me I'm building, or one more castle in the air?

movement

2008-10-30T00:09:00.003-05:00

... and so we breathe in
while the world stagnates.

vous etes bienvenu

2008-10-15T12:31:00.002-05:00

you may enjoy your electronics
your automatics
your synthesizers
you may enjoy your theoretics
your symptomatics
your fabrications of the here-and-now
you may keep them

(I'd rather live in the real world, anyway)

it needs work. the parts in bold are what i'm keeping for sure, so that's basically what it will look like when i finish it.

culture is an inversion of life

2008-10-06T11:06:00.001-05:00

I saw these lyrics:

"ran up to the metropolis, not many miles away
to find addicts in tighter trousers using more obscure cliches"

how ... good ... is that?

the writing on the wall

2008-09-30T01:19:00.002-05:00

Ever since I painted my room, I've been wanting to write something on the wall. Not a lot, just a sentence or two, and I've been trying to decide what it is that I want written in here. Initially I thought that I wanted the line about the words of the prophets from the sounds of silence, but I felt like that was too self-referencing in a way.

I think I've finally chosen--'o brave new world, that has such people in it'.

But it occurred to me tonight, when I was telling someone about this, that to be truly 'meta,' I could just write "the writing on the wall" on the wall. There's something very interesting to me about that thought.

terminal cases

2008-09-28T10:40:00.003-05:00

“if garp could have been granted one vast and naive wish, it would have been that he could make the world safe. for children and for grownups. the world struck garp as unnecessarily perilous for both.”
--the world according to garp, john irving

pretentions

2008-09-27T09:41:00.002-05:00

(at least, in my opinion)

"The true poet gives up the self. The I of my poem is not me. It is the first person impersonal, it is permission for you to enter the experience which we name Poem." - Sam Hamill.

who are these people? and what makes them say such things?

(o brave new world, that has such people in it)

the end

2008-09-26T14:51:00.003-05:00

it has come to this, that
when men speak
the world listens

tidbits

2008-09-25T17:09:00.001-05:00

ladies and gentlemen, we are stopped here, and in some ways it's a tragedy.

the horizon is backwards, the clouds laid out flat as if painted to an unseen ceiling, and while its uncertain

we are stopped here
we are stopped here
we are stopped here to contemplate

keep your youth
another condition cured by being made chronic
(the Peter Pan syndrome)

we are stopped here

there are real and unreal places, and it's a funny thing, coming home, to discover that home has become an unreal place.

we are stopped here, ladies and gentlemen. we apologize for the inconvenience.

Peter the punter was born at sea
a land-locked-lubber not he, not he
for the day that he first set his foot on the shore
he never saw sunshine no more, no more.

chatter ii

2008-09-10T14:56:00.000-05:00

something i found from a long time ago and tweaked a bit.

if you stand back and look at the effect of the words on the page, and the flourishes that might or might not be there, it will look meaningful and perhaps you will think it was philosophical or maybe political in nature. But when you look ore closely my words mean nothing at all, or at least no more than yours, but they tell me that if I try to show you what is in my head, if I add enough imagery, then maybe, just maybe, there will be a deeper meaning and I can connect to the reader. I could be a falling star, come to land in your backyard and show you that what you like to call god is just a dying whale, bleached on a desert shore so far aaway that you could never hope to get there in your lifetime. I could reach the shadowy depths, the black cool pit of the sea in your mind, and bring you closer to understanding the metaphysical nature of the universe. But don't fool yourself. What's it to me if you feel like the desert flower, the rare gem hiding in a black abandoned cave? What can I do if your face is a petal on a wet, black, bough, the branch of a tree that maybe someone else will come along and set fire to. I could makeitalllookvaguelyartistic if I had a mind to be like eecummings, or maybe more so, and perhaps you will never think that maybe I mean nothing at all by it. You can talk, and try to reach the heart of things, and maybe poetry is the poor man's mean, or rain in Stockholm, but what is identity? If you wanted me to be a "true" poet, I could rhyme and try to keep in time, and conform to the meter that they told me I really should set it to, or I could present you with a string of overloaded images and let you decide what they meant. Unless I tell you, it will perhaps never occur to you that my anger is not a symbol of my fear of control. Maybe my falling stars represent my inner struggle with political ideals, the anarchist within, and among other things, my undefined place in society. Or perhaps the bleached bones of a whale symbolize the author's sense of loss and her need to have true faith and something to believe in--but you can stop right there. I could mix my metaphors and spin my words and make you think "what is she talking about? should I understand? Is she struggling with the truth inside her mind, or arguing with herself, or maybe, and this seems more likely, needing to be someone else? Her adverbs are sparse, but maybe, and maybe a little, not too much, but if they were a little more than they should, or perhaps could be, if she spoke through them, then just for the time being, and maybe a little space on either side, embody what she really meant when she said that they had no personality, anyway, i.e. nothing whatever." I could be like Lewis Carroll and invent Jabberwock words to confuse the reader and then give them a picture through foreign sounds, but I'd rather, I'd really rather, that you just glanced at the page.

"It's nothing, she just likes to hear herself talk." And you know what? Maybe I do.

distance

2008-08-11T20:25:00.001-05:00

I had a dream that I was a million miles away from earth, and it terrified me.

i can't say everything i want to say, and that might be worse

XV. cinderella, backwards

2008-08-03T15:51:00.005-05:00

cinderella, backwards,
threw a glass slipper
in the prince's face
(he might have done better with a ring)

and ran away putting her
shoes back on
backwards out of her finery
(glass slippers and brocade;
who are these people?)

dons an apron and
returns to the kitchen

after all, the life of a scullery maid
(even one who sleeps among the cinders)
is no bad thing

when they blow the lights out at night
she can see the stars peering down the chimney
now what prince would give her that?

chatter

2008-07-31T23:32:00.000-05:00

i write poetry
because i like how it sounds
not
because it means something.

or maybe i just like to hear myself talk.

the first thank-you note

2008-07-31T13:35:00.000-05:00

and when we asked you for salvation
(lead us not into temptation)

but the fruit is so sweet
and you're dragging my feet
down, down down

to the rest of the words that should be here and that i haven't written yet

dreams again

2008-07-31T02:33:00.000-05:00

“Dreams are postcards from our subconscious, inner self to outer self, right brain trying to cross that moat to the left. Too often they come back unread: "return to sender, addressee unknown." That's a shame because it's a whole other world out there--or in here depending on your point of view.”
--Dennis Koenig and Jordan Budde

chord

2008-07-31T01:25:00.002-05:00

and that tiny note of sorrow
it broke her heart
and she won't return home now
for all the words words words in the world
which isn't much, she thinks
when she considers

it's a wonder, she says
the way so many people
love things they never had

scavenges

2008-07-31T01:12:00.004-05:00

"I see in lower Manhattan my daydreams walking their dogs."

"another condition cured by being made chronic, a hazy world half alive."

"your mind is made of glass"

the worst fate of all is to live and die right here right now in this world for nothing.
please please please step away from the crime scene. sadness is unoriginal, so burn, baby, burn. you are Zeus in this tiny little world of your own making.

smile

2008-07-28T03:10:00.001-05:00

they say a child's smile is priceless
but you can get the same on any streetcorner
and the world
the world is listening
for the sounds of paper crumpling
money exchanging hands
nationalgeographic eyes boring holes into
nothing, really, i saw him yesterday

*stuff in brown added 12/17/08

the long and winding road

2008-07-26T17:23:00.009-05:00

Have you ever found yourself saying something you've written in conversation? It happened to me yesterday ... it felt oddly like cheating, like pretending someone else's words were my own, simply because I'd written them down a long time ago.

Here's what I said: "Kids are like sharks. Blood in the water makes them go crazy. It's just bad luck if you're the one bleeding."

From the end of chapter nine of my 2005 NaNoWriMo piece:

It’s strange how people change as they grow. I remember how much I hated being asked if I felt any older the day after my birthday, but of course someone always did ask, and of course the answer was always no. That’s the way it is—you grow and change and you never notice it happening, but if I had seen myself at eighteen when I was twelve, I wouldn’t have believed it was the same person.

I wanted to cry, and I was angry and upset at the same time, so I got up and walked out of her office, and through the waiting room, and out of the school, and I wish I could say that I never looked back, but it wasn’t true. All the while I was walking home I was expecting her to come chasing after me, and I was wondering if this meant that I was going to turn out like Jeff Brauer. Did this mean I was now a troublemaker and was going to skip school and break windows, all without any intention of doing so, but because I had to, because I had sent my life careening down a path to disaster over which I had no control?

And of course it did, although in not quite such a drastic fashion, because that really was the beginning of everything, only by the time it actually happened, I knew that it wasn’t such a bad thing, because it really didn’t matter how you grew up, as long as you did, eventually.

Except that kids are like sharks. A little blood in the water will make them go crazy, and it’s just tough luck for you if you happen to be the one bleeding. And it seemed to me that Jess, with her crazy father and dying mother, was almost definitely bleeding, and watching her made me feel like it did matter how she grew up, somehow. When I caught myself looking out for her or defending her or something like that, it made me feel like I was trying to stop her from turning out like me—like some part of me knew that I really had gone down some sort of path to disaster, and I resented her for making me feel like that.

Maybe it's some form of egotism.