Exerpts:
...It's something much more variegated and multiple. I know and feel many things simultaneously. I wish I could conceptualize the breadth of them but instead they surface and sink individually and I end up feeling like I'm playing a game of wack-a-mole where I'm both the mallet and the mole...
...But it's desire too, not just pain though they are often the same. The sources and strains conflate and vibrate against each other. Sometimes I can't tell them apart. Sometimes I realize that what I thought was the sound of two separate strains was only one or visa versa. I made a practice of listening to music that mirrored the pain and amplified it. In doing this I turned up the volume and tried to listen for the pops and cracks, the tape hiss, the squeak of a piano bench, hoping that I would hear something other than emotion, some kind of real world out of which the emotion came...
.... I don't honestly know what the reason for this letter (email) is. I try to put on my teacher hat, that still fits poorly, and think what my objective is but I don't know that I have one this time. The best reason I can think of to write and send this is that it means that I am not afraid of my life...
Friday, December 26, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Open Up : Say, Ah
not so easily awed
see how the mouth opens, says
Ah, like the doctor's going to stick it in
whatever's coming out of that place
is far less interesting than what could go in
am I right?
but it is pretty when a pretty mouth talks all
pretty pretty
all earnest like a good girl
all trying and shit
see how the mouth opens, says
Ah, like the doctor's going to stick it in
whatever's coming out of that place
is far less interesting than what could go in
am I right?
but it is pretty when a pretty mouth talks all
pretty pretty
all earnest like a good girl
all trying and shit
Friday, December 19, 2008
Truer Words have Ne'er
Letter 4
"Misfortune of this kind comes to many. Life is well ordered, like a nécessaire, but not all of us can find our places in it. Life tailors us for a certain person and laughs when we are drawn to someone unable to love us. All this is simple--like postage stamps."
--Victor Shklofsky from Zoo or Letters not about Love
"Misfortune of this kind comes to many. Life is well ordered, like a nécessaire, but not all of us can find our places in it. Life tailors us for a certain person and laughs when we are drawn to someone unable to love us. All this is simple--like postage stamps."
--Victor Shklofsky from Zoo or Letters not about Love
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Two
Nit Picking
You say you cannot be both
hollow and full of nothing
and I say,
Have you tried it?
Misguided Expression of Feeling
First, I love well
and will be rejected for
no one wants so much
not even excepting me
I don't want that much
but here it comes.
You say you cannot be both
hollow and full of nothing
and I say,
Have you tried it?
Misguided Expression of Feeling
First, I love well
and will be rejected for
no one wants so much
not even excepting me
I don't want that much
but here it comes.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
By Request- For Brandon Brown
Well kids, it was the summer of 2004 and I had just turned 21. I wanted to try living in Portland before going back to school at Evergreen. My friend Themba Lewis from Olympia had just moved into Donna Dresch's house in North Portland and I heard somehow that they were looking for a roommate.
It was kind of a rough neighborhood and ended up being my first real introduction to hard-core gentrification. I didn't know how to cope with the fact of my white-girl prejudices. I hadn't realized that I had them at all while living in Olympia where there are very few people of color, especially very few African Americans. My neighborhood, at that time, had been a majority African-American neighborhood for many years but as I said was being hemmed in by gentrification on all sides.
There were a few drive-bys in front of our house that summer. I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I interned at Gobshite Quarterly. Donna hosted bar-be-que's in our backyard that I called "famous lesbian bar-be-que's" because that's pretty much what they were. I would sit there and quietly freak out while everyone chatted.
Donna played a reunion show at Homo-A-Go-Go in Olympia, which was probably the first time I heard Team Dresch.
K8 Hardy the editor of LTTR came to visit and laid on our couch in short shorts and a wife-beater for about two weeks. She was allergic to cats and we had 3 cats (Gremlin, Twinky? and my Miette) living there. I was sort of mesmerized by her because I had never met someone so over-the-top and seemingly confident. At one point she wore this incredible daishiki with a necklace made of giant wooden beads. I remember her asking me about music and calling me out as a Cat Power fan.
I was real quiet at home because I was basically frozen by social anxiety or petrified of being shot throughout the entire summer.
Keith, my boyfriend at the time, was living in Olympia still. During one visit there was a drive-by right outside our house with several rounds of automatic gunfire. We hit the deck and lay under my bed for about five minutes before getting the fuck out of there and driving to The Alibi, a sweet tiki bar where we ordered froofy drinks and hamburgers. The propritetor of the place was so happy, we soon forgot our fear. He was living the dream: "Karaoke every night of the week!" he kept telling us. All was right with the world.
The Summer Olympics were happening that summer and I remember sitting on lawn chairs and flpping between women's gymnastics and women's swimming on a tiny TV set in our backyard with my downstairs neighbor Stephanie and Donna's new bandmate Christina. We sat for hours drinking beer and arguing about who was cuter, the gymnasts or the swimmers. That was the point where I finally relaxed and felt really glad to be there.
What else...Donna's cats peed on the couches a lot. Donna's bike was stolen by a crackhead, probably because I didn't lock the door when I left that morning (people were still home!). The crack house across the street got busted, probably due to me and my big mouth (I have an uncle who was a cop in that neighorhood). Donna's bandmate Jody said the phrase, "There's a giant man in Donna's kitchen." upon seeing Keith there. Gobshite Quarterly was nuts, but that's for another story.
In the end I moved back to Olympia, went back to school and met poetry. I don't know, is that what you were looking for Brandon? I'll try to think of more.
It was kind of a rough neighborhood and ended up being my first real introduction to hard-core gentrification. I didn't know how to cope with the fact of my white-girl prejudices. I hadn't realized that I had them at all while living in Olympia where there are very few people of color, especially very few African Americans. My neighborhood, at that time, had been a majority African-American neighborhood for many years but as I said was being hemmed in by gentrification on all sides.
There were a few drive-bys in front of our house that summer. I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I interned at Gobshite Quarterly. Donna hosted bar-be-que's in our backyard that I called "famous lesbian bar-be-que's" because that's pretty much what they were. I would sit there and quietly freak out while everyone chatted.
Donna played a reunion show at Homo-A-Go-Go in Olympia, which was probably the first time I heard Team Dresch.
K8 Hardy the editor of LTTR came to visit and laid on our couch in short shorts and a wife-beater for about two weeks. She was allergic to cats and we had 3 cats (Gremlin, Twinky? and my Miette) living there. I was sort of mesmerized by her because I had never met someone so over-the-top and seemingly confident. At one point she wore this incredible daishiki with a necklace made of giant wooden beads. I remember her asking me about music and calling me out as a Cat Power fan.
I was real quiet at home because I was basically frozen by social anxiety or petrified of being shot throughout the entire summer.
Keith, my boyfriend at the time, was living in Olympia still. During one visit there was a drive-by right outside our house with several rounds of automatic gunfire. We hit the deck and lay under my bed for about five minutes before getting the fuck out of there and driving to The Alibi, a sweet tiki bar where we ordered froofy drinks and hamburgers. The propritetor of the place was so happy, we soon forgot our fear. He was living the dream: "Karaoke every night of the week!" he kept telling us. All was right with the world.
The Summer Olympics were happening that summer and I remember sitting on lawn chairs and flpping between women's gymnastics and women's swimming on a tiny TV set in our backyard with my downstairs neighbor Stephanie and Donna's new bandmate Christina. We sat for hours drinking beer and arguing about who was cuter, the gymnasts or the swimmers. That was the point where I finally relaxed and felt really glad to be there.
What else...Donna's cats peed on the couches a lot. Donna's bike was stolen by a crackhead, probably because I didn't lock the door when I left that morning (people were still home!). The crack house across the street got busted, probably due to me and my big mouth (I have an uncle who was a cop in that neighorhood). Donna's bandmate Jody said the phrase, "There's a giant man in Donna's kitchen." upon seeing Keith there. Gobshite Quarterly was nuts, but that's for another story.
In the end I moved back to Olympia, went back to school and met poetry. I don't know, is that what you were looking for Brandon? I'll try to think of more.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Weekend say, What?
Weekend say:
SPT
such lovely faces
Dana Teen Hunger Force (Lomax)
Riffing
Shredding
Jamming
Heshing
AirGuitar (in-the-making)
Naps
Smokes and Jokes (on a stoop)
QCATT (Quality Cat Time)
The loves of my life (all y'all kids)
Thank you, Thank you brand poetry
Oh My, Hell Yes brand dance party
Alli knows best when and how to jam
We should all say, Thank you Ma'am
And Thank you, Stan for the
Thank you, Thank you brand
that brand Brandon say, problematic
what can you say in these things these days?
and it was so nice to dance
with you all sirs and ma'ams
Morgan Levy with that giant smile
as opposed to a tiny, tiny mouth
bought 1/4 my weight in beer (probably not)
haggard morning, hello friend
introduce your favorite italian to free food
cape cod gooseberries (what?!)
persimmons
taste like dick
just think about it
talk of juke boxes
burgeoning web ventures
rationales for serial killers
jodie foster
"everyone's a little queer, why can't she be a little straight."
eel porn
coffee vs. wine
logic props and color wheels
tell me about your life
no one ever wrote an impulsive and ill thought out letter and let it sit in the mailbox for the 12 hours till the mailman came
that's what email is for
hair on the face
difficulty
and home, cat, potatoes w/ fresh rosemary (free)
Weekend say, more please
SPT
such lovely faces
Dana Teen Hunger Force (Lomax)
Riffing
Shredding
Jamming
Heshing
AirGuitar (in-the-making)
Naps
Smokes and Jokes (on a stoop)
QCATT (Quality Cat Time)
The loves of my life (all y'all kids)
Thank you, Thank you brand poetry
Oh My, Hell Yes brand dance party
Alli knows best when and how to jam
We should all say, Thank you Ma'am
And Thank you, Stan for the
Thank you, Thank you brand
that brand Brandon say, problematic
what can you say in these things these days?
and it was so nice to dance
with you all sirs and ma'ams
Morgan Levy with that giant smile
as opposed to a tiny, tiny mouth
bought 1/4 my weight in beer (probably not)
haggard morning, hello friend
introduce your favorite italian to free food
cape cod gooseberries (what?!)
persimmons
taste like dick
just think about it
talk of juke boxes
burgeoning web ventures
rationales for serial killers
jodie foster
"everyone's a little queer, why can't she be a little straight."
eel porn
coffee vs. wine
logic props and color wheels
tell me about your life
no one ever wrote an impulsive and ill thought out letter and let it sit in the mailbox for the 12 hours till the mailman came
that's what email is for
hair on the face
difficulty
and home, cat, potatoes w/ fresh rosemary (free)
Weekend say, more please
Friday, December 5, 2008
Oh, Gender
If I put my gender on
like black face
and did a little dance
would you throw this dog
a bone?
like black face
and did a little dance
would you throw this dog
a bone?
Monday, December 1, 2008
GOLD
Mama Boldt doesn't listen to music much in the car but since the folks got a new prius, her friend thought she should have at least one CD in the car and gave her a copy of ABBA Gold. She and I took a drive into town and on the way she was sort of debating about when the appropriate time would be to listen to ABBA. I didn't give it much thought at the time. After puttering around downtown Olympia and disagreeing about the aesthetic of the Capital Theater's new facade, we decided to make a trip to the cemetery. We discussed what kind of plant to bring and the ethics and ritual of bringing plants to cemeteries ie: Is it for us or for Dad? How might that affect one's choice in plant? Does it matter if the plant survives the weather if no one will really be there to look at it? How soon will they throw the plant away or run it over with a lawn mower? What kind of plant would dad like anyway? What is the definition of a "masculine" plant? We decided on a nice potted jade. We deposited the plant, said, "hello", pushed the grass away from the headstone with our toes, talked some talk and got back in the car. We sat there a little solemnly, probably uttering identical mother-daughter "hmmms". Then I said, "So, shall we listen to some ABBA?" Mom agreed and we drove off to the tune of "Dancing Queen". Perfect.
The Swedes have a way with words, especially when they sing in English. Sometimes, as is true of many pop songs, they manage to distill one's seemingly complex and overwhelming emotions into a few simple phrases. Such is the case with ABBA and such is the case with this song. May it affect you as it has affected me. Ha!
More on Olympia and the nexus of poet power that was Ben Moore's cafe and bar on Friday night later.
The Swedes have a way with words, especially when they sing in English. Sometimes, as is true of many pop songs, they manage to distill one's seemingly complex and overwhelming emotions into a few simple phrases. Such is the case with ABBA and such is the case with this song. May it affect you as it has affected me. Ha!
More on Olympia and the nexus of poet power that was Ben Moore's cafe and bar on Friday night later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)