Sunday, June 12th, 2005
|
|
3:36 am
|
Make an artist out of this
The artist behind the god
as the god
through the god
what fragile fragments words are
dry
brittle
useless
They are everything
to Modern Man*
* Modern Man: 5í11 1/2î; balding prematurely; thinks in words, lives in words, breathes with words.
and Isis comes now
Has everyone forgotten?
it’s always the sister
Isis paints her poems on my back
cool, smooth brush strokes on
naked skin
orange swirls around the navel
she knows I hate pink
so she calls it fuchsia
and stripes it on
that part of the back I can’t reach
Diamonds from the sky fall like dust
Osiris enters
hard and ready to fuck a meaning into anything
Isis lies down
unwinds like electrical tape
coiled at my feet* **
* I’m terrified of electrical tape and all that it represents
** There’s a roll of it living in the living room
I don’t go in that room much.
Not much living goes on in there.
Osiris fucks the hole in the center of the roll
sigh
there you go again
always missing the point
Isis is tired of this
and decides to give up
her eternal Ms. Fix-It job
Osiris was always fucking shit up and blaming it on Isis when they were kids
anyway
trying to shirk responsibility pretending your words if they don’t matter then why are you writing them down those trees had better things to do then lie down for you that plastic plant didn’t have to become a ballpoint you didn’t have to become a person your parents didn’t have to fuck we all could have gone to a nice dinner theater instead
if I’d had time this would all be in calligraphy one of the most anal retentive forms of artistic expression perfect for Virgos definitive lettering but have you seen the abstract it made me nervous I wanted to marry the language and have little letter babies I wanted to marry the language until I realized the alphabet was raping me raping us all hurry and get to the clinic in time to abort those new letters we don’t need another infestation of y’s
Paint more pictures sing more songs a dancer who used to dance a writer who used to care how do you get a gig working for one of those kitty kat calendars anyone can take pictures of kittens in baskets right anyone can write right write like me if we all write the same we’ll be called a movement don’t you want to be something larger than yourself join the army or the peace corps depending on your view of violence don’t you want to be something larger than yourself eat more doughnuts
I’ve lost my confidence in words I feel betrayed by them how does one go about reconstructing a life around a missing foundation high literacy rates are one mark of a first world country they said high literacy rates were a good thing I learned to read when I was three forgot how to paint when I was eight why did daddy give my easel away why didn’t mommy say anything
paint your words layer by layer it doesn’t matter if it dries in between short brush strokes are best most people can’t pay attention for longer than ten minutes most people think that means something is wrong with them do new ideas come from listening to someone else speak for an hour new to you maybe I want something different
current mood:  drunk
current music: The Velvet Underground "All Tomorrow's Parties"
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
3:25 am - polphonic piece that won't make much sense in this format, but oh well
|
like most placeless men,
she worshipped place
I woke up one morning
and knew it was time to leave again
He asked if I was going to break up with him
I said yes, and packed my things
and worshipped people
who had it
It’s how I grew up
I shrugged apologetically.
But this place doesn’t feel right,
and you feel married to it.
searched out new locales
to sink into
I don’t know if any place will hold me
for long
and found nothing
I don’t think I want it to
I think I like the wandering, searching, reaching out
to pet stray dogs and cats on sandy beaches
but confusion over the word “home”
and the way her soft snoring
has come to mean something like
home to me
and a desire to keep moving
the way home is where I’m sleeping tonight
so don’t freak out when I call
your chest home
to find something bigger
than herself
and her narcissistic ponderings
I don’t like you that much
and the sex was just something to pass the time
or to have a place to stay
bigger than someone else’s philosophy
I want something more
than this empty examination
of ballpoint scratches
she wanted to become her own movement
current mood: drunk
current music: Interpol "Specialist
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
3:20 am - Pursuing Someone Who’s Not Interested
|
When it comes to mixed signals,
touching is often the culprit.
What’s the best thing to do if you are in a
mixed-signals situation?
Make a bolder move,
and ask her how she feels
It’s never fun to see negative signals.
DO NOT TOUCH!
Smile or laugh when appropriate.
You want to see her leaning forward—
towards your zone.
That means she wants to get closer.
Getting up and walking away,
flit away—
she’s just not that into you.
She’s probably wishing she were elsewhere.
You may think she’s hot for you,
when really,
she does this to everyone.
current mood: drunk
current music: Tori Amos "Raspberry Swirl"
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Sunday, May 15th, 2005
|
|
2:49 pm - small pieces of something BIG I'm working on
|
She falls in the water
enveloped in blue plunge
her white dress billowing stark against
the sea
and things are encroaching/invading
the vines
the vines
straight out of the Evil Dead forest
raping their way up her skirt
There's not much time
She needs to drown
before the sea swirls away
down the drain
the bells were ringing yesterday
and she was running down the waterfront
like a seagull in her wedding dress
Dog shit caking beteen her toes
but no matter
She was running to her love
This is your universe
Eat it
Fuck it
Inhale it
Excrete it
current mood: hot
current music: The Cure
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
2:38 pm
|
Maybe I was sending out mixed messages
like fucking him
But sometimes you wanna sleep with
an ideal or a concept
but it's hard to fuck things like
freedom
creativity
travel
independence
chemical dependency
or those pesky muses
with their transparent cocks
that feel more like your own fingers
So you screw the artist boy
with paint all over his pants
sexy
current mood: hungry
current music: New Order
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
2:33 pm - Stalking is Sexy
|
sandal footed steps on cobblestones
jasmine
honeysuckle
basil
fresh nectarines
dried salt on skin
crunchy in hair
warm air currents whispering between
periodic bumps on shoulders
shadows falling behind
twinkling of the harbor lights mingling with
clinkling of bar glasses
murmers
flirts
laughs
all with melodious underpinnings
all with felonious undersinnings
bis-a-bis
smiles
casual Italian ass grabbings
causual Scottish tequiler slammings
bar stool shadows peeking up miniskirts
yellow street lights
trying to slip in between
heavy-footed steps
unable to catch
sandal-foot makes an exit
evaporates around a corner like milk
fallen name-day flower in gutter
picks itself up
cries
runs to water and plunges in
Little Mermaid suicide style
current mood:  blah
current music: "Against All Odds" -- The Postal Service
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
2:27 pm
|
Go ahead and hand it over
You know I don't care anymore
I can pick it apart
as easily as I picked you
perhaps (as mistakenly?)
This stalemate
. I have to go
You can't come with me
Will you wait
. for
. maybe?
gaze rests ona nail in the ceiling
body warms, wettens in preparation
. for reception
And I wonder
Am I contributing to society's demise
by having compliant sex?
the way the fling went from
something smiled about
to something puked about
He wants my poetry to mean something
He means he wants the meaning to mean him
He didn't have to sit next to me
Like two people posing at each other
Who is pretty?
current mood: lethargic
current music: Mazzy Star
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Friday, March 25th, 2005
|
|
7:50 pm - An Oldie
|
The Month Before I Turned Twenty-One
7/29/03 I'm only 20
Lying here on a bed
clothes strewn across the floor
I'm only 20
But the questions keep coming
Marital status
always a question
I ask YOU--why???
What's to gain
when there's everything to lose?
My life
my freedom
my happiness
my sadness
my solitude
my deep breaths
my bed to myself
my uncertainty
my security
what's left of my naïveté
my naked finger
my optimism
my skepticism
my job
my sorrow
my depression
my love of life
my SOUL
so I ask you
If I'm so wonderful,
why do you want me to change?
Why should I lose it all
YES, leave me be
I'll be on the stairs
if anyone cares
I'm only 20
can't you tell?
Everything's so green and wonderful
and death beckons with a wrinkle
"I"m only 20!" I scream
"What do you want from me?!"
Leave me with my supple skin
my long, lush hair
my tight rear end
my empty eyes so full of shit
my flexible back
my oily zit
I'm only 20
still unformed
I am a pendulum
But right now, I'm stuck to one side
with chewing gum
I'm only 20
I won't deny
the lies anymore
They only served to try to hide the pain
Well, I've BUILT UP MY WALLS
while you were playing with your dolls,
I flitted from flower to flower
tasting all the pollen I could get my mouth on
Bees are whores
8/01/03 and I have learned
to pull out the stingers
and taste
rebellion,
freedom, and
8/05/03 that murky sense of
knowing when something's a bad idea
but I'm gonna do it anyway
because
FUCK CONSEQUENCES--
they'll give me something to write about!
and water beckons
like diamonds and blankets
and I long to dive in,
taste its salty reprimands
and emerge from its abyss
a sopping mermaid
ready for the taking
8/07/03 I'm only 20
but I'm not the girl you used to know
staring innocently into the sun
These August days
are such a haze
tripping me up
I'm lost
I'm not sure where to run
when I was with you,
I was a goddess
Now, I'm just a slut
Bitter and defeated
It's a lot to think about
8/12/03 I'm only 20
What do you want from me?
I'm lower than nothing
Why do you riddle me with your interjections,
then ignore me?
I'm only 20
I have plans
I plan to peer through the bottom
of every bottle I find in my hand
I plan to hook up with faceless men
in tiny bathrooms
I plan to move to Paris
and have a ménage-a-trois
with two sexy poet/musician/starving artist types
one fucking me from behind with his hands on my breasts
the other one's tongue on my clitoris
with his hands on my feet
Oh yeah, baby,
I have PLANS
8/13/03 I'm only 20
What do I want to be?
That's hard to explain
When no one's been where I want to go
There's no convenient little label
to ease your confusion
So I just shrug my shoulders and say,
"Oh, I don't know yet....
Maybe I'll be a teacher."
Cause education's a good major
for people who are afraid
to follow their dreams
8/19/03 or didn't have any in the first place
I'm only 20
I let them in one door
and out the other
No use grasping at greased pigs
No use grasping at mirages either
I'm only 20
and Alf and E.T. are part of my history?
Fuck this shit
It means nothing to me
I'm only 20
I thought I'd made friends
with the floaters in my eyes
But sometimes, then sneak up on me
and I think they might be my enemies
So paranoid I am
and jaded, too
8/27/03 I'm only 20
I still curl up in a fetal position
and suck my thumb when I'm sad, or lonely, or cranky, or tired
I still get chocolate all over myself when I eat ice cream
I still play in the shower for 2 hours whenever I get the chance
I still do cartwheels in skirts whether or not anybody's looking
I still sleep diagonally across the bed when I'm sharing
I still have a nightlight cause I'm afraid of the dark
I still won't admit it when I like a boy a whole lot
I still like boys
I'm only 20
but I realize how stupid 15-year-olds are
and 16-year-olds
and 17, 18, and 19-year-olds
and hell, 20-year-olds, too
I can finally admit I'm an idiot
and I'll be that way through 21
I'm only 20
but I've already experienced enough to regret
and then look back and say I have no regrets at all
I just realized about an hour ago
how insane it was to expect you to be a responsible adult
and play house with me at 17.
May this wisdom guide me to 30 or so.
I'm only 20
I don't know what I want
Even though I cling to you like a leaky lifeboat
I wonder where the current will take me
and hope it's somewhere far away
where I don't need a savior.
I'm only 20
Today was a day
and tomorrow's another disappointment waiting to fuck me
Life,
I can't take your sadistic carousel any longer
I want a ride unlike any other
Tomorrow beckons
like diamonds and blankets
and I long to dive in
and forget my past
current mood:  nostalgic
current music: Beatsteaks, Beth Orton, The Dresden Dolls. Belle & Sebastian
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
|
|
10:37 am
|
Sometimes I sit and think about
how it all began
Trademark bright green tank top
Freckled shoulders
They say I've changed so much since then
but I feel more like myself than before
I haven't found anything
not myself
nor a home
only a vague realization
that I never will
because I don't really want to
Success would be bland and static
and I want more than that
Last night,
I dreamt of everything,
and woke up with outstretched arms
reaching for it all
current mood:  groggy
current music: Belle & Sebastian "Don't Leave the Light On Baby"
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Friday, February 18th, 2005
|
|
10:15 am - rough, rough, rough-- just getting it out
|
You told me I've chosen a hard path
right in so many ways
Rather depressing to realize
that the path I have to take
the one that will leave me happiest
will also leave me loneliest
Now the long journey forward
Searching for solace
in another stranger's arms
to tide me over
til the
next big fling
Another goodbye
and I'm too jaded
to feel anything more
than a slight touch of nausea
and futility
More like resignation
at the failure of connection
my failure at connecting
with yet another human being
Maybe they're all right
and I don't show what I'm feeling
But shouldn't that just make
things easier on everyone?
One person's emotions are enough trouble--
I don't want to deal with my own
and I'm sure he didn't either
Aren't we all just another number
on each other's
roulette wheels of casual sex?
Where's my little raft and paddle?
I won't let
this current keep having its way with me
But sometimes I wonder what would happen
if a giant broom came along
and instead of being tough
I let it sweep me away.
current mood: contemplative
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Tuesday, February 1st, 2005
|
|
9:21 pm - Quotes from Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet, Clea
|
"If a girl does not like dancing and swimming she will never be able to make love."
"One word 'love' has to do service for so many different kinds of the same animal."
"So we lingered, so we might have stayed, like rapt figures in some forgotten painting, unhurriedly savouring the happiness given to those who set out to enjoy each other without reservations or self-contempts, without the premeditated costumes of selfishness-- the invented limitations of human love."
"However near we would wish to be, so far exactly do we remain from each other."
"Civilizations die in the measure that they become conscious of themselves. they realize, they lose heart, the propulsion of the unconscious motive is no longer there. Desperately they begin to copy themselves in the mirror. It is no use."
"You may travel round the world and colonize the ends of the earth with your lines and yet never hear the singing yourself."
"The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time."
"How can we but help love the places which have made us suffer?"
current mood: crushed
current music: Czech radio
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Tuesday, January 11th, 2005
|
|
10:41 am
|
As girls we're brought up
to look for protectors
So sick of being silly weak,
I arm myself
with poison arrows
stolen from Cupid's backpack
Spend hours at target practice
mercilessly cutting down
little puppy dogs and senior citizens that cross my path
Get out of my way, Grandpa,
Feminism's on the loose!
I throw the pizzas in the back of my car and drive
drive for hours across this
lonely country of farmers
tilling the soil of their land,
going to church on Sundays,
sending their kids to school,
taking their trash to the curb once a week
I dip my fingers
into the soil
come up with dry crumbling dust
I bring to my nose to sniff
and sneer
at the sterility of it all
current mood:  amused
current music: Belle & Sebastian "The Chalet Line"
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Monday, January 10th, 2005
|
|
6:47 pm
|
I proclaimed I wanted a connection
while fiendishly snipping the telephone wires
Stared at you for hours
behind these sunglasses
hoping you understood the game
I'm begging you to make me fall in love,
then tear me into tiny, red, flapping pieces
I need something to write about
I'm sick of saying silly drunk things
to silly drunk people
like when we were thirteen
and thought it all had to rhyme
Now, I'm running around searching for myself in all the wrong places
and hoping I come across you
somewhere in the midst
sitting there with your smiling, moody, presence
scribbling notes in some random Czech cafe
knowing you're not in Europe
knowing it wouldn't make a difference if you were
I still couldn't find you
still couldn't speak to you even if
Sometimes when the wind blows just right,
I can hear you playing
across this time and space
echoes like faded photographs
tucked between pages of journals
current mood: hungry
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Friday, January 7th, 2005
|
|
11:56 pm - Quotes from Durrell's Balthazar, The Alexandria Quartet
|
"First nobody can own an artist so be warned. Second what good is a faithful body when the mind is by its very nature unfaithful? Third stop whining like an Arab, you know better. Fourth neurosis is no excuse. Health must be won and earned by a battle. Lastly it is honourable if you can't win to hang yourself."
"I see all of us not as men and women any longer, identities swollen with their acts of forgetfulness, follies, and deceits-- but as beings unconsciously made part of place, buried to the waist among the ruins of a single city, steeped in its values."
"At first, we seek to supplement the emptiness of our individuality through love, and for a brief moment enjoy the illusion of completeness. But it is only an illusion. For this strange creature, which we thought would join us to the body of the world, succeeds at last in separating us most thoroughly from it. Love joins and then divides. How else would we be growing?"
yes.... I'm obsessed with this book at the moment
current mood:  content
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
4:13 pm
|
I kissed someone last night
A girl
A girl I knew in high school,
but can’t remember her name
Maybe it wasn’t even her
She probably wouldn’t be hanging out
in a bar on a Greek island in the middle of winter
But her lips unfolded against mine
like a blossoming orchid
flooding my skin and veins with perfumed nectar
sucking mine out as well
as fingers simultaneously traced
whispers in silken strands
I was left breathlessly stupid,
shell-shocked,
and dewy with a giggle
Never before has a kiss been more
than wet, probing suggestive tongue
tingles between thighs
kindling me starry-eyed and aroused
From the bartender came a
knowing look
and all my lips could utter
was an inadequate
“wow”
current mood: happy
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
4:00 pm - Withdrawal
|
woke up feeling like crap
I guess this is what a night
without drinking does for me.
I’m still eighty kinds of dehydrated,
and my digestive system
hasn’t functioned properly in weeks,
Every morning when I brush my teeth,
I wonder
how much longer
they can hold on
to their precarious positions
in my gum sockets.
hair greasy
skin dull
last night’s mascara
now floats on my eyeballs
like an oil spill
just now realizing I probably
shouldn’t have eaten that healthy breakfast
I hear gin is good for the stomach.
current mood: crappy
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
1:22 am - Departure
|
January chill nipping at cheeks
nape of neck
Lights enter harbor
Passengers slurp last remnants of espresso
The horn sounds
Bags ready, hat on
the gangway
lowers
There's nothing left of him here now
current mood: lonely
current music: Bob Dylan "Queen Jane Approximately"
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
1:21 am
|
Clitoral hood
rubbed raw
I am aching
She is pulsing in my pajama pants
Even the slightest touch
too much
When will I see her again?
current mood: uncomfortable
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Tuesday, January 4th, 2005
|
|
5:44 pm
|
I remember
nights when we'd both hint around
about not wanting to cook
and ending up with
tempeh reubens
and the $2 beer special
I'd usually get the salad
and you'd get the soup
Oh soup!
the way we'd cuddle in bed
the way everybody cuddles in bed.
(There are only so many positions
two human bodies can achieve.)
But it always felt exciting with you--
not just the gaping emptiness
of fondling another skeleton.
and the way I had to hunt you--
harpoon you like a Greek man would.
And when I finally got you,
decided you were too small,
and threw you back.
current mood: nostalgic
current music: shite
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
5:41 pm - Another One For The Muse I Did Not Choose
|
Eyes met
instant knowing
not even "we're gonna fuck"
"we must fuck"
"for the sake of the species fuck"
They say when two people look into each other's eyes
for longer than ten seconds,
they're either going to kill each other,
or make love.
I don't know how long we
stared at each other
across that orangey haze of space,
but as each second slid past,
I felt more like myself.
False coquettish innocence slipping away
Predator coming out
like lycanthrope at full moon
gets what she wants
current mood: hungry
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|