The past beats inside me like a second heart. —John Banville, The Sea
From football to cult rallies on glacial plains,
America excels at strategies of deterrence.
There is generational learning behind knowing
the difference between submission and giving.
Release is forbidden.
Americans reflective accolades penetrate the best
as fervent belief converts to trembling devotion.
The point being none of this is supposed to make sense.
As true as death, reality always fades.
the lecture ended at cooperation
endless constellations looping
associations and reified traces
he said it was better
before
nostalgia produces
utopia
all this mutual (re)production
that feel of shared experience
remorse, traffic jams, expectations
reckless as rhetoric
faith (as in not control)
pull and then release
I’ve realized I have seen more Passion Plays than I knew. I come back, here, again. Today is another dispossessed day. News forms around emotions. I stopped believing in Saviors a long time ago. The ending is predictable. From above and from below, inside and out, this internalized desire for external validation starts feeling like an intentional defense. In 1971, James Baldwin said something will rest something will remain. Retraction survives in all this chatter. Context protecting accusers are familiar to me. I learned that language at home and in school. Resale is always at a premium. Redo. Undo. Redo again. Coffee and tiger’s eye stone, water, land and sky meet angled. This, now, is the everything I’ve ever wanted.
new wave vengeance frames this reflection. we are now, again.
2018: masses react and subjectively perform aggression.
yes, I do think differently. epistemic relevance matters.
What a savage year. Calendar time and actual time disassociated. Let go or be dragged. I got dragged and then I let go. In this protracted state, I mended critical boundaries and broke open new patterns. I made the days useful to me. I wrote about cowboys while breathing in fire. I listened and was seduced. I transmuted silence, my way. Drowning in manufactured violence and drama, we held each other longer and tighter. I saw urgency extract exquisite ideas and leave behind ghosts still in motion. Recognizing that glitch, I give myself infinite permission to fail, to risk, to revive. I still believe revolutions are frenetic desires and armor myself contextually. Curiosity is my ideal pace. I follow cats and poets. I came into this world greedy. I need reminders when my body grips fear: be awake for soft pink sunrises and orange suns floating into fading darkness. It is my responsibility to source these personal validations and ritualize inspiration. Reflex grace. Find balance in distractions and create sacred ceremonies with your hands on my hips.
if attention is the beginning of devotion
then acknowledgement of witness is where I will begin
from street level view, I am an island
a butterfly, hummingbird, & a dragonfly
float through smells of rotting oranges
jump cuts of urban landscapes
in complimentary opposition
the people bartered & exchanged energy
an elegant observation of intimacy
cleaving to an aesthetics of division
loyal to self & other
in chorus, our mutual true horizons were laid visible
_______
quote is Mary Oliver from Upstream: Selected Essays
‘I see’ ‘with my voice’ — Alice Notley, from The Decent of Alette
our learning is from the news
a nurtured condition
⁄ it is eclipse season
shadows are light ⁄
our call is to imagine, to conceive
defend against performance-enhancing speculations
visionary blight
= fragmentations
our hands worn from self-caress
please see management
it takes a lot of energy to kill a god
Δ long division
“with the evolution of awareness came the possibility that existence could be more than survival, or that survival could be more than a response to fear, and could include the encompassing of joy” — Jeremy Wolff, excerpt from the essay Thots on Pot
Northern Plains’ cottonwoods spread their seeds this time of year
thick as snow their white progeny coat lawns and 4×4 pickup trucks
a soft blizzard similar to the way Saharan dust reached Texas this week
both are dramatic
all that settling
(it’s probably nothing)
this feeling of apocalypse came on swift
like gaslighting
like wildfire
like bad news
when adoration and permissions share the same open mouth of devotion
it is recommended that you consult your prophesies to justify blanket explanations
transpose unknowing into thoughts and prayers
a crash disrupts into eventual silence
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
T.S. Eliot, from ‘Preludes (IV)’, The Waste Land and Other Poems
concerts of effort
sounds better inside a fragment
forgive that this starts out so slow
posting at me to me with me
I’m casual to realize
to follow your our vision
is to be organized into spacial moments — threads
a witness of curation
the: father son and holy spirit
faith is within your standing
some think it is earned
as for me I was taught to be innocent
later learning curiosity had its own beneficiaries
a lesson on just how few original ideas are assigned majestic
fueling dark appreciations for wild abstractions
until it is as uncommon as creating reminders to breathe
I know this all sounds strange
you can call it: new wave vengeance
and where
did that love
I gave
go?
arousal is an anchor
like empathetic inquiry
or side show hustles
echoed relationships
redirected
form finds its subject
we commit to process
over outcome, again
shift to abundance of solutions
technically we are identical
with differences called out
our unconscious a shared language
the news repeats:
rot
patterns
it is a drowning
a baptism
an act of mercy
“I knew the tension in me between love and power, between pain and rage, and the curious, the grinding way I remained extended between these poles – perpetually attempting to choose the better rather than the worse.” — James Baldwin
I read all the names of the sacred rivers and creeks
as roadside memorials blurred into permanent mile markers
horizon x distance = distortion
horizontally speaking it was a longing
pressure folded into seductive resistance
when you knew you were in trouble, what did you do next?
these days and for some time since
I move with spiritual abandonment
neglect now atmospheric radiance
habitual as landscapes
my divided thoughts pulled to you
This is the start
a necklace of trees
the Chewuch River a soundtrack
borders carved by water’s edges
even the earth has curves
Then a door shuts
trapped in a windowless room
between bites of lunch
he argued the benefits of his pyramid scheme
this time the lure was perfume
previous closed door conversations shilled
vacuums, knives, and fire extinguishers
These moments
now shadow length memories
and quiet like fire
baptismal reflections
woven tight as narrative
From country darkness to city light
the water still glitters wickedly
we find each other in this way
our collective hardness
now exhumed as memorial
we are living loudly
an anthem and ritual that always repeats
“The deep is in riot, the coastline is quiet…” Archers of Loaf, Chumming the Ocean
the entrance is always different
always dramatic, the clouds look bruised
chaos its own predictability
then a King of Cups tarot card was pulled
light appeared filtered as if from inside a cathedral
poetics expand silently like prayer
temptation deserves awareness
that feeling: listen
nested privileges
unwound to their most fragile state
this is ephemeral revelation
sunsets are starting to look Pacific coast again
pink light lengthening its reach
as clouds become incarnations of stampeding horses
(apocalyptic if that is your orientation)
the crown of flowers was her own creation
made from remnants of first-date napkins
forming a graceful relationship to reciprocity
those echoes found delayed in repressed rhythms
where she returns to these kinds of questions
as murmurations as stimulations as exchanges
(our intimacies measured by exhale)
she dreamt in currency, in time
scaling up as undoing: euphoric
this consecration mine and yours
Is irony the binary of literal?
Receptivity is a form and function of power.
Tree tops soften from light’s pressure as rays break to bend.
Collusive collaborations are their own manufactured commodities.
This contemporary capital vision is a muted song from the past.
Borrowed promises, fallowed lives, and lustful rationalizations are systemic desire lines, whose paths of consequence are worn clear. Your biases are showing. Bad.
We, all of us, are reclaiming pleasure.
Things are so intimate, so personal, these days.
Tensions and conflicts splayed.
We leave literary marks as evidence.
On whose authority is the question we need to be asking.
A different way of understanding omniscience. Please validate.
My sacred spaces need me.
We ignore the narrator by only focusing on the frame.
The city moves, bends, and swallows.
An act of congress, a coming together.
He presented himself to me. I kissed, gently,
his upper thigh. Curated outfits, a collection of pants
and blouses, roll past me. Lunches bounce inside bags.
I keep writing to feel around the noise. Reinvested
memories, commitments, and occasional flashes of violence.
Internalized scandals are my own reputation to manage.
The train was crowded. No one could complain
about unwanted touching. I imagined her hand
moving slowly, without detection, up and between
my legs. Her fingers, warm and steady, found
their destination. Leaving behind permanent
invisible notes, secrets scrawled on the inside.
Messages shared as rumors as indisputable
associations like light shining through solid objects.
It’s familiar. A disguise as common as the East Bay Bridge wrapped in a nest of clouds. We learn early to reinforce reductionist tendencies into a path of least resistance. They deny rules have been written down. We witness endless unrequited anticipations.
Promises of love remain unfulfilled. Your acts of caring were abusive. An informant, linguistically speaking, is the expert of a community. When I tell you the sun broke the clouds, spread them, cracked them open I want you to believe me.
We harvested each other. Consent became an avalanche. Absorbing your urges felt like being wanted. It was a match. A pattern. Magnificent corruptions of circumstances. I woke up afraid and believed I was loved.
These edges are sharp yet relaxed as confidence.
My hand holds your fist. Repetition an arc.
Self-care is self-defense.
Formerly languished tertiary emotions unfolded
into a familiar and comforting serial thriller.
Absorbed as volition, rapid moving transformations,
these dreamy stories have been thick with meaning
personified by you, his posture, and breathless repetition.
Looping back to vorfreude, I weave my own meaning.
At climax, I am literally haunted in mind and body.
Multi-sourced sensations are now hardwired connections.
It is there, that specific detail, translation finds traction.
Experts have named our environment “rape culture”
fueled by an economy that exports & imports incertitude.
Funny how even the state’s gospel won’t accept no,
even with a sovereign request,
another way fringed borders bleed reciprocity
thick as oil as war as water.
Desire can transform anything.
Corporeal physics as vim and vigor,
like soft kisses melting hard intentions.
It’s why embodiment alludes enlightenment
& landscapes matter when our eyes close.
Horizons become their own grounding binary.
Pressure is a gilded warning signal.
Jouissance its own casual experience.
How deeply our metaphors inform us
as angels, as deviants, as complicit.
Love is in here somewhere, or should be.
I’ll look deep inside to see if I belong with the men – Tarnished Angel, Silkworm
Danger and excitement can feel similar
to tensions formed at intersecting
decades, leeward shelters.
Threatening as clouds as love is laissez faire.
I love you more today than yesterday.
wet
waiting to burst
low-flying clouds hang
this city visualizes virtually
while dreams bloom in analog
our breath is always moving
the pace of trees bending to find light
confession is my way of speech
the faithful will recognize these signs
she asked me about grief // I thought about honor
Have you noticed love is always on sale and violence is on demand?
she dug deep, and still,
my hips held position
walking through clouds of words
hearing only “baby”
performing radical distortion, always inward
personally speaking, “no” is aspirational
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
Lately, this fevered responsibility begs for:
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
She wore tights the color of sun-hidden skin.
I stole touches. Even in stillness, the body has a beat.
Oblivion’s call such a tempting response.
I want to know what happens after the scene.
After the play ends. Which position do you assume?
That morning the City reflected transformation.
A kindness from and because of suffering.
I know. I know. I know.
Those words, their rhythm, influence me.
The water moves against itself; I forget to breathe.
I’m going to ride your heart – Bleached
Have you noticed our conversations are almost always about safety?
Will you listen to that fear? Will you listen to that need?
Fighting what feels natural
what has been conditioned to feel good,
finding providence
a hard-won wisdom.
What imagination led us here?
He said practice creates habits
a reference to his dangerous life,
a prophetic retrograde.
We are taught someone has to lose.
Perpetual calculations of how much we allow
in contrast to what we can’t take anymore.
Revery forbidden, outwardly.
I feel nothing but desire to keep myself whole.
Our collective resentments (cultural backlash)
form dysphoric protests, an occupation of complexities.
Mass wish fulfillment to move beyond fear, imagined and not.
In excelsis, suspended.
An embroidered pillow littered the interstate
along with an unpartnered shoe and other items
mostly unseen like kisses blown into ocean currents
(small reminders dividing our morning gaze)
I am worth showing up for
bound by all those quiet erasures
pulling towards shame in order to remain prone
a worship of sorts, a ritual formed from survival
a lous péché miséricorde
an intimate maxim linking mercy to sin
suppressing repressed domination > perceived value
as artificial as the light and politics we are surrounded in
“We need, each of us, to begin the awesome, difficult work of love: loving ourselves so that we become able to love others without fear so that we can become able enough to enlarge the circle of our trust and our common striving for a safe, sunny afternoon near to flowering trees and under a very blue sky.” – June Jordan
The truth?
I knew a long time ago.
I shouldn’t deny that I don’t practice conscious love. I do.
All those times when I said no.
All those times I said yes.
All those times worth was mine to know.
“Use the power of man. Use the word. Fuck. The word is love.” – Kim Gordon
Overhead, the backyards had pools and trampolines.
A land of only oxbow lakes.
A land where delayed gratification is a religion.
A land where there is no sympathy for the devil.
“Write your self. Your body must be heard.” Helene Cixous (1975)
How much of our wants
are manifestations of neglect?
Inside this somatic posturing,
a restless hustle,
our bodies are celestial.
Distillations of notional
constellations open and wide.
It is true: commitment is not exclusive to monogamy.
Come prepared.
Always dress your best
for the world may end.
Flashbacks are low-grade returns.
There is seduction in being loved
and always something you can learn
from an interruption.
A moment when clarity
finds you knowing.
“Between us we create a circle of something like worship, a ritual of mutual incarnation.” Mykel Johnson from “Butchy femme” in The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader
We declaimed those who seemed to own their identities so easily while affirming our own temporary status through amateur gif porn and sunburns in the unlikeliest of places like the bend of your elbow or the middle part running across your scalp. Furiously finding ourselves up against our will, again and again, we realized much later how these proxies for desire—unfolded along an axis of repression and deviance—were sublimated into online conversations and polished stories shared in darkened rooms that no longer play the music we recognize.
I have a memory of you exhaling this is it for me on the back of my neck. It was resurrected as I sat sandwiched between stores filled with cheap shoes, bed fashions, drugs and groceries waiting to take an STI test. In my direct view a poster warned, Don’t think, know. Another flashback holds a detail of strategically opened windows that bragged to your neighbors about our business, which was more carnal than intellectual. Others wane simply as background noise. Some are so intimate they can only be expressed as secrets found in between the way we choose to embody vulnerability and the actual practice of being authentic or the way these specifics are mine to own and tell.
—————————————————————
breath/control
rhythmic
breathing, a song –
a strategy for calm
inevitable after such
habits
Absence opens possibility.
We gather inside and treasure light. We are enamored with the hues of soft pinks and peach oranges that have lengthened during this seasonal rotation. Yes, we do have an agenda, a way of being, of feeling seen.
While shadows form, for they provide their own value of shelter and comfort, we scout for interdependence. We want transformation not assimilation. Our politics disrupt, express, reconceptualize desire and power. It’s a decentered practice. A rebellion.
What we seek is an acknowledgment of the complexity of difference and an orientation that does not ignore a reality that is relational. All of our connections, regardless of intimacy, physicality, and emotional depth are nonnegotiable and non-hierarchical.
Our resistance depends on it.
