musak

stuttering days

| ginger k. hintz

If the water should cut my mind, set me free — Cat Power cover of  Bathysphere

Claire Falkenstein, From Point to Cone, double-sided lithograph, 1977

This waste has a frequency. Fragmentation, ritual undulations.
Football snaps. Trees release their green grip as shadows lengthen.
Gritty details of fire and death dominate our collective vision.
Language is spoken as advice. Gather paper: cash, proof of identity, maps.
Consider packing the most precious of your valuables, nothing more.
Poets obsess over lyrical scale, enormity of loss and perspective.
I crave open space in the way a true horizon shows separation—land from sky.
If we believe these times are unlived, restricted and dangerous,
how will we evolve within the inevitable next adaptation?
Urgent expectations transition this chaos. Short-term addictions.
Thunderstorms from a ghost hurricane came through last night.
Focus on a feeling of ascension as our emotional worlds
and their borders dislocate from distracted penetrations.
You say deprivation. I claim radical self-interest.

in excelsis

| ginger k. hintz

“She was territory and words occupied her.” — Jeanette Winterson

photographer: Gary Ross Pastrana

Contrived as a self-portrait
& captured in landscape mode,
diamonds rest at her throat.

Lips split wide enough to connect
in rapture of majestic glare.
Caged, he filled negative space.

To steal a line:
the crowd’s a rapacious beast

Starlings sang from burnt trees —
songs misinterpreted as warnings.
Ecstasy migrates inward.

Cities bend to western light
when a sun rises full & tender.
In ascension, fireworks sound blue.

—————
line from Silkworm. “Tarnished Angel,” Firewater (1996)

smash and grab

| ginger k. hintz

Tell me, what’s the joy of giving if you’re never pleased?
— Blood Orange, Champagne Coast

Georgia O’Keeffe, Blue-03, 1916, watercolor on paper

the sun rises at eastern edges
yellowing twilight blues

when there is nothing
rest

if there were Christmas stockings
we always had an orange

such persistence can feel joyful
when there is no other choice

find a way

| ginger k. hintz

It’s sweet
And it’s sad
And it’s true

– REM, Oh My Heart

December 31, 2015
Here
waves mimic earth’s rise and fall
a frequency known as home

Here
hills slope at similar angles
nearly invisible expressions

Here
fog settles thick as love
a passive reflection

Here
place contours memories
the body an unreliable narrator 

Here
we are
whole

bleeding around existence

| ginger k. hintz

We’ll let you guys prophesy
We gon’ see the future first
— Frank Ocean, Nikes

artist: Maurizio Cattelan

our houses red-tagged fragile
a state of taking up too much space
an absurd strangled feeling

broken into atomic structures
we forget the stars survive above
business owned is personal

witness morning’s stillness
how the days pull forward
swallowing quiet movement

open-sourced feelings

| ginger k. hintz

I’m here in a room and I have things arranged.
I have them likened to code, so they can often be changed. — Karate, Bass Sounds

Barbara Kruger (detail) LA2015

I haven’t found the perfect way to describe you
sincerely shouting victories is something else entirely

the sun rose bland and round
that space between sky and water
absorbed all this energy

such openness feels chosen
I taste frustration on your breath
advancing in spirit and stature

aggression is its own logic
he hit you for the same reasons
he hit us: for your own good

a model of volatile benevolence
in political frameworks, the body does betray

waking up becomes a compulsion
reengineering you get what you ask for
I send this postscript as an invitation

legislate the weather

| ginger k. hintz

I want to put you in a light that will hurt your eyes – Polvo, Feather of Forgiveness

whisper

He said he was going to take a walk around the block to clear his mind. Stretch his legs. Escape. He never came back. A map of states’s preferences for corn or potato chips forever frozen on his desktop screen.

Battle for references, a retirement to the absence of —

On Wednesday, I was reminded artists should “support each other religiously.” This community-level policy is seductive, whose root is “to lead astray.” Oceans of context transfer nervous energy. Is thinking out loud unprofessional?

Partisan frames explain our borders, infilled voids.

It’s come down to semiotic analysis of utterances. This weekly cathartic release looping endlessly to create a low frequency hiss. A similar process to the way valleys take the weight, form, and shape of foggy mornings or as secure as refuge.

normalization

| ginger k. hintz

you got no fear of the underdog / that’s why you will not survive – Spoon, The Underdog

Artist: Beth Cavener. Trapped, 37 in. (94 cm) in length, stoneware, paint, 18k gold, rope, wood, 2015.
Artist: Beth Cavener. Trapped, 37 in. (94 cm) in length, stoneware, paint, 18k gold, rope, wood, 2015.

This violence looks good on you. Fitted. Proper. My opinion, of course.
All apologies have been returned to sender. Transparency is seasonal.
No stability is guaranteed. Can we at least agree it is sacred territory?

This is a good-bye letter. My reasons rolling out like smoke from fire.

bow to the middle

| ginger k. hintz

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. –Kurt Vonnegut

November16
“Last year. Last night. I’m tired. Let’s fight.” – Superchunk Yeah, It’s Beautiful Here Too

I was radicalized. Force-fed ancient beliefs. Required to center sin instead of self. Drank from an endless well of false promises – an afterlife.

Then I learned the sun holds all our light. Holy fact: sunsets are 8-minute delayed images of an absent sun. Divine visuals of calculated perspective.

Beg for satisfaction. Wring hands and gnash teeth. Look past stains of neglect. Ordain historical trauma as profit. Prick arousal.

One morning, after I left, I walked into buttery light. The City coated in its luminescence. Clouds billowed pink and shone unconsciously.

Acknowledge how ghosts bleed out.
Embellish for clarity’s sake.
Honor nothing but this subtle effort.