one. who jokes (what do you take me for)
two. deceptive clause (claws?), as in a contract
three. extra playing cards
used in some games
(i aint playin no )
19 November 2007
17 November 2007
confronting an old self
there are rooms and borders. same goes for defenses.
don't feel entitled to anything you didn’t sweat and struggle for.
the coefficients b1 and b2 depend on the elasticity of substitution
including
yourself. because if you are not constantly attempting
to achieve equilibrium, some kind of internal and external
(intrinsically linked) balance, you are a doomed dinosaur. you are
a beautiful creature, but doomed. you are,
in such adaptive contexts,
assumed a contiguous whole.
sensitized and seeking
ethnocultural variations that match your own, a cultural way of thinking
that remains marginalized relative to other issues of theory and practice
remember what's passed.
looking right at a family portrait from some twenty years hence
reminds me of a time I wish I had, an era I feel I missed
by being born
in Amerika, an idea,
the other side of the fence--once it was an ocean, an adventure
across the llanos on a motorbike or a caballo
next to your uncle who in one hand holds a necklace of oxtail bones
to gift to the dona of the farm you are about to visit
having everything and nothing
to do with the you of this very minute
having been humbled by a ------ love
which means it's hard now
to adjust the collar
and smooth the hem of a misshapen relationship
which inadvertently expose the calves that remind you
of the mountains of your birth village
saying it out loud
helps stop the rhythm,
therefore ending the pattern.
your hem is already straight, or would be
if saying that would stop the perpetuation
of a binary, heteropatriarchal, sociolinguistic way
of looking at the world. perpetuation is only
one letter away from
perpetration.
what kind of reauthorization act is this.
an unplanned life has tremendous beauty; there is always
some surprise not knowing how far away the next is
unplanned even if in one hand you hold a necklace of oxtail bones
and if you can't help
but want to lean into the body
of the landscape
inhaling her scent
gifting her with a smooth hem.
don't feel entitled to anything you didn’t sweat and struggle for.
the coefficients b1 and b2 depend on the elasticity of substitution
including
yourself. because if you are not constantly attempting
to achieve equilibrium, some kind of internal and external
(intrinsically linked) balance, you are a doomed dinosaur. you are
a beautiful creature, but doomed. you are,
in such adaptive contexts,
assumed a contiguous whole.
sensitized and seeking
ethnocultural variations that match your own, a cultural way of thinking
that remains marginalized relative to other issues of theory and practice
remember what's passed.
looking right at a family portrait from some twenty years hence
reminds me of a time I wish I had, an era I feel I missed
by being born
in Amerika, an idea,
the other side of the fence--once it was an ocean, an adventure
across the llanos on a motorbike or a caballo
next to your uncle who in one hand holds a necklace of oxtail bones
to gift to the dona of the farm you are about to visit
having everything and nothing
to do with the you of this very minute
having been humbled by a ------ love
which means it's hard now
to adjust the collar
and smooth the hem of a misshapen relationship
which inadvertently expose the calves that remind you
of the mountains of your birth village
saying it out loud
helps stop the rhythm,
therefore ending the pattern.
your hem is already straight, or would be
if saying that would stop the perpetuation
of a binary, heteropatriarchal, sociolinguistic way
of looking at the world. perpetuation is only
one letter away from
perpetration.
what kind of reauthorization act is this.
an unplanned life has tremendous beauty; there is always
some surprise not knowing how far away the next is
unplanned even if in one hand you hold a necklace of oxtail bones
and if you can't help
but want to lean into the body
of the landscape
inhaling her scent
gifting her with a smooth hem.
20 October 2007
ting-hua, or “heeding the words.”
the peels of an egg hard-boiled and cracked
on the counter like all of the choices we make. my fingers
an egg tooth this afternoon an eggshell quiet
the wind from a street past Rockwell is the rocking cocoon
of the sea, or the whisper in an ear on a train
obedience is between two hands,
even the ones that seem totally apolitical and personal
but with political implications, sliding down the handrail,
sliding and catching themselves
ask me to stand, arms wide open.
ask
who’s in the room,
and count the number of stars tattooed on a wrist,
meant to overcome character inadequacies
through their broad texture and character
tell me you hope you never get tired of waiting for the world
to come to its senses
old planets can’t help obedience; ever elliptical.
and especially the limits within which these evolve
like our mitochondria always coming from our mothers
and because we have been fed our words we speak like strangers
and it’s actually ok; the little things the everyday interactions
that get under the skin are largely systemic. or like courtship,
the structure to achieve a specific outcome. Science vs. Romance.
celestial bodies, horizontal—
as in orbit.
I profess ignorance but ask questions.
I just can’t read
the script I was given to follow.
just because you squeeze our hands
while trying to pull us up,
what can be trivial to some
are the rules of the game.
words “a totality of oppressions,”
systematically based, entwined, all needing to be eliminated
and creating new (liberating) ones.
on the counter like all of the choices we make. my fingers
an egg tooth this afternoon an eggshell quiet
the wind from a street past Rockwell is the rocking cocoon
of the sea, or the whisper in an ear on a train
obedience is between two hands,
even the ones that seem totally apolitical and personal
but with political implications, sliding down the handrail,
sliding and catching themselves
ask me to stand, arms wide open.
ask
who’s in the room,
and count the number of stars tattooed on a wrist,
meant to overcome character inadequacies
through their broad texture and character
tell me you hope you never get tired of waiting for the world
to come to its senses
old planets can’t help obedience; ever elliptical.
and especially the limits within which these evolve
like our mitochondria always coming from our mothers
and because we have been fed our words we speak like strangers
and it’s actually ok; the little things the everyday interactions
that get under the skin are largely systemic. or like courtship,
the structure to achieve a specific outcome. Science vs. Romance.
celestial bodies, horizontal—
as in orbit.
I profess ignorance but ask questions.
I just can’t read
the script I was given to follow.
just because you squeeze our hands
while trying to pull us up,
what can be trivial to some
are the rules of the game.
words “a totality of oppressions,”
systematically based, entwined, all needing to be eliminated
and creating new (liberating) ones.
10 October 2007
the remaining umbilical.
checking a box on an intake form, you probably only know the label:
the capacity to jump 18 inches.
teaching someone to think only one way, they will find their own back door.
write things down. take record. so these things
can once again exist, if only to be folded, slapped
shut, tossed aside, or re-opened
together the pieces sound hard, definitive. like breathing.
a node choked off so the branch can reach for light.
spending the rest of the afternoon sitting stonefaced on the stoop
in a pale blue smock, a Zuihitsu in a tea mug straight up, on the rocks
a language that sits foreign in the bones
apartments
for rent in an abandoned building.
existential as a y-intercept
regardless of slope.
the scapular barre perfectly perpendicular to the central channel,
trying so hard to have the arms around us like a cup of water
the body sinks as if always seeking lowest ground.
too much to ask for civility in this nation-state:
we are not its first inhabitants so must
respect what already exists, the condition of soil,
what already rests. waiting to be reaped.
I accept the abysmal. I just don’t want to be a dock,
a jumping-off point.
a curb taken too fast has punctured my dantien
breathing has become one minute, has become ten. there
should be no changing constants, no shadows cast against the brick
each weekend has become one minute, at the corner of what’s the point street
road construction ahead
feels like a negative slope
feels like for every five units of m, we lose one unit of change
“show me the action plan,” says the director of whatever. “we need budgets,
outputs, more freshly sharpened pencils.”
the oil of an orange under the nail.
squeezing.
the capacity to jump 18 inches.
teaching someone to think only one way, they will find their own back door.
write things down. take record. so these things
can once again exist, if only to be folded, slapped
shut, tossed aside, or re-opened
together the pieces sound hard, definitive. like breathing.
a node choked off so the branch can reach for light.
spending the rest of the afternoon sitting stonefaced on the stoop
in a pale blue smock, a Zuihitsu in a tea mug straight up, on the rocks
a language that sits foreign in the bones
apartments
for rent in an abandoned building.
existential as a y-intercept
regardless of slope.
the scapular barre perfectly perpendicular to the central channel,
trying so hard to have the arms around us like a cup of water
the body sinks as if always seeking lowest ground.
too much to ask for civility in this nation-state:
we are not its first inhabitants so must
respect what already exists, the condition of soil,
what already rests. waiting to be reaped.
I accept the abysmal. I just don’t want to be a dock,
a jumping-off point.
a curb taken too fast has punctured my dantien
breathing has become one minute, has become ten. there
should be no changing constants, no shadows cast against the brick
each weekend has become one minute, at the corner of what’s the point street
road construction ahead
feels like a negative slope
feels like for every five units of m, we lose one unit of change
“show me the action plan,” says the director of whatever. “we need budgets,
outputs, more freshly sharpened pencils.”
the oil of an orange under the nail.
squeezing.
30 August 2007
finding our way out of [with h.]
Year seventeen and the cicadas never found their way out of the ground.
A missed return flight. If only to be born of metal.
How to hate the body, so easily broken:
cancerous or full of bullets. How to be
so empty we float, find our way out of
the dirt into the dust on the floor
settling in, or just settling
drinking wine from your hands,
the dizziness of a staircase. we think
we are not in love and that no one can hear us, a sound
like the crack of a sunflower seed opening- what will soon
only be a hard shell. you say i shouldn’t be broken
only in case of emergency, say in the mildest of ways yes.
if home is a confession,
none of us are returning
our ways out of the dirt
our dust on the floor
the door, they say, is for passing, so this is not
another poem about stay
i am okay with that. okay
with the afternoon phone call
to say good-bye. more like too bad
i’ll never see your silhouette
against an east-facing room
my hand on your neck, fluttering
never will i see
these two chests rising and pressing against fibonacci’s attempt at halving this distance between us
halving the atoms between fingers saying
never will i reach you but with this i will try
to leave all our small givens
(as in me to the sand) or you’d let me walk,
call it desert
the planet, Al-Quarif rising over Egypt.
across islands we have found each other.
the color of water in the sky and on your chest
and i knew that my palm pressed against
it would go through, it would go through
the center of this nebulous, this extensive,
this figured out by now, this called
this new kind, this world
should have understood,
this love.
these are the states: cloud, ocean, water in the glass.
my body must always remember that.
the rising of the sea. so empty, we float.
what of the gathering forever in your ocular duct? what of the explosions on your cheek?
all the water in the faucets, in the rivers
the earth has turned to sand. clean
as it has ever been, squeezed through millenia,
through rock. through an ocular duct where it rests,
quivering above a cheek.
all the precious things you've given me
have turned to sand.
the shadow of a pen
my face in the bottom of a drinking cup
you may never again enter this café.
i am okay with that.
i will keep my heart and my belly and my palms
my eyes have been writing songs again
have been bursting open
and your embers fade in our city by the lake.
neither of us, however perforated, are going back.
yes and honesty are two different moments
all the same, eventual patterns of night
one truth begins to unravel. a thread
becomes caught, a button
torn loose and a thumb, fumbling— the pastor begins
his sermon: Who here, among us now, believes in God?
don’t want to kneel to this ordinary noise —a sigh,
an inevitable dizziness like we’ve lost our home in the night
or spent it arguing about an absent rib.
you unfold your hands just outside the window,
check the glass for warmth
a palm across a brow before we go and nothing,
not fumbled thumbs,
nothing will bring us back.
it is okay to see names take flight
you’re not convinced of expirations
suggested sell-by dates
my very breathing.
sand means you, me, glass: two throats turned into stone
for just a moment, i ached. these are the ants across the page.
the rising sun making shards of this morning heavy with scattered light
waking with your elbow in my mouth has punctured our silence
i would do anything not to relive the moments of you
barely drawing breath
our love cancerous or full of bullets
a return flight The script says cry like we’ve lost our house in a fire, rooms full of precious things dreaming of a staircase means we're leaving
dust on the floor means we’re never coming back
A missed return flight. If only to be born of metal.
How to hate the body, so easily broken:
cancerous or full of bullets. How to be
so empty we float, find our way out of
the dirt into the dust on the floor
settling in, or just settling
drinking wine from your hands,
the dizziness of a staircase. we think
we are not in love and that no one can hear us, a sound
like the crack of a sunflower seed opening- what will soon
only be a hard shell. you say i shouldn’t be broken
only in case of emergency, say in the mildest of ways yes.
if home is a confession,
none of us are returning
our ways out of the dirt
our dust on the floor
the door, they say, is for passing, so this is not
another poem about stay
i am okay with that. okay
with the afternoon phone call
to say good-bye. more like too bad
i’ll never see your silhouette
against an east-facing room
my hand on your neck, fluttering
never will i see
these two chests rising and pressing against fibonacci’s attempt at halving this distance between us
halving the atoms between fingers saying
never will i reach you but with this i will try
to leave all our small givens
(as in me to the sand) or you’d let me walk,
call it desert
the planet, Al-Quarif rising over Egypt.
across islands we have found each other.
the color of water in the sky and on your chest
and i knew that my palm pressed against
it would go through, it would go through
the center of this nebulous, this extensive,
this figured out by now, this called
this new kind, this world
should have understood,
this love.
these are the states: cloud, ocean, water in the glass.
my body must always remember that.
the rising of the sea. so empty, we float.
what of the gathering forever in your ocular duct? what of the explosions on your cheek?
all the water in the faucets, in the rivers
the earth has turned to sand. clean
as it has ever been, squeezed through millenia,
through rock. through an ocular duct where it rests,
quivering above a cheek.
all the precious things you've given me
have turned to sand.
the shadow of a pen
my face in the bottom of a drinking cup
you may never again enter this café.
i am okay with that.
i will keep my heart and my belly and my palms
my eyes have been writing songs again
have been bursting open
and your embers fade in our city by the lake.
neither of us, however perforated, are going back.
yes and honesty are two different moments
all the same, eventual patterns of night
one truth begins to unravel. a thread
becomes caught, a button
torn loose and a thumb, fumbling— the pastor begins
his sermon: Who here, among us now, believes in God?
don’t want to kneel to this ordinary noise —a sigh,
an inevitable dizziness like we’ve lost our home in the night
or spent it arguing about an absent rib.
you unfold your hands just outside the window,
check the glass for warmth
a palm across a brow before we go and nothing,
not fumbled thumbs,
nothing will bring us back.
it is okay to see names take flight
you’re not convinced of expirations
suggested sell-by dates
my very breathing.
sand means you, me, glass: two throats turned into stone
for just a moment, i ached. these are the ants across the page.
the rising sun making shards of this morning heavy with scattered light
waking with your elbow in my mouth has punctured our silence
i would do anything not to relive the moments of you
barely drawing breath
our love cancerous or full of bullets
a return flight The script says cry like we’ve lost our house in a fire, rooms full of precious things dreaming of a staircase means we're leaving
dust on the floor means we’re never coming back
26 July 2007
a pile of leaving.
the rising sun making shards of this
morning heavy with scattered light
a sigh, an inevitable dizziness
like we've lost our home in the night
or spent it arguing about an absent rib.
you're not convinced
of expirations
suggested sell-by dates
my very breathing.
your elbow in my mouth
has punctured our silence
my eyes have been writing songs again
have been bursting open
don't want to kneel
to this ordinary noise
the rising of the sea
so empty, we float full
of precious things
find our way out of the dirt
onto the dust on the floor.
morning heavy with scattered light
a sigh, an inevitable dizziness
like we've lost our home in the night
or spent it arguing about an absent rib.
you're not convinced
of expirations
suggested sell-by dates
my very breathing.
your elbow in my mouth
has punctured our silence
my eyes have been writing songs again
have been bursting open
don't want to kneel
to this ordinary noise
the rising of the sea
so empty, we float full
of precious things
find our way out of the dirt
onto the dust on the floor.
22 July 2007
all lies begin in my head.
all lies begin in my head.
one truth begins
to unravel a thread
becomes caught a button torn loose
a thumb, fumbling—straighten
the hem smooth the collar wipe a
palm across a brow before reaching
for the door. they say in case of
fire, check the knob for warmth.
i say it is okay to see
if the wind will blow it open, will
either fan the flames or hush them
to sleep. buttoning or unbuttoning
the truth. once lying
down,
it is all the same.
02 July 2007
and i have come to accept.
see the line. see that it can be straight,
curved, thick, thin, a wave.
see that it is a loop. it is open
or closed. the door slightly ajar.
and i have come to accept that my life cannot be
a straight line but i must do all i can
to just keep the line going
this line is an inspiration. i am having trouble
calling it such, not wanting to connect
the ancestral palms that have been stained
with blood, bearing sword, cross, stone.
but i want to own this. want to be inspired by those
words i won't say whose but to be driven
in this noble pursuit for passion, for faith, for one
continuous breath that connects a rabbi in a
pretty brown town for whom people waved
palms in some kind of medievally chivalrous ceremony
one sunday--maybe someday--
because that is the myth we are trying to connect
with, the harry potters and the justin underdogs
and how, sitting across from you on this thor's day,
the color of water in the sky and on your chest
and i know that my palm pressed against it will
go through, it will go through the center of this
nebulous, this mythological, this effervescent, this
effortless, this extensive, this figured out by now,
this makes your soul soar, this called this new kind,
this world will understand, this love.
this making sense of
this bridging
this breathing
this these two chests rising and pressing against
fibonacci's attempt at halving this distance between us
halving the atoms between fingers curled around a nape
saying never will i reach you but with this i will try
i am here and i cannot stop painting panting
cannot stop this line
curved, thick, thin, a wave.
see that it is a loop. it is open
or closed. the door slightly ajar.
and i have come to accept that my life cannot be
a straight line but i must do all i can
to just keep the line going
this line is an inspiration. i am having trouble
calling it such, not wanting to connect
the ancestral palms that have been stained
with blood, bearing sword, cross, stone.
but i want to own this. want to be inspired by those
words i won't say whose but to be driven
in this noble pursuit for passion, for faith, for one
continuous breath that connects a rabbi in a
pretty brown town for whom people waved
palms in some kind of medievally chivalrous ceremony
one sunday--maybe someday--
because that is the myth we are trying to connect
with, the harry potters and the justin underdogs
and how, sitting across from you on this thor's day,
the color of water in the sky and on your chest
and i know that my palm pressed against it will
go through, it will go through the center of this
nebulous, this mythological, this effervescent, this
effortless, this extensive, this figured out by now,
this makes your soul soar, this called this new kind,
this world will understand, this love.
this making sense of
this bridging
this breathing
this these two chests rising and pressing against
fibonacci's attempt at halving this distance between us
halving the atoms between fingers curled around a nape
saying never will i reach you but with this i will try
i am here and i cannot stop painting panting
cannot stop this line
22 June 2007
pearls of mother theresa.
people are often unreasonable,
illogical, and self-centered;
...forgive them anyway.
if you are kind, people may
accuse you of selfish, ulterior
motives;
...be kind anyway.
if you are successful, you will win
some false friends and some true
enemies;
...succeed anyway.
if you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
...be honest and frank anyway.
what you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
...build anyway.
if you find serenity and
happiness, they may be jealous;
...be happy anyway.
the good you do today, people
will often forget tomorrow;
...do good anyway.
give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
...give the world the best you've
got anyway.
you see, in the final analysis, it is
between you and god;
it was never between you and
them anyway.
illogical, and self-centered;
...forgive them anyway.
if you are kind, people may
accuse you of selfish, ulterior
motives;
...be kind anyway.
if you are successful, you will win
some false friends and some true
enemies;
...succeed anyway.
if you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
...be honest and frank anyway.
what you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
...build anyway.
if you find serenity and
happiness, they may be jealous;
...be happy anyway.
the good you do today, people
will often forget tomorrow;
...do good anyway.
give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
...give the world the best you've
got anyway.
you see, in the final analysis, it is
between you and god;
it was never between you and
them anyway.
28 May 2007
o virgen, from where the clay comes, please help us win this battle.
what did i say outloud? "sometimes i don't know where my head ends and the world begins."
26 May 2007
about timing, about time.
here goes.
the many paths of my life have been converging lately. some paths are beginning, some ending. from taking my first trip *home* in twenty-five years to my dad's birth village, to closing doors that have been propped open for too long with the hope someone will find his way home, to anticipating the much-needed change of pace/perspective come autumn. things have been starting to make sense lately. i've been trying to let the pieces fall, like breathing, into place.
i've never been so good with the virtual life thing. not only do i have a hard enough time keeping track of my realtime self, but my life has always been sort of analog. i don't watch television; have trouble with remotes; never owned a digital camera. i realized the other day that there's hardly proof of my life the past three years in pictures. kinda feel like marty mcfly. but i don't play the guitar so i should be okay. i think i have been sort of in chrysalis stage lately, but these days i have been craving flight. buki cole and free radical say it best: when you fall, there are moments when you can learn to fly. this is the year of me.
the many paths of my life have been converging lately. some paths are beginning, some ending. from taking my first trip *home* in twenty-five years to my dad's birth village, to closing doors that have been propped open for too long with the hope someone will find his way home, to anticipating the much-needed change of pace/perspective come autumn. things have been starting to make sense lately. i've been trying to let the pieces fall, like breathing, into place.
i've never been so good with the virtual life thing. not only do i have a hard enough time keeping track of my realtime self, but my life has always been sort of analog. i don't watch television; have trouble with remotes; never owned a digital camera. i realized the other day that there's hardly proof of my life the past three years in pictures. kinda feel like marty mcfly. but i don't play the guitar so i should be okay. i think i have been sort of in chrysalis stage lately, but these days i have been craving flight. buki cole and free radical say it best: when you fall, there are moments when you can learn to fly. this is the year of me.
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