quote from the director of Revanche

"Loneliness is probably an inextricable part of our modern lives, and yet I consider it an illusion. We always think of ourselves as being separate from the world, and in this way we deceive ourselves. This separation is just an invention of our imagination; in many ways we are constantly and directly interwoven in a larger whole. Loneliness is an attribute of our limited awareness, not of life itself. From the outside, the old man appears to be the loneliest character, but I think he is the least lonely of all. He has a clear identity, even if outwardly this makes his life difficult. It is an identity nevertheless. And he has his faith. And he isn't afraid of death. He may be alone, yes. But he isn't lonely."

-Götz Spielmann, Director

telling bear

telling a coworker at the cash 
register today about the college 
student who was attacked 
by a black bear in new jersey  
and died while shooting it 
with his phone (alas, 
phones are amazing, but they 
don't stop bears!). 

i look after the bear 
books at the store and last 
night i found 
a memoir written 
by a woman who barely 
survived an attack 
by a grizzly, albeit at 
the expense of her 
face, which was 
horribly disfigured. 

as i was telling this, 
a customer approached and asked 
if we could put something on 
hold for him and i said sure, 
what's your name? and he replied, 

KODIAK.

photograph by S. Taheri

captive audience

i left i left he says, i found the escape! as if the tape recorder he held in his hand was hard of hearing, which makes me think of how soft & fuzzy everything can sound when hearing is hard. it's about respect he says, RESPECT he bites, loud enough for us all to ignore. i had just walked in and ordered a tea from the mousy barista who had pulled the overcast over her head, CAT FLAG it said, with a band of black cats staring solemnly overhead. the petulant manager steeples his chin as his feet glug the stairs down, his indifference memorized by the bottom. how can you wean yourself from the habit of believing that what is obviously not yours is yours as my sweat does not purchase any equity here, and what is left when you be leaving, foraging for a new set of eyes whose vision is clear & correct, swimming in juices both lighter & brighter than my dear dark willamette. let us pause to absorb the dreadlocked man's rant, RACISM, SLAVERY, I AM BLACK he says, I AM BLACK! his voice is raised to meet the side that burns, his righteous fury reflected back as every gun is pointed at what the shooter lacks - a deeper connection. you can die free here or survive on tomorrow's rock, the top of it fenced off to prevent you from falling into the sea below. i look up from where i sit, in front of my own window, where i attempt to receive my own reflection, my open notebook recording my own rant. the dreadlocked man has gone silent, retreating into his darkest shape, or perhaps his fury burns in some other state, where hands held high plead to the fluorescent moons amid the stinging haze. all our hands are pale when they are raised. all our windows clean.

my dark river speaks (an ekphrasis piece inspired by the Columbia River Shadows photogram series)

river dark  
malevolent under 
not sun skins 
the cathedral 
rain cracked 
contaminated 
bottom ripped 
canvas fed  
womb drink 
who we are 
crawls past the roar 
captured & stabbed 
in our belly glow 
unbearably brushed 
by meadow sway 
wind stripped our swollen 
tears ring the rupture 
as if it was rapture
as all those satellites 
float just 
above the grime 

transmitting 
transmitting 

pictures are of black & white prints made by anna daedalus & kerry davis

http://annadaedalus.com/?g=columbiarivershadows

I Speak of Blood by Xu Lizhi (1990-2014)

I Speak of Blood by Xu Lizhi (1990-2014)

I speak of blood, because I can’t help it
I’d love to talk about flowers in the breeze and the moon in the snow
I’d love to talk about imperial history, about poems in wine
But this reality only lets me speak of blood
blood from a rented room the size of a matchbox
narrow, cramped, with no sight of the sun all year
extruding working guys and girls
stray women in long-distance marriages
sichuan chaps selling mala tang
old ladies from henan manning stands
and me with eyes open all night to write a poem
after running about all day to make a living
I tell you about these people, about us
ants struggling through the swamp of life
drops of blood on the way to work
blood chased by cops or smashed by the machine
by casting off insomnia, disease, downsizes, suicide
each explosive word
in the pearl river delta, in the pit of the stomach of the country
eviscerated by an order slip slicing like a kaishaku blade
I tell you these things
even as I go mute, even as my tongue cracks
to tear open the silence of the age
to speak of blood, of the sky crumbling
I speak of blood, my mouth all crimson

-translated by Lucas Klein, Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Chinese

「我谈到血」

我谈到血，也是出于无奈
我也想谈谈风花雪月
谈谈前朝的历史，酒中的诗词
可现实让我只能谈到血
血源自火柴盒般的出租屋
这里狭窄，逼仄，终年不见天日
挤压着打工仔打工妹
失足妇女异地丈夫
卖麻辣烫的四川小伙
摆地滩的河南老人
以及白天为生活而奔波
黑夜里睁着眼睛写诗的我
我向你们谈到这些人，谈到我们
一只只在生活的泥沼中挣扎的蚂蚁
一滴滴在打工路上走动的血
被城管追赶或者机台绞碎的血
沿途撒下失眠，疾病，下岗，自杀
一个个爆炸的词汇
在珠三角，在祖国的腹部
被介错刀一样的订单解剖着
我向你们谈到这些
纵然声音喑哑，舌头断裂
也要撕开这时代的沉默
我谈到血，天空破碎
我谈到血，满嘴鲜红

2013年9月17日

connoisseurs of light

evil? is it 

the opposite of 

feeling alive? yeah, 

he's friendly, but 

seeking permission 

to pet instead 

of just petting is 

good practice for 

learning how to get 

consent. she 

reclines in 

the shade of 

a beautiful autumn 

morning, mirrored 

in her silver sun-

glasses sparkling, 

a hint of crisp 

amid summer's last 

gasp. does 

nostalgia 

depend on 

kindness, or 

kindness 

nostalgia? 

both are warm 

& fuzzy blankets. 

the barista dangles 

chilled notes from the ceiling 
just to make sure we know 
its cool in here. 

diagnosis means 
to know apart from. 
alleviating suffering 

begins with giving 

affliction a name, 

the surgeon said, 

but what if life 

is your affliction? 

floating  

until we become too 
heavy 
to float. 

a tall young man 

exits wearing 

a chalk white skeleton 

on his black tshirt 

didn't we used to 

celebrate the seasons 

& our connection to 

nature and now 

we celebrate money. 

why do we need so much 

sweetness and what 

is so bitter about our lies

that we have to hide the taste 

with sugar & shine? 

as if having filled. 

we should know by now 

as cars rush past. black 

clad ladies tilting tables 

upright onto their 

bright white legs as 

a young man skates 

lazy figure eights 

down my neighborhood's 

gently sloping hill. 

before me a young woman 

sits down at a sidewalk table. 

in one arm, glistening with 

fresh ink, she holds 

the leash to a caramel 

coated mother who 

watches & waits 

for her treat. the trees, 

those connoisseurs of light,

have begun to change.  

the trees know.

right on time

running late for the bus
running and missing it
but not missing this sun-
light so delicate. i love
how it hangs there like
crepe paper half-heartedly
hung for a party we're too
tired to clean up for. 
i waited inside this 
clear plastic can, empty of
everything but the traces
of its function. of course,
the next bus was late as we
maintained our proper 
spacing on this 
glowing court. 

someone who was there 
wanted you to know.
someone who was there
will never know. 
and someone who was there
had all the time in the world
to catch the light.

standing in the line of thought

                                                                                                                                                                          
if judgments were visible we would flee our rooms for fear of fire, resting a palm or a cheek against the wall, feeling for heat before falling to the floor, so we can breathe just below where the hatred floats, humbled away on hands & knees. 

burn your notebooks and listen to the rest of your body.

cities are sets where we stage our dreams and nightmares. most of us too poor or weighed down with debt. what we owe submerges us, keeps us flailing in slow motion beneath the waves. 

how can you ever be anyone else and never leave?

i know what i am a few incidents away from losing, but wasn't i always a few incidents away from gaining something as well? how often are you just a few incidents away from love?

catastrophe forces us to choose all over again, to organize what's alive. faced with such cliffs, we always exclaim, "what have i done!" instead of asking, "what have i chosen?"

i feel like a bus driver who always drives the same route.

versions of ourselves, both newer & worn too well, breaking & already broken, pass like a melody played on an instrument you do not touch, through rooms of old wood, in a house that survives from a previous era of the place you live and falsely feel yourself at home in. 

standing in the line of thought
it's not enough to drop what you have
you must untie the knot

images from http://www.placehacking.co.uk/tag/caves/

there will be no purple rain

standing in line at the plaid, tall dough boy who i usually see behind the cash register is headed out the door, skateboard slung over his shoulder, nods as he walks by, we exchange muttered dudes. the fluorescent light is bright, the linoleum floor is white. i recognize the song. 

I never meant to cause you any sorrow. 

I never meant to cause you any pain. 

I only wanna one time see you laughing. 

I only wanna to hear you... 

inside, i start to sing along. usually the wait is interminable, a mockery of the slogan: 

GET IN

GET IT

GET GOING

but tonite i have a song i haven't heard in ages. but just as i start to groove, the cashier reaches over and skips the track. this is the plaid, so all hopes & dreams must die. suddenly, a guy who had just checked out and was walking away stops, turns & juts his face into the middle of the transaction. 

you turning off purple rain?

the cashier is surprised. he obviously hasn't fully considered the consequences of that decision. 

uh, yeah he stammers, confused. 

the man just stands there, shaking his head. he is middle-aged like me but wears his years worse. his hair & beard are thoroughly salted. his face is a slab of pink, tenderized meat. 

you turning off purple rain?

he says it again, his tone lands somewhere in between a question & an emphatic statement of disbelief. he turns and skulks out the door, yet another thing a working man can't have. 

and the cashier, who never meant to cause him any sorrow, who never meant to cause him any pain, moves on. 

next transaction,

next song. 

quote from "The End of Night" by Paul Bogard

"you can't help but feel that tingle of fear, that fear of the unknown, that mystery. you like the feel of bare feet on warm desert rocks, the unexpected scent of night-blooming rose. you lie on your back with your hands across your eyes like blinders, making the world that much darker, then open them to reveal the sky. you do this again & again, and each time the sky is a little brighter, each time more peppered with stars. you stand & open your arms, savoring this window of darkness between the end of twilight & the waning moon's rise. you feel the breeze on your skin & in your hair, hear the sounds from the canyon of crickets & crows and the steady throb of some creature unknown; you feel utterly surrounded by natural night, by fellow creatures for whom this is home, none of whom care if you're here as long as you don't bother them, all of whom lend their voice to the song this night sings, saying wel-come wel-come wel-come, belong."

all of us had everything

all of us had everything-

we are trying 

to make 

what we lost...

solastalgia

i had a conversation recently with a coworker my own age about portland in the eighties & nineties and how amazing it was to check out up coming bands at satyricon. i think we were talking about the KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD stickers. he thought portland was more genuinely weird back then. i've never really understood the keep portland weird thing as it seems to me if you have try to keep it weird it probably isn't really weird and selling bumper stickers about it really isn't weird either. maybe i just don't like how vague the term is. my coworker seemed to interpret it as when portland was much more working class and much less developed. i told him about walking home from laurelhurst theater one night and noticing all these new shops & restaurants, etc. i sometimes feel like it's very negative to criticize such places for existing, as if everything new is bad & everything old is good, for i believe that the nostalgia people have for the past tends to gloss over or even completely deny that not everything was so wonderful back then. our memories can be too convenient for the narratives we want to construct, both for ourselves & others. i thought most of the shops & restaurants looked much more interesting than the drab places they replaced, but i also felt some sense of anxiety & distance from them too. i realized that i feel kind of alienated from so many of the new places because they represent a certain kind of opportunity that i'm either indifferent to or simply can't participate in very much, if at all, which is offering new & interesting ways to spend money. at a certain distance, it's nice that such options exist, and i'm definitely not poor, but i don't really like shopping in the first place and i don't have much extra money to spend anyway. unfortunately, my wages have increased very slowly while everything around me seems to be increasing much more rapidly, which i think is the source of my anxiety about being able to live here long term. i should have realized this before i moved back as i did some research in a book called "Cities Ranked & Rated" which showed that portland was the most affordable decent sized & decent quality city to live in on the west coast. i think everyone else, thanks in part to portlandia, is discovering this as well. that's nothing new necessarily but we may have reached a tipping point where there is enough of interest for the affluent to move here, unlike in the past when it was a much more blue collar town. my coworker said he doesn't like the city portland is becoming and liked what it used to be much more. the funny thing about cities is that they seem so solid but are continuously being rebuilt. it's like a ride you get on thinking it's going to be one thing but might change radically once you are on, or it might not. and because it's so large & populated, it seems like there are very limited options if you don't like how it's changing, especially for the working class. i feel like you're really living at the mercy of whatever trajectory this vast artificial island is evolving toward. for me, this is an argument for intentional community, or at least, living in a village, though those also have their limitations & issues. all of this reminds me of my workplace, a business that has been around for over forty years now and which has a surprising number of people who have worked there for twenty years or more. some of them are very bitter & upset about how the business has changed over years, but what i am often struck by is the sense of outrage that it keeps changing at all, as if they expected both the city & the place where they work to remain exactly as they were when they first encountered them. to me it's amazing that there are still people out there who have had the same job at the same place for over twenty years as i cannot even imagine all the places that have come & gone over the years. i guess it's easy for me to wax philosophical about it as i am treading water with the changes so far, both at work & at large, or so i think. but it's quite different, i suspect, when you start going under more & more frequently, and even more so when you realize that you are getting old and may never tread water in this place you have lived & worked in, and that, even though you never left, somehow everything is gone. 

feeling for the frame

Detail from The Farm, 1921-22 by Joan Miró

hot lips sped past in a blur of snow white as
a woman marches down the sidewalk, sipping 
on her torch as two other women, concluding 
their coffee date, beam beside the wings 
of the exoskeleton they arrived in. 

inked forearms folded across his chest, half black, 
half white backwards baseball cap spilling stringy 
black hair onto shoulders as he paces an empty 
parking space in a black concert tshirt, patterns 
of ink coiling around his calves...

pale frosty red headed woman enters with 
arms also folded across her chest, chin lifted 
imperiously, wearing a cranberry magic eye 
illusion dress. her entrance puts me in a trance. 

a lack of language does not inhibit the toddler girl 
from joining the adult conversation as she drums 
on a vinyl armchair with two wooden stir sticks.
blinking in the tea room, mourning my old enemies.

a ladder leans into blue sky. i look down and notice 
that i too am wearing blue sky but i don't remember 
ever climbing the ladder. this is our sunlit turn, i think. 
our style is failing, flamboyantly bursting toward its 
inevitable conclusion. feeling for the frame instead of 
flowing in the direction you are led. 

you are led, 
you are led.

thinking too much about living

so how do you live except by not thinking about it too much, if at all, he doesn't say, he does not say to anyone in particular unless he counts. could i be more specific? i look up and see a young woman trotting across the street, her breasts jiggling behind a black blouse, her eyes masked by huge gold rimmed sunglasses, fabulously incognito, hiding in baroque sight. like statues in a courtyard or dancers performing deceptively spontaneous street theater, every single woman on the sidewalk suddenly stops to check their phone. i walked around the block before i arrived, to let my mind taste this morning sky.  my legs are tight from walking to & from work all week. it is only slightly cool while the very blue sky promises later warmth. summer has only just begun and i already miss the rain. as i circle back toward the cafe it occurs to me that i cannot remember the last time i spent an entire day outside, outdoors, the so-called natural world, the wild. everything i see here is tamed except the weeds & the raspberry bushes. strange to define what is essentially doorless as outside our doors. a door allows you to both emerge & withhold. open it and you are granted vista, scape of sky & land. could you be out of doors as if you had spent them all like cash? shutless, neither keeping out nor in, and now you have nothing to walk through, nothing to frame your flight from home. you would have no choice but to be always home, entertained by & entertaining creation. a door is also a womb, of course, through which you are born into the world, each time, which makes me wonder if our birth is so traumatic we have to reenact it, again & again, as if we couldn't believe that the world itself was a womb that keeps us warm & fed while we spin through space. for most of my life home was place i could only return to if i was exhausted or driven inside by the elements or by need. this past year i have learned how to be at home after spending most of my adult life rehearsing my childhood escape from its shell of constant crying. an experiment, in a way, in learning how to be with, in learning how to stay, which isn't really something you learn but rather pay attention to, feel the drifting away and in that brief instant, relax the contraction, soften, soften. i always wonder what it is we use to pay, what exactly is attention? and what if you have contracted in a certain way for so long that you don't even realize you are doing it, so seemlessly integrated into the style of your living, even anatomically. last night i watched a movie about a man trying to start a new life, with some assistance, after being released from prison and the connection he makes with his mentor, who was also starting over with a new job in an unfamiliar city after getting divorced. i was struck by how spare their living spaces were, how unhomelike in their strict cleanliness, bereft of sentiment & memory, and how, in the absence of community, we are merely parts fulfilling some function in some larger but not greater machine, rewarded with the slight privilege of consuming in exchange for our toil in the great extraction. there was no meaning. they needed each other to keep themselves from haunting the landscape. on the highway outside the motel there was a long tail studded with red eyes, bleeding beside rows of gas tanks arranged alongside like gigantic rows of aspirin for a land that aches from our too heavy presence. 

inside & beside me, a man i do not know is moaning, has been moaning for awhile now, not continuously, but in staccato bursts, punctuating the music & the din of the cafe with his own morse code of pain, a sort of monologue of moan, as if the only thing he could share was his ache which was too great for words. and just outside the open door sits a little dog that everyone wants to pet, without invitation, as it sits there, patiently rehearsing its devotion toward its owner, a young woman who arrives wearing brilliant white headphones & brutally red lips, whose clean white sneakers glow like pure puffs of stormless clouds, sweatered in bold stripes of maroon, white & navy blue, who pauses for a moment just outside the door, as her dog continues to wait, its devotion perfect, a tattoo crawling like a rose bush up her slender tanned leg as she thumbs a device for a tune.

public service announcement

PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE HUMANS

HUMANS CARRY DISEASE 

AND CAUSE A NUISANCE

THANKS

rapping in the rain

smoke lingers among the blood red cursive's crests while a bearded man drives by in a white minivan, tugging with both hands on his partially rolled down window, as if trying to escape from his own trip. across the street a young guy presumably waits for his bus, standing beside a wooden bench set atop a couch shaped block of concrete, wearing a low slung backpack over a dark blue down vest, snow white spaghetti dangling from his bobbing head as he rants to himself, or so i think, as the people in my neighborhood sometimes do that, which always makes me feel like i've somehow stumbled into a closet, bursting with argument, but then i noticed he was bouncing on the balls of his feet like a boxer getting ready to enter a ring, eyes open but empty, as if he was crouching down inside of himself, away from those windows, while his wrists swung his hands from side to side as if there was a wind in there blowing those pale shutters, open & closed & open again, one of them clasping a cigarette, and then he'd pause for a drag while his head counted the beat, release what he took in & begin again, turning to the side & away from the street, not performing for, but in, a spare shelter framed by burgundy wood, cat tails undulating beside the stoic pine, there are some things we need to hear & some things we need to say before we enter the space where we compete, in between home & work or school, it's all the same:

you must inhale the song before you enter the ring.

we no longer know how to light the fire

"When my father's father's father had a difficult task to accomplish, he went to a certain place in the forest, lit a fire, and immersed himself in silent prayer. And what he had to do was done.

When my father's father was confronted with the same task, he went to the same place and said: 'We no longer know how to light the fire, but we still have the prayer.' And what he had to do was done.

Later, my father also went into the forest and said: 'We no longer know how to light the fire. We no longer know the mysteries of prayer, but we still know the exact place in the forest where it occurred. And that should suffice.' And it did suffice.

But when I was faced with the same task, I stayed at home and I said: 'We no longer know how to light the fire. We no longer know the prayers. We don't even know the place in the forest. But we still know how to tell the story."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAZrJFmpRr8

Quote by Paul Kingsnorth

"What do you do," he asked, "when you accept that all of these changes are coming, things that you value are going to be lost, things that make you unhappy are going to happen, things that you wanted to achieve you can't achieve, but you still have to live with it, and there's still beauty, and there's still meaning, and there are still things you can do to make the world less bad?"

—Paul Kingsnorth, environmental activist

http://www.paulkingsnorth.net/

alone together

all alone as if you could ever be 
partially alone. eclipse witnessed 
but only if our minds are clear 
enough for that scheduled shadow.
exhausted sighs grilled beneath the mottled blue
as we throttle through this miami music morning. 
i need a plan for the unexpected, i think
what to do when the civilization you're in,
not that it was your idea, begins to collapse 
as the severe metal man marches past
and it's all downhill in dark shades for him 
at least until she leans 
her sunny blonde smile over the table,
adding unintentional dimensions to the frame. 
a new you must find a way to repeat the bursts again
for that sweet strange being begging on laps for treats,
coat the color of sooty snow, cut from winter's final storm, 
sprung for the blood moon that's almost passed.
outside this voracious dream sits a man on chrome 
leathered down for the growl while a crumpled face 
fumes over the headlines, puffs preloved smoke into 
the tepid shade while a paprika haired young man 
paces from metallic table to curb in a black sweater 
& olive green pants, one palm pressed flat to ear 
as if stopping his head to keep some precious thought 
from dripping on his girlfriend, quietly eating her granola 
in a black hoodie, black skirt & maroon tights, her 
wet black bangs dappled neon green, spilling over 
her pale contemplative brow. a red straw, 
planted like a flagless pole in a translucent cup of ice 
water, salutes beside her bowl while the paprika boy 
pauses beside a young tree, still talking as he reaches 
for a skinny limb, the young leaning upon the young. 
i watch them saunter across the street when he finishes, 
where they recline beneath the bus stop's burgundy 
shelter, legs crossed in an impromptu picnic  of wine 
& olive, stoically shaded by the mini plaza's lone pine, 
all together, as if they could ever be, 
partially alone.

Gregory Crewdson Photo

sitting outside 

the Madison

smoking inside 

the Mystery