quote from a poem by antjie krog

my werwels loop uit in lig

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/23650/auto/0/THE-LONELINESS-OF-SKIN

quote from antjie krog

"the different life he might have led, had he grown up in a different and more just society. what would he and many others have become if they were not schooled in racism, indoctrinated through religion and educated into violence to protect an unequal social order? and how much of this violence perpetrated by past generations has remained in today's young men?"

-antjie krog

quote from Andrey Zvyagintsev, Director of Leviathan

"Imagine a situation where I work for a firm which belongs to a larger holding group which belongs to a certain person in turn. I don't need to be told how to vote. I automatically assume my vote has to align with whatever the wishes are of the larger thing that ultimately I belong to."

-Andrey Zvyagintsev, Director of Leviathan

stop the pounding heart

when something is so convincingly true and yet you know it's not quite, it's not quiet even though you can't hear anything. occasional furtive glances instantly withheld & punished, bursts of braces, her smiles braced to conceal teeth, lip offered instead. she lives in a kingdom of skin, given all the touch she could ever want, but she must always obey him & Him, and she can only ever be skin, lit within by the faintest light that is always just about to go out, a delicate fire tended by prayer. a dream in which everyone is held and everyone agrees on the story but you can only remain as long as you believe. i wonder where she got her doubt, what provoked the longing to be someone else, in spite of the pain when that psychic cord is cut. to live the rest of her life strangled by the narrative threads that keep them warm & together, or to dangle, cold & naked.

maybe sunshine if it's not too traumatic

maybe sunshine but 
out there it's all toasted 
bluster. sometimes 
their entrances arc too 
dramatically. still 
learning to stick 
my landings after 
spinning on each 
interaction's uneven 
bars. we service 
psychopaths sometimes 
but you only know it 
when you feel their cold 
brusque breath. woke up, 
stretched & poured 
the contents of this mind 
onto the floor just beyond 
my warm pillow. found 
a barista box, abandoned 
in buckman, the neighbor-
hood, upon glancing at 
the moist gray light
seeping through glass, 
has apparently decided, 
to stay inside & snuggle 
instead with a book & some 
tv, so says the lonely barista. 
last night i heard the rain 
smacking the window 
in the other room kept 
beckoning me up to investigate 
a frame filled with silvery 
infinitesimal drops each 
one glinting in the unromantic 
security light. felt like 
a child hiding in his bedroom 
while mom & dad fought 
in the living room, the slapping 
rain landing like a body 
with a thud i look up
from my sunday paper 
at the suggestion of january 
sunshine usually looks 
too young to sneak past 
the sky's bouncers, floating 
there with burly arms 
folded across pillowy chests. 
reading about post traumatic 
stress, i realize that i still 
refuse to sit in public 
with my back to the room, 
as if i might be attacked. 
i recognize it now 
as an old roommate 
i still live with.

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