Stay
and watch the next set of possibilities
arise
and fall away
What have you got to lose
but everything
piece by piece
everything
day by day
-Sam Shepard
09 March 2010
02 March 2010
The Work
It is the work
of all her days
the lily’s construction
of the tower
of herself.
Birthed from burial
into the sun’s
life-giving gaze,
the air and water and earth
gather into her veins.
Not knowing what she's
surviving into,
she hopes towards
her apex,
and arrives at days
of glory and love.
She beds raindrops
on her petals,
and takes dances
with bees.
Face fully blush, shadowless,
she strives to a sun
she will never reach,
but on highest, longest days
blesses her with his gaze,
before abandoning
his fragile guests
to a merciless gray.
They hold so
desperately to a life
they never asked for,
a life of never going anywhere
or doing anything but
gathering and growing,
of knowing no direction
but up and down,
as they shrivel and fall
in the great choreography
of the season
of death.
The wind goes looting,
ripping the candy and color
from the flesh of the once
brilliant things,
burying it under one great
tarp of white.
The Lily, rather than watch
her own leaves drip black,
throws her petals and pollen dust
to the earth
for next year’s orphans,
and bows back
to the dirt,
with grace,
terrible
grace.
Her work accomplished.
of all her days
the lily’s construction
of the tower
of herself.
Birthed from burial
into the sun’s
life-giving gaze,
the air and water and earth
gather into her veins.
Not knowing what she's
surviving into,
she hopes towards
her apex,
and arrives at days
of glory and love.
She beds raindrops
on her petals,
and takes dances
with bees.
Face fully blush, shadowless,
she strives to a sun
she will never reach,
but on highest, longest days
blesses her with his gaze,
before abandoning
his fragile guests
to a merciless gray.
They hold so
desperately to a life
they never asked for,
a life of never going anywhere
or doing anything but
gathering and growing,
of knowing no direction
but up and down,
as they shrivel and fall
in the great choreography
of the season
of death.
The wind goes looting,
ripping the candy and color
from the flesh of the once
brilliant things,
burying it under one great
tarp of white.
The Lily, rather than watch
her own leaves drip black,
throws her petals and pollen dust
to the earth
for next year’s orphans,
and bows back
to the dirt,
with grace,
terrible
grace.
Her work accomplished.
11 February 2010
Numbers
Every number has a face, a personality, a body, a soul. Some are more famous than others.
1. 1 is beautiful, solitary, pure. Not nothing. We can all understand 1. Upright. Nearly invisible. Powerful. Unified. Phallic. Adam.
2 is balance, harmony, love. Twins. Parallels. II. Eerie. Peaceful. Eve has joined.
3 is where things get complicated, where choices have to be made, where someone's feelings are going to get hurt. A direction is chosen. I> Cain and Abel. Love triangles.
4 is the beginning of war, democracy, servitude. Greater possibilities arise.
These numbers all have consequences, ancient powers they carry around with them. This 7 is a descendant of all the 7s that have ever existed. It pumps the same blood. 49 is 7s ancestor. 14, 21, these are 7s grandchildren. They are haunted by the ghost of 7, have traces of the same features. Everyone possesses their own 7. 7 is made of my history of it and the shared history of all of our 7s.
8 is a sculpture, a piece of art, an individual. We can visualize it. :::: We can conceptualize all of them till 10. Then they group too large. So do their shapes. A 9-sided shape is almost too much. A neuftet makes too much sound. They have to group into orchestras after a certain mass. They have to cooperate. The individuals get lost in the shuffle.
The greater the number, the more diluted. Is 639 familiar to you? Is it an old friend? A celebrity? It's too complicated to identify. It is a stranger. A vague, complex face in the crowd. I feel sorry for the higher numbers. They are lost in the flood, nearly meaningless. Only meaningful in specific instances, often rounded, forsaken. Discovered accidentally, not anyone's destination. 27,888 probably means something to somebody. A lottery winner. A salary. Too abstract to visualize. Too scattered.
As the years have stacked, so have our possible sums. Billions, trillions have moved within our grasp. Soon we'll have to invent new numbers. Split up the ones we already have before they're split for us. Go beyond the horizon. We'll reach google. We already have.
Decimals are crumbs falling past our concern for them. We need special calculations, tools, to tweeze them out.
0 is the most profound idea. The origin, like God, like that of all life, born out of nothing, from a concept we can't explain, define, we know not where from. Divide any number in half as many times as you'd like, you will never discover 0. A place only comprehended against something, by not knowing. You just have to trust it exists. We've all felt it, but we can't show it to anybody else. You can't see 0, but all numbers end up there. It's a circle around emptiness, lassoing the invisible. 0 is where we came from and where we will end up. It is a hole in the body, in the ground. It is a cup, or maybe a funnel, a sieve. 0. Starts with one of the unlikeliest letters. "Z". 0 is too big to hug, to hold in your hand, and yet you always do. 0 resets the groups, stacks them. 10, 100, 1000, those 0s in their bodies are like water and air, nothing, life giving.
Infinity. Infinity is just the end of 0s stride. Will we ever touch the end of the spectrum? Will we ever live till the end of time? We spend our lives divying up the infinite, making boundaries. What else is there to do?
1. 1 is beautiful, solitary, pure. Not nothing. We can all understand 1. Upright. Nearly invisible. Powerful. Unified. Phallic. Adam.
2 is balance, harmony, love. Twins. Parallels. II. Eerie. Peaceful. Eve has joined.
3 is where things get complicated, where choices have to be made, where someone's feelings are going to get hurt. A direction is chosen. I> Cain and Abel. Love triangles.
4 is the beginning of war, democracy, servitude. Greater possibilities arise.
These numbers all have consequences, ancient powers they carry around with them. This 7 is a descendant of all the 7s that have ever existed. It pumps the same blood. 49 is 7s ancestor. 14, 21, these are 7s grandchildren. They are haunted by the ghost of 7, have traces of the same features. Everyone possesses their own 7. 7 is made of my history of it and the shared history of all of our 7s.
8 is a sculpture, a piece of art, an individual. We can visualize it. :::: We can conceptualize all of them till 10. Then they group too large. So do their shapes. A 9-sided shape is almost too much. A neuftet makes too much sound. They have to group into orchestras after a certain mass. They have to cooperate. The individuals get lost in the shuffle.
The greater the number, the more diluted. Is 639 familiar to you? Is it an old friend? A celebrity? It's too complicated to identify. It is a stranger. A vague, complex face in the crowd. I feel sorry for the higher numbers. They are lost in the flood, nearly meaningless. Only meaningful in specific instances, often rounded, forsaken. Discovered accidentally, not anyone's destination. 27,888 probably means something to somebody. A lottery winner. A salary. Too abstract to visualize. Too scattered.
As the years have stacked, so have our possible sums. Billions, trillions have moved within our grasp. Soon we'll have to invent new numbers. Split up the ones we already have before they're split for us. Go beyond the horizon. We'll reach google. We already have.
Decimals are crumbs falling past our concern for them. We need special calculations, tools, to tweeze them out.
0 is the most profound idea. The origin, like God, like that of all life, born out of nothing, from a concept we can't explain, define, we know not where from. Divide any number in half as many times as you'd like, you will never discover 0. A place only comprehended against something, by not knowing. You just have to trust it exists. We've all felt it, but we can't show it to anybody else. You can't see 0, but all numbers end up there. It's a circle around emptiness, lassoing the invisible. 0 is where we came from and where we will end up. It is a hole in the body, in the ground. It is a cup, or maybe a funnel, a sieve. 0. Starts with one of the unlikeliest letters. "Z". 0 is too big to hug, to hold in your hand, and yet you always do. 0 resets the groups, stacks them. 10, 100, 1000, those 0s in their bodies are like water and air, nothing, life giving.
Infinity. Infinity is just the end of 0s stride. Will we ever touch the end of the spectrum? Will we ever live till the end of time? We spend our lives divying up the infinite, making boundaries. What else is there to do?
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Some people have Saturday night
and some people have Sunday Morning
and some people have Sunday Morning
03 February 2010
The Little Blue Globe (a song)
Up in my parent’s attic
Sifting through the remnants of the things that I did
I found the little blue globe
That used to glow in my room as a kid
Dusted it off
Plugged it back in
Wouldn’t you know?
It started to glow again
There’s a little viewfinder
if you look into it you can see the world.
Over time the pictures have been
burnt out and blurred
There’s a red cape flaunted by a Man in gold
There’s an Eskimo fishing out in the cold
There's beautiful women with jewels in their faces
Lands so far they’re only fantasy places
The years have passed,
and I’ve gotten older
Circumstance
hasn’t brought them closer.
But the globe still glows
And the globe still spins
Still carries the dreams
Of all of it’s men.
Still carries the burden
Of all of their sins.
I’m so glad it’s
On my shelf again.
Sifting through the remnants of the things that I did
I found the little blue globe
That used to glow in my room as a kid
Dusted it off
Plugged it back in
Wouldn’t you know?
It started to glow again
There’s a little viewfinder
if you look into it you can see the world.
Over time the pictures have been
burnt out and blurred
There’s a red cape flaunted by a Man in gold
There’s an Eskimo fishing out in the cold
There's beautiful women with jewels in their faces
Lands so far they’re only fantasy places
The years have passed,
and I’ve gotten older
Circumstance
hasn’t brought them closer.
But the globe still glows
And the globe still spins
Still carries the dreams
Of all of it’s men.
Still carries the burden
Of all of their sins.
I’m so glad it’s
On my shelf again.
20 January 2010
Our pockets will be emptied
Our pockets will be emptied
and it will not be terrible
It will lighten us for flight
and it will not be terrible
It will lighten us for flight
12 January 2010
Lola (She's Putting on Her Eyeliner)
She’s got black wine bangs and rainstorm eyes
And a bouquet blooming from her breast
If you see her in the window she’ll turn off the light
Just to rob you of her silhouette
She holds hands with her shadow when the sun is out
Says that it’s her only friend
She doesn’t trust the candles in the jack-o-lantern's mouths
But she dances in their blazing grins
She’s putting on her eyeliner
I’m watching in the mirror
From the edge of her bathtub
Her cheeks are black and smeared
BRIDGE
I remember her walking
Nearly 20 blocks when
She went home sulking
In the snow
Lola
She tapped me on the shoulder
Lola
She kissed me on the cheek
Lola
We had an understanding
Lola
That this was meant to be
She tells me she doesn’t know how to live
Never learned to push and shove
She takes all the pity that I’ve got to give
But she won’t let me pawn off my love
BRIDGE
Lola
She’s putting on her eyeliner
Lola
She’s looking at herself
Lola
In the bathroom mirror
Lola
And nobody else
She told me that she don’t remember how to cry
Or the last time that she wanted kissed
She told me she’s too beautiful for suicide
Then let me trace her burning wrists
Lola
She’s putting on her eyeliner
Lola
I’m watching in the mirror
Lola
She needs a congregation
Lola
I guess that's why I'm here
And a bouquet blooming from her breast
If you see her in the window she’ll turn off the light
Just to rob you of her silhouette
She holds hands with her shadow when the sun is out
Says that it’s her only friend
She doesn’t trust the candles in the jack-o-lantern's mouths
But she dances in their blazing grins
She’s putting on her eyeliner
I’m watching in the mirror
From the edge of her bathtub
Her cheeks are black and smeared
BRIDGE
I remember her walking
Nearly 20 blocks when
She went home sulking
In the snow
Lola
She tapped me on the shoulder
Lola
She kissed me on the cheek
Lola
We had an understanding
Lola
That this was meant to be
She tells me she doesn’t know how to live
Never learned to push and shove
She takes all the pity that I’ve got to give
But she won’t let me pawn off my love
BRIDGE
Lola
She’s putting on her eyeliner
Lola
She’s looking at herself
Lola
In the bathroom mirror
Lola
And nobody else
She told me that she don’t remember how to cry
Or the last time that she wanted kissed
She told me she’s too beautiful for suicide
Then let me trace her burning wrists
Lola
She’s putting on her eyeliner
Lola
I’m watching in the mirror
Lola
She needs a congregation
Lola
I guess that's why I'm here
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