ping point paing
ha ha
bird, don’t think I won’t fuck you up*
pushing past flowers
pushing up daisies
premature form
projects – projective – projectivist
is it the breath or the typewriter
out in the open field
asshole email
I’m doing it again – indenting lines off the left margin for no reason – oh yeah, because they are new paragraphs
high-pitched hello

*Overheard in New York

may 29, 2007

Hot page cool breeze. Birds and juice. Death in the air, creeping. Suicidal Ideation. Nothing but pleasantries, a need to scan the lines. Rustle woods, the deer step, squirrel shuffle. Peculiar disconnectedness of individuals, editors, the edited smile, the censored speech. Pileup of phrases. The litter of prepositions, the punctuation of punctuation. Texture of voices and air conditioning noises. The bands and patterns of tension. Often I ask: what are you talking about? What does it mean, the transfer function?

may 17, 2007

This is a false mystery. This is a place. This is an aftermath. This is a play. This is a break. This is a logical diagram. This is handwriting. This is an effort. This is the chirping of a loud bird. This is a GPS. This is too bad. This is a memory. This is garbage. This is unprecedented. This is a portrait. This is a holocaust. This is a small village. This is incurable. This is this. That is that.

I am unwilling at this point.

Unwilling on campus. Irrational fears. There is no healing balm for everything. So just get used to it. The most unpleasant thing of all is—heart dropping from fear. If I could avoid that automatic heart-drop from now on, I would. Do egrets have it? Flamingos, herons, other long birds? Birds with hearts that beat so fast and so unknown. Birds with eyelashes and bird dogs, slim.

No one’s here. Loud sound far away, a fog horn, some emergency of rain. Sam went out on a call about a flooded basement. Last night we ate at Pepe’s, the original tomato pie, no cheese. And hear the cheeping, the continuous chirping of suburban birds, and what is their mental capacity, and how do they stay warm? I want the angel of bird feathers and down to clothe me. I want the tendency to sing and fly. Their lives pass cheaply, no funerals at their deaths. No funerals, no funerals.

See the margin where the lawngrass turns to weeds.
Deer in the weeds, robin on the lawn. Jill Chan. The extravagance of the mentally ill. An email—write to Ann. Some stillness in my face, my weary eyes. Persistent nagging from my taxes. Still, a stomachache. Desire for tea and toast. Bird shadow. Ear flick. Plastic bag.

There’s no commotion. I have a half-page left. I take whatever happens, but do I even have to say that? Stomachache. I want connection, with Chamunda, stomach-body. I want my ugly greedy demons that befriended me. I want to stop, I want to read a book. I feel saliva in my mouth. I hear the air conditioning alive in these tall ceilings. I hear the heater ticking. Robin out there looking at the Wetland sign.

Soft—softness of her terms. The soundness of her structure. Building system like a structure of spun sugar, stained with drops of food coloring. Where do you want to work? On the page, on the screen? at some point, I let go of all that effort. That did fall away like husks. I envy Mister You, at his desk just prior to dawn, staring out the window at the frozen lawn, no meadow. Cardinals and bluebirds. Resistant to maternal comments, on the —Robins or the —Peepers. Like a metronome each spring drawing your attention. And yet I have to trace my way through boredom, I have to throw my mind a bone to chew on and make Money. It’s awfully hard to retain my concentration on this thin high music as though here I was up in the mountains in my hut.

The absolute arrogant daring of a teacher. The heartbreak of the curious student. The value of curiosity is discounted. Do not examine. Do not look in. I know what I think, I know what I feel. All is different, the lamb is a dog, the horse is a louse. House. The mercury, the mystery. Free write disjointed. What’s going to sell. Hyperaudience, overengineered society. Leading to exhaustion. Aspire to humility. What do you hear here? What do we hear here? In the giant auditorium filled with five poets. Oh my god. How much compassion do you need?

Questions overflow. Abounding, then melt away like fields of snow. Flocks moving wrestling through the heavens. Harbingers of arbeit. After all, it’s mesh, how much is mesh? I refuse at some point. Stop. Step.

Entertaining writing requirements, forcing myself to sit down and put something on paper, I understand that urge to just fling up your hands and refuse to create, refuse to push a small pocket open in the fabric of unknowns. Quicker the better. Numbered paragraphs. Goose honking seems to be upset. And yes, I have a headache. The ache of loneliness and isolation—but is it really desire, the desire for recognition? here we go again. Maybe that goose is honking-honking for her mate.

Visualize. Visualizing. Visualizing Kilimanjaro. Visualizing the bright shreds of sun carved off Vivasat. Visualizing nails in the floor. I took a washcloth, wiped the dirt fingerprints off the bedroom door. I arrested qarrtsiluni. Exacerbated. You can tell there is no channel carving here. You can tell the bird is disturbed and fluttering on the nest. Puffed up down against the cold. Chilly nest, someone might have to fly again. Taking care, how dare, not fair. She puzzles, then allows. A dream of behaving differently. Nice things for others, not to get found out.