what the snail heard

saturday afternoon

2007-02-17T04:20:00.000-08:00

I'd like to know the flavor and texture of poets.
Then I wouldn't have to come up with descriptions of my own --
I could say, "it was a Heaney kind of day",
Or, "the venison smelt of Tennyson",
And everyone would know what I meant.

I'd like to know 'what I meant', myself.
In the darkness of the "word-hoard",
I scuff my pinky toes when I trip over unexpected
Bumps of treasure -- softly melting in the light of a golden lamp, but full of spines in the tactile blackness of the barrow.
Oh, let me borrow some words from the barrow!

In the absence of anything big to say, I'll
Turn to the comforting frigidity of science:
How amazing vowels are! They change words
From Hell to hall to hull to hill --
All places that feature in Old English literature, but so different!
And vowels can be words on their own, like
"O" in comprehension, or
"Ah" in plump satisfaction.

faur(e) out

2007-01-16T22:02:00.000-08:00

music reconciles and redeems everyday life. i think one of the streams of jesus' blood pumping healing from the cross is music. unlike words, which can be so easily misunderstood or misused, melodies and harmonies are pretty much just themselves -- there aren't really double and triple meanings behind them, unless they're consciously echoing something else. no, each note says what it is and remains itself for its whole duration.

also, we can see much more clearly the discrepancy between the perfect and the human -- when we hear a note perfectly pitched, we know that is the ultimate a-flat, not the striving of a rusty raucous human voice. but i guess what makes music so loveable is precisely that tension between perfection and mortal limitations, with the glue being our desire to press on to greater excellence in spite of our weaknesses.

for the record, faure is INCROYABLE.

what i miss about dad

2006-11-14T15:39:00.000-08:00

Here’s something that pains me: he doesn’t know me like I am now. He died when I was awkwardly 16 years old, still afraid to call strangers on the phone or fight my way through a journey involving the public transportation system of a foreign country.

I found myself frantically running through the halls of memory in my mind in the train this evening, trying to call up images and smells and the sound of his voice. But all the pictures I found were the ones I always remember; they had that dried-out, cartoonish two-dimensionality and could not comfort. I am starting to be seriously afraid of losing the few strands of memory with which I keep Dad alive in my head. It’s easy to speak of him often, to tell stories of his mastery of Russian and my embarrassment at his German, easy to describe his wide ski-stance and brilliant red boots, his versatility in playing the drums, the guitar, the banjo, the piano. I can even bring back to life the crinkle of his starched white dress shirt as he bent over me late at night on returning from his work-country. It’s the smaller and finer things I can’t remember that make me so upset; did I not experience them because I was still such a kid? Did I miss out on the wonderfully unique personality quirks and mannerisms that were Dad because my 16-year old eyes couldn’t see past the heroic if archetypal father-figure? Or is looking back across the desert of 4 years something that makes visible only the broadest strokes of his character?

Part of it is, I am hungry for his legitimation. As a kid, I was pretty much the result of Dad and Mom; I was only just beginning to know myself, let alone participate actively in becoming who I am today. Now, though, it’s as if I had grown new body parts or mind parts or personality parts that were my own creation (let’s say “the result of 4 more years of formative life” instead – I’m not being megalomanic) and needed his approval to exist with as much meaning as the rest of me. There would be so much to talk about now, as I learn more and more about life and people and politics and art and just everything he loved.

So yes, I’m starving for male validation. And even though my physical relationship with Dad would have changed very soon, what with body parts doing what they do in puberty, I still miss being held to a strong male chest, hearing the heartbeat and feeling surrounded by a safe arm. Who can give me that? No matter that I am sounding needy and whiny; I do think this is a valid response to a father’s death, and I only hope Muriel finds someone to feed her that fatherly physical love in a proper way.

the ohareport

2006-09-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

time -- it doesn't exist here. or if it does, it's lives only in the reactions it causes: worrying, yawning, pacing, jovial lets-make-the-best-of-it exchanges with the british. will i make the flight, when will my shift be over, how many times will the same janitor walk by.

but i love airports. i even love the waiting, those endless hours until you find out what your gate number is or why your flight was cancelled.

in the ohareport, you can be anyone you choose. the people you meet will probably never pop up in your life again. maybe that's why all their faces fascinate me so. i look at them too closely sometimes, forgetting that direct eye-contact can send different messages to other cultures. it's good i don't live here, or i might begin to think everyone that walks by exists only for my pre-flight entertainment, so that i can try different me's out on them.

what about those two lawyers yesterday...that was exhilarating. i've never experienced such blatent interest from a stranger. well, that was the one guy. the well-formed, sleekly tan and golden-eyed one. his friend appealed much more to my mind, with his old-fashioned but pleasing ensemble featuring those yellow socks and loafers. dry asides and inscrutable eyes hidden by reflective glasses put him at a comfortable distance. there's nothing like sarcasm and self-deprecation to effectively remove oneself to the still-a-stranger plane. but pointedly interested questions, gaze held longer than necessary, and subtly sensual stretching, those things bring some spice to the lives of 20yr old girls with no romantic experience.

well if that doesn't read like a romance novel...i mean...not that i'm in the habit of reading those...but i imagine them to sound so.

hmmm

2006-08-21T22:15:00.000-07:00

i guess i'm afraid of death. most people seem to be -- we cling to what we view as life, as if we can somehow control its outcome by digging our heels into the ground and refusing to move in any direction that smacks of mortality. since i'm practicing for academic sounding papers for this next year, i'll explain what i mean in scintillating detail -- you can jump ahead if it bores you -- surely the number of age-defying skin creams is proof enough of our fear of change, ultimately the change of life as we know it on earth.

so much for detail. this post was started with the realization that i find earthy, pungent imagery so powerful because it reminds me of life, the opposite of death. things like sweat, smells, dirt, the ironic mix of grace and awkwardness in so many situations...all these are physical rods and staves to hang on to when the valley of the shadow of death looms near.

rollercoasting

2006-08-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

your crush-caffeinated mind jumps
500 miles high,
waving at wacky and wondrous
cloudvisions of love
before plummeting, wingless,
to reality's harsh gravel.

20

2006-08-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

when life stretches before you like
a vast shining lake,
every ripple reflecting the light
of potent possibility.

today i am a man

2006-08-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

actually, i'm not a man. but that's a line i heard from a harry partch recording and it has stuck with me. it communicates having reached something, having passed a landmark of some kind. today i am a man because today i have achieved the state of getting hem...hemmr...i can't seem to remember how to spell it. no matter, not really table conversation anyway.

and i have no further reflections on this topic, except to express a fervent wish to find said harry partch recording.

friday evening

2006-08-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

this is what i like.

sitting side by side,
our thoughts flicker and flow
parallel to each other
like twin raindrops on a sweaty window.

alone i wander through the varied paths of thought.
but you are there,
drawing me awake
to the planes of your sweet craggy face.

the earth spins more wildly than we know.

human and fallible

2006-08-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

life with family, or anyone else for that matter, seems to consist of missed opportunities to be gracious. i speak only for myself, of course. i don't enjoy the whizzing noise these chances to forgive make as they fly overhead. i would much rather hunker down in my resentful anger against people who shop with aggravatingly methodical slowness.

i love the fresh green feeling of instant and unconditional acceptance -- but only when i'm the accepted one. will i/we/anyone ever get better at letting others be who they are? and letting one's own self be okay.

ah yes, the introvert strikes again.

it only takes a spark

2006-08-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

you are iridescent
shining in a hundred pools of genius.

perhaps i do you wrong
to take your face and name,
dreaming wistfully
of your staunch heroic heart
when we've only
breathed each other's conversing air
five or six times.

the introvert

2006-08-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

i scrub until i'm raw and red
i WILL be perfect
lest anyone should stumble on me
and find the broken uglies
inside and out

loam

2006-08-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

how heady and rich is this earth from which we've sprung.