Goes Without Saying
What goes without saying, some things
do. What should we know without
speaking. Can we differentiate when truth rings
out in all brains, and when we ferret it out
because it has been withheld from us.
How much direction do we need, the sign
saying Please Flush Toilet, not just
one, but several, to intercept any line
of vision: in the stall, near the faucet,
above the silver Dyson Airblade.
From the sign, the bathroom seems desperate
for you to agree with the rules it’s made.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Magic Eye
Magic Eye
When you focus your eyes,
what are you unable to see.
The chair loses its doubled
silhouette, slims and simplifies
like a woman sucking in
her stomach and tilting her
pelvis out to exaggerate
the sharpness of her hipbones.
The undulating darkness
of a bedroom settles, stills.
Look more quietly. Make
the corner of your eyes
their new center, so you
can see what flits about
you peripherally, really.
Try not to startle it away,
whatever it it is, your two
pupils boring into it like
black headlights. Allow your
gaze to slouch, let it yawn
and stretch an arm over the
shoulder of your blind spot.
It’s been following you since
you recognized your first face.
When you focus your eyes,
what are you unable to see.
The chair loses its doubled
silhouette, slims and simplifies
like a woman sucking in
her stomach and tilting her
pelvis out to exaggerate
the sharpness of her hipbones.
The undulating darkness
of a bedroom settles, stills.
Look more quietly. Make
the corner of your eyes
their new center, so you
can see what flits about
you peripherally, really.
Try not to startle it away,
whatever it it is, your two
pupils boring into it like
black headlights. Allow your
gaze to slouch, let it yawn
and stretch an arm over the
shoulder of your blind spot.
It’s been following you since
you recognized your first face.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Text-Based Art: So Many Selves
The blue (periwinkle?) wall was too good to pass up. I'd like to go leave letters around the neighborhood, if I could. Until then, there's Photoshop.
I wish you (and your various selves) a delightful weekend.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Jet Lag
Jet Lag
There are so many selves these days,
living in many places at once.
When we travel, we leave a self back
at home, to remind us what we
would be doing if we wouldn't have left.
The traveling self receives
the thoughts of the one at home, as if
over a baby monitor,
feels unstuck from time. Yesterday,
I answered the phone
and spoke to Kathy. Sorry, who is
this, I asked, and she
said, Kathy, your across-the-hall
neighbor in number 4.
Not neighbor, actually, not for a year,
and a couple thousand miles
away, several states. It’s easy to
forget where here is,
when now is. In my Twitter feed,
hundreds of people
who live in places I have left, telling
me about the clouds
and mild temperatures, and out the
window here, clouds,
no snow. The town you return to is
only partially the place
itself. Your memory sketches over
it, like architectural plans
in reverse. It is still what it used to
be to you, every version.
There are so many selves these days,
living in many places at once.
When we travel, we leave a self back
at home, to remind us what we
would be doing if we wouldn't have left.
The traveling self receives
the thoughts of the one at home, as if
over a baby monitor,
feels unstuck from time. Yesterday,
I answered the phone
and spoke to Kathy. Sorry, who is
this, I asked, and she
said, Kathy, your across-the-hall
neighbor in number 4.
Not neighbor, actually, not for a year,
and a couple thousand miles
away, several states. It’s easy to
forget where here is,
when now is. In my Twitter feed,
hundreds of people
who live in places I have left, telling
me about the clouds
and mild temperatures, and out the
window here, clouds,
no snow. The town you return to is
only partially the place
itself. Your memory sketches over
it, like architectural plans
in reverse. It is still what it used to
be to you, every version.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
House Keeping
House Keeping
Don’t forget to take your
house. You put it down
at the front door. To dry.
Because you had been
walking in the rain with it.
Mine’s the one with the porch
across the hall from yours.
They like each other, it’s
sweet. They play well
together, look how yours
taps the swing on mine.
And the swing set, with
the silver legs that can rear
up like an angry horse. Don’t
leave it here. That’s yours.
We don’t want some other
house falling over your
swing set, do we, now,
no, of course not. I would
never suggest that your
house is ill-behaved.
I would never. We teach
houses how to treat us
with the land we tuck
them into, the additions
we give them or snagged
screens that go unpatched.
There are no bad houses or
bad owners, just bad plumbers.
Don’t forget to take your
house. You put it down
at the front door. To dry.
Because you had been
walking in the rain with it.
Mine’s the one with the porch
across the hall from yours.
They like each other, it’s
sweet. They play well
together, look how yours
taps the swing on mine.
And the swing set, with
the silver legs that can rear
up like an angry horse. Don’t
leave it here. That’s yours.
We don’t want some other
house falling over your
swing set, do we, now,
no, of course not. I would
never suggest that your
house is ill-behaved.
I would never. We teach
houses how to treat us
with the land we tuck
them into, the additions
we give them or snagged
screens that go unpatched.
There are no bad houses or
bad owners, just bad plumbers.
Monday, January 23, 2012
The Only Rose There Is
The Only Rose There Is
Not
what were roses like
when you could touch
them, Great-Great-Great-
Great-Great-Great-Great-
Grandmother,
but
the week-in-the-vase
rose on the table now,
heavy-headed, a girl
with a bonnet for a face
sewn to a blanket.
Not
what were roses like
when you could touch
them, Great-Great-Great-
Great-Great-Great-Great-
Grandmother,
but
the week-in-the-vase
rose on the table now,
heavy-headed, a girl
with a bonnet for a face
sewn to a blanket.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Text-Based Art: Forever You Will Never
Forgive the heavy stuff this week. At least I've matched the existential with pink and purple, right?
I'm playing with the idea of making postcards of some of these....what do you think? I was even investigating temporary tattoos a bit....though that idea is a bit more ridiculous!!
Happy weekend to you!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Which Year’s Magnolias
Which Year’s Magnolias
Picture frames kneel
or prop themselves up
on an elbow or with a
fist under the chin, senior
portrait-style. Inside
the frames, more posing,
smiles summoned and
held, eyelids lifted high
and eyes looking out
from the table, back at
those in the living room.
Little herds of framed
photos become sculptures
to those who often sit
in the room with them,
small rectangles with
painted surfaces. Faces
flatten into pattern, and
so does what happened,
the details of who took
which photo, which baby
is in the stroller or yet
unborn, which year’s
magnolias were so pink.
Picture frames kneel
or prop themselves up
on an elbow or with a
fist under the chin, senior
portrait-style. Inside
the frames, more posing,
smiles summoned and
held, eyelids lifted high
and eyes looking out
from the table, back at
those in the living room.
Little herds of framed
photos become sculptures
to those who often sit
in the room with them,
small rectangles with
painted surfaces. Faces
flatten into pattern, and
so does what happened,
the details of who took
which photo, which baby
is in the stroller or yet
unborn, which year’s
magnolias were so pink.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
From Whence
From Whence
Where are you
at, from whence
do you hail. From
where do you
come from.
I give the ATM
machine my
PIN number.
Acronyms
cave in, and
grammar, when we
flood the engine,
give our words
too much gas.
Alls we want’s
to say it natural,
to put our thoughts
out into the light
for somebody.
We slip an extra
syllable or letter
into a word,
onion with a “g”
ongion, or alvacado
because we can’t
believe words end
where they do,
so soon. The ends
of our sentences
sizzle with vocal
fry, like wooden
doors endlessly
creaking open.
Hows come
Pop Rocks
don’t count as
punctuation.
Where are you
at, from whence
do you hail. From
where do you
come from.
I give the ATM
machine my
PIN number.
Acronyms
cave in, and
grammar, when we
flood the engine,
give our words
too much gas.
Alls we want’s
to say it natural,
to put our thoughts
out into the light
for somebody.
We slip an extra
syllable or letter
into a word,
onion with a “g”
ongion, or alvacado
because we can’t
believe words end
where they do,
so soon. The ends
of our sentences
sizzle with vocal
fry, like wooden
doors endlessly
creaking open.
Hows come
Pop Rocks
don’t count as
punctuation.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Eggshell Eggshell
Eggshell Eggshell
We want the insides of our rooms
to resemble the outside of an egg.
Not the color of a white eggshell,
but its texture. Perhaps also the color,
Benjamin Moore Eggshell Eggshell,
for wherever we need to reflect lots
of light, kitchens, bathrooms, mud
rooms. When we look at our walls
from inside our homes, we want to
feel that we are looking at the outer
edge of an egg, its shell, and we
also want to feel we are within it.
We want to have our egg and eat it,
too, and we do. To draw the planet
Earth, we draw a blue circle with
a green flotation vest flung round
its body for land, blue scribbles
wherever it isn’t green. Our planet
can fit on paper, on a tabletop.
We have seen it from outer space
in a photograph. All we want is
to pop by a neighboring galaxy
so we can look out its windows
at us. What do we look like to them.
We want the insides of our rooms
to resemble the outside of an egg.
Not the color of a white eggshell,
but its texture. Perhaps also the color,
Benjamin Moore Eggshell Eggshell,
for wherever we need to reflect lots
of light, kitchens, bathrooms, mud
rooms. When we look at our walls
from inside our homes, we want to
feel that we are looking at the outer
edge of an egg, its shell, and we
also want to feel we are within it.
We want to have our egg and eat it,
too, and we do. To draw the planet
Earth, we draw a blue circle with
a green flotation vest flung round
its body for land, blue scribbles
wherever it isn’t green. Our planet
can fit on paper, on a tabletop.
We have seen it from outer space
in a photograph. All we want is
to pop by a neighboring galaxy
so we can look out its windows
at us. What do we look like to them.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Fraction
Fraction
One day, my heart will stop beating. (not everything is a joke)
-Jimmy Kimmel in a tweet on January 13, 2012
There will be a world with no you in it,
and it won’t be lopsided here without you.
The people who knew you will also be
gone, and then the people who had been
told about you. A child in each playground
swing, a dog at the end of every leash.
Water will course through the pipes
in the city you no longer live in, in your
home that you are not inside of. The new
inhabitants will hold a pot beneath
the faucet in the kitchen, place the pot
on top of the stove, just as you did.
Some of your objects remain, have
been reassigned. Your guitar is held
by a boy whose mother purchased it
from a resale shop. Your gray pearls
are with a woman flecked with your
genes. Many of your books have
disintegrated. A few of the things
you made still belong to someone
else who looks at them. There are
television shows starring humans who
were born long after you disappeared.
Feathers fill the pillows, and teens
and preteens take the risk of placing
their tongues in each other’s mouths.
Forever, you will never come back.
Ninety-eight or eighty-three over
infinity, it is almost not even a fraction.
One day, my heart will stop beating. (not everything is a joke)
-Jimmy Kimmel in a tweet on January 13, 2012
There will be a world with no you in it,
and it won’t be lopsided here without you.
The people who knew you will also be
gone, and then the people who had been
told about you. A child in each playground
swing, a dog at the end of every leash.
Water will course through the pipes
in the city you no longer live in, in your
home that you are not inside of. The new
inhabitants will hold a pot beneath
the faucet in the kitchen, place the pot
on top of the stove, just as you did.
Some of your objects remain, have
been reassigned. Your guitar is held
by a boy whose mother purchased it
from a resale shop. Your gray pearls
are with a woman flecked with your
genes. Many of your books have
disintegrated. A few of the things
you made still belong to someone
else who looks at them. There are
television shows starring humans who
were born long after you disappeared.
Feathers fill the pillows, and teens
and preteens take the risk of placing
their tongues in each other’s mouths.
Forever, you will never come back.
Ninety-eight or eighty-three over
infinity, it is almost not even a fraction.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Experiment in Text: Slow Yes
Uh-oh. I....got....Photoshop! Definitely tricky, but it will be very fun (any tips from those of you that are Photoshop experts?). This image above came from a walk I took this week, in the weirdly warm Ohio temperatures (which are now gone again). My neighborhood is bricky.
Happy weekend, everyone! What projects are keeping you occupied these days?
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Slow Yes
Slow Yes
Let the objects and locations
around you grow stranger.
Let the road smack your foot
in the jaw when the cobblestone
is higher than you expected.
May the branches corkscrew
and twist as they reach away
from the trees that own them.
May you, a pedestrian, gesture
to cars to allow them to turn.
Doesn’t the insurance company
look bewitching in her bricks.
Doesn’t the nude light bulb
in the third floor of the vacant
building gleam with good health.
Keep trying tomato juice and olives
and whiskey (not together) in case
your taste buds reupholster themselves.
Keep hold of the year you were
born so you always know your age.
Let the objects and locations
around you grow stranger.
Let the road smack your foot
in the jaw when the cobblestone
is higher than you expected.
May the branches corkscrew
and twist as they reach away
from the trees that own them.
May you, a pedestrian, gesture
to cars to allow them to turn.
Doesn’t the insurance company
look bewitching in her bricks.
Doesn’t the nude light bulb
in the third floor of the vacant
building gleam with good health.
Keep trying tomato juice and olives
and whiskey (not together) in case
your taste buds reupholster themselves.
Keep hold of the year you were
born so you always know your age.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Scarecrow
Scarecrow
We gather an old shirt
and a pair of pants
and a hat, and build
a body from straw
and sticks, a snowman
in summer.
The sleeves catch
on the sharply-angled
sticks chosen to perform
as limbs, dangle, move
as if the man we’ve made
is moving to step down,
toward us.
The more we stare at him,
in that shirt we used to
see the back of in
the mornings, when
he stood at the counter,
pouring water from
a glass into the back
of the coffee maker--
the more we stare,
the more scared
we are.
We gather an old shirt
and a pair of pants
and a hat, and build
a body from straw
and sticks, a snowman
in summer.
The sleeves catch
on the sharply-angled
sticks chosen to perform
as limbs, dangle, move
as if the man we’ve made
is moving to step down,
toward us.
The more we stare at him,
in that shirt we used to
see the back of in
the mornings, when
he stood at the counter,
pouring water from
a glass into the back
of the coffee maker--
the more we stare,
the more scared
we are.
Monday, January 9, 2012
The Invitation
The Invitation
The honor of your presence
has been requested. By me.
I’m requesting that you
join me, temporarily,
bring your dishonor and
your favorite dessert
only if it is ice cream,
mint studded with
chocolate chips like
a green ermine coat
in a cup. I want to eat
a meal with you, food
as trickling hourglass,
course after course to make
the evening stretch. Time
is like spandex, it snaps
back and flattens with no
body in it, without your
body. Wear what you like,
your luckiest garment,
and I will be the one wearing
the mask of your face
tied on with curling ribbons.
I promise to take it off
once you have found me.
I am looking forward to
sharing oxygen with you.
The honor of your presence
has been requested. By me.
I’m requesting that you
join me, temporarily,
bring your dishonor and
your favorite dessert
only if it is ice cream,
mint studded with
chocolate chips like
a green ermine coat
in a cup. I want to eat
a meal with you, food
as trickling hourglass,
course after course to make
the evening stretch. Time
is like spandex, it snaps
back and flattens with no
body in it, without your
body. Wear what you like,
your luckiest garment,
and I will be the one wearing
the mask of your face
tied on with curling ribbons.
I promise to take it off
once you have found me.
I am looking forward to
sharing oxygen with you.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Menace
Menace
The jumbled geometry
of the skate park
collects snow in its
curves. No one skates
or lurks here today.
If the skaters were
out, there would be
at least one with a cast,
a swatch of dried blood
on a shin or chin. These
boys arrive pre-bruised,
marked by play.
They are used to crashing
into dirt or concrete.
Little blond Dennis
pedaling his trike around
the block becomes
more menacing the older
he gets, mopeds, cars.
Bart is safer on a
skateboard than on a
golf cart. The ground
doesn’t move if
they smash into it.
They keep trying to
swat something loose,
so we give them a
park with no trees
and listen to their
wheels growl as they
scrape across cement.
The jumbled geometry
of the skate park
collects snow in its
curves. No one skates
or lurks here today.
If the skaters were
out, there would be
at least one with a cast,
a swatch of dried blood
on a shin or chin. These
boys arrive pre-bruised,
marked by play.
They are used to crashing
into dirt or concrete.
Little blond Dennis
pedaling his trike around
the block becomes
more menacing the older
he gets, mopeds, cars.
Bart is safer on a
skateboard than on a
golf cart. The ground
doesn’t move if
they smash into it.
They keep trying to
swat something loose,
so we give them a
park with no trees
and listen to their
wheels growl as they
scrape across cement.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
On Eggshells
On Eggshells
Whether you walk on eggshells
or stomp on them, you will
trample them. To compile
a pound of eggshells, you would
need six hundred twenty-five
empties. Tiptoes and caution
still shatter calcium carbonate.
Anyway, they were made to
be broken. You are noisy
even when you are silent,
the world is dripping with
Do Not Disturb signs in
languages we don’t even
recognize as languages.
As a hearing aid with the
volume cranked lets out
a squeal, you are loud
because you are here.
Whether you walk on eggshells
or stomp on them, you will
trample them. To compile
a pound of eggshells, you would
need six hundred twenty-five
empties. Tiptoes and caution
still shatter calcium carbonate.
Anyway, they were made to
be broken. You are noisy
even when you are silent,
the world is dripping with
Do Not Disturb signs in
languages we don’t even
recognize as languages.
As a hearing aid with the
volume cranked lets out
a squeal, you are loud
because you are here.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Belt
Belt
The verb belt,
meaning to latch
a belt around,
to torture
a garment
by twisting
its lines, to
bring the waist
of a sweater
or dress closer
to the waist
of the wearer.
When I bought
my wedding gown,
I was zipped up
by an Ichabod
Crane-esque
man who claimed
he could put
any girl into any
dress. One
two sizes too
small, he convinced
to close in on me.
In every city
I have lived in,
I find a reliable
tailor. Whatever
is ill-fitting, I
isolate it, threaten
it with thread
and needle,
or leather.
Do you or
someone you
know share
in my fetish
for strategy:
how should we
go about this,
which elegant
approach will
I uncover that
has never spoken
to anyone else.
Strategy or
strangulation,
their hands
look the same,
draped around
a lover’s throat.
The verb belt,
meaning to latch
a belt around,
to torture
a garment
by twisting
its lines, to
bring the waist
of a sweater
or dress closer
to the waist
of the wearer.
When I bought
my wedding gown,
I was zipped up
by an Ichabod
Crane-esque
man who claimed
he could put
any girl into any
dress. One
two sizes too
small, he convinced
to close in on me.
In every city
I have lived in,
I find a reliable
tailor. Whatever
is ill-fitting, I
isolate it, threaten
it with thread
and needle,
or leather.
Do you or
someone you
know share
in my fetish
for strategy:
how should we
go about this,
which elegant
approach will
I uncover that
has never spoken
to anyone else.
Strategy or
strangulation,
their hands
look the same,
draped around
a lover’s throat.