Friday, October 30, 2009

Friday, October 30, 2009: Materialicious--Domsai by Matteo Cibic

You, the you I write to.
The whole so what.
I know that I have your
attention. And now

I'll keep showing you
scenes, presenting them
like tattered bouquets.
You, you can look

at them, the images
that I bundle and display.
I bring them because
what else can be done

with the disorder
of how this happens
except to make collections
and place them at your feet.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Thursday, October 29, 2009: Notcot #25897

How to Live in a Tree

If the tree is going to fall, let it fall.
If it will live, allow it to,
and build your house around it.

Trust it to hold your weight.
Remember that you don't have
a front yard, just a yawning space

and majestic view and a narrow set
of stairs. Yes, watch your step in
this life within life.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009: Notcot #25822

Safe

Locked into a safe,
a box with a latch and a lock.

The lid remains closed,
the latch snapped, sealed.

What of the glittering thing
in the dark chamber--

what is it like
in that crate, no air,

no light. Safe, we call it,
from rougher hands,

from the calendar flipping
fast as a bicycle's spokes.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tuesday, October 27, 2009: Notcot #25833

The Lake Keeper

You have entered onto someone else's land.
This much is clear as you watch water slap shore

and your breath leave you in pale puffs,
perfume from an atomizer.

Even your silence is borrowed, is an interruption.
Three raccoons scuttle from beneath

the skirt of a pine. Ducks clatter in the water,
dirty dishes clanking in a sink.

Probably a squirrel gripped a branch.
Leaves collected against leaves.

Only you watched, thinking your silence
qualified you to belong to this moment.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Monday, October 26, 2009: photo by Marcos Armstrong (via his Flickr)

Strange Design

Strange design has been applied
to this sheet metal. Water’s

drooled, dragging rusty stalactites,
brown daggers. Perforated

stencils—labels of ounces and pounds,
an emblem resembling a sheriff’s badge.

The most recent revision: seventeen
bullet holes, a constellation

of freckles, troublesome moles. We process
the punctures as polka dots, black

spots, dark drops of paint.
This metal is aging artfully,

unwittingly, thanks to the dusky
palette of decay, graffiti.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Friday, October 23, 2009: Materialicious--Ecolodge in Egypt

Sand, Snow

Sand kneaded with saltwater
and scooped with a bucket

keeps its shape when overturned.
It will crumble if it dries,

and will fall once again into sand,
knocked loose of all tension.

The inverse of sand is snow.
Snow will also respond well

to condensing, to being packed
in a gloved grip to temporary solidity.

Sand, snow--kick it, throw it,
build with it. Use it to destroy

or assemble. It will regenerate,
smithereens of lost water or ground.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Thursday, October 22, 2009: Ffffound! Quoted from: Friends of Type

Everywhere,
every place.

In every location,
each site,

all areas,
and each point.

Far and wide,
the world over,

in each and every
space, with name

and without,
here is where

thought yields
horizon, the heart

fashions milemarkers
and arbitrary arrows.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Wednesday, October 21, 2009: Jillian Tamaki at Drawger

The genre of mystery
hinges on resolvability,

on whether the clues
presented to you

add up to a culprit,
or at least enlightenment.

The genre answers
the reader's need

for objects, people
to be clues, to be

crucial to the plot,
mostly in hindsight.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tuesday, October 20, 2009: Ffffound!--Quoted from: tofutti break

In and around our lives,
there are catalysts that help us release.

A flood sends a basement's worth
of belongings afloat.
The next day, black garbage bags line the curb,
dark bulbs waiting to be planted.

Let this go,
let it slip from your hands
as children clamber over a jungle gym
and fling themselves down the slide.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Friday, October 16, 2009: Ffffound! Quoted from:///latest///

Think of all the greeting cards sent
with the merest amendments--
two names, or only one,

the sender and the receiver.
The margins corral the printed
text, italicized, centered.

A column of lines like an upended
barcode for specialized birthdays,
for sons and daughters,

for their children; two sentences
for condelences, their fonts
intertwined, tendrilly.

The greeting card has gained the trust
of anyone who cannot write
what they feel, or anyone

who does not know what to feel,
what to say, how to verbalize
the way we are catapulted

into the future. Tell me how
to congratulate and offer sympathy.
I will sign my name.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009: Notcot #25548

All roar and defiant vulnerability,
riding a motorcycle is a statement.

I'm tough, and wish that I could fly,
or I am in control of all of this or

My skull is my helmet.
The motorcyclist's clothes are armor,

accelerator, made to cut through air
cleanly, a beetle's shiny wings.

They are stared at by those inside
of metal vehicles, who cling to steering

wheels and turn knobs for music or heat,
grateful for the coverage, the climate control.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Wednesday, October 14, 2009: Quoted from: Flickr Photo Download: Cinderella concept

In fairy tales, the stakes are high,
and all trials must be timed:
before midnight, at sixteen,
by sunset on the third day.

Never a minute early, the problems
are solved at the deadline. The moral
of these stories? Be patient, and wait,
look out the window, and dream, and sigh.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Tuesday, October 13, 2009: Quoted from: Bacardi on the Behance Network

Shape Shifter

Wax changes form without complaint
and each time, wick hunches under flame.

Who is not a shape shifter, prodded one way
or another--not by force, but by unseen

heat, bringing molecules to their knees.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Monday, October 12, 2009: Notcot #25440

Under each streetlight,
a circular pool

of weak illumination
puddles atop concrete

Either a puddle or
a manhole, a trapdoor

Just light on a surface,
unwavering until

morning, fixed on
this spot, here

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Thursday, October 8, 2009: Notcot #25379

Plants have it figured out.
Clothed in aerodynamics,
seeds pull free of tree limb
or stem, and spin, or flutter,
or drift toward soil.

Even in death, the fragile,
dried-out blossoms or
leaves heave themselves
upon whatever earth is available.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Tuesday, October 6, 2009: Mark Fisher at Drawger--Steel Life in Mummytown

Did you learn to float,

to trust the cool water to hold you


Did you think of ice cubes

displacing only their weight

and even in melting to maintain

the water's surface, to remain level


Did you need arms beneath you

stiff as the runners on the bottom of a sled

while you closed your eyes

against the heat of the sun

and the give of the water's slack surface

Monday, October 5, 2009

Monday, October 5, 2009: Notcot #25251

In all of the refined science
of our age,

little diseases flourish, defiant.
We gauge

each symptom, Google it with dread.
A cough

can worsen quickly, or might spread.
Swear off

every pleasurable food or drink,
and douse

your hands with Purell. You might think
your house,

your community is immune
to germs

that sound sprung from myth or cartoon,
but worms

still push their way through dogs' hearts,
and red

spots are called a pox. Our parts
are fed,

and our modernity, to bugs,
to flus.

We can only make the drugs,
the news.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Friday, October 2, 2009: Behance—Small Talk

Sensibility

Deserving praise and protection,
those with a great sensibility
exhibit the classic symptoms:

Quickening heartbeat,
flush brought on by fear or excitement,
water pooling in the eyes for small dogs
and other helplessness.

Science sought to measure
this titillating theory—
that the body replicates and regulates
passion, desire, pity.

The body is sympathetic to itself,
winds the pulse like a watch,
directs blood and allows it to be shown through skin.
Not the piano keys, nor the player,
but the pedals--
hushing, obstructing, sustaining.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Thursday, October 1, 2009: Drawger: Walter Schnackenberg (via Rob Dunlavey)

It is four in the morning.

Legions of deep sleepers cling to pillows,
their dreams the day's reverberations,
or else nothing, starless.

Some of us stir,
eyes open and seeing shapes in the blue-dark.

Memories come crawling toward us, unbidden.
They are made significant only by the hour.

Remember this.
The Storialist. All rights reserved. © Maira Gall.