over-expository and as always unworthy

kora

1.
eurydice did nothing.
dark-eyed woman with her flesh glide,
eyes like dials beneath lengthy lashes:
form of girl, so possibly sweet and gentle.

everything
abstract: this neck of white,
this chin of snow,
these two lips like kissing cherries,

beautifulest and most lovely.

suffer, orpheus, and
suffer, lyre, twined about her memory.
make rocks and streams sough out tears;
tame lions in grief.
lock her perfections in her name:
the best embrace
you can create.
sing her name
melodiate.

2.
persephone
bit.

dream of winter,
come to me
hard:

a song,
its flow
a break,
a fuck

fluid.

juiced

the hard bloom part 2

angles like those of sharded glass--
angles fourty-five degrees or below,
stiletto-like v's. hard lines. the hard break.

lines that radiate outward so slender from
endpoint--
between them, that space, occupied
by extrapolate:
the tautest vibration, from line to line,

from line to line. to the edge, the middle
and back, narrowed, winnowing--
push down, push down, hold
hold:

the pressed trickle.
the winter sap.
like water to water,
love to love runs back.

the brain alone and sulking in the skull

repetition is the way you go about making something again, something entirely different than the first thing. gertrude stein has this.

sometimes my words get caught in a trap, like elvis, and they abstract the same thing over and over. for a long time (three years?) the thing was quasi-real (emphasis on the quasi)--it's gone into a mode of entire abstraction, however, which means that the poetry can focus absolutely on one thing without carrying any burden of narrative. this sounds fancy, especially considering all i'm really saying is that these poems aren't in real time, or particularly meaningful.

i stink at poetry. i'm not a poet. but i don't stop doing it, in part because i have no shame, and in part because of this possibility of non-narrativic insight (to whatever false degree)--a few years ago i was writing about a poem a day, and though none of them were good, they all helped me realize that forcing yourself to think in poetry is productive. just not necessarily productive of good poetry.

i guess i'm attempting to excuse myself for writing the same poem over and over. if you can never arrive at the truth of a thing, you can never fully express the thing. yet by expressing and re-expressing a thing, you end up expressing something--a truth, borges style, not the truth--like that varicolored lantern in roger corman's the terror (a weird point of reference, but it's what rings the bell). none of this is interesting, i'm pretty sure. but i think the boring observations are necessary...occasionally necessary. because otherwise you end up with "the kingfishers," which is brilliant, but doesn't touch gwendolyn brooks.

another poem

letting the days go by

night, lit

by moon's light.

red lip, bit

redder.

moon white like

bedknob and 

its whitened knuckle:

taut skin.

smoothed down.

redder.

a poem

mnemonic

thoughts of 

red--

slit through 

to the sap.

red from red,

sap into sap,

like water to water,

love to love runs back.

sister midnight

i'm a breakage inside

seventeen thousand acres of skin
over flesh over bone:
seal and metonym--

the capacity for
extroardinary violation--

grasp down. push. hold.

baseboard whine

so i just finished ("finished" being one of those words that probably will never apply, but i just finished-ish) my novel, the one i wrote under the influence of hormones, dreams, and ursula leguin in eighth grade, rewrote during my lunch breaks at safeway under the influence of proust, postmodernism, and a deepseated argument with w.c. williams three years ago, got onto the computer last year at bishop's ranch under the influence of awkward social situations, bad macaroni salad, worse chicken salad, and agatha christie, and have finally rewritten for i think the second-to-last time on google docs, under the influence of more postmodernism, recent deaths, and hart crane.  i don't just think it's as good as it's going to get.  i think it's good.  i'm sure there are problems, but most things are accounted for, and it's about what it's actually about at this point.  it's only confusing at points, and the preponderance of "its"s and "that"s have been cut down on: it's readable, if heavily punctuated.

now i have to try to get it published, and i read a thing that said that people use short stories to build a reputation with...i don't think i'm recognizable as a good short story writer.  my techniques for writing prose are about the same as my techniques for writing poetry: they're highly instinctual--i throw together what seems to want to be together, and don't always try to worry through the connections (or am not always able to recognize the connections i've made).  besides which, it seems meaningless to write short stories when what i want to write are novels (or in this case, a novella).  it's not that i don't want to try other forms of writing; it's just that i'm not a writer, but someone who has written something that i think is good enough to be published.  writers are people who masturbate with language, who fetishize words' possibilities of meaning (and it's awesome; i love it when they do that [usually]).  i, however, don't do that--i don't think that the words themselves are any heavier than the meaning they convey.  when it comes to words, i'm not controlling--if i could use a thousand words to describe one sensation, i would (and have).  words are like a rubik's cube; trying to solve them is improbable--pain is like a falling leaf because it becomes disattached from the moment in memory; music is like a falling leaf because it muddies the distinctions between sound, vision, and movement...an andes chocolate mint is like a falling leaf because it makes you want to touch its skin.  i'm pretty sure i'm not making myself clear.

the thing is that i've put so much of myself into this dang novella that if i don't see it published i don't think i'll ever be able to write anything major ever again.  i shouldn't allow myself to see myself as so weak--but i do; i can't help it.  of course, the wound from having finished it is pretty fresh.  i should wait a week before prognosticating diresome crap.

the worst part is that there's singing, but i can't just sing--i can't just sing anymore than i can just write.  at least not right now.  GOD, i just think of the amount of EFFORT i put into this book--the amount of MYSELF i put into it--i barely want to OWN it, i don't want anyone i know to READ it, and yet i really want to see it in print, so i can let the story go...  or something (now i'm talking like Kaya).

okay.  i'm going to give it a try.  i'm going to look up an agent online, and i'm going to apply to NEC and SFCM.  i don't want to be a famous author.  i just want to let this story go, to let someone else see it for what it is... i guess, to expose myself, but maybe not--maybe just to expose the story.

because they're watching the detectives

because once i've made up a word, i'm NEVER giving it up. "chiascurate," like "erastic," is probably not the correct way to turn "chiarascuro" into a...whatever grammatical construction "chiascurate" attempts to function as. and "erastic" probably doesn't make "erastes" into it (that is, grammatical function x) either. but i do it anyway. because i am intensely self-willed. like a spoiled child. or rhoda.

law & order

hold on to this night of prismatic crime--
hold to chiascurate pleasure
like teeth hold to a lower lip.

hold on to the knowing that
we once were as near each other
as i am now near myself.

moon solid as muscle
in a sky open
as a hand.

a poem of some description

water

1. iliad

my flesh is heavy, heavy like rocks,

my mind as heavy.  each muscle grinds 

another and dust seeps out at the joints,

mingles with the black air, the folds of a still

still cloak, hanging dead to my ankles like

black hair.

i am looking at the mottled red and yellowgreen

of the skin of the pomegranate--how it hangs

so still on the dark stone table and how the

darkness clusters about it, clings to it,

holds it in, floods to it.  

the two or three yellowing leaves 

its stem retains.

i am imagining her smelling it and

pressing red lips to its red skin.  feeling her own lips

pressed to the thick-smooth skin 

against her sharp white teeth.  feeling her own 

pellucid fingers against its breakless husk

and smelling its smell like

water.

wake up, 

wake up, persephone,

bright duskless seedling.

2. odyssey

i hear the winds swirling, sobbing

above in the trees and in the grasses.

as if my dominion were hot like flesh,

unquenchable, veins of

fire running from rock to rock: i feel the rain

pour down on stone, feel it sizzle.

she is pretending she is dead.

she wishes she were dead.

and yet she

grows.

wake up,

wake up, persephone.

3. water

persephone, i may have lost you.

 

there is something in my eye.

you feel the sun--invading.

look where your mother comes,

red rage as full as a poppy.

there is a split.

my head is pounding.

the noise is deafening.

persephone,

i am looking up and six seeds

stain your white teeth.

your eyes are like two stars up deep in the sky.

i am shuddering, shuddering, knowing, knowing

what will be devoured next by that red mouth--

water comes out.

water is everywhere.

slice of nothing

privacy

hypothesized self in a waste of thisness
grinding and chewing at the seam, the stem,
that dream, that vision of plates and platter
faces, faces like mirrors--

hold to the cutlery of your baseness,
a place for resting and gustatation--
hold down inedible truths: the whoring
salmon, the rack of lamb turned out
in skeletory shape and dripping spices,
oils, every form of wrong.

it was done wrong. it was done
so
wrong.

crappy short story

November

It hadn't been one of those friendships that meant much, if you see what I'm getting at.  It rarely went below the polite.  That is, it was fun to talk to her, Marian, because in that way that sometimes happens, we understood one another's...methodology of expression, to be as dry as possible about it; we used words in similar fashion.  We had similar tendencies toward pounding words down to their slimmest width, their largest girth--her mind was quick like quicksilver, supple as a silverfish, and her smile was...well, it was.

But I wasn't in love with her.  It would have been terribly inconvenient, especially considering that I had been having an affair with her girlfriend's sister's husband (though, in my own defense, she never would have broken up with the girlfriend--that is, in my own defense, I didn't know that the husband I was sleeping with was the husband of her girlfriend's sister [I just knew he was someone's husband--I'd told Marian about this entanglement in one of those moments of braggadocio to do with the fact that one is more self-destructive than the average person, and she'd given me a look within a genus that I'm used to recieving, half-impressed, half-surprised, half-, sort of, I-really-didn't-think-you-had-it-in-you {too many halves}].  It would have been horribly terribly inconvenient, considering that the whole thing had blown up in my face, as I really really ought to have expected (and, I suppose, in some corner of my soul more twisted than the rest, did expect--otherwise how can one really explain carrying on an affair with a married man [who could afford decent restaurants, but certainly didn't keep me in lingeree or something] who I didn't love?).  It would have been beyond inconvenient, considering that the only memory of the afternoon which had passed about a week ago, last Monday--a melee of truths coming to light, accusations, and tears, by the by, which would have done a soap opera proud--that was really sticking it to me, over and over, was that look on Marian's face when she'd realized that it was I who'd caused darling Nikki (the sister of Marian's girlfriend, and really, she is a darling, damn her [that is, between she and I, I am just so obviously the villainess of the piece]) such pangs over Reilus's (that's the husband, my ex-lover) infidelity--and that Marian had known about it, and hadn't stopped it, had even quasi-admired me for it.

She's a fair person, too; she knows why I did it.  Or something.  Maybe that's not it.  Maybe she felt guilty about not stopping me because she was too invested in the belief that her own judgment wasn't terrible about people--that I could (somehow) still be some sort of good guy if she took the responsibility for me being an infidelitous bitch.  No--I probably didn't make enough of an impact  to merit that sort of psychological maneuvering on her part.  But then why did she look so... Can I even say the word?  Ashamed of herself.

Why did she look so hurt.  That's what I'm going for.

Anyway, I'd made quite an anecdote out of what had happened during the blow-up--my friends had laughed riotously over what got said, who got slapped (I showed them the red, described in some detail the exhilaration of the feeling); they're used to me, they know that I can't not do these things, that I have a taste for wrong that doesn't allow me to stop on the edges of anything I get involved in (at least actions-wise; lately I've begun to wonder if I've ever felt anything at all [that is, I've grown a little uncomfortable with the fact that the answer to that question is "no fucking way"]).  We were off to karaoke and I'd already drunk about a half a bottle of wine, in my room, alone except for my reflection in the half-mirror...  My friends know to expect that too; I'd shared around the second half when they came to pick me up, and we'd spent maybe fifteen minutes laughing about the moment when Mimi (that was Marian's girlfriend, Nikki's sister) had told Reilus to get out and take his lapdog with him (I was the lapdog; my friends and I agreed that it was a pretty amazing insult considering the heat of the moment).  It was a two-block walk to the pub at which the karaoke was held; we spent the time singing snatches of Weil songs.  A pitcher of beer was ordered; we'd obtained a song book and I was laughingly attempting to boss Mitchy into handing it over when I spotted--well, Mimi first, and then Marian.

They were with a group of their friends, who all looked a little more judgmental than I approved of, as usual.  Say what you will about me, I'm always open to new experiences, whereas... But to judge them is being pretty judgmental of me.  Marian wasn't looking at me, but I think she'd seen me.  Mimi was saying something to the people on the opposite side of the table; heads swiveled; eyes met mine.  I drank my beer.

Niether of our parties left.  Something was happening inside me.  I have no idea why I chose Motley Crue's "Without You" to sing; I just know that when I was bringing my slip of paper to the mistress of the karaoke machine, Marian happened to be bringing several pieces of paper up at the same moment.  I don't think either of us planned it; I didn't.  It wasn't a snub; she just didn't make eye contact, which meant that she felt guilty still, for the thing she didn't do, for the thing I did.

Her party sang all in a row, and it might have been just me, but their choices seemed a little pointed.  Nikki wasn't with them; however, Mimi's rendering of "I Want You to Know," or whatever that Alanis Morrissette anthem to all abandoned women is titled, felt directed at me.  One of the other girls sang Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn"... it seemed like she was looking at me on the choruses.  Marian sang "These Boots are Made for Walkin'", which she'd sung the first time I'd met her at a karaoke place, but I doubt she did it because of that--I doubt she remembered that.

When I got up to sing, a significant portion of their party went outside for a cigarette.  I really don't know what came over me.  Really.  Really really really.  I have no idea.  It might have been the mix of bad merlot and quality bitter.  I'm generally not the type of person who can stand looking anyone in the eye for more than seven seconds.  "Without You" is probably the corniest ballad in the entire pseudo-thrash rock genre.  I don't know how I managed to...  I was looking at her when I sang it, is all.  Marian, that is.

Probably more like looking through her.  I left straight after that--insisted to Darryn that I was fine leaving alone.  I was, too--I met Mimi at the door, and she looked like she wanted to punch me, but she saw Marian through the window and satisfied herself with some barbed comments.  At home I cried a lot.  First it was because I'd never truly loved anyone, and then it was because I'd never loved Marian, and then it was because I did love Marian...and then it was because I didn't have any more wine.

nothing comes from nothing

the hard bloom

rain turns

these shingled roofs

to darknesses 

impenetrable as sables.

the taste of 

a memory,

its lapping seep and

sleek slide of color:

dirt brown,

pewter glimmer,

rust, blood red.

hid from the backbite moon,

the snap of sturdy close-knit branches,

the lethargic rustlings of their sodden leaves:

the stalk

of the beast

it breathes out

and in.

winter when no flower.

as usual, what?

because i don't know what i'm doing.

round objects

whole wildflower heads

and massy colors:

things to swallow,

things to keep down for tomorrow.

the aligned refrigerator door.

the waste of toothpaste hitting sink walls.

the hat;

the pellucid flesh

of the baked potato.

hold me down,

o mind, o heart,

twined in bosses like an egret:

rosy, like

shaky, stick-fingered dawn.

new blog 2

because blogger is a self-publication tool, and because i find it difficult to get other people to publish my crap, i'm using this virtual space as a vehicle for my poetry and aesthetic thoughts.  they suck, don't get me wrong.  but what the hell, right?

volume 1 was waterinthefields.blogspot.com--it seems to me like a pretty artificial re-definition to start a new blog in almost the exact same space as the old blog...but look!  the colors are different!  and possibly not as readable!  i think i still have a lot of writing about pomegranates to do, but maybe the forms of my poems will change in other ways.

it's hard cuz i feel like i should, in all fairness, submit to what appears to be something of a consensus that my stuff isn't good enough--maybe "good enough" is too limiting.  maybe it's just not publishable.  i don't really care--which is to say, i don't care much.  aside from the part of me that says that i should be listening to outside voices and shutting up (which isn't what the outside voices are telling me to do, at all--they're just not using my stuff in their publications, a particularly valid move on their parts because they're the editors and are responsible for the respective tones of their journals), i understand that it's not absolute.  i can't get published, but this doesn't mean that i'm necessarily writing badly.  it probably means something like that--but maybe the definition is vague enough to stretch around the edges to the point where...

as per usual, i'm looking for methods by which to believe in myself.

i do hold myself responsible to art.  maybe that's all that art can ask from me--because it's something like everything.  i rarely know what i'm doing.  but maybe that's part of what my poetry can bring to the table.  (what is this table, by the way?  it must be a big one, or maybe just have a very very tight schedule.)

or maybe my poetry has nothing to bring to the table.  maybe it's like the indigent uncle who contributes a block of butter to the thanksgiving dinner.  but i don't care enough to find out.  gosh darn it, i'm tired of being told what to do: i'm gonna read what i wanna read, i'm gonna take from it what i wanna take, i'm gonna consistently elide words ending in "-ing" to the separate word "to," and then i'm gonna write the poetry i feel like i have in me.  and if someone feels like stopping me, seriously, just go ahead.  i'm okay with being told what to do--or i think i am; it's worth a shot, anyway, if you feel strongly enough to interfere.  but until i'm told, i'm gonna keep on writing.

existential crisis .01

testing out colors and stuff.  i'd ask you to stand by, but i doubt very much that you exist.