The Under World - by Melissa Kwasny

1
I had an idea midwinter. It was ruby, glistening. It was garnet,
menstrual. I would have it on my table, centered, a red rocking
thing to measure time. Which doesn't move, they say, which is
an illusion. Unemployed: traveling to the woodpile and coming
back with sticks. I know the shrunken world is an experiment.
Bird shell caught in the teeth. So far I have waited mole-eyed, the
body puffy. What huge desperation devises these tests? I open
my eyes when I haev been asked to keep them closed. I peek and
then the fascists come down on me. I have tried to be a good
therapeutic model, to choose to be happy, that jingling of coins.
But there is no room for heart in the cold earth place.

2
The world circles around me with its pack of lies. Shall I give it one last
chance? And another? ...
One lives the life one was meant to, or one doesn't...

7
Up in the air. A peculiar phrase. What does it mean that nothing's
landed? ...

9
When I broke with the earth, in grief, the animals still gathered. The iris
skimmed the pond, turning it to azure. I felt the coolness on my arms.
Re-pressed. Implying the property of buoyancy. Re-petition. Implying
the king or queen might still say yes. Though the soil still clings to me.
Though I drag my bootleg pain. Though I still believe in perpetrator and
victim. Deep need, I am bending into you. Pulverized by being. Nothing
else will wake me. Bite deep my driving hand. If I am progeny of thorns,
I am also mother of a sea of roses. If I am sea, I am anaphora. Casting a
calm above the undertow. Speak to me, work, or I will be forever lonely.
Help me to remember who I am.

-From Reading Novalis in Montana
* * * * *

What huge desperation, indeed. It is not midwinter yet. I don't think I have had an idea in a long while. Even whilst I think about choosing to do this something, I am doing something else.

How does one know if one is living the life one was meant to?

If I have not landed, I don't want to. Or maybe I do. I am indeterminate, flapping invisible wings.

I am utterly defeated by being, she says. What can remember who I am?

* * * * *

"For I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar at Cumae, and when the acolytes said, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she replied, 'I want to die.'"
-Petronius, Satyricon ch. 48


~~~~~
And moving on, with no connection to the above: Go Hear/Here Tomorrow

A Canadian Invasion!

Nick Thran (Insomniac Press)

J. Mae Barizo (Fields Press)

Moez Surani (Wolsak & Wynn)

8PM, Oct. 26

Unnameable Books

Neighborhood: Prospect Heights
600 Vanderbilt Ave
(between Dean St & St Marks Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11238

(718) 789-1534

Mind and the Moon

All things were together. Then mind came and arranged them. - Anaxagoras

I came across this quote by Anaxagoras, a Greek philosopher from the 5th Century BCE. He put forth theories on cosmology and celestial bodies, theories which ultimately of course set him in opposition to the established religious dogma.

His search for knowledge led him to conceive of Nous (mind) as an ordering form in the Universe, causing motion and the separation of object from object, like from unlike, creating the cosmos and distinguishing living bodies. Chaos refined into reality.

Anaxagoras distrusted the senses. Humans, animals, and vegetation sprang from moist clay created by mist and ether. This theory of creation, though, still relies heavily on mythical assumptions.

Though separated, all remain connected on some level. So your hand passes into mine, lightly brushing the skin. So your words, questions, sighs.

Near the north pole of the Moon, Anaxagoras is a lunar impact crater. It possesses a ray system, debris ejected during impact still extending visibly away for up to 900 km.

The Mind moves the Moon, my face in the window.

Gypsy Woman

I am between lands, exhausted from trying to keep my head above water.
The flashing lights allure me, her voice beckons me back. Languages haunting me from across the water.

This is what she said to me:
You know I had someone ask if I was a gypsy. I said maybe.
He said he could tell by my eyes.
I said those ones are tired, wait when I wake up. Then look.
And then he gave me chocolat. I love my life. haha.

I could see her lovely laugh and the rolling out of chocolat in French, lacking an e.
Lacking. There is a line from a Jorie Graham poem, "what concerns us is luck" that I always, every time, read as lack. What concerns us is lack. What concerns me, it seems.

S. speaks in French, Arabic, and emoticons. Little smiley faces to punctuate the time.
Gypsy woman is what she used to call me.

Burning Man Photos!

Please see all the photos here:
Visual Poetical Distractions, Burning Man 2009
I promise, they're great!

~~~~~

Hysteria

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved
in her laughter and being part of it until her teeth
were only accidental stars with a talent for squadrill.
I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each
momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns
of her throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles.
An elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly
spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty
green iron table, saying "If the lady and gentleman
wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and
gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden..."
I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be
stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might
be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful
subtlety to this end.
-T.S. Eliot

Burning Man 2009

This is what the Playa gifted me this year:
-A rainbow bead necklace
-A game to go with the necklace ;-)
-A rainbow earring
-Many nice compliments
-An amazing massage
-A fun little contraption (!)
-A beautiful magnet
-Two Playa moments (random encounters with random interesting people)
-Incredible and engaging conversation
-Wonderful connections with people
-Burning Man and Beaverton combined silver necklace (really, really special)
-Awe at the power of the desert and dust storms
-Momentary peace
-Thankfulness for knowing these amazing people

The Playa didn't resolve all of my questions, and perhaps this is good. I will continue to wonder if there is this one thing I need to let go of from back in Oxford, and do I need to be ok with letting it go, or can it just be gone?

Yesterday when I arrived back in NYC, A. commented that I had the Burning Man aura dripping off of me...this elated sensation that everyone is caring, nice, accepting towards me and others. Which is not always true in the default world. Decompressing back to reality here...

I will put up photos shortly, time permitting.

http://burningman.com

Photography thoughts

Apparently, it is a great idea to post photos on Flickr.

I have a photo included in a new online Paris Guide!

Also, in the past few weeks have posted many, many more photos on my page. These are from the final events with the Hertford College, Oxford MCR (Formal Hall and Boat Ride), London Pride, as well as an album from my trip Nowhere, the European Burning Man Regional in the Spanish Desert. Click on the link to the right, or just click here.

"My photographs don't go below the surface. They don't go below anything. They're readings of the surface." - Richard Avedon