The Day After

To not step on the toes of others. To not be enough.

And in not being enough, to know. But who is to say what is not enough? Or to know?

To give thanks. For you, and for others (even in not knowing what it is to be thankful in them).

Spending hours preparing poems. My voice, a slight whisper. Slit in the face. Somewhere a woman speaks, or speaks through objects; touches the keys of an instrument, touches the handle of a weight. Layers and mass of meaning. Haunted by specters of words and their uses.

::

Reading a gathering of matter a matter of gathering by Dawn Lundy Martin.
Wondering at the genre of fantasy and hoping for enchantment. (this has nothing whatsoever to do with the aforementioned book of poetry).

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares to other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours directly and clearly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep that channel open.

No artist is pleased...there is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others" -Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

Not my desk

To M. and her desk:

Colors can be luminous, I thought earlier, walking down Broadway in the orange glow. Unfocused, not of streetlights, but the impermeable halo that rises from the city. Like M.'s desk, which neither of us can seem to stop meditating on since I was over there last week and we decided to do some writing exercises; for one of them I wrote about her desk. She painted it white I don't know how long ago and now it flaunts wax and water marks as well as cracks where the wood peeks through. The opposite of black. The opposite of so many things.

Later on a slight wind creased the iridescent water (46)
It is compelling the words you are drawn to and the ones that I choose to engage...

At 7 a.m. a blond woman in a red suit spilled Starbucks on the sidewalk on Broadway.

A Blue Chair

I have been thinking that I want to crawl into your head. Let me know when this is possible. Perhaps Sunday? Or the day after next week?

I am currently ensnared in disembodied descriptions. I cannot seem to paint any pictures, real or otherwise. Here, I will try; judge for yourself which are real and which are not (assuming that it matters, or that it doesn't; oh, I seem not only to be stranded but indecisive as well!)

A blue chair, plastic. Transparent, with palm of hand visible through the back. Gash on palm, like a story, only an accident (but stories can be accidents, too, I suppose). The sterling silver ring, no diamonds, taps a rhythm out loud for no one to hear.

The two yellow lines never really end, but I'm sure they must cross somewhere. Deceived by the air, the trees are green until they are not; the trees are full until they are bare, and no colors to delight the eyes. Watch, and you will see. This will not be apparent, though, if you are colorblind.

The price of abstractions -

Ambivalence and Reality

It is finally November, and so I wonder:

Is that which reveals itself in shadow actually that which is totally real?

Or does the light illuminate that which was really there all along?

These are questions that are best contemplated in the dark. Turn off the light. There is a place where space exists divorced from time: sunrise and sunset. If light were not so bright, would the truth reveal itself?

I am supposed to be thinking about sound, but I cannot free myself from this incessant iridescence. I wish I had a candle, or two, but I don't. Only white light. White electric light.