21 September, 2016

throwing porcelain plates at parked cars

bits of me needed a tangible thing to put into my bag, hold between thumb and longer fingers, and ears to be dogged.
my skin wanted to have pages that could collect the smells of places i have been for long enough, and stain with my oil and fluid.
some certain nerves wanted to those same paged to be burnable, tearable, chewable, and to occasionally collect my tears. i hope that some day they all would burn with a building, or that i would light them myself. occasionally i have.
i needed the pages of everything i wrote to have properties beyond what was written in them.
my ego may have wanted them to be found in the future, for a posthumous romp.
or defenestrated whimsically.

i think all of me was motivated to write, read, and collect thoughts in a way that made loads of cultural sense, and fit well with an identity that i liked, but no longer makes sense for my real lived experience. i've gone through various iterations of what i want my creative life to feel and look like. these are deeply integrated pieces of the overall questions of living for me. i am happy to admit that aesthetic and tactile elements are as important to me as any functional ones.
replacing journals, pencils/quills, matchbooks, and notepads with keyboards and touch-screens has been a slow and thoughtful process.

  • precontemplation: i love everything about paper cuts, and the ways coffee stains mashed paper. i take pride in the piles of disorganized notes that make up my written "outline". ink stains are integral inspiration. 
  • contemplation: i enjoy reading the blogs my friends have put together, and i can appreciate how we are able to share and discuss their written work. i love that otehr folks are able to read their creative outlets, and share thoguhts on the content. i might one day have a blog...but what would i call it. 
  • determination: found a name for this thing by wondering what might be the heaviest thign someone has ever tried to balance on their head? maybe a pieno? = pianohat!
  • action: start dumping all new poetry into this digital thingy. sometimes writing poems and song lyrics on paper and posting a photo of them. share pieces with a few friends who write things i like. 
  • maintenance: delete posts like mad, and hate on the lack of smell/sound/taste/touch in the digital space. stop reading other blogs and return to the pages, the magazines, the beer coasters. bobble back and forth. take more pictures of written thigns to post occasionally.  
  • termination: pack the bag with books, notebooks, pens, pencils, and a laptop, and head off to the cafe. 
the smell of tactile material records is one of my favorite, and the adaptability and convenience of typing, checking, editing, locating/relocating, and sharing my creative work has made a space for the digital device in my life. most of all, i enjoy having less stuff to haul around as i travel the world. a meaningful appreciation for pens and papers certainly endured, and i will likely always carry both wherever along for the battery outages and diagram illustrations. i have to remind myself, these are not the verbs that happened in the past and are finished. they happened and are ongoing. 
   

15 September, 2016

what seasons know about telling stories of shared motion

leaves race cars around corners, like "pow" and "zam" bars trace comic book characters to share their majesty. divinity. celebrity.
life has action marks in fall.
leaves chase our human feet, bicycle tires, curbs, and each other.
tree detritus adds sound and motion to so many things we could have appreciated differently, all summer.
leaves become smaller as they spin, breaking into dust bits and bench slats. fragments fill in holes that will fill in further. spiders shelter for seasons in the stuck foliage.
there is very little outside of this photograph, because leaves fill outside and inside everything.

form the size that feels good on bare feet to the one that lets rivers show their speed, broken bits make room for translation. energy painted by absentee brushes, like lighting everything that ever made me look up.           

like new parts turning yellow, and then green throughout,
it is felt when parts shift to yellow, then orange/red/tawney, then variations of brown.
plants version of dark. absence of life. of growing.
time for a long cool rest.
autumn is the season to allow our shoulders to show. our armature.
to be identified nakedly.
to allow those with the skills carry the weight of oxygen.
to hold the soil still against a shifting skin.
to feed the fowl, and clothe every last insect for the rain.

like a look under water, we see the heron's rook for the fortress it is.
holes are dug, and rots are fed through ancient mushrooms' mastery.
all of this motion of perennial impermanence reminds the city kid of a country drive.
recalls the books of a childhood in basement boxes, beside records that will dust off for coffee.
patterns allow for ache and joy as inhale and exhale.
what we forget is important, as the door is slowly closing.

13 September, 2016

gnikrapon

Now
Often
People 
Are 
Reverted to
Kicking 
In
Numbered
Greatness