shrewd

how much

do you take your own advice?

and speaking of looping around,

"In the most ancient regions of Tlön, the duplication of lost objects is not infrequent. Two persons look for a pencil; the first finds it and says nothing; the second finds a second pencil, no less real, but closer to his expectations. These secondary objects are called hronir and are, though awkward in form, somewhat longer.

"Until recently, the Hronir were the accidental products of distraction and forgetfulness. It seems unbelievable that their methodical production dates back scarcely a hundred years, but this is what the Eleventh Volume tells us. The first efforts were unsuccessful. However, the modus operandi merits description.

"The director of one of the state prisons told his inmates that there were certain tombs in an ancient river bed and promised freedom to whoever might make an important discovery. During the months preceding the excavation the inmates were shown photographs of what they were to find. This first effort proved that expectation and anxiety can be inhibitory; a week's work with pick and shovel did not mange to unearth anything in the way of a hron except a rusty wheel of a period posterior to the experiment.

"But this was kept in secret and the process was repeated later in four schools. In three of them failure was almost complete; in a fourth (whose director died accidentally during the first excavations) the students unearthed - or produced - a gold mask, an archaic sword, two or three clay urns and the moldy and mutilated torso of a king whose chest bore an inscription which it has not yet been possible to decipher.

"Thus was discovered the unreliability of witnesses who knew of the experimental nature of the search...Mass investigations produce contradictory objects; now individual and almost improvised jobs are preferred. The methodical fabrication of hronir (says the Eleventh Volume) has performed prodigious services for archaeologists. It has made possible the interrogation and even the modification of the past, which is now no less plastic and docile than the future.

"Curiously, the hronir of second and third degree - the hronir derived from another hron, those derived from the hron of a hron - exaggerate the aberrations of the initial one; those of fifth degree are almost uniform; those of ninth degree become confused with those of the second; in those of the eleventh there is a purity of line not found in the original. The process is cyclical: the hron of the twelfth degree begins to fall off in quality. Stranger and more pure than any hron is, at times, the ur: the object produced through suggestion, educed by hope. The great golden mask I have mentioned is an illustrious example."

- from Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Borges

how 2 make gud thtr - a knowledge aggregate

put LEDs in yr shoooos
aw who gives a fuck, tie LEDs in yr hair
spend yr $ on beer and give it yr audience 4 free
don't talk for hours
pretend that u make dance
tear up a picture of shakespeare
roll the pieces in2 tiny paper pills
and shove 'em up yr butt like a suppository
lie about everything
and always tell the truth
go to conferences of arts administrators
dressed up as the head of the NEA
beg 4 money
never hurt your audience
and if that means you'll never get to show them yr that one specific scar
then accept that
spend years learning to do one set of ten movements
turn it into a prayer
don't turn everything into a prayer tho
cuz that's fucking immoderate
KNOW THE LOCATION OF YR BELLYBUTTON
KNOW YR CONTEXT
get into youtube, but don't try to be it
know that grad skool can w8 and not w8 at all
go tell it 2 the mountain
put language firmly in your mouth
quote
comment
expound
exhort
turn away from everything in order to look back at it
lie down on the floor and lick it
hire fashion designers
2 be yr costume designers
and installation artists
2 make yr sets
FUCK EVERYONE
say
"I am the plumber, the architect, the lawn mower, and the sea. I am doing what we have always done. I am making it up. I read the rule book but I blacked the stupid bits out. If I say there is a shark in this bathtub, there is shark in this goddamn bathtub."
Throw shape after shape after shape
makes shapes
shatter any inconsequential or old-fashioned geometry
kill it out there
make this one a good one

occupy wall street is reawakening/springtime

String some lights between our eyes

Banners around our bodies

Forget the booze

We are the party

we are the universe thinking out loud
millions of exclamation points walking around

don't let them get you down, friend
it's your light that they came for, it's your light that they need

that easy brilliance
that silly sliding
the surprise and the rapture
the unpossessed laughter

the love of your self and of every fleeting feeling
don't mistake
they love your freedom
it's what they need
more importantly,  it's what you need

what a beautiful day
what a glorious mystery

don't let it get you down

spirit is now making house calls
we whisper in clammy corridors
i unstick my mind from itself
too many years of unlicensed sugarless gum
ok i will not worry. i will trust. what do you have for me?
let's talk.

and as my hair excites the air
they won't even look at my ass
but boy what they'd give to swim in my eyes
am i afraid?

naturally.

and astonished. amazed. in awe
awe
awe
aw my heart longs to hold you for small always

if i am to travel down the well,
i will come up for air.

the rain comes down
it spits itself clean
we are the mother licking open her creation

and as we wake, we are awakening, what will we remember from our winter dreams?
what did we learn from our insides? what spoke to us our spleen our ear?
they will love us always; will we remember them?

may we savor the answers that bubbled up from our sleep.
the sights and sounds that we found underneath.

may we visit the pond often, and love upon the glittering lily pad

may our hearts blush and swell
warm cheeks
soft, wet eyes

may we love like a rich hot joke

mm
don't worry friend, we will be free

mysteries

cresting, creasing into...

like that last moment between waking & sleep

when we remember how to trust...

ghosts scrambling into

recitations: will you still love me when i

disappoint you? will you? will you?

there's somethin shocking about

the newborn (goats!)

that knock-kneed unknowing

fur that is butter-soft, almost-summer-soft

bleating for milk

we older ones:

curds clinging to the 

corners of mouths

(some kind of sour, years turning, 

heat and cycles and thickening)

watchin the little ones battle their mother for her body as she parades away their jaws and sounds lolling i thought their mouths were full of blood except really it's the color, raw freshest red,
tongues that are only three days enchanted by this world. 

cry & beg for hot life running down yr throat while

the stillborn feeds the mud.

in ink and flood

hi tinder, welcome to the blog...!

and also hi to jake malone

who decided to cross through the veil

so i figure he's not too far away now. maybe closer than before.

and remember your words and your life are fucking powerful and important and so so much needed in this world--and please

don't stop now

Cathected Catharsis: A Fantasy

is love that
i don't know who has made who better
me or you?
or is it safety
and laying our throats open to each other's knives

tell me i've been bad
kneel behind me and tug my arm in a direction it's not meant to go
put your other hand on my windpipe
and while i choke
i'll tell you that you're desperate and pathetic and disgusting
and if you say
"you're one to talk"
i'll cry and your hand will move from my neck to cover my eyes
and if i grab for you
and you don't let me go
i'll keep crying
for mommy and daddy and my broken roommate and dead classmates and Trayvon Williams and my hung ambitions and girls boiling in their own rage and the little indecent things you have to hear everyone say and cluttered aesthetics and careless art
and you will get to take credit for cracking open my frozen heart
and you will get to sink your teeth into my shoulders so you don't have to bite anyone else
so no one will call you pyscho anymore
we'll all feel better
we'll tell each other we've been so good
we'll forget the language of crushing and spitting
forget "stupid, self-indulgent, ridiculous, childish, infuriating"
you were so good
you did so well
you did so well for me
the salt off our fingers still in each other's mouths
our stinky toes entwined

it's real it's real if it's real to you

[it is not a mess]

or, it's not a mess

it is tufts of hair and

my dandruff under your fingernails

balls of inch-long threads saved for the tiniest project

dead skin that used to be bread you made me

floss used by our best friends--

isn't it good that we have friends.

even when it's

smeared whiteface waterfall stories

we pass around pain

with promises that we will not offer only trauma as sacrifice to love

(why did we all pull the devil card?)

[and then lift up your head]

spring's coming! equinox on monday--whatcha up to! whatcha planning! spring cleaning? jumping around? planting seeds? tending toward? leaving behind? taking up again? renewing a connection with? calling out? with?

i have had so much paralysis around time and scheduling and being organized recently. it has made it tough to reach out to my buddies brothers faraway family. that's real. and between global warming and travelling east south west north winter has been a skewed kind of simmering quiet; not as much soup as expected; but i am oh yes oh yes ready for the energy these longer days are bringing in. shit's blooming up here in the northwest. doors and flowers and hearts opening and closing like doors and flowers and hearts. my body's been bubbling with tension anger energy enthusiasm desire--today i accidentally threw it all energetically at someone in a coffeeshop and watched him skitter--it's real it's real. i think i'm running trailing rhizomes--

[oh fuck yes]

tender forever, i liked dancing with you

[and the wreck du jour]

oatmeal + miso + olive oil + hot root or a ferment of your choice

through a birdless sky

moon vacant, stars removed

the tortured horizon howls by

as towers full of heavy people

lean as if to sway.

upon my bike i pedal across new york's bridges,

the sea of people never parts

could any of us have imagined what this would all look like?

tears of the adirondacks

is it me or does this river still try to sing?

it's a lot to hear. so humiliated, so beautiful

a summons to court, an appearance in the cold marbled minds of men

keeps me here

in this earthless prison

my logical self looks to everything to remain

meanwhile my heart is poisoning my body with love

to remind me of how i am.

chill of this spring night

gathers on my exposed shoulders

impossible to escape; the city advertises our fate.

at the cresting of the song, i understand that i want to fly apart
fling my heart and lungs to corners far from each other
asunder/akimbo from myself
my organs losing their context and my brain melting into the pavement
what a hope!

to realize one isn't twenty any more
and certain things are not so charming
(spliffed-up tumbles down the stairs, tantrums over taxes)
that is one thing
but to know that one wants to live charmed forever anyway
well
what do you say to that, doctor?
doesn't that leave us at odds with our own bodies, aren't we going to find everything frightfully inadequate, right down to our bones, and aren't we going to tear and tear and tear at our hair until it all falls out and won't we dance until our kneecaps come loose and won't we always be aching?

still, yes, i think i'd rather be in pieces
find me in the gutter
in the old box spring
in the hedge row
a hilarious, polka-dotted fragment
one must be so serious to be a whole thing
and i would rather
laugh and laugh and laugh

"it is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important"

aw oh

well i am i feel at a crossroads, and it could be a very boring crossoad
or it could be so much?
right now
today
tonight
the family,
that had been a-brewing winter plans
well
what happened?
they didnt materialize
fact
&this is ok! this is ok!

but i think i should let go!
when all our wills are truly aligned
they will align
and we will all feel good bringing our whole selves
but i dont want to compromise
and i dont think we should

i am young
i am fucking young
and i am fucking alive
and i fucking love you

tips for a daily practice

let it form in your mouth--

tongue massaging pressing the back of your front two teeth,

tip of it piqued at the intersection of tooth and gum,

sliding down down down your teeth to the cliff of your open mouth

nose mouth humming nasal nascent "n"

rounding, opening, tongue flapping into the slow smooth "o"

you will need this practice.

it is good to practice this by yourself, perhaps on your way to a first date with a cute kid from okcupid or perhaps as you pick up the phone to call a parent. perhaps as you're riding your bike, hood flapping, on your way to a job or volunteer interview, somewhere where things will be asked of you. certainly on your way to the play party you're nervous and excited about, it would be good to practice. for sure as you are entering a dumpster or banquet or grocery store or place where you will be offered many things. perhaps as you sit and wait for your housemates to assemble for the meeting. definitely as you prepare to sort through old beloved objects or to clean the corners of your room, it would be good to practice this. perhaps also practice before or during any experience of momentum.

press tongue - to teeth - sliding down - nostrils flared - dropping open - rounding hum - smooth finish. repeat. repeat.

you would do well to remember that

this practice will come most in handy in the closest, most intimate situations

(walk-in closets, for instance;

being forced to stand or sit side-by-side, as an example;

sustaining shared ambiguity, most likely;

converging with any of the many or few you love, undoubtedly)

where you can remember that your tongue, your teeth, your vocal cords know already

you know how to do this, you have done it before,

even as your fingers work to tease apart sticky storied strings...

your honesty and the voicing of your hesitation will gain the rounded weight of importance.

in closeness, you will learn to say no,

to hear no.

to practice and trust that others' tongues are practicing too.

that there is space made for the presstongue-toteeth-slidingdown-nostrilsflared-droppingopen-roundinghum- smoothfinish to be heard loud and clear.

this practice

added to your daily ritual--whether brushing teeth or talking to spirit--

this practice fits well with other practices

of re-opening doors, or continuing to listen.

perhaps you could practice opening and closing a door alongside this practice.

it is just an idea.

i say this to remind you that (almost) nothing is irreversible.

another idea is to practice with a friend.

i suggest this to remind you that you can say no and yet not be alone.

another idea is to practice while doing kegels,

(i.e. temporarily stopping your flow of urine.)

i make this recommendation to remind you that the interruption of momentum might ultimately increase your pleasure.

there's a pun to be had here about knowing

and no-ing

and how we are shooting through space and time and opening opening opening ourselves stomping flying screaming and also taking care, stepping lightly, allowing slowness, calming...breathing...standing at the center of a circle we have drawn around ourselves. breaking down walls and stepping back. unleashing dams and drawing boundaries. giving ourselves wholly and reclaiming parts of ourselves a capitalist economy and overmediated world have tried to own. smashing structures that do not serve as we build homes among the chambers and organs and muscles held in by our skins.

you and i are both full of contradictions, and the space between us is brimming;

and the rubbing-together makes sparks;

i would like to point out that as there exist ORDER and CHAOS

and DARK and LIGHT

and GIVE and RECEIVE

and POSITIVE and NEGATIVE

(don't take this two-game too far, we've learned;

the fetishistic production of opposites is deceptively easy)

but if you've borne with me this far, there is also YES and NO

and as a libra, i would like to point that out,

to ask, "how are these things balanced in your days?"

[[we are not sheep we are not wolves in sheeps' clothing

we are not boys in wolves' furs

we are also boys and sheep and wolves all at once--]]

let it form in your mouth

(do you want it in your mouth? do you want me to put it in your mouth?)

press tongue - to teeth - sliding down - nostrils flared - dropping open - rounding hum - smooth finish

(what does it taste like afterwards, what do you taste)

keep practicing

(you deserve it...it's raining again)

America the liminal between life and death; police state.

I live now with this beautiful little lion of a cat named acu, he has taken me in. Quite the precious thing with the most fluffy downy undercarriage I have ever touched! He is definitely one of my more serious friends here.
I also live with Erik and that is going strangely and well unwell mostly. He is a very hurt person, as well as beautiful, kind, and mysterious. We are both standing on the precipice of each other, just sitting there feeling the pull to go down but some things hold us back. He is still in love with his old boyfriend and says I threaten his memory, Erik doesn't want to forget him. He says when he touches me he feels deep pain. 
I am not myself in all of this, a very good thing maybe. I mean I am here but am in a sort of state of grace. The possibility of love perhaps does that. New York perhaps does that. I am not trapped in my old stories, I feel the boundaries of my self have shifted, are shifting rapidly. 
I am broke as can be, never poorer. Yet I am unworried. I was arrested yesterday for hopping the subway. I spent all day trying to avoid the rain and finally decided to go out to this dumpster i know of. I was going to bike but did not want to be wet and cold having only pair of pants. So i decided i would dip into a little luxury and take the subway. On my way down the stairs i decided 5$ there and back was too much to pay. So i hopped.
I was held for some hours in a holding cell in Brooklyn. I sat there as one must. my hands slung through the bars. I thought what does this say about my life right now, where am I in this? Does this reveal something or is it just an arbitrary scene. I still don't know. Being arrested having my body held, my wallet emptied, phone and iPod gone through, photographed, fingerprinted all have contributed to this state of grace. Where I am in this? I lean towards saying nowhere. This has almost nothing to do with me. Moralizing assholes with no background in sociological analysis would pipe up here and say it is my fault.
I listened to the stories of three black men who were in the cell with me. They mentioned Martin luther king and slavery. Yes they are still talking about it, ever present on their souls and minds. I really cannot imagine. To even imagine what they feel is a small education in itself. The world is as bad as we say and believe (and as beautiful). We talked about when the american people are finally going to challenge the state. The cops: I got to witness their bodies in detail, their mannerisms, relationships with one another, thumping fists on chests guffawing, circle jerks; their brutal arrogance and ignorance. I cannot think of more disgusting creatures than the police, they truly are fucking pigs. If you stand too long in their presence they will eat you alive.
I had no idea when i would be getting out and i had no idea what they were digging up on me by looking through my phone and ipod, some who know me right now can perhaps imagine. I was in a cell where the only thing that moved was the locked door. It moved a millimeter back and forth inside the latch. In even a small world of a few hours this tiniest of movements became a source of hope. It was the only thing that moved in the whole cell besides our bodies. To push the door back and forth was to feel the possibility of leaving. It made the tiniest noise, the tiniest friction, but if I were serious enough it could make a lot of noise and I wondered if I could break out if I tried hard. Being contained is maddening beyond anything. So maddening that I had to become silent and extremely calm. 
What happened to me is dramatic but comparatively not so. A brush with the beast. Still I feel the presence of the forces around us. A million invisible strings we are constantly moving through, tripping up on, dragging, setting off. The forces are very real and I have been given another warning, be careful! "we will take you". We are not free, ha, and definitely not in the cities. Ask and you shall receive? Is this what we ask for? We are not free.
I have a court date for hopping the subway. Give us all a break. I am working on getting a job ASAP just in case I have to pay a fine. For now I will walk with my head down and not look at the police. Silence, my mother inadvertently taught me, is still strength. I will walk acting like a subdued person. I do not want to deal with them ever again. I'll do anything to avoid them touching me. When they touch me I feel the injustice of their very existence. When they touch us I feel stunned, how can this be?
We are not free. My mother who was carted off to jail repitedly. They took her and made her disappear. The child screamed at and beaten for not moving within the confines of the box called boy is still me. I was arrested when i was twelve for fooling around with neighborhood boys. I was scapegoated because everyone knew I was a fag. They took my body away from the prison that was home to another prison: juvenile jail. They would scream so loud at us that my ear would bleed at night. I am very deaf in one ear now. We are not free unless freedom lies within the confines of the game we play. We have small freedoms we can create and hideaway with, but they cannot all be displayed. How much more of our lives do we spend courting the ruling class? How long do we eat the crumbs they give and continue calling it a feast?

I am fucking pissed
I tremble with unshed tears
threatening to drown me

To be queer is truly a gift
as well as a black eye and a bloody lip.
it is everything

this country is a terrible joke,
I can't stand now
I gotta sit.