turns out we were getting cancer from sleeping beside our computers all these years!
turns out we were getting cancer from living too long.
once you start living forever you certainly can't be expected to stop.

turns out were exactly what we thought we were
we knew all along
we turn to paste and spread

rise from the august dust, burning burning

where longing and yearning meet the prayer of repetition
as we do not have food to harvest, may we harvest stones
fill our pockets with the grief and joys of history
i will make a bulletin board about my idols and ancestors
on it i will pin "pussy riot" and "arwings khodek" and "maxine"
and the names of my friends

it is august, the skies are smoky,
we prayed for days up at twin lakes and then a fire started,
helicopter swooped down over the blue blue clear lake to scoop up water
to douse the forests.
in august in hugo we have red fuchsia sunsets, bloody moons,
low ceilings,
stinging eyes.

standing in paradocks
living in love
remembering the well
without drowning my fury
electrified by old traumas reenlivened
here we are, this is it.

what is it, to live in a sleepy place?
what is it, this desire for spectacle,
to chain myself to the doors of walmart,
the desire to buy a gun,
it is august and fires are burning,
hey, welcome to the world, have your experience!

[when was the last time you stood up for something you believe in?]

i want to read all the memoirs of men whose lovers died of aids
i want to cut my hair
i want to scream
i want to run to the ocean
i want to be everywhere at once
i want to eat blueberries all year round
i want to die
i want to live
i want to wear floor-length satin and velvet robes and tux jackets with fishnets
i want to live with all my friends
i want to know my ancestors and my grandfathers and my dead friends better
i want to cry
i want to let myself be loved, or believe it's possible
i want to parade with giant puppets
i want the wars to end, the cops to betray their uniforms, naked dance parties in the streets of saint louis, bodies brown red pink blue salmon
i want to crawl into a hole in the ground and be held by my mother
i want to lay bare the human heart
i want to lay bare the human heart

i got stuck with these earth hands
but i am all air
all chimes
all crinkly and floating out of the car

feel like i'm going batty
hung upside down in the dark
i open my eyes to try and see but all i hear are the sounds

i reach for the foods just to live
but if i was brave enough, i'd let myself wither
and live off this feeling alone

guidance
guidance
i am always listening for you
so why do i find that only despair comes to visit?

i am battling my body
my body is battled
my battle i embody

i cannot support this,, it angers me beyond any other measure
i cannot be at war with myself
there are much larger wars outside that deserve, nay, call on my attention
for too many years have we been kept away from power, turned against our own selves
fractured and in conflict
at war with our bodies
this self-hatred is not mine and i renounce it

it is so difficult to think what you do with your day is right
when there is no one around to agree with you

it is hard to find the strength to plant another seed, to visit another rock, to speak to the sky
when you do not know who that seed will feed
or why
words seem to ripple off unanswered

 so many voices to be this or that to be relatable to others
be quiet, be sexual, be fabulous, be a bitch, be gay, be straight
when all i really want to be is this welling in my chest
all i really want to be are these tears in my eyes
all i really want is a place to put this anger

women across the world are still punished for eating of the tree of wisdom
i would eat a thousand more!
they are silenced, they are eaten with words, gestures, deeds,
in the name of male gods
in the name of oh fathers and oh lords
oh woman, oh mother you are so rich in your struggle, you are so very strongly, powerfully unalone
man, how do you get led so obsessively to evil?
how did you stray so far from the love of your equals?

oh woman, oh girl, oh mother, oh womb
oh holy heart full of dread, compassion; love and revenge

the animals
the animals
the animals
of our planet are fleeing
i don't know that there are safe places left for them to run to

every shriek, cry, post on facebook rings like a state of alarm

the humans
the humans
the humans
we too it feels do not know what to do
awaiting instruction, quivering across the wide web, anxious in our beds
running to the city, running to the wild
awaiting a great rally
can we take back the earth? altogether this time?

it feels like i will spend my whole life seeking the innocence taken from my childhood
it feels like i will spend my life defending my childhood
freedom, come back to me
i need so to be unafraid in the face of pain

they say we already fell from grace
but i continue to fall and lift myself everyday

I took photographs of people holding hands
sitting in a pile resting after working
after drinking water
after walking under 1:17 PM sun.


we are not so complicated

but we do pretend to be
and now we're stuck in the sprawl
of trapdoors, mirrors and lawns
starting to run as to have enough time
to sort through what can be felt and everything else.

i sharpen my wit like the blade of a knife
the slightest shrapnel,
a shred of insight to slice open time
to open this space
where feelings are wide
and we approach each other
like ascending a staircase of tension
each step comes on like a heavy press upon the skin
i gasp at the wind of you alone

how far can a mind turn inward on itself

before something truly is lost

that special mysterious layer

that's wild.

the wilderness is not wild.

there is something among the things of this place that are

we are one of these things.

i ve been roaming now for twenty five years

to find.

to be an artist is not what it used to be,

but any day we are free to walk away from ourselves

to get out of our own way