Swan Lightly

2012-01-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

AT LAND

2012-01-09T21:09:00.000-08:00

2012-01-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

2011-06-02T03:24:00.001-07:00

2011-05-29T14:26:00.000-07:00

2011-05-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

2011-05-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

2011-05-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

2011-05-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

2011-05-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

2011-05-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

2011-04-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

2011-04-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

2011-04-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

2011-01-26T22:06:00.000-08:00

2011-01-26T22:04:00.000-08:00

2010-11-20T23:42:00.000-08:00

2010-11-19T20:21:00.000-08:00

2010-11-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

2010-11-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

2010-11-13T23:10:00.000-08:00

2010-11-12T17:05:00.000-08:00

2010-11-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

2010-11-08T23:32:00.000-08:00

2010-10-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

2010-10-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

2010-10-19T23:15:00.000-07:00

2010-10-16T23:50:00.000-07:00

2010-10-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

a sorrow that can't talk

2010-10-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

2010-09-02T22:16:00.001-07:00

To please you I brought fish from the sea

2010-08-29T00:34:00.000-07:00

2010-07-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

2010-07-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

2010-07-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

2010-07-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

2010-06-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

2010-06-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

2010-06-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

2010-06-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

2010-06-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

2010-06-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

when i was dead

2010-06-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

eighteen minutes

2010-05-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

2010-05-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

2010-05-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

Andy

2010-05-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

We go so far as to admit that the manner in which his life drifts gently off into legend appears to us organic
and right, just as it imposes no strain on our credulity to believe in the continued existence of a constellation
that has vanished below the horizon.

2010-05-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

2010-05-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

Silence

2010-04-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

A young man in Japan arranged his circumstances so that he was able to travel to a distant island to study Zen with a certain Master for a three year period. At the end of three years, feeling no sense of accomplishment, he presented himself to the Master and announced his departure. The Master said, "You've been here three years, why don't you stay three months more?" The student agreed, but at the end of the three months he sill felt that he had made no advance. When he told the Master again that he was leaving, the Master said, "Look now, you've been here three years and three months. Stay three weeks longer." The student did, but with no success. When he told the master that absolutely nothing had happened, the Master said, "You've been here three years, three months, and three weeks. Stay three more days, and if at the end of that time you have not attained enlightenment, commit suicide." Towards the end of the second day, the student was enlightened.

Daisies

2010-04-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

2010-04-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

mine eyes have seen

2010-04-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

pulled out of Ohio

2010-04-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

2010-03-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

2010-03-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

2010-03-20T23:10:00.000-07:00

2010-03-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

2010-03-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

2010-03-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

2010-03-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

2010-03-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

2010-03-10T23:45:00.000-08:00

VISION

The world was not yet discovered.
It traveled in a galaxy of dinosaur bones and other fossils.
Embedded and waiting. Waiting for decades
when the skirts were different.

When Mr. O watered his plants in a light blue shirt with a breast pocket,
His hair slicked back, he boarded a plane to Africa, where the lion still
walked in bursts of grass.

In his light blue rental car, Mr. O took photos, very close photos, of lions resting.

There was nothing to report back.

The world lay silent. The giant squid was silent.
The continents were silent. It was quiet as he boarded the plane for home.

It was quiet in the diamond mines, it was quiet in the coal mines,

And the Loch Ness monster sighed and waited for sonar.

The twenty-fourth of August was one of three days on which the earth opened up.

2010-03-10T21:10:00.000-08:00

2010-03-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

WHAT A BASTARD

2010-03-01T12:51:00.001-08:00

"Though fashions in art are unstable like all fashions, there is an underlying reality which will always inform the final judgment. We see that in women's clothes the final judgment, which separates good periods of dress from bad, is based on the nature of womanhood, her special beauty, and dignity, and power. So great art is always an expression of a fundamental character in things, the simple and powerful emotions which have always dominated and perplexed life."

He gets the plums and I the plumstones.

2010-02-24T15:03:00.000-08:00

2010-02-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

2010-02-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

THE REMAINS OF A PARADISE HALF-SEEN IN DREAMS HANGING DOWN OVER YOU LIKE THE HAIR ON SOMEONE WHO'E BEEN DROWNED

2010-02-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

SILENT SHOUTS THAT BROKE LIKE BLACK MASSES IN HIS THROAT

2010-02-11T12:23:00.000-08:00

IN THAT LIGHT WHICH WAS LIKE A DOVE IN THE HANDS OF A MADMAN

IT WAS GOOD TO HAVE FELT ONESELF DEEPLY THERE FOR AN UNMEASURABLE TIME, WITHOUT THINKING ANYTHING, ONLY BEING THAT WHICH WAS THERE

if you are disciplined and beautiful...

2010-02-10T00:03:00.000-08:00

what i think of all this doesn't really matter next to what has to be

2010-02-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

the conquest of a heaven that seemed to lose its charm once it had been gained

2010-02-08T20:49:00.000-08:00

2010-02-07T23:31:00.000-08:00

REASON IS ONLY GOOD

TO MUMMIFY REALITY IN MOMENTS OF CALM

OR TO ANALYZE ITS FUTURE STORMS

But why go live in an asylum before you're sent for?

2010-02-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

2010-01-31T23:41:00.000-08:00

“People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.”

2010-01-31T17:08:00.001-08:00

2010-01-19T20:42:00.001-08:00

And I saw all the deaf, blind, ugly, cross-eyed, limp-legged, bulge-headed, bald and crooked girls in the world, sitting on little white mountains and weeping tears like sleet. There was a great clock ticking and every time it ticked the tears all fell together with a noise like broken glass tickling in a plate. And the ground trembled like a sleeping dog in front of the parlor fire when the bell tolls for a funeral.

the voiceless glottal plosive

2010-01-16T13:51:00.000-08:00

2010-01-10T14:07:00.000-08:00

(a symphony)

2010-01-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

No sooner had the cock crowed than Timofey jumped out of his window onto the roof and frightened everyone who was passing down on the street at that time. Khariton the peasant stopped, picked up a stone and shied it at Timofey. Timofey disappeared somewhere. "What a dodger!" cried the human herd, and a certain Zubov took a run and rammed his head into a wall. "Oo-er!" exclaimed a peasant woman with a swollen cheek. But Komarov gave this woman a swift left-right and the woman ran off howling into a gateway. Fetelyushin walked past and laughed. Komarov went up to him and said: "As for you, you fat lump!" and struck Fetelyushin in the stomach. Fetelyushin supported himself against the wall and started to hiccup. Romashkin spat out of his window from above, trying to hit Fetelyushin. At this point, not far away, a big-nosed woman was beating her child with a trough. And a young, plump mother was rubbing her pretty little girl's face against a brick wall. A small dog, which had broken its hind leg, was sprawled on the pavement. A small boy was eating something revolting from a spittoon. There was a long queue for sugar at the grocery shop. Women were swearing loudly and shoving each other with their bags. Khariton the peasant, having just downed some methylated spirit, was standing in front of the women with his trousers undone and uttering bad language.

In this way a very nice summer's day started.

And the sun continued to shine as ever and splendiferous ladies continued to smell just as ravishingly as ever.

2010-01-08T08:16:00.000-08:00

2010-01-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

Miss Claire, Our Gahby is gone.

2010-01-06T21:28:00.000-08:00

The Letter

2010-01-05T18:08:00.000-08:00

Beloved, men in thick green coats came crunching
through the snow, the insignia on their shoulders
of uncertain origin, a country I could not be sure of,
a salute so terrifying I heard myself lying to avoid
arrest, and was arrested along with Jocko, whose tear
had snapped off, a tiny icicle he put in his mouth.
We were taken to the ice prison, a palace encrusted
with hoarfrost, its dome lit from within, Jocko admired
the wiring, he kicked the walls to test the strength
of his new boots. A television stood in a block of ice,
its blue image still moving like a liquid center.
You asked for my innermost thoughts. I wonder will I
ever see a grape again? When I think of the vineyard
where we met in October-- when you dropped a cluster
custom insisted you be kissed by a stranger-- how after
the harvest we plunged into a stream so icy our palms
turned pink. It seemed our future was sealed. Everyone
said so. It is quiet here. Not closing our ranks
weakens us hugely. The snowflakes fall in a featureless
bath. I am the stranger who kissed you. On sunny days
each tree is a glittering chandelier. The power of
mindless beauty! Jocko told a joke and has been dead
since May. A bullethole in his forehead the officers
call a third eye. For a month I milked a barnful of
cows. It is a lot like cleansing a chandelier. Wipe
and polish, wipe and polish, round and round you go.
I have lost my spectacles. Is the book I was reading
still open by the side of our bed? Treat it as a bookmark
saving my place in our story.

(here the letter breaks off)

2010-01-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

The posture of your blows is yet unknown,
But, for your words, they rob the Hybla bees
And leave them honeyless.

Not stingless too.

O yes, and soundless too,

2010-01-03T08:17:00.000-08:00

NOW, WHILST YOUR PURPLED HAND DO REEK AND SMOKE, FULFILL YOUR PLEASURE.

2010-01-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

and a Happy New Year.

2010-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

2009-12-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

RARELY MENTIONS BEAUTY

2009-12-30T01:41:00.000-08:00

WHAT SAY THE AUGURERS? THEY COULD NOT FIND THE HEART WITHIN THE BEAST.

I know where I will wear this dagger then; Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius

2009-12-29T00:43:00.000-08:00

17

2009-12-24T12:08:00.000-08:00

Wo, in welchen immer selig bewässerten Gärten, an welchen
Bäumen, aus welchen zärtlich entblätterten Blüten-Kelchen
reifen die fremdartigen Früchte der Tröstung? Diese
köstlichen, deren du eine vielleicht in der zertretenen Wiese

deiner Armut findest. Von einem zum anderen Male
wunderst du dich über die Größe der Frucht,
über ihr Heilsein, über die Sanftheit der Schale,
und daß sie der Leichtsinn des Vogels dir nicht vorwegnahm und nicht die Eifersucht

unten des Wurms. Giebt es denn Bäume, von Engeln beflogen,
und von verborgenen langsamen Gärtnern so seltsam gezogen,
daß sie uns tragen, ohne uns zu gehören?

Haben wir niemals vermocht, wir Schatten und Schemen,
durch unser voreilig reifes und wieder welkes Benehmen
jener gelassenen Sommer Gleichmut zu stören?

2009-12-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

THE TRAMPLED MEADOW OF YOUR LOSS

Reliable Rick and Moped Jeff had a baby and it grew to be about 37 and sold me a Stray Cats record.

2009-12-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

Dan and Debbie drove me across the bay to Niles, which Dan thought was called Niland like that submagic shitspace at the rump of the Salton Sea. We have both been there. But Niles is called Niles. It has an avenue of antiques and oh isn't that just adorable and a train. We parked and went into a record store, which Dan and Debbie exited after Dan found the toilet. I stayed and bought seven records and got one for free. The free one was Elvis' I Got Luck. When I found Dan and Debbie on the sidewalk, it started to rain. A middle-aged woman with black spiked hair walked by with a box of pizza. Debbie made a comment about the good smell of the pizza, and Dan suggested that we drive by the train again on our way to Mike Street's Christmas Party where there was food and champagne. We went there. It was still raining when Alice, the girlfriend of Mike Street, answered the door. She was drunk. So was Mike Street. Alice made some jokes about giving me Martinelli's instead of champagne and ran into the kitchen counter. Mike Street poured me a glass of champagne. He scolded me for eating the Ruffles and onion dip instead of the pile of clementines he had set on a plate in front of me. When I ate a grape he patted my head and said "good girl." Alice poured me another glass of champagne. Alice told me and Debbie how she met Mike Street at a bar and how she met Jen from Oakland at a weekend retreat near some hot springs where they talk about relationships and sex and clothing is optional. Jen listened soberly and looked like she would have not volunteered this information if it had been up to her. It got quiet, so I said, "Wow, I've never heard of a retreat like that. That's really cool." Then Mike Street put on an 'independent' 'mock-umentary' about 'multi-level marketing' that his daughter Eileen is doing the marketing for. When he turned the volume louder than the other guests who were in the kitchen, they all left. Dan, Debbie, Jen from Oakland, Alice, Mike Street and I watched the ninety minute movie. It was mediocre.

2009-12-22T20:17:00.001-08:00

Her only relief was in the companionship of animals. On the Nile she had found two chameleons which slept on her bed. She had been sorry to part with them, "they were such company." She was traveling now with two tortoises, called Mr. and Mrs. Hill, a cicada named Plato, and a baby owl, Athena, which she had rescued from some boys at the Parthenon. Athena became devoted to her and traveled everywhere in her pocket. At Prague, Athena ate Plato.

Couiquier, Ri-c-aur-doh

2009-12-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

2009-12-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

2009-12-09T23:00:00.000-08:00