Can the body survive this?
This pain, this insurmountable pain
Filling up my corners like
Peanut butter stuck to the roof of the mouth.
Can the body survive this?
This ache and drear, curling up my fingertips
And digging deep into the folds
Of my heart.
Can the body survive this?
This wail, this agon cry?
Tearing us asunder with great,
Shredding wings.
Can the body survive this?
This breaking, croaking, stroking
Pulling me downtown into cracks
Of earth and deeper. To your level. Never.
The body can survive this.
The mind can survive this.
The heart will survive this.
But they cannot forget.
-April 29, 2009
"Not that it was beautiful, but that, in the end, there was a certain sense of order there; something worth learning in that narrow diary of my mind, in the commonplaces of the asylum where the cracked mirror or my own selfish death outstared me . . . I tapped my own head; it was glass, an inverted bowl. It's a small thing to rage inside your own bowl. At first it was private. Then it was more than myself." -Anne Sexton
Friday, July 2, 2010
Ode to the Arms - A Gesture in Tribute to Gesture
The following was inspired by Dr. Paul Bouissac's lecture, "Gestures for the Senses: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Multimodality of Gesture" as presented at The Ohio State University.
These
Dangling
Things
Tell me where you are
W.h.a.t. you are
W.h.y. you are
These
Dang--gLING!!
Thinnnnggggggggggggsssssssszzzzzzzz
Cool my blood
Sense my geography
Conserve my human
P@rkin$0n$ stole my "arms"
Dangling things
Stole my dopamine
Stole my gesture
These
Dang-guh-ling
Thangs
Leave traces behind
Heat behind
Yourself behind.
- Feb. 25, 2010
These
Dangling
Things
Tell me where you are
W.h.a.t. you are
W.h.y. you are
These
Dang--gLING!!
Thinnnnggggggggggggsssssssszzzzzzzz
Cool my blood
Sense my geography
Conserve my human
P@rkin$0n$ stole my "arms"
Dangling things
Stole my dopamine
Stole my gesture
These
Dang-guh-ling
Thangs
Leave traces behind
Heat behind
Yourself behind.
- Feb. 25, 2010
Good/Bad/Me - a performance text
She wavered.
She wavered between them the way a metronome might,
Set on its steady,
insistent
path.
Good?
Bad?
Good?
Bad?
...
Who was she?
Bad?
Good?
Bad?
...
She caught a glimpse of it.
There.
In the store window.
She hated it.
The way it stood there,
Staring back at her like it might actually BE her.
The nerve
Good?
Bad?
...
Sometimes she thought if it ever really looked her in the eye,
She might just smash it.
Break it.
Crush its windpipe between her fingers like breadcrusts,
Balled into dough.
Bad?
Bad.
Bad bad bad. Badbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
Good?
...
Wavered.
Wavered between them.
The girl in her window and the girl in her chest.
One, the other, both, neither, either, none.
Oneotherbothneitheriethernone.
Good, bad, good, bad, good ugly, bad pretty, bad ugly, good lovely,
Hatelovehatehatelovehatelovehatelove.
Who was she?
-May 2010
She wavered between them the way a metronome might,
Set on its steady,
insistent
path.
Good?
Bad?
Good?
Bad?
...
Who was she?
Bad?
Good?
Bad?
...
She caught a glimpse of it.
There.
In the store window.
She hated it.
The way it stood there,
Staring back at her like it might actually BE her.
The nerve
Good?
Bad?
...
Sometimes she thought if it ever really looked her in the eye,
She might just smash it.
Break it.
Crush its windpipe between her fingers like breadcrusts,
Balled into dough.
Bad?
Bad.
Bad bad bad. Badbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
Good?
...
Wavered.
Wavered between them.
The girl in her window and the girl in her chest.
One, the other, both, neither, either, none.
Oneotherbothneitheriethernone.
Good, bad, good, bad, good ugly, bad pretty, bad ugly, good lovely,
Hatelovehatehatelovehatelovehatelove.
Who was she?
-May 2010
Tether Children
Come now with me, my incendiary tether children
Come hide your mean breezes in my weathered crooks and elbows
We are not who we were
And the prime meridian runs swift over the deep
Come now with me, my conduits
From shore to shore you call like forgiveness at funerals and gas station pumps
You are not in the way
You are not out of the way
You are the way in the Way
Come now with me, my devourers
Singer-song-like you perch in arms of steel
Not caring for the cold and the dark
But not caring about it, either
Come now with me, my diligent breathers
Like hospital floors and frames without mats
Hold me like you mean it
Three seconds and I'm gone
Gone
Gone
Come now with me, my incendiary tether children
And I will teach you fire and string and love
And you will never be the same.
-July 2010
Come hide your mean breezes in my weathered crooks and elbows
We are not who we were
And the prime meridian runs swift over the deep
Come now with me, my conduits
From shore to shore you call like forgiveness at funerals and gas station pumps
You are not in the way
You are not out of the way
You are the way in the Way
Come now with me, my devourers
Singer-song-like you perch in arms of steel
Not caring for the cold and the dark
But not caring about it, either
Come now with me, my diligent breathers
Like hospital floors and frames without mats
Hold me like you mean it
Three seconds and I'm gone
Gone
Gone
Come now with me, my incendiary tether children
And I will teach you fire and string and love
And you will never be the same.
-July 2010
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