I’m seeking shamans and
I seek technique
I seek farewells and island life
I seek the brilliant obscurity
I would laugh out loud
and be happy to be so obscure
and never to share not to share
and not to say a word
a flaring silence
flowering
and firing
silence
I write to dissolve, to learn how to dissolve.
None of this material was ever here.
None of these objects can be licked.
None of this writing can be read.
None of this talking can be heard.
I know I am halting. I know I am making it invisible.
I know I am policy, relying on the policy.
Choking sensation in the solar plexus area. Driving sensation I interpret as a need to be alone. Desire for code, the secret code that expresses how and what I understand. My children are not fat and both are bald. That’s over that’s enough. Embedding secret line breaks in the work. Choking sensation in the lower throat. Anger’s like a cavity in the chest.
Anonymous harping. The effort to situate ourself I mean herself outsides the bounds, the grounds. Here I am—a Deity! a Diety of the Powerpoint! Someone rolls on the floor laughing —
Reflecting on the ephemeral life. OR
Reflect on the ephemeral life. But
we all resist giving instructions.
Parsed words. A need to flee. A need to be in the clouds for awhile. Poetry driven from internal states. Not always wise to trust the mind, the impulses. Not always wine. Not always time. Never overdue. Never blank. And do you want my autograph?
Entertaining writing requirements, forcing myself to sit down and put something on paper, I understand that urge to just fling up your hands and refuse to create, refuse to push a small pocket open in the fabric of unknowns. Quicker the better. Numbered paragraphs. Goose honking seems to be upset. And yes, I have a headache. The ache of loneliness and isolation—but is it really desire, the desire for recognition? here we go again. Maybe that goose is honking-honking for her mate.
I am craving recognition again. Once I find the keys to greed, I see it everywhere. Tears over greed, not getting what I want? that is appalling. What would I do if I were a child?
I have a huge investment in Perfection and in teamwork. Systems in the family.
Well all they have to do is Google me and then die laughing
not even sure they have the impulse to know more, being the oppressor
Happy to be so invisible
while in plain sight
I see a large format, almost transparent page, light tint of color (apricot, violet, pink, green) with a long private free write on it. Who cares if it’s inappropriate?
Is it too late for me to write anonymously?
No.
Here are my projects—
I write a series about rivers, it feels really forced, much less interior than I’m used to.
I’m doing book design, an anthology. I feel like curling up in shame for the uneven obstreperous (bluntly) badness of this poetry and get defensive at the awes of horror over awkward typographic dumbnesses in Duncan’s Selected oh yes it is a bad book and—well, mine probably is too.
I’m writing a gigantic Hallmark card to 365 of my closest friends, a project which I never once get brave enough to mention because it’s absolutely a faux pas in circles like this to write about real people in a dumb form like “50 words,” not to mention being 50 which is also a mistake too grave to mention, so I shut up even though I secretly admire myself, if only for the year-long discipline (its roots in stubbornness).
I have a blog. Lisa acknowledges my blog on hers, kind words; we mention it once in person, then this contact sinks again into the pool of anonymity, mutual lurking. I decide I want to put more energy into my blog, I have sort of a grip on it as an aesthetic project so I post something almost every day in November, although this is quite strenuous, and sometimes, it’s only photos/fragments.
Lisa’s interest in plants helps me acknowledge that I have a yard, a garden, even a sort of love for certain specimens. I bring two plants indoors for the winter—parsley, rosemary—and plant cilantro seeds. The sage survives outside. I think of bringing Lisa some sage bundled as a gift, maybe wrapped in some embroidery floss. No thyme at the moment.
Umm…can’t get there from here. Can’t go to Naropa, can’t spend lots of money on classes when I’m 50 and Blair’s in college, can’t generate a poetic community like the Beats or the New York School springing up from the wasted garden void around me, can’t make contact, can’t begin to get excited again about an online journal project, any opportunity to publish or be published, any sights set higher than retirement sooner hopefully rather than later after I finish paying for the college education of my favorite anarchist who would never rub elbows with an institution unless the term was paid for by a foolish parent (yup that’s me).
Who notices the me, back of the moon.
Yes this was me. I am suspicious of me, what is it. Today spent time in completely anonymous pursuits that will never offer any recognition. I’m suspicious of my name. It doesn’t feel appropriate for fame. I wrestle expectations down and down and down again. Meanwhile, why not call it home? No this is not me. Me so what. I like the universal flux instead, brightened and tightened in a node that is my skin, my wrist. My stinging teeth, my statically electric hair. My shapeless brows.
I heard about Immaculée praying the rosary to survive while shut up in a bathroom for weeks, hiding from murderers.
Something I want to know? Don’t know.
I said the rosary everyday for a year. Maybe it was a school year. My sophomore year. The cheesy pearlized paint flaked off my little white first communion beads. Once I lost the rosary—it fell from my pocket. That immediate pang of irrational loss— desperation. I retraced my steps and found it, on top of a desk in a classroom. I was ashamed that someone had found it on the floor, maybe even identified it as possibly mine, and decided to place it on the desk for the owner to more easily find. It meant another person was thinking about my things.