Writer's Block.

Memories.

How solid they can feel

how terrible and real.

thoughts on life

I think this is not true. I think this person has an obvious bias and it is unfortunate. I think he is assuming that most people are not smart enough to be able to decide if they agree with something or not. Or maybe some things are just really sad because most things are really sad once you think about them long enough. I also feel that emotions can be conveyed in many different ways, which is why I tend to lean more to the idea of emotions in abstraction because they are so abstract. This guy thinks his ideas are the only ideas anyone should have. He is aggressive, and although aggression has its place I think this guy is full of shit.

What should I read for my holiday break? It lasts for one month and here are my ideas:

Definitely finish "Between the Acts" - V. Woolf

and please help me pick one of these:
General Theory of Love (science)
The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa
Chilly scenes of winter- Ann Beattie
If on a winter's night a traveler- Italo Calvino

I'm also going to be reading next month and here is the info:

MONDAY JANUARY 14TH
@ Bar 169. 6:00pm.

The venue is located at 169 East Broadway, a half block from the East Broadway stop on the "F".


Christina Olivares
Kelly Ginger
Ian Parfrey
Jared Harel (Cornell)
Josh Donovick (Yeshiva)
Ray DeJesus (St. John's)
+TBA

gardens: fires

How badly

we all want to be
forgotten in our beds;

stinking of our mucus, of our bones.

Wailing against the fires

put us out
put them out

Only we've created something
that resembles the lights in a store window
because it is airy and tangible

Everything so tangible,
to the point of being real
life.

only, the smoke makes it clear
while we crawl to the door

yeah,
there is some breathing going on
but I'm not sure where to find the grass

because I haven't seen it in days
so maybe

I'll figure

each of my toes is the petal of a chrysanthemum
and I'm me in there
and every other

equal as a garden

and growing out the window.


(ps: I liked this )

continue

I still want to get in a taxi cab and ask them where they think the ducks in Central Park go when it is winter.

The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line last time had got the scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with the gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way-I can't explain what I mean"the catcher in the rye

just to see

I always check missed connections just to see if I'm mentioned.

Just to know if I'm really here;
I'm not.



I saw two mice captured underneath a plastic top. The same mice I see at the Newkirk Ave Q stop sometimes. I felt like I was the only one watching; waiting to make sure they could get out. Then I remembered they were mice. They are pretty smart when it comes to escape.

So sorry. If you see something: say something. I've been so quiet all day. Couple fighting on the train. Young man flicking an older woman with his cell phone antenna. The line being crossed. The line being broken in two.

I'd find some reason to uncover him

Doctor

This time it is real.

A sickness
contained within
the tupperware
of the lungs
and the ribs.

I am milking
I am mating
I am with the pack of wolves ripping apart
the remains of an elk
left splintered
in sinking soil.

I am awake. I see
the gloved hands
and where they go
behind the
cecum. The beginning
of all the
travels
of all the leftover
meats.
Blood on
my incisors
or what is left
from grinding.

The calm
they try to pump
me through. Get her
in,
get her full
of fluids. She
will be
the same
tomorrow.

forget it

Loud voices
sorry commotion

he kept telling me
HEY YOU HEY YOU

I KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE INSIDE OF YOUR THIGHS. LET ME BREATHE INTO THEM. I WANT TO HEAR YOU MURMUR I WANT TO HEAR YOU SCREAM.

Terror
and where it gets you.

Fragmented or fragmentary,
the eggshell of comfort.

Sorry baby girl,
I'll ease into your mind
gently.
I'll let you know what
you feel,

as it is obvious
and it is mandatory

that you keep
quiet.

The voice will get nowhere
but deeper down into

your own
reflection.

forget it. drop it. pick it up.

Has it changed throughout all of this?




There are kittens in the garden a few houses down. This is the second litter I have met from the grey mother cat that sweeps around the chinese lanterns. The grey woman that lives there told my roommate that the chinese lanterns are mostly a novelty, for children's gardens. I covet the tiny orange globes, how fragile and dry they are now. I fight the urge to pick one. To validate them by taking them home. To take care and make sure the cat doesn't find her claw in their dusty skin.

My roommate has a basket of them in her room. Jealousy.

Smarty pants, you think you have anything figured out?

fragements on a kitchen table

Define it,
and you'll grow.

You will learn how to speak
the truth.

Somewhere deep inside
there will be
the cosmos.

It will all fold in
as a nurse could fold
the corner of a sheet,
tight
and seamless.

The fern has one new leaf,
or maybe two. But it can not
un-grow. The arrow pushing at
our backs.

But I meant to write about something else.

How did I end up here again
with science at my feet?

I've been feeling like drawing again.
This is a problem for writing.


Tell me things you want to hear.

The fork is a rib
and my god; your face
is somewhere on
some other pillow drooling
and satisfied. Blank
as a bus stop.

Tell me again.
The most beautiful dream is either of nothing or of emptiness.

I am obsessed with space, location, communication, and how we define ourselves and the meaning of it all. Every conversation I've had with people lately makes me feel like walking wouldn't ever be enough because we'd just end up getting somewhere anyway.

themes

If you think about something long enough, will it happen? Can you create the disease you fear?

There are themes that have reoccurred to me lately. Of the circular life, the chicken drops the eggs it hatched a minute prior. A man chases his truck as it rolls in a circle, only for it to catch on fire. Marie Howe describes her brother's fear of going blind. He takes down the chandelier; he is so afraid it might fall in his eye. Then he gradually goes blind through sickness. A man fears being insane. Each time the dream is a step closer to the moment when it creeps out into what might be waking.

Please see Lunacy by Jan Svankmajer.

Sometimes I feel like I'm exploding; or maybe just expanding along with everything else.



Forget what I said about saying,
and just hear what I mean.

An oily layer left over
from all my days spent
walking about
the house.

You know, you know.
Somewhere deep down
there is a tired person
waiting to take a nap.

I can't believe the rain kept me
awake or waiting or anxious
to just let it all

go somewhere for once.
And you do know,
don't you?

That oily layer
and the way the cat feels
before you shower.

I don't know why things happen.

I think you can pretend you do.

Some things annoy me, and I think about why.
What it all means.

I think about salmon, and the idea of being cool, and what a fire means.

What does it mean when he takes off his shoes, his socks?
What does it mean when the unread books pile up, but I write four poems?

It takes something to be real.
Something to be grounded.

Here comes gravity,
the big stupid apple ready to hit us all over the head.

obvious

I'm just trying to reach you.

I'm just trying to understand.

I was told to stretch my thoughts out,
I've been trying. I've been trying.

History Channel

One time I made my grandfather cry because I was playing Oregon Trail and announced one of my characters died while he planned my grandmother's funeral with my father. My dad yelled at me, and I don't really remember what he said exactly, but I remember feeling embarrassed. I finished my game. I'm not sure if I won or not.


As a kid, my dad fed me a lot of poptarts, Mt. dew, hot dogs, apples, and Kraft "shells and cheese".
Not saying that my dad was the typical dad and didn't know how to feed children. I just don't think he knew about all the different kinds of food items that are out there.

dealing with every day

I watched this movie today.

Afterwards I had to get my sheets out of the dryer and then walk to the Q train to go to work. I was shocked at how appalled I was by people, now knowing that they are constantly on the brink of madness. It isn't something separate, unfelt by the normal sane community.

A woman in the movie broke windows to soothe her anxiety. I drink teas and sit silently listening to talk radio. Laugh about things I actually have a lot of anger about.

The boy showed no signs of remorse for his actions,
he did not understand his crime.

one more

I've been touching
all the third, fourth, eighth lampposts.

A pattern
for the lost sense.

obsessive

I have been thinking a lot about skateboards and literary magazines.


I feel overwhelmed by my obsessions,
walking slowly,
the ground a point of interest.
Two feet in the square,
one long stride one short.

I saw this smoothie/organic resturant that the delivery people rode skateboards.
I got an application, but I already have an awesome job.

Maybe if I had three jobs I could buy a skateboard.
But when would I ride it?

faces

"You look like her,
when you smile just
like that."


Only, what about
my ears,
how noticeable they become in a ponytail.
The scar on my nose
that someone tried to rub off
thinking it was only pen ink.

It seemed as if she
was non-returnable,
non-refundable, somewhere else
smoking the wooden pipe
and tending to the basil.

And now I have no idea
where I stand. What
my face means to me,
or how my face crosses
the faces of others, or
what would happen if we
were each on the side of
a subway window.

out the window

Out there, through dark cedar panes:
A tree with a twig and a soft
everpresent wind. Maybe there
is a bee or squirrel at a flower,
but everything else is the same.


Through a broken hole in the broken blind:
A man runs with his head as a gazelle might.
I never see the lion,
but if there is one, I doubt it will catch up at this point.

working hard

I've been working on one poem for a few hours.
I am no longer able to tell when something I write is good or not.
I've had a very strong urge to be famous latley.
I would rather not gather in a big group talking to people I don't know and telling them my first and last name and them telling me their first and last name.
I feel lumpy and full and lonley.
I would write home, but I can't find the time.
I would continue to eat, as it is the only thing that really makes sense anymore.

Comma Splice.

thoughts

I remember feeling at ease earlier today. Maybe it was because I started grading papers or drank a beer or sat on the internet too long, but now it all seems gone. The ideas I had about my life, emotions, emotions and faces of those around me, anxiety, sleep, poetry, all somewhere else maybe stretching into someone else's mind. The collective experience. I do like to think about that one. I remember feeling overwhelmed by all the books at the Strand bookstore. What did it mean for me? I saw a book by Carolyn Forche I would have liked to own, a book about the history of marajuana, a book with electrical impersinations of birds, a book by Charles Darwin about how human and animal facial expressions relate to one another. And I will die without reading 1/10th of the books in that one store. A lot of people think about that. Maybe even a lot of people feel overwhelmed by that. I finally made sense of some poems I have to talk about and bought a nice knife that was on sale and a garlic press that was not. i thought about space, not the big dark kind, but the kind we make in our room and how we need familiar things in order to feel familiar to ourselves. I had a chair that every cat I ever knew loved to sit in. I sold that chair to someone at a garage sale and I wonder if they have a cat that loves to sit in the chair too.

Today I felt less anxious and more okay of where I am. I ended up drinking coffee, and felt a little anxious, but then back to observant and local to myself. I watched the light open and close on a woman's white shoes on the subway. Like how lightening can change a room. I read a poem about that, too.

doing what I feel

gobble
gobble
gobble
gobble
gobble.
(id like to continue, but fear ill get stuck)


dear mom,
i saw a dead rat a few weeks ago.
it had a lot of puke coming from its mouth.
i thought about my pet rats and almost puked.
i see a lot of puke when i walk down 3rd or 4th ave.
sometimes i get so sick i scream a little into my own ears.


love,
kelly

uncertain.
crestation?
spellcheck.

i would like to collaberate on a fine zine of writing and pictures.
i need to make something im not told to make.
how do i feel?

i also want pet rats and to live by myself.

finding

crept around
the furrowed brow

crept around
the space in between
fingers

to caress the scalp,
the motion of something
comfortable. to lose

the shaking maple leaves
of the body

on the sidewalks.

the fall of the body,
shed everything
and you'll be renewed and ready
to hibernate nude in the cave
of your bedroom.

ripe plum sheets
with blankets grey
as snow
and thick
as rabbits.

soon you will come
baby faced
into the spring.

uncertain

Why is it
that green is the color of jealousy?

Tonight winds started to stir into fall.
I saw a man come out a building filled with a silent
sadness that hovered around rage,
it was the off track betting building.

I wondered what sort of savings he had lost.
What he perhaps earned earlier in the night,

another man grabbed my eyes with his,
and shook his head. A prayer for the man
or for me

unable not to watch.

I sometimes feel that inside
I am nothing but black melting tar
and things are dying to get stuck inside.

negative. positive. negative. negative. negative.

struggle

fact: it is 3:16am

fact: i wish i was in the midwest.

fact: i have a hard time admitting that to anyone.

fact: i feel lonley and sometimes afraid and mostly tired and scared and yearning for the whistle of wind through a tree or just an afternoon spent in bed listening to records, because you have the time for that sort of thing, or the someone to do it with, and i want air that doesn't smell funny, and maybe a garden. i have plenty of personal space in my room, but really nothing but a few books that i can remember a history through.

i love my new brown faded desk. i love the two friends that helped me bring it into my room. i wish i could relax, now that i realize this isnt vacation anymore.

ground

Did they bury

him?

I'm not sure
but
I can smell the dirt.

I pointed at him
and he didn't move
like he moved yesterday.

diane, a letter.

Variations in gray hovering


over
a building that is only
charcoal in color.

Similar clouds,
clouds again. How

can they hover.
Do you see
any strings?

As if she pieced together

the world she was
thrown into.

These clouds a bit lighter,
yet still
making the scene. The children
wear homemade masks,

power in the stance.

Look up. Look up.

A woman in a mask drags a man,
come here,
as if away from


the forest. The fire eater, the child
in the nightgown,
she saw her clouds above them too.

A whisk above their heads,
ready to beat down
a fine milky
substance.

To the couple on the pier,

the clouds mean nothing. The clouds linger

somewhere at their backs, waiting
for the wind to push

a little bit faster.

It all ran together,
hiding behind

machines. Hiding behind
the clouds
was what

kept her dying,

kept her on the phone
hellopleaseansweriveneverlearnedtobealone.



"I see something that seems wonderful; I see the divineness in ordinary things." - Nov 28, 1939, Diane Arbus in a paper on Plato during her senior year of college.

wonder(ful)

I find inspiration in the things said to me, shown to me, and things I see myself.

Thank you for saying something honest.
Thank you for showing me that poem.
Thank you for saying how you feel lost and bored
with people's lack of expoloration.

Sometimes, enough is enough,
like maybe we can't make it,
maybe we can.


[a poem shown to me last night]

How I Became Impossible

I was born shy, congenitally unable to do anything
profitable, to see anything in color, to love plums,
with a marked aversion to traveling around the room,
which is perfectly normal in infants.
Who wrote this? were my my first words.
I did not like to be torched.
More snow fell than was able to melt,
I became green-eyed and in due time traveled
to other countries where I formed opinions
on hard, cold, shiny objects and soft, warm,
nappy things. Late in life I began to devlop
a passion for persimmons and was absolutely delighted
when a postcard arrived for the recently departed.
I became recalcitrant, spending more and more time
with my rowboat. All my life I thought polar bears
and penguins grew up together playing side by side
on the ice, sharing the same vista, bits of blubber
and innocent lore. One day I read a scientific journal:
there are no penguins at one pole, no bears
on the other. These two, who were so long intimates
in my mind, began to drift apart, each on his own floe,
far out into the glacial seas. I realized I was becoming
impossible, more and more impossible,
and that one day it really would be true.


-- Mary Ruefle

come over

I can imagine who I am and how to shape my room --------

into
an escape.


I clothe myself in the papers
I write my lists on.

thoughts inside myself

Yesterday I thought that if the subway went underground one more time, I might just start on fire. I knew that somehow something unpredictable would happen because why else would I feel so unstabble. Why else would I wish for a tree to grow inbetween me and the two women talking? Because I could be protected, or at least imagine that I was somewhere else and that there was a need to hide.


They cut down the tree in the front yard today which makes sun break into my window very early in the morning. How will this affect my sleeping patterns? Will I be able to breathe the same?

rainycloudy

The man at the school library was mad that I checked out so many books.

Eight books.

I saw five or six daschunds yesterday.

Sometimes you fly around not thinking because you have to watch out for storm clouds and then you lay low for a bit and take a bath and feel protected and clean and new. That is how I feel today. New York city is so busy, and I'd just rather not be.

a stitch

I could weave yarn
from inside the coves of my hand

and maybe they would be an ocean,
if the yarn was blue enough.

I could listen harder
and hear something softer
and feel okay
that maybe I am somewhere
else, entirely.

I lift bark to my ear
and hear nothing.

Or something quiet
and now unrecognizable.

Rows of houses catching on fire.
Lakes as still as pavement.

Rain sounds the same so if I just
listen, I could be anywhere.

Quiet. Patient.
Believe in
the great white pine.



(something better said by WS Merwin (seperation))
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

440amtimetowritewhycoffee

Coruscate.

From her eyes I could see a moment somewhere, lost. I tried to paint her as she was that night a few weeks later. Talkative with her head titled back. It was impossible and one of the few times I wish I had had a camera, something that would have at least seemed like the way it had been when I looked at it later. Maybe it would be propped up against some novel on my bookself. Pinned to a corkboard. Taped to a mirror so I could see myself, then her, then try to see a little bit of myself in her.

She had been lost in the christmas lights wrapped around the fence of the backyard. She wanted to be somewhere further off, somewhere that was expanding but still within reach.

"My eyes see what they want to see."

I tried to move my hand, it was falling asleep in the position I sat in on the blanket. I felt awkward and a little alone. Her body pulsed within itself and mine did too, only I seemed more focused on what she was saying, on what she was feeling. It seemed like maybe I lost myself somewhere in my own house. Maybe I was still pacing from bathroom to bedroom wishing I had something to do. Someone to tell something to, or at least something to say.

I thought about the word of the day email I had been receiving in my inbox. Corusacte. To give off or reflect bright beans or flashes of light, sparkle. She was silent, perhaps asleep. I noticed a mosquito land on her arm and feed. As it filled I pinched its body. There was a miniscule explosion of blood, yet I felt satisfied. I thought about corusacte again and wasn't really sure how anyone could use that in a sentence. Although it had a delicate and enjoyable meaning, the word seemed awkward when on the tounge. Useless and flat and lacking of communication. Maybe I just needed to talk to more people with wider vocabularies. Or maybe I should just learn to lay here and not worry if I am thinking too much or not thinking enough and just expand a little with the rest of the universe.

It is late at night and I have had coffee so a list is a good idea

These are things that need to be done very soon.

1) Buy a roll of white paper from the art store. Tape this along my room and draw a forest with animals hiding inside. Possibly paint my room green

2)Buy a desk and a chair to go with it

3)Send speakers/receiver to myself

4)Set up a fort made out of a sheet around my record player

5)Find a slide projector to do readings with

6)Read all of the books I need to read

late night feelings

Sometimes after the coffee wears down all I really feel is nervousness. Like, maybe the entire world is my responsibility. And that maybe everything revolves around me. And maybe I made another mistake at work. Maybe I was irresponsible and now I won't be respected. I won't be though about in a positive way. That is really all I want. Is to be thought about in a positive way. I am not sure how I want to write anymore. I read today in the Diane Arbus book that she told an admirer of her work and fellow photographer, "while it isnt good to to copy me, it is something every artist goes through before he evolves a style of his own."

The photographer says, "She was right."

I am obsessed with this book. It is the only thing I really want to talk about other than the nyu suicides. I have a lot of questions. Mostly, was the second and third suicides just copying the idea of the first? If the first hadn't thought of jumping, would the others have choosen a different route? Would they have changed their minds? Did the third already change her mind as she dangled from the roof of the building and the man with the binoculars watched?

I needed to find the perfect journal. Something to write in that already had meaning and substance. Today someone tipped us a moleskine journal. No one else wanted it. I felt a little okay. But I still wondered if my coworkers hated me a little because we got out at 1235 instead of 1215. whywhywhywhywhy. I want to write notes all over my walls that say positive things. This might improve my nighttime.

Also, why with the spanking every night? Is it really spanking that I hear?

nervous

If I told you I've been on edge latley because the guy at the holistic pet store told me I feed my cat wrong, would you think that is an okay thing to say? That the feeling was justified?

My cat just puked, was it because she got into a bag of fancy feast I bought until I could get a hold of the Innova cat food or was it because of the organic papya juice he told me to put into her food?

something, better than nothing

After looking back
I find that I have not left
anything behind.

Although I wonder
if I even had anything
to leave
in the first place.

itch

The dream of bugs inside me
and the doctor can only comb them out.

Return,
return to
hope imagined thinly.

I have been reaching
where most can not scratch. I learned
from late nights I spent waiting
for the earth to move
and dawn to move
and all the black legs that would tickle
my own legs and my body
would be nothing but welts.

A mixture of my blood
on their mouths. They move the mattress.
My thoughts with the bugs
as they fly within the springs.

An obsession, a watchful eye,
a plug in the sink. The slug watching me
as I watch it and wonder how the journey felt
through the drain. And if it had been worth it.

cradles, hammocks, other semi-circles

one: Many people need support from other people.

two: Many people need support within themselves, and rely on this.

three:Sometimes there is a middle ground with people, because there is always a middle ground. (my resolution for losing touch with dualities.)

With ideas in place, one can then determine where one falls in. How much space and how many hands one needs to feel okay.

I am in the mood for drawing, so this will have to tell you what I am trying to say:

(art by suzanne sattler, seen tonight at cinders gallery in brooklyn)

open (close)

She opened it, something like a fairy tale
that had a beginning and and ending and everything
in between and she said "OH, this is it. What I have been looking for.
An exact measure of what it can mean to be content
and to take a breath slowly into a paper bag."

I can see all the breath now as it enters into the bag.
It looks like
dreams from a mouth breather
or streamers
or icing melting and flowing like water might.
Thick and with a tint of color.

She felt upwords, there were antlers.
She felt down, there were bare feet covered in blood.

She looked around and red was everywhere to be seen
and she felt like she finally might know where she was.
All of the hardwood floors made sense
and she thought,
"I may never need to look around again."

But she did, and she wrote inside
the notebook
something like a beginning, ending, and everything
in between.

you.

The plant you brought on the J train,
what kind?
what pleasure.

A little oxygen circulated into the mouths
of all the heavy sleepers.

Where are you going?
Where have you been?
What song is in your head?
Are you dreaming of dead hands
mauling your night time dreams?


I read a story today about history, time, direction, and everything else.
It felt like I had someone following me,
but every time I turned it was only a light bulb swinging in a shadow.

wash

Stand in yesterday's bath water.

Repeat phrase,
"Look up, it can't be that bad.

Look up."

Only there is a spider
and it rotates around a fly
counter-clockwise.

"hello"

Someone new
to say something to.

real

the experiences of:

visual

walking through the door he said, "hello."
his mouth a moment in movement.

auditory

I can hardly hear you.
what? hello?

waves and fog and how when I turned
the ocean seemed muffled.

loss

if you wave your hand long enough
you might see the heat scatter,
you might see it last a little longer.

july

No cars out tonight, perhaps because everyone went home to light off fireworks. Rode my bike around town and wasn't sure if this town was real at all. If every house burned down or every building demolished to build something modern, how could I know? And would I think that maybe I just lied about where I had been these last five years?

in the air

Saying:
There is an air of sadness around you.

Do not step in or out of this.
It feels better
than sharing.

reminder

RIDING is still available from me.
$5 or trade of tiny things/your zine





(from quimbys.com)
Ye olde poetry chap book. Nicely put together, with vellum inserts of plants and leaves. One person’s antidote to this impersonal and inhumane age. It beats playing video games.

5.5" X 8.5", b&w, chap book zine

TIMBER is due out in one week.
b&w art zine about kalamazoo.

new

I woke to an unmade bed this morning and thought about worry and anxiety.

I woke to a made bed this morning and thought about coffee and when I had to be at work.

I woke today.