Friday, December 30, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Title says it all: Happy but Afraid
Sure as hell we would have felt at least once in our lives... happy yet scared.
Scared of that happiness coming to an end. Perhaps how heavy that hapiness weighs and that is will eventually drag us all down to die
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Imagining Retreat
10.
You admit nothing,
I deny everything.
You are a man.
I am just pretending.
9.
What were those drawings?
Is that your form of communication with me?
Or is that how you make
sense?
8.
Your pencil lines are precise but
scaled
to your terms,
I am lost in them.
7.
It was in the early 2000s.
Our concerns were parallel.
We were worried;
you about a promotion,
I about graduation,
both which happened.
Thereafter we became
parallel.
6.
Recently I told you the difference between
attention and actuality.
how it was idea of you I loved.
You said,
"It's like masturbation. Geographically, emotionally removed."
5.
Love is astringent.
To purify, you must first
hurt.
4.
I asked you about dreams.
You thought I meant desires.
I was refering to the REM kind.
I dreamt about you once,
you were going to be
a father.
I remember trying hard to stay awake for a long time
if dreams were going to betray me like this.
3.
We laughed,
but only I cried.
2.
I have not caught up with
the age you were when we met.
I am always behind,
the minute hand,
the ragged shadow.
1.
I want to know which of the above I can tell
without,
before you retreat.
You admit nothing,
I deny everything.
You are a man.
I am just pretending.
9.
What were those drawings?
Is that your form of communication with me?
Or is that how you make
sense?
8.
Your pencil lines are precise but
scaled
to your terms,
I am lost in them.
7.
It was in the early 2000s.
Our concerns were parallel.
We were worried;
you about a promotion,
I about graduation,
both which happened.
Thereafter we became
parallel.
6.
Recently I told you the difference between
attention and actuality.
how it was idea of you I loved.
You said,
"It's like masturbation. Geographically, emotionally removed."
5.
Love is astringent.
To purify, you must first
hurt.
4.
I asked you about dreams.
You thought I meant desires.
I was refering to the REM kind.
I dreamt about you once,
you were going to be
a father.
I remember trying hard to stay awake for a long time
if dreams were going to betray me like this.
3.
We laughed,
but only I cried.
2.
I have not caught up with
the age you were when we met.
I am always behind,
the minute hand,
the ragged shadow.
1.
I want to know which of the above I can tell
without,
before you retreat.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Role
You are a man now after that first punch
after he challenged you
to equality.
So you invite him to strike
without stance or self-defence
believing you are strong,
if not
stronger,
imagining it does not hurt,
and that this is what it takes
to be equal.
You become the father who
wants to save him,
resigning to his penchant
for cigarettes, designer wear and drugs after all else
fails.
You become the husband who
keeps the altar and stomachs filled
honouring gods and family
because men are cleaner,
sturdier than women.
Then you become him,
when sex is but a faceless,
heartless fashion.
You are a man now
when before you were a woman
and did not know how to
not
be
a woman.
At the back of your head,
you know this is neither equality
nor feminism
and you are caught
in a halfway house
supporting this role that has
no name.
after he challenged you
to equality.
So you invite him to strike
without stance or self-defence
believing you are strong,
if not
stronger,
imagining it does not hurt,
and that this is what it takes
to be equal.
You become the father who
wants to save him,
resigning to his penchant
for cigarettes, designer wear and drugs after all else
fails.
You become the husband who
keeps the altar and stomachs filled
honouring gods and family
because men are cleaner,
sturdier than women.
Then you become him,
when sex is but a faceless,
heartless fashion.
You are a man now
when before you were a woman
and did not know how to
not
be
a woman.
At the back of your head,
you know this is neither equality
nor feminism
and you are caught
in a halfway house
supporting this role that has
no name.
A Working List of Things I Will Never Tell You - Jon Sands
When I said I wasn’t with another girl
the January after we fell in love for the 3rd time,
it’s because it wasn’t actual sex.
In the February that began our radio silence,
it was actual sex. I hate the tight shirts
that go below your waistline.
Not only do they make you look too young,
but then your torso is a giraffe’s neck attached to tiny legs.
I screamed at myself in the subway
for writing poems about you still.
I made a scene. I think about you almost
each morning, and roughly every five days, I still
believe you’re there.
I still masturbate to you.
When we got really bad,
I would put another coat of mop water on the floor of the bar
to make sure you were asleep when I got to my side of the bed.
You are the only person to whom I’ve lied, knowing
I was telling the truth. I miss the way your neck
wraps around my face like a cave we are both lost in.
I remember when you said being with me
is like being alone with company.
My friend Sarah wrote a poem about pink ponies.
I’m scared you’re my pink pony.
Hers is dead. It is really sad. You’re not dead.
You live in Ohio, or Washington, or Wherever.
You are a shadow my body leaves on other girls.
I have a growing queue of things I know
will make you laugh and I don’t know where to put them.
I mourn like you’re dead. If you had asked me to stay,
I would not have said no.
It would never mean yes.
the January after we fell in love for the 3rd time,
it’s because it wasn’t actual sex.
In the February that began our radio silence,
it was actual sex. I hate the tight shirts
that go below your waistline.
Not only do they make you look too young,
but then your torso is a giraffe’s neck attached to tiny legs.
I screamed at myself in the subway
for writing poems about you still.
I made a scene. I think about you almost
each morning, and roughly every five days, I still
believe you’re there.
I still masturbate to you.
When we got really bad,
I would put another coat of mop water on the floor of the bar
to make sure you were asleep when I got to my side of the bed.
You are the only person to whom I’ve lied, knowing
I was telling the truth. I miss the way your neck
wraps around my face like a cave we are both lost in.
I remember when you said being with me
is like being alone with company.
My friend Sarah wrote a poem about pink ponies.
I’m scared you’re my pink pony.
Hers is dead. It is really sad. You’re not dead.
You live in Ohio, or Washington, or Wherever.
You are a shadow my body leaves on other girls.
I have a growing queue of things I know
will make you laugh and I don’t know where to put them.
I mourn like you’re dead. If you had asked me to stay,
I would not have said no.
It would never mean yes.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
By now, I am your decoupage constructed of inertia and monochrome, sterile and dispassionate.
Decoupage
You have once again imported
the Scandinavian winter in here,
sealing the heater with your veil
of laconism
while I relapse
into something similar.
Eventually you speak
of a disappointment
that divides the only warmth in this residence
and me along with it.
I have no passion, you say.
What I have are rubber bands around my heart.
They account for
my virginal canvases,
permanently sharp pencils,
and the easel
shut away in obedience.
My crisis
according to you,
is not in the lack of creativity.
Rather,
it is an inability to
give completely.
Rather,
it is an inability to understand there are
no trespasses in attempting
to paint beauty in grief
or grief in vermilion.
And that I am too afraid
to discover mistakes
after strife,
can be what sets me
free.
By now,
I am
your decoupage
constructed of
inertia and monochrome,
sterile and dispassionate.
I contemplate on the shadows
of your words;
You are the untouched canvas,
I am the failed artist,
and this barren apartment
is testament
to art existing only
in epitaph.
I cannot tell you without
risking fidelity,
that passion exists
outside of
hieroglyphs and frayed brushes.
They are in the form of
words,
can be arranged to signify
beauty, grief, strife and mistakes,
can be pigmented
into vermilion.
And I can only imagine,
shredding this poem
into confetti of
letters and words,
each piece to
cement
what you believe
I have
broken.
You have once again imported
the Scandinavian winter in here,
sealing the heater with your veil
of laconism
while I relapse
into something similar.
Eventually you speak
of a disappointment
that divides the only warmth in this residence
and me along with it.
I have no passion, you say.
What I have are rubber bands around my heart.
They account for
my virginal canvases,
permanently sharp pencils,
and the easel
shut away in obedience.
My crisis
according to you,
is not in the lack of creativity.
Rather,
it is an inability to
give completely.
Rather,
it is an inability to understand there are
no trespasses in attempting
to paint beauty in grief
or grief in vermilion.
And that I am too afraid
to discover mistakes
after strife,
can be what sets me
free.
By now,
I am
your decoupage
constructed of
inertia and monochrome,
sterile and dispassionate.
I contemplate on the shadows
of your words;
You are the untouched canvas,
I am the failed artist,
and this barren apartment
is testament
to art existing only
in epitaph.
I cannot tell you without
risking fidelity,
that passion exists
outside of
hieroglyphs and frayed brushes.
They are in the form of
words,
can be arranged to signify
beauty, grief, strife and mistakes,
can be pigmented
into vermilion.
And I can only imagine,
shredding this poem
into confetti of
letters and words,
each piece to
cement
what you believe
I have
broken.
Found
1.
After the
soprano performer and his accordion player
drifted on the boat they will continue to waltz over
canals to the applause of newcomers,
I am determined to find
some romance.
Or at the very least,
urgency
to devour history in case restoration is a let down
and it all goes
under.
2.
There are only
excesses of tourists claiming themselves in snapshots
of architecture marketed with religion,
their arms racked with designer presents.
3.
I read somewhere before,
how if you are not looking for something, you will not find
it.
That is why many checkpoints later,
I only remember best
noisy capitals with its lonely migrants,
their souls floating up with incense smoke and pollution
at dawn still tired.
All the untaught lessons in poverty that
mocks the rich and
earnest hawkers trying English like a brand new suit.
4.
A history more snobbish at the
end of every year,
harps only on its outdated victories.
Instead,
I want the struggle for easier tomorrows
where deities and malicious spirits aid
its success like a flight not yet
checked in.
After the
soprano performer and his accordion player
drifted on the boat they will continue to waltz over
canals to the applause of newcomers,
I am determined to find
some romance.
Or at the very least,
urgency
to devour history in case restoration is a let down
and it all goes
under.
2.
There are only
excesses of tourists claiming themselves in snapshots
of architecture marketed with religion,
their arms racked with designer presents.
3.
I read somewhere before,
how if you are not looking for something, you will not find
it.
That is why many checkpoints later,
I only remember best
noisy capitals with its lonely migrants,
their souls floating up with incense smoke and pollution
at dawn still tired.
All the untaught lessons in poverty that
mocks the rich and
earnest hawkers trying English like a brand new suit.
4.
A history more snobbish at the
end of every year,
harps only on its outdated victories.
Instead,
I want the struggle for easier tomorrows
where deities and malicious spirits aid
its success like a flight not yet
checked in.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
What do we do with the corpses of items we have once so desired but no longer ring true? What does it say about people when a benchmark of success is on how you can spend, can consume, can buy?
What do we do about the ghosts of such expenditure?
Out of sight, out of mind?
Thomas Hirschhon, artist representative for Switzerland this year at La Biennale di Venezia created a rough and tumble answer to consumerism in this exhibition.
Dented soft drink cans, mannequins with enhanced mammaries wrapped in foil, celebrity tabloids and cell phones stacked on top of one another in a junk heap seem to taunt each visitor into guilt.
And guess what?
It succeeded.
The Swiss Pavillion is located at:
Giardini di Castello, Venice
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