I once received a present

I once received a present.

Without the aid of sight, time became a pebble

-strewn river bed; a harmonious clatter along

the bottom of existence; the light held

the milky rhythm of sand, and in certain spots

where salmon wedged between the rocks,

their silver flapping located distance;

soon, the river led me to the sea. Shadows

slid miles of beach without weather; honey

-infused nonsense oozed from the waves;

patterns bore their weight against folds

of flesh. Borges walked along the shore, jaded,

making fists before rapping me upside the head

with his shoe while condemning the whole affair.

I still remember the granulation of his hands.

can you sense the swell of newness

can you sense the swell of newness

sloshing around within the chalice

of all elusive sameness

in that moment before waking

when ocean overwhelms the bay

a diaspora of fishing boats washed up along a coastal roadside

splintered worlds of boats and fish affixed like stone within its pavement

as a token, wheel-well glimmer

offers spinning mica

to those fish who cannot tease apart the light

for this highway is opaque,

just now, translucent

yet, no angler is upset while reeling in a ghost ship

as the sea eddies in an unrelenting mime

Of Urbanity

Yet another piece for my degree; to lead the exercise, I "generated" the 12th hexagram, Standstill. This "changed," as it were, to the 56th hexagram, Wandering.

Of Urbanity

Defenseless, thought

undoes the noun

as when a womb

absorbs the sound

of life's fluid separations

Seismic verve wrinkles each world

and every light's

wet ovular fruit,

broken, runs along a crease

in the mergers midst each city's ferment

When there is hope, the evening sky

itself appears delicious, while

abstracted doubts ooze from the ground:

the conflicted palette

of urbanity

A Bird of Feather

Here's a new piece, tentatively written for the degree project.

Birds of Feather

Engulfed by mist

language labels its history

-a colloquial organ in flight

-a familiar form

(yet how each longs for escape from blue feathers)

-a flying V

writhing within

the frost of verbiage;

-an orphaned lark

abandoning her wings

with bemusement:

(but does time remember

the task of living

as life's lattices unwind?)

Manifest

within the wind

channeling the congress of lost ravens

a voice nuzzles the velvet

that envelops the night

Leyland Kirby's world of solemn beauty

Leyland Kirby is a Berlin-based musician/sound artist. Here's a little taste of his world:

a reel kunfewsin song abowt god

Here's a new piece for my degree project - again inspired by a reading from the I Ching. This time I decided to approach the random "construction" of a hexagram with a more hands on approach; after a series of coin flips, I ended up with the 37th hexagram, The Family. I chose to use the two-coin method. You can read about this process here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching_divination

a reel kunfusin song abowt god

I dont noe who rote it. Just luk i even fownd it. Was in that litel kapuchino shop down by Vincents. Just a scrap of sumthin fowl under a chare all sogy and smellin of kapachino. I cud barly make out the ritin. I didnt reely get what it ment ether. But let me tell ya it was reely sumthin it was just like a forchin. See I wuz on the floor to find my mug. Itd just been knocked clean off the tabul by a big assd rich lady wearin sum kinda fansee scarf. Her kids were all hootin and hollerin about italyin sodas and I thot she was a torist. U knoe how that goes thos rich peepul that cant keep there kids in line and cud giv to shits for the rest of the wirld there ushly torists. So this big ass lady...I mene serisly...her ass was realy big...shes screamin bak at her kids and dosnt even reelize her ass is headed strate for my tabul. Cuz shes defendin hersef ginst her litul tike...and hes bustin her up big time out of no wer. I dunno how this kid got so vishus...anyway morul of the story is her big ass noks my kapachino off the tabul and tryin to cleen up I cum cross this litul scrap under my chare. I tapd it rite here.

remember the transience of our soul-talk, the muted violence

leering at the corners of each flightless word; for there are birds

that may not hover with the angels or their vices, and gaps in

logic that may yet demonstrate reality's slippery hold

Isnt that sumthin! Its like a reel kunfusin song abowt god! I mean...its like for why we should be carful not to beleev in god just cuz other people do! I gess Im not reel sure wut its abowt. But I lik it any way. So this wuman is all thumbs juglin bags of prisy clothes and her kid is throwin down hardcore like some kinda cracked out ninja...it was kinda scary...and i feel reel bad abowt it but i cudnt stop lafin cuz this kid was like a fukin manyac. Id never seen any thing like it. So after I cleen up the cofee I stuf the sogy scrap in my poket and book it outa there to chek on my lawndry. I run over to get my clothes in the dryer and that only takes about 15 minutes. Soon as Im finished with that Iv got nothin to do so I hed back over to the kapachino shop but as I turn the corner I see a cupel of cop cars parkd in front of the place and I can heer a siren sumware clos. Im prety kunfewsd so I peek threw the windoe to see whats goin down. When i peek threw the glass I see two grups of pepul in the bak of the room where i was sitin. The wons on the left arnt standin. Sum on the right are standin and sum arnt. Then I rember that was ware the lady was gettin beet on by her son. So I sneek bak insid and first thing i heer is that kid screemin and holerin lik a fukin beest so I go tak a looksee. Hes bein held down by a grup of men and skwirmin lik a fish and his eyz are way wite and freeky and won man screms to won of the othiz to tak off his belt and put it tweene his teethe. I look bak to the othur grupe and I see won of the mothurs hie heels stikin out of that bunch of peepul. Won wuman is neelin down at her side askin if she can heer her and thers all sorts of angree sownds and noyzy pepul worein with each othur but I dont think the muther was takkin at all. I hung round long nuff to see them kart em both to the ambulints and tak em away. I dunno wut happen to em but I aint to weryd cuz I think they wuz both ready for sumthin nue.

Waking Womb

As is suggested by Julia Kristeva in her essay, Powers of Horror, a state of "in-betweenness" has the ability to paralyze the mind.  The uncertainty of such mediatory phenomena is what compels the psyche to transmute this experience, or in the language of Sigmund Freud, sublimate that which traumatizes.  However, unawareness as to the origin of a feeling of fear could be said to aid the artistic process, as it allows the psyche to invent this origin.

Upon waking one morning earlier this week, I realized that it was not yet necessary for me to rise from bed, so I closed my eyes in the hope of falling back asleep.  As I began to drift off, I suddenly heard the distinct whine of a feline engaged in battle in the alley beneath my window.  However, I soon found myself listening to the conversation of a fictitious couple beyond the premises of my own domicile, and too, the inquisitive mewing of their house cat.  Somehow, the creature had made its way from one apartment to the next - and I could now feel every whisker of its face and each of its slender legs brush against me as it came sauntering across my bed.  I shuddered; having jostled myself awake, I realized that I had just dreamed this encounter - an experience as palpable as the comforter that enswathed my body.  

I would characterize this mode of consciousness in much the same way that Kristeva characterizes the experience of birth.  In both cases, the experience is such that cannot be easily compartmentalized on either side of a dichotomy, (here, the examples are waking life/dream and prenatal/postnatal.)  However, though my psyche could and can not easily categorize this experience during the twilight of dream-state (with a house cat that may or may not exist,) it is now viscerally connected to my being; the experience was terrifying, for it unwed dream from its isolated position in the nether region of my world; however, its comprehend-ability requires invention; for, though I felt a house cat glide across my body, the cat simply does not exist in this realm.  The question remains: is there any other?   

 

After Dark

Here's a new piece for my degree project.  Before writing this, I used a series of randomly generated "prompts" from the I Ching, or The Book of Changes, the ancient Chinese book of Oracular Pronouncements.  For this, I generated #63, "After Completion," and #13, "Fellowship With Men."

-After Dark-

Silver country.  Silver trees.  Silver earth.  

Our world is made metal by the light of a wrinkled face.

For many hours, our gravitas awaits; 

she is overhead,

licking her lunar lips; but there, she said,

this salt - it has no taste; for it is a potion,

a mineral to be absorbed

among your people